1 Boring Old Man

In an earlier post, I wrote about the Genetech lobbying efforts to plaster the Congressional Record with their lobby scripts – getting access to 42 Congressmen. In talking to people today, a lot of people had trouble following what all the hooplah is about. Here’s a crude explanation:

Wikipedia has a good write-up on the issue of Generic Drugs. The short version is that a drug company has exclusive rights to produce a drug until the patent runs out, then anyone can make it. So the developers of new drugs have a period of years to profit from their development, then the drug is on the free market and much cheaper. Drug companies argue that they spent a lot of time and money to develop the drug, they should reap the reward. Consumers argue that their access to new drugs is limited by high costs. The laws about generics are compromises between the two positions.

These substances are not quite drugs. They are bio-engineered antibodies or other biologic substances that have specific targets [like tumor cells]. They are hard to develop and hard to make. Currently, they cost a mint – like several hundred thousand dollars yearly for a treatment. Once developed, they don’t cost that much to make. So there’s a need for some kind of compromise. The version introduced by Representatives Eshoo and Bowers essentially give the developers exclusivity forever [12 years] because the substance would be superceded by something new in that time period. And the costs are outrageous.! Now read Jane Hamsher’s original article about the Bill as it stands.

The KSM Trial Will Be an Intelligence Bonanza for al Qaeda
^{The government will have to choose between vigorous prosecution and revealing classified sources and methods}
Wall Street Journal
By JOHN YOO
NOVEMBER 15, 2009

‘This is a prosecutorial decision as well as a national security decision," President Barack Obama said last week about the attorney general’s announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda operatives will be put on trial in New York City federal court. No, it is not. It is a presidential decision—one about the hard, ever-present trade-off between civil liberties and national security.

Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress. Whether a jury ultimately convicts KSM and his fellows, or sentences them to death, is beside the point. The treatment of the 9/11 attacks as a criminal matter rather than as an act of war will cripple American efforts to fight terrorism. It is in effect a declaration that this nation is no longer at war…

Now, however, KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens — including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it. Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "blind Sheikh"), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators. In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit. Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.

Even more harmful to our national security will be the effect a civilian trial of KSM will have on the future conduct of intelligence officers and military personnel. Will they have to read al Qaeda terrorists their Miranda rights? Will they have to secure the "crime scene" under battlefield conditions? Will they have to take statements from nearby "witnesses"? Will they have to gather evidence and secure its chain of custody for transport all the way back to New York? All of this while intelligence officers and soldiers operate in a war zone, trying to stay alive, and working to complete their mission and get out without casualties.

The Obama administration has rejected the tool designed to solve this tension between civilian trials and the demands of intelligence and military operations. In 2001, President George W. Bush established military commissions, which have a long history that includes World War II, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. The lawyers in the Bush administration—I was one—understood that military commissions could guarantee a fair trial while protecting national security secrets from excessive exposure. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of commissions for war crimes. The procedures for these commissions received the approval of Congress in 2006 and 2009.

Stranger yet, the Obama administration declared last week that it would use these military commissions to try five other al Qaeda operatives held at Guantanamo Bay, including Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. It should make no difference that this second group attacked a military target overseas. If anything, the deliberate attack on purely civilian targets in New York City represents the greater war crime.

For a preview of the KSM trial, look at what happened in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who was arrested in the U.S. just before 9/11. His trial never made it to a jury. Moussaoui’s lawyers tied the court up in knots. All they had to do was demand that the government hand over all its intelligence on him. The case became a four-year circus, giving Moussaoui a platform to air his anti-American tirades. The only reason the trial ended was because, at the last minute, Moussaoui decided to plead guilty. That plea relieved the government of the choice between allowing a fishing expedition into its intelligence files or dismissing the charges.

KSM’s lawyers will not save the government from itself. Instead they will press hard to reveal intelligence secrets in open court. Our intelligence agents and soldiers will be the ones to suffer.

A Wake Up Call on Jobs
Huffington Post
by Robert Kuttner
Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect
November 15, 2009

^{President Obama has announced a White House Jobs Summit for next month. At least that’s the beginning of recognition that the unemployment rate is unacceptable. The measured rate is now 10.2 percent, but if you count people who have given up or who are involuntarily working part time, the real rate is over 17 percent. This spells political catastrophe for Democrats in the 2010 mid-term election, as foreshadowed by the recent losses in the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races. But Obama’s top economic advisers, such as Larry Summers, don’t seem to get it. They continue to resist the idea of a second stimulus package.}

^{"I think we got the Recovery Act right," Summers recently told the Washington Post‘s Alec MacGillis, adding, "We always recognized that America’s problems were not created in a week or a month or a year and that they were not going to be solved quickly. We designed the Recovery Act to ramp up over time, through 2010, and to make sure that the investments we made were important for the country’s future." And other senior Obama officials such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Chief Peter Orszag are more concerned with cutting the deficit than spending more money to reduce joblessness… But this is putting the cart before the horse. We need larger deficits now, in order to get a real recovery going, so that a healthy economy will allow us to pay down public debt later. Specifically, we need to focus on three big things:}

^{State and Local Fiscal Relief. You often hear that outlays on public infrastructure are not a good source of stimulus because they take too long to plan. But emergency revenue sharing to states and localities takes effect almost instantly because it prevents cuts in existing programs and layoffs of existing workers. Today, states and localities are not only cutting back outlays because their constitutions require balanced budgets; they are raising taxes, usually regressive taxes. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the three year state fiscal gap 2010-2012, will be at least $470 billion. So more than half of the federal stimulus is undermined by state and local belt tightening.}

^{Accelerated Spending on Public Works. The Roosevelt administration, in an era before computers, got a lot of public works spending going in less than a year. There are massive unmet needs in public infrastructure. The Obama administration needs a short term and a long term strategy. Projects such as school repair and expansion, which can get underway in a few months, should get fast-tracked funding commitments right away. Longer term needs, such as smart electrical grids and modernization of water and sewer systems, expanded mass transit, and green energy, should be targeted for funding in 2011, so that plans can get on the drawing boards now.}

^{Wage Subsidies. It is fashionable among American conservatives to make fun of the "rigidity" of European labor markets. But Germany today has a flexible and creative program of wage subsidies. The result is that the German unemployment rate has pealed at around 8 percent while ours has crashed through 10 percent. German companies suffering a downturn because of recession can get wage subsidies for their workers. Workers can also be put on reduced working time (kurzarbeit) and the German unemployment office will make up most of the loss in their take-home pay. According to the German government, a worker cut to 40 percent of his or her normal hours will end up with about 85 percent of usual take-home pay. Today, some 1.4 million German workers have been able to keep their jobs and most of their earnings thanks to the kurzarbeit plan. German firms keep their workers connected to the company, workers hold on to their jobs, and there are also incentives for workers on reduced time to use their spare hours to get additional training.}

^{All told, we need additional federal spending in the range of at least $500 billion. But won’t this increase the deficit? Yes it will, and that is the whole point. We are in a classic downward spiral of reduced household income and wealth, and a weakened financial sector. Many businesses face reduced consumer demand, compounded by a reluctance of banks to advance to any but the most blue chip borrowers. In this climate, GDP growth can turn positive but companies are reluctant to hire. Full recovery will not resume spontaneously based on household or business demand, and the only source of increased demand to break the cycle is the government.}

^{One of the most widespread and mistaken assumptions is that this bleak future is just baked into the cake. Because of the legacy of the financial collapse, and the limits of deficit spending, supposedly, we are just stuck with it. You hear that in testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and it is repeated mindlessly by the media. This fatalism is just plain wrong, and history’s great counter-example is World War II. In 1939, unemployment was stuck around 16 percent. GDP growth after 1933 was solid – 6 to 10 percent a year with the exception of 1937 – but the wounded economy was just not generating net jobs. Many expert commentators of that era concluded that there was something about the maturity of capitalism, or the replacement of human workers by machines, that consigned the economy to a chronic structurally high, rate of unemployment.}

^{Then World War II broke out. The US government borrowed huge sums to recapitalize US industry and re-employ and retrain US worker in war production, to employ 12 million men and women in the armed forces, and to invest massively in science and technology to develop advanced weapons and substitutes for materials in short supply. The unemployment rate dropped to 2 percent by 1943. Deficits were enormous, as high as 29 percent of GDP in 1942 (this year they will be about 10 percent) but the economy grew at 12 percent a year for the four years of the war, and the high unemployment of the 1930s never returned…}

Some things are just too big to ponder. Macroeconomics is on the top of my list right now, even above ‘black holes’ [though I’m beginning to think they’re related]. This is the Balance of Trade graph – how much we export and how much we import. With the financial crisis, both fell [good]. Imports particularly fell decreasing the ‘trade gap’ [even better]. But now, things have improved some and people are beginning to buy again [not totally good?]. But unemployment is still soaring while the trade gap is beginning to worsen again [very not good at all]. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? A lot according to Paul Krugman…

World Out of Balance
New York Times
By PAUL KRUGMAN
November 15, 2009

^{International travel by world leaders is mainly about making symbolic gestures. Nobody expects President Obama to come back from China with major new agreements, on economic policy or anything else. But let’s hope that when the cameras aren’t rolling Mr. Obama and his hosts engage in some frank talk about currency policy. For the problem of international trade imbalances is about to get substantially worse. And there’s a potentially ugly confrontation looming unless China mends its ways…}

^{Despite huge trade surpluses and the desire of many investors to buy into this fast-growing economy — forces that should have strengthened the renminbi, China’s currency — Chinese authorities have kept that currency persistently weak. They’ve done this mainly by trading renminbi for dollars, which they have accumulated in vast quantities. And in recent months China has carried out what amounts to a beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation, keeping the yuan-dollar exchange rate fixed even as the dollar has fallen sharply against other major currencies. This has given Chinese exporters a growing competitive advantage over their rivals, especially producers in other developing countries.}

What makes China’s currency policy especially problematic is the depressed state of the world economy. Cheap money and fiscal stimulus seem to have averted a second Great Depression. But policy makers haven’t been able to generate enough spending, public or private, to make progress against mass unemployment. And China’s weak-currency policy exacerbates the problem, in effect siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters.

^{But why do I say that this problem is about to get much worse? Because for the past year the true scale of the China problem has been masked by temporary factors. Looking forward, we can expect to see both China’s trade surplus and America’s trade deficit surge. That, at any rate, is the argument made in a new paper by Richard Baldwin and Daria Taglioni of the Graduate Institute, Geneva. As they note, trade imbalances, both China’s surplus and America’s deficit, have recently been much smaller than they were a few years ago. But, they argue, “these global imbalance improvements are mostly illusory — the transitory side effect of the greatest trade collapse the world has ever seen”…}

But with the financial crisis abating, this process is going into reverse. Last week’s U.S. trade report showed a sharp increase in the trade deficit between August and September. And there will be many more reports along those lines. So picture this: month after month of headlines juxtaposing soaring U.S. trade deficits and Chinese trade surpluses with the suffering of unemployed American workers. If I were the Chinese government, I’d be really worried about that prospect.

^{Unfortunately, the Chinese don’t seem to get it: rather than face up to the need to change their currency policy, they’ve taken to lecturing the United States, telling us to raise interest rates and curb fiscal deficits — that is, to make our unemployment problem even worse. And I’m not sure the Obama administration gets it, either. The administration’s statements on Chinese currency policy seem pro forma, lacking any sense of urgency. That needs to change. I don’t begrudge Mr. Obama the banquets and the photo ops; they’re part of his job. But behind the scenes he better be warning the Chinese that they’re playing a dangerous game.}

The issue here has to do with the newer biological treatment modalities and their fate under health care reform. Jane Hamsher of FDL, a breast cancer survivor, wrote a piece about how the profits of the companies producing these drugs had been protected by Congresswoman Anna Eschoo [October 29th]. Eschoo responded the next day. [October 30th]. Jane countered on [November 2]. But that’s not the story. The story begins with the article in the New York Times about Genentech [a company making these drugs] writing the responses for any number of Congressmen [42 to be exact], which then made it to the Congressional Record. The "blurbs" were written by former Eshoo staffers now doing PR/Lobbying for Genentech. I know there are a lot of articles here, but it’s a nice piece of detective work, and an outrageous bit of behind the scenes manipulation of our Congress. It’s worth the read. I’ve listed just a couple [of many] of emptywheel’s compilations of the quotes from just a few of our congressmen. Think they were using a script?

1. Oct 29: FDL: Health Care Bill: A Death Sentence For My Fellow Breast Cancer Survivors
2. Oct 30: Huff Post: Setting the Record Straight on Our Health Care Legislation
3. Nov 2:  FDL: The Devil in Anna Eshoo’s Details
4. Nov 15: NYT: In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
5. Nov 15: emptywheel: Industry Needs 42 Representatives to … Refute Jane Hamsher
6. Nov 15: Little Sis: Former Eshoo, Barton staffers at center of Genentech scandal
7. Nov 15: emptywheel: Oh, That’s Where Eshoo and Barton Were in the NYT Story!
8. Nov 15: emptywheel: What a Roomful of Republican Biotech-Paid Whores Looks Like
9. Nov 15: emptywheel: Also in that Room: Democratic Biotech-Paid Whores

What a Roomful of Republican Biotech-Paid Whores Looks Like
By: emptywheel
November 15, 2009

“A homegrown success story!!!”

• Joe Wilson: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Kay Granger: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Lee Terry: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Ted Poe: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Blaine Luetkemeyer: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Lynn Jenkins: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.
• Heath Shuler: One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country and in my home state of North Carolina.

Also in that Room: Democratic Biotech-Paid Whores
By: emptywheel
November 15, 2009

“Another significant benefit: jobs jobs jobs!”

• Bob Filner: I wanted to draw attention to another significant benefit of this legislation: the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
• Yvette Clarke: Another significant benefit of this legislation, which has not received as much attention, will be the creation of new high paying jobs, high quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
• Donald Payne: Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
• Bill Pascrell: Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle: this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in health care delivery, technology, and research in the United States.
• Phil Hare: With unemployment at its highest level since 1983, another significant benefit of this legislation that should be highlighted is the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
• Linda Sanchez: But another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received much attention is its promotion of high-paying research, high tech, and manufacturing jobs. Contrary to the claims that this is a “job killing bill,” in fact, this bill will create thousands of jobs here in the United States.
• Robert Brady: Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology, and research in the United States.

First Step in Possible Sanford Impeachment Happens Tuesday
Rep. Greg Delleney will pre-file an impeachment resolution Tuesday.
Channel 7 – Spartanburg SC
By Robert Kittle
November 13, 2009

The first step in the possible impeachment of Gov. Mark Sanford happens Tuesday, November 17th, the first day for pre-filing bills in the South Carolina House of Representatives. Rep. Greg Delleney, R-Chester, says his impeachment resolution is already on the desk and will be the first one pre-filed. He tried to introduce the resolution when lawmakers went back to Columbia October 27th and 28th, but it was ruled out of order. Lawmakers were back to deal with extending unemployment benefits and the rules allowing their return did not allow them to consider an impeachment resolution.

Delleney says Sanford’s disappearance back in June, leaving the state without leaving anyone else in charge or letting his staff or security detail know where he was going, along with his admitted affair and the shame and ridicule it brought on the state and the governor’s office, are reason enough for impeachment. The state constitution allows impeachment for serious crimes or serious misconduct while in office.

“There is no one in the military, there is no one in the private sector that could expect to keep their job having done what he has done,“ Delleney says. “So the question is are we going to make a special exception for this governor to keep his job? And if what he’s done does not rise to the level of serious misconduct, which does not require a crime, then we need to strike that provision from the Constitution.“

After the impeachment resolution is pre-filed, House Speaker Bobby Harrell will assign it to a committee. When he does that, and which committee, is up to him. But Delleney says if it’s assigned to the Judiciary Committee, Chairman Jim Harrison has already said he will appoint a special ad hoc committee to handle the matter. It would be made up of the Constitutional Laws subcommittee, which Delleney chairs, and other members that would be added. Since it’s Delleney’s resolution, he would not chair the subcommittee while it works on the resolution.

Harrell has said he wants to wait until he sees the State Ethics Commission’s report on its investigation into the governor’s travel and use of state planes before the House takes any action on impeachment. Delleney says he’s heard the release of that report is “imminent”, so he expects the committee to start working on the impeachment resolution in early December…

It’s because we’ve lived in the fog of illusion for most of this century. Somehow, they discovered that if they kept up the illusion of government, they could change it to suit themselves. A lot of people liked the illusions, and are still trying to keep them going. So Mark Sanford governed South Carolina based on a set of so called conservative principles that had little to do with his State, and moved him up the ladder in his Party – a Presidential hopeful. His "principles" turned out to be an illusion. Sarah Palin was an obscure Governor of an obscure place, discovered by William Kristol on a cruise. She ran for Vice President on tom-boy sex-appeal. Governor? She quit. Now she’s a Presidential hopeful. The mastermind of the 9/11 attack has been held and tortured without a trial for five years. Now, it’s beginning to look like he was not tried because they were terrified of him. John Ensign made a huge mess of his senate office having an affair with his Chief-of-Staff’s wife, broke a few laws, paid hush money, and, oh yeah, he was a Presidential hopeful. Congressman William Jefferson was selling his influence to African countries for an increasingly bold price. And a whole political Party is bloc voting against healthcare, in part to protect corporate profits. The fog is still pretty thick, the illusions increasingly bold, but the time of reckoning has come.

Well, there she is. No blog can really be called a blog without a picture of Sarah Palin and some commentary either for her, about her, or against her – maybe something about her book. I haven’t read her book. What I want think about is living in a country that takes her seriously, about anything. After two terms as mayor of a small Alaskan town, she ran for Lt. Governor of Alaska and lost. Then she was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, quitting after less than a year. Then she was elected Governor, quitting after 2½ years of her first term. Quitting things in in her nature. She changed colleges five times before getting a degree. The thing that perhaps best describes her is her winning the Miss Wasilla beauty pagent in 1983 and coming in third as Miss Alaska [she won Miss Congeniality in that competition]. So, why are we even talking about her?

She’s sort of pretty. She’s "sassy."  She’s congenial. She has virtually no understanding of the political issues of the day other than what most of them are and where people like her are supposed to stand on such things. Apparently, people liked having an idiot for a President over these last eight years, and are looking for another idiot to take his place. She is a perfect candidate to follow George W. Bush.

Health care vs abortion
ShrinkRap
November 14, 2009

Feminists and reproductive health activists are decrying the amended bill as though it had suddenly outlawed abortions. Now, I know the practical argument that lack of funding will mean lack of access for many women. But this bill does not in fact outlaw abortion any more than it outlaws any other elective procedure that it does not fund…

What we want is health care reform. Changing the status quo regarding abortion must not be allowed to derail this vital legislation… the federal government does not currently pay for abortions except in some indirect ways. So it is not "the biggest setback to women’s reproductive rights in decades," as some critics claim.

Let’s just keep our heads clear about this so we can get health care reform — with coverage for abortions, if possible; but, if not, let’s save the abortion fight for another day. Just remember, if you insist on abortion coverage, and the bill fails, all those who are currently uninsured still won’t be covered for abortion.

OBAMA: "… And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place…"

OBAMA: "This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill."

As Liberals, Progressives, whatever we call ourselves, we cannot expect to create a liberal-utopia in an American Democracy. If we’re honest, that would be something like the socialism they accuse us of wanting. We can, however, pick our legitimate battles carefully and win. The way to do that is to understand the real answer to the riddle: Is the glass half empty or half full? Which is: Neither. The glass is the wrong size.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
New York Times
November 15, 2009

“One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country.” This written statement by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina on the health care bill was identical to one by Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer and used language suggested by lobbyists.

 

THE PRESIDENT: … There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie!
THE PRESIDENT: It’s not true. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place…

Biotech Industry Needs 42 Representatives to Try to Refute Jane Hamsher
By emptywheel
11/15/2009

On October 29, Jane wrote a scathing post about what Anna Eshoo’s provision to give biosimilars a route to approval would do, focusing on the 12 years–and probably more–of monopoly it would grant. The following day–October 30–Eshoo responded.

On November 2, Jane ripped apart some of Eshoo’s details. She reminded Eshoo that no lesser legislative whiz than Henry Waxman has made the same argument Jane was making. She pointed out that taxpayers have already paid for many of these drugs. Meanwhile, a bunch of earnest medical students started pressuring law-makers directly.

And then, the NYT tells us, the biotech industry started recruiting Representatives to publicly state their support for the biologics measure.

The e-mail messages and their attached documents indicate that the statements were based on information supplied by Genentech employees to one of its lobbyists, Matthew L. Berzok, a lawyer at Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli & Berzok who is identified as the “author” of the documents. The statements were disseminated by lobbyists at a big law firm, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.

In an e-mail message to fellow lobbyists on Nov. 5, two days before the House vote, Todd M. Weiss, senior managing director of Sonnenschein, said, “We are trying to secure as many House R’s and D’s to offer this/these statements for the record as humanly possible.”

He told the lobbyists to “conduct aggressive outreach to your contacts on the Hill to see if their bosses would offer the attached statements (or an edited version) for the record.”

That big dollar lobbying got 42 Representatives–42!!!–to try to refute the arguments that Jane was making. Our Jane has them running scared, I guess. I wonder how much those 42 Congressional parrots cost Genentech [which is located in Anna Eshoo’s district]?…

I wonder … how much of Anna Eshoo’s response to Jane on October 30 came directly from her Genentech script writers?

9/11 Trials – Fear of justice or fear of truth?
at-Largely
by Larisa Alexandrova
11/14/2009

A group of men commit a horrible mass murder. Still others helped in the planning of the murder. Law enforcement apprehends the surviving individuals allegedly involved in this horrible crime. A trial is to take place in the city where this mass murder occurred, which gives the surviving victims and the families of those killed a chance to witness justice for their loved ones.

Unless of course you live in nowhere-near-the-scene-of-the-crime, US; read the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, and watch Fox News. Then bringing the alleged plotters to justice is far too scary. Such is the reaction of the far right to the news that the alleged plotters involved in the 9/11 attacks will be tried in a court of law and in NYC – the city in which this mass murder took place.

Front and center in the ridiculous outrage is Rep John Boehner (R-OH):

"House Republican Leader John Boehner [Ohio] says the Obama administration is putting "liberal special interests before the safety and security of the American people" in deciding to bring the 9/11 mastermind to the United States for trial in federal civilian court."

Boehner lived in Ohio during the attacks and still lives in Ohio. Unless geography has drastically changed and I missed an important event in which Ohio somehow merged with New York, then Boehner’s reaction is entirely unwelcome…

It has come down to pan-criticism. I wonder what the point of that is. My wife always says that this is the throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks approach. I guess that’s right, but it all seems so childish. It reminds me of the kid in grammar school who always said, "Well, you have cooties!" Always.

The Right’s textbook "surrender to terrorists"
^{"We’re too scared to have real trials in our country" is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world.}
Salon
By Glenn Greenwald
Nov 14, 2009

Understanding and Combatting Terrorism, USMC Major S.M. Grass, 1989:

Terrorism is a psychological weapon and is directed to create a general climate of fear. As one definition cogently notes, "terror is a natural phenomenon, terrorism is the conscious exploitation of it."  Terrorism utilizes violence to coerce governments and their people by inducing fear.

William Josiger, Fear Factor: The Impact of Terrorism on Public Opinion in the United States and Great Britain, 2006:

At its heart terrorism is about fear. While terrorist attacks destroy, maim and kill, the intended audience for these attacks is almost always the whole body politic and the terrorist’s goal is to strike fear into their hearts.

GOP House Leader John Boehner, condemning Obama’s decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial, yesterday:

The Obama Administration’s irresponsible decision to prosecute the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people.

This is literally true:  the Right’s reaction to yesterday’s announcement – we’re too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country – is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists."  It’s the same fear they’ve been spewing for years.  As always, the Right’s tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers.  Indeed, it’s hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right…