Tag Archives: Arizona

Medicare for all

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Medicare for all

–Or at least for more. As this writer has noted more than once, the way to get young and healthy people into general coverage is to expand Medicare to cover everyone up to age 26. Why not? What would be the argument against? –This is the cohort least liable to the ills of old age, after all; least liable to need long-term care, to decline into Alzheimer’s dementia, least liable to be diagnosed with colon cancer or breast cancer or pancreatic cancer, least prone to heart disease or strokes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Et cetera.

Not that youth doesn’t have its problems, where health and survival are concerned. As previously written, a host of ills awaits to tackle healthy young people–alcohol and other substance abuse, eating disorders including over-eating and the reverse, aggression and guns, dangerous/reckless driving, pointless accidents, dangerous sports and games, and of course war, among others. Every thinking parent is well aware of the possibilities.

But all these, we can tackle. To some extent, the attempts have already begun, with some effect.

Even with all the problems, a large population awaits better wellness and better coverage, with the fiscal pay-off of lowering health care costs partly by spreading the risk far wider. Let’s hope it happens some time.

This comes to mind today, of course, because the cable channels were–just a few minutes ago–all agog with certainty that the Supreme Court would announce a ruling on health care today. Thank God for C-Span, also covering the issue, which instead of inflicting more political prognosticators on a long-suffering public, showed the activists–all sides–demonstrating and speaking in front of the Supreme Court building.

Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.

Two Supreme Court rulings were announced today: Ms. Justice Kagan read the court’s opinion, on a five-to-four decision, against life without parole for juveniles; and Mr. Justice Kennedy read the court’s opinion, Kagan abstaining, invalidating much of Arizona’s sweeping Latino-profiling law (Arizona v. United States).

Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona

Meanwhile, the Dow plunged in early trading this morning. Looks as though the stock market was less gleeful, or perhaps spiteful, over speculation that ‘Obamacare’ would be struck down than were many of the cable commentators. Most of them are just chafing in resentment over their misreading of the public anyway. It is still remarkable that the Washington Post, among other periodicals, went thirty years without reporting insurance abuses.

And speaking of resentment, we still hear wofully little about public reaction to the insurance companies. Many, many commentators have harped on Tea Party anger over the individual mandate. Few, very few, commentators have pointed out that that anger does not speak well for the insurance industry.

Aside from undertakers and mortuaries, is there any industry in America that has more reluctant customers than the insurance industry?

How flood plains work

We also still hear little genuine reporting on flood insurance as a massive transfer of wealth. But then, the officeholders most vehemently denying climate change or most eagerly avoiding it as a topic are the same people, by and large, most in the pay of the insurance industry.

 

 

 

Michigan and Arizona primaries 2012

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February 28, 2012, primaries in Arizona and Michigan

Santorum in Michigan

GOP primaries in Michigan and Arizona today–and it will be mildly interesting to see which candidate Republican voters will be stuck with, if either. On the one hand they have the lurid imaginings of former Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Santorum, who is more and more coming to seem like the type of religio more hell-bent on damning other human beings than on sharpening his own conscience. Deafness to the promptings of conscience might or might not be expected of someone who spent his years out of office working as a corporate lobbyist in DC, even if the lurid version of religion dominating Santorum’s idiom is not stereotypically associated with the kind of inside-the-Beltway job Santorum held, and profited from.

 

Romney

On the other hand primary voters have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who famously penned an op-ed for the New York Times Nov. 18, 2008, titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” ‘Flip-flopper’ or not, Romney has stuck by his argument on this one, following up recently in Michigan with a Feb. 14 op-ed in a Detroit paper calling the auto rescue “crony capitalism.”

 

Automobiles and candidates

Santorum has been proclaiming a “two-man race” in the Republican primaries for several weeks. It seems like years. Most of the political press is following suit for the moment–while waiting to see whether Newt Gingrich’s race-baiting resuscitates the Gingrich campaign in the South in March. It is tempting to streamline the Romney-Santorum contest as a contest between the corporate-insider and barking-dog segments of the Republican Party, dignified as ‘wings.’ This would be over-simplification.

Not that Romney isn’t giving this over-simplification all the help he can. Set aside the off-the-cuff references to the two Cadillacs (American-made cars; that’s why Romney mentioned them in Michigan) his wife drives, or to the Nascar team owners Romney knows. More importantly, Romney also advocated letting the foreclosure crisis run its course, an argument obviously not targeted for Arizona. While Arizona’s foreclosure problems do not equate to those in neighboring Nevada, in December 2011 Arizona hit the top-ten list for foreclosures by state. Spikes in oil prices that deter travel to the wide-open spaces in the Southwest will not help over coming months.

Needless to say, Rick Santorum is even farther to ‘the right’ on the auto-industry and foreclosure issues. Santorum may speak touchingly of miners related to him personally, but when it comes to holding mine owners accountable for mine safety—or any other wholesome and necessary regulation to save lives and health—he’s on the other side, if quietly.

 

Speaking of oil prices–

There are a few facts that the GOP candidates—except occasionally for Ron Paul–do not mention on the campaign trail:

  • Gasoine prices spike when oil prices spike. When the price of crude jumps, the price at the pump is sure to follow. Historically, by the way, a decline in crude price is less swiftly followed, and less equivalently, by a decline in pump price.
  • Spikes in the price of crude oil come largely from rampant, unchecked speculation on oil futures; less from demand for the oil than from betting on the future price of oil
  • Speculation on oil futures in recent days—heightened buying ahead of retail, which has driven up the price of crude–has been fueled by the public discourse, if you call it that, over Iran
  • Iran, as we know, is now newly and again being touted as the favorite hot spot for right-wingers in politics and in Fox-ified media outlets, ever on the look-out for the next war to send other people to

Then these cats vilify President Obama for not doing something magical to hold down the price of oil or of gasoline. Even rightwing columnist George Will criticized that one. (It would be interesting to know why.)

Forget the sense of honor and of patriotism that used to keep even lunatic-fringers from attacking a president on foreign policy, on the campaign trail, while he was in the midst of delicate and tense negotiations. Can Romney, Gingrich and Santorum honestly be oblivious to the fact that their own super-fatted rhetoric—figuratively the equivalent of pouring grease on a kitchen fire—contributes to the tension of disagreements over Iran, and thus to spiking oil prices?

If so, they may be the only ones oblivious. Donor lookup is key. The oil and gas industry so far has contributed far less in 2012 than has the finance sector. Oil and gas are obviously holding back to see who their 2012 standard bearer will be, rather than picking one. But contributions from the energy industry are going—not surprisingly—overwhelmingly to Republican candidates (not including Ron Paul). Six to one, they’re donating to GOPers rather than to Dems. Now that Rick Perry is out of the race, they’re donating mostly to Romney. Predictions are silly, but it’s still hard to see Santorum as having a chance.

more later

[update 10:45 a.m.]

“It’s important not to be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.” –heard from a registered Democrat who voted for Santorum in the GOP primary. Also said he was not trying to make trouble; he voted for Obama in 2008 and is not sure, he said, whether he would vote for Obama again in 2012.

There is more than one quick, efficient, on-the-nose lesson here. For one, it nutshells what is  most damaging to Mitt Romney as a candidate: that he comes across as consistently afraid, depending on audience, to stand up for what he believes in. Second, that anyone with this perception would gravitate toward Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich–as though their loathesome fulminations were courage–testifies again to the poor political analysis and weak political reporting most of the public gets.

Third, something about this reminds me of David Plouffe’s epically stupid remark when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. Plouffe’s response? –to warn against blaming violence in any way on violent rhetoric. (In other words, propaganda doesn’t work? If it doesn’t work, why does the lobbying-candidate cabal use it?) This voter’s comment should be a reminder. The White House would be mistaken to fall into the same hole. The president cannot afford to come across as afraid to stand up for what he believes in.  To do him justice, I think Obama is in fact able to stand up for what he believes in. And he has brought about tremendous change, most of which he has not been given credit for.

But the Rahm Emanuel wing of the party–what they stand for is them, as the saying goes in Texas–has influenced too much of the discussion coming out of media outlets (especially since AOL bought the supposedly progressive Huffington Post).

For the record, I oppose voting in the other party’s primary. No one should be voting for the policies espoused by Romney or Santorum, which boil down quite simply to rich-get-richer and at the expense of the general good. That’s the message to send.

[update]

9:44 p.m. The networks/channels are still calling Michigan too close to call, even though it does not in fact look too close, let alone too close to call. Romney won Arizona, as expected, and looks set to pick up Michigan too–also as expected, though not in the most recent hours. Something like 43 percent Romney to 35+ percent Santorum, with Ron Paul and Gingrich finishing at 11 percent and single digits respectively.

Back to that note on oil prices: legal cases on oil-gas speculation are working their way through the judicial system. I wonder whether something might be accomplished by executive order of a president.

Speaking of legal cases, it is funny that Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post are still being characterized as having “credibility” after selling to AOL without repaying the millions of dollars’ worth of value contributed to HuffPost by unpaid bloggers. With whom does HuffPost still have credibility as a progressive outlet?

The State of Arizona–What is Jamestown Associates doing in Arizona?

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What is Jamestown Associates doing in Arizona?

 View the folksy ad on YouTube . . .

 

As most of West Virginia knows by now, Jamestown Associates is the Republican consultantship responsible for that infamous ‘hicky’ ad boosting the GOP candidate for senate in West Virginia. Like most populist appeals from the GOP, the image of two shirt-sleeved guys boosting the party of corporate conglomeration and secrecy in WV turned out to be fake.

 

Hicksville (WV) ad

Statements by Jamestown Associates—which touts its efforts on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and Republican candidates around the nation—to distance itself from the ad by blaming the casting agency for the language were also false. The original email from Jamestown Associates calls explicitly for actors with a ‘Hicky’ blue collar look. The H-word is capitalized like the name of a sect.

Attorney Charles Graber says on behalf of Kathy Wickline’s casting agency only that “we are still considering our options, going forward”; Jamestown Associates and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which eagerly disavowed the ad, have apologized to Wickline. Jamestown Associates has not responded to questions.

 

One obvious question is whether Jamestown Associates employs that hicky attitude elsewhere in the United States, and if so, where. The company’s website lists four locations: “With offices in Washington, DC, Princeton, NJ, Baton Rouge, LA, and Dallas, TX, our clients benefit from the combination of a national firm’s experience and a regional firm’s knowledge of local issues and techniques.”

 

Jamestown illustrates its Baton Rouge website with a photograph of the Louisiana state capitol building; the office, however, is located on Jones Creek Road in Baton Rouge. Local and Internet directories do not turn up the name Jamestown Associates—which is registered as active and in good standing with the Louisiana Secretary of State—at that or any address. The Jones Creek Road office offers instead a few names of attorneys and an entity called ‘Capitol Consulting Inc,’ not in good standing in Louisiana.

 

Jamestown Associates also has company locations not referred to on its website, including at least one listed in public record in Arizona. Both the Dun corporation database in LexisNexis and the Arizona secretary of state’s office give the address as 6670 E. Edgemont Street, Tucson 85710. Listed personnel dovetail with the list of persons given on the main Jamestown Associates website, starting with Lawrence or Larry Weitzner as president, owner and CEO. No current phone number is accessible; the real estate website Zillow indicates that the property was foreclosed and sold. Calls placed to the house at the street address or to persons listed at that address have returned no information on the company. Dun and Bradstreet lists sales for the Arizona location of Jamestown Associates at $52,000. There is no mention of the AZ office on Jamestown Associates; the man listed as Vice President of Jamestown’s Arizona company, George M. Gobble, is not available for comment.

 

Jamestown Associates advertisement

The Capitol Consulting entity is also found in Arizona, although the only address given is a post office box, with no telephone number and no personnel listed. “Business type”: “providing political solutions.” “Owner”: same name, Capitol Consulting, but as an LLC rather than a corporation.

 

Back in Louisiana, Laura B. Lancaster, listed at LinkedIn as Media Director for Jamestown Associates in Baton Rouge, is also President of Magnolia Media LLC (not connected with a company of the same name in Mobile, Ala.) listed as inactive by the Louisiana Secretary of State. Its Registered Agent (RA) is attorney Frank D. Blackburn, whose office is the Jones Bridge Road address.

The Democratic Party in New Hampshire has filed a complaint that Magnolia Media LLC, in Baton Rouge, is a shell company. Laura Lancaster of Magnolia Media LLC, of the Jones Bridge Road address in Baton Rouge, is also listed among personnel at the Arizona Jamestown Associates in Dun and Bradstreet.

So what if anything is Jamestown Associates or Capitol Consulting doing in Arizona? The Arizona state campaign finance database lists no monetary donations from Jamestown Associates, and only one from Capitol Consulting: Capitol Consulting gave $1K Sept 29 2010 to push Proposition 302, billed as “Kids First” by interest groups. As The Arizona Republic reports, “Proposition 302 seeks the repeal of First Things First, an early-childhood health-and-development program that voters approved in 2006.


If voters approve Proposition 302, the program’s $345 million fund balance would be funneled into the state general fund for lawmakers to use as they want. Legislators already have earmarked that money for deficit relief.” The “Kids First” campaign spins its campaign to destroy the early childhood program as a way to save kids’ programs. However, as AZCentral points out, some programs named by the Prop 302 boosters have already been cut, frozen or capped. “And it’s not certain the passage of Prop. 302 would protect the programs from cuts or reverse the freezes,” since Proposition 302 does not compel the state legislature to save specific programs.

As noted above, Gobble, of or formerly of Jamestown Associates, is also on the Board of Advisors of the Aidchild Foundation, along with Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). Jamestown Associates has handled reelection campaigns for Kolbe, and Gobble was a congressional aide to Kolbe before joining Jamestown Associates in Arizona.

Capitol Consulting also gave $1K to the AZ Republican Party in 2008—a modest amount suggesting that it may not have been among Sen. John McCain’s strongest supporters. No in-kind contributions are listed for either election cycle, either from Capitol Consulting or from Jamestown Associates. The Tucson Weekly published some good articles a few years ago on action pertaining to Jamestown Associates in Arizona. This piece from 2003 and this from 2002 are particularly illuminating. Kolbe is entrenched, if his former aide is not, and the one-hand-washes-the-other culture in higher-up GOP circles in Arizona demonstrates the effectiveness of cooperation between candidates, consultants and ‘nonprofits’.

N.b. As of now the top GOP money recipient in AZ, for U.S. House races, is Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle.


More on Jamestown Associates and other states to follow.