The desire to have honest government in Alabama is not an abstract idea here at Legal Schnauzer. We've seen first hand how corrupt public officials can erode our institutions and weaken our society.
Mrs. Schnauzer and I have been victimized by Alabama's corporate sociopaths--and their political and judicial henchmen--for almost 10 years now. The whole point of this blog is to shine light on the damage that ensues when corrupt officials violate the public trust.
So we hope you will excuse our childish delight at the thumping corporate candidates have taken at the election box recently in Alabama. The battle for honest governance is far from over--in Alabama and beyond. But we must admit to feeling a tiny bit of vindication today--and even a sense of "up yours" to those who have soiled our democracy.
When you spend quite a few of your waking hours reporting about corruption and injustice, the world can seem to be a pretty ugly place. That's why our Legal Schnauzer team so appreciates humor, especially the kind that makes you laugh until you think you are about to wet yourself.
We certainly can appreciate good, clean "family" humor. But some days, you need something that is a tad dark, sophomoric, or of questionable taste. Today is one of those days.
And so we share a little slice of comic heaven from our friends at icanhascheezburger.com. It sums up a part of what we are feeling in SchnauzerWorld today. But more importantly, it appears to sum up the message that regular Alabamians sent to the corporate class yesterday.
I'm told that fans of Monty Python will find special meaning in this one. We hope it provides a chuckle.
No state has been more "pro business" than Alabama over the past 15 years or so. With the help of Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, corporate interests bought first our judicial branch and then our executive branch. In the process, they turned Alabama into a breeding ground for corruption, exemplified by the Don Siegelman case, perhaps the most glaring political prosecution in American history.
Alabamians, however, are showing signs that they've had their fill of crony capitalists. Twice in the past six weeks, voters have handed corporate candidates a sound thumping at the ballot box.
Sparks and Bentley, once political unknowns, will square off in the November general election. It will be a liberal populist vs. a conservative populist--with the corporate class on the outside looking in.
What's going on in Alabama? It's probably too early to say for sure what caused these electoral stunners. And it certainly is not clear if these trends will spread to other states. But here is our best guess about the strategies that seemed to backfire on Alabama's corporate class:
* Going After Gambling--Perhaps the biggest single boneheaded move by a conservative came from Governor Bob Riley's heavy-handed attack on Alabama gaming interests. In the worst economy since the Great Depression, Riley used massive amounts of state resources to shut down gaming facilities across the state, costing thousands of Alabamians their jobs. A series of questionable rulings from the GOP-controlled Alabama Supreme Court helped Riley achieve his handiwork. Byrne was seen as Riley's hand-picked successor, and the governor didn't do his man any favors by announcing a few days before the election that he was--surprise, surprise--going to vote for Byrne. Having announced that he was going to continue Riley's anti-gambling crusade, Byrne was set up for a giant fall. And Alabama voters gave him one.
* Hypocrisy On Corruption--Byrne tried to portray himself as a corruption fighter, claiming he had helped clean up the Alabama two-year college system. But Byrne's mentor undercut him on the corruption front. Regular Alabamians correctly discerned that Governor Riley was not genuinely opposed to gambling, but simply was trying to protect the market share of Mississippi gaming interests who reportedly invested $13 million to help get him elected in 2002. Bill Johnson, a GOP candidate for governor and former Riley cabinet member, confirmed that Riley had received financial support from Mississippi Choctaws, apparently laundered through GOP felon Jack Abramoff. The following question apparently occurred to many voters: "How can Bradley Byrne be a corruption fighter when his No. 1 supporter is a clearly corrupt governor?"
* Befriending Big Oil--In November 2007, Alabama's Supreme Court overturned most of a $3.5-billion fraud verdict against oil giant ExxonMobil. Those funds would have been an enormous boost to Alabama's struggling state finances, but Governor Riley did nothing to appeal the decision--which came on an 8-1 ruling, with the court's lone Democrat casting the dissenting vote. Alabamians remembered that episode when oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster began to show up on our shores a few weeks ago. The timing of the BP spill could not have been worse for Bradley Byrne. And it could not have been better for those who want to see government in Alabama that represents all of the people, not just corporate interests.
* Battling "Union Bosses"--Byrne frequently said that he was determined to fight "union bosses." That was a reference to Paul Hubbert, the powerful executive director of the Alabama Education Association (AEA). Yesterday's results indicate that Alabamians do not see Hubbert and AEA as forces to be feared. With the Bush recession continuing to drag down the economy, many Alabamians probably have had the experience of being laid off, with no union protection in sight. Could yesterday's results signal a rebirth of the union movement in the South? It probably would be going too far to say that. But it certainly appears that Bradley Byrne picked a bad time to pick on organized labor.
* Bedding Down With Bob Riley--More than anything, we suspect yesterday's vote was a referendum on Bob Riley's eight-year reign of error. And Alabamians clearly sent the message that they want Riley and his buddies gone. Bentley seemed to gain traction with his statement that he was "going to clean up Montgomery." Voters apparently realized that much of the mess in Montgomery was caused by Riley and his supporters. Most Alabamians probably have no idea about the depths of Riley's corrupt enterprise--mainly because our state's mainstream press and the U.S. Department of Justice have provided him cover. But voters clearly want Riley and his surrogates to hit the exits. And after the governor's crusade against gambling, many voters probably now suspect that their governor has been bought by out-of-state gaming interests all along. Are Alabamians ready for a little scrutiny to be trained on Bob Riley and his minions? Yesterday's results indicate the answer is yes. And if that actually happens, many Alabamians probably will be sickened by what turns up.
Robert Bentley referred to himself last night as a "healer." Alabama needs to be healed, and the first step is to get rid of the Bob Riley influence. Voters did just that yesterday.
Are there broader lessons to be learned from Alabama's elections--perhaps for President Barack Obama and national Democrats? It might be this: If you side with corporate interests over consumers, if you protect the corrupt elite against the wishes of regular folks, you do so at your own peril.
Americans who want to get a measure of the modern Republican Party's soul--assuming it has a soul--will want to check out today's primary runoff election for governor in Alabama.
It's a classic matchup of the GOP's primary factions--The Corporatists vs. The Values Crowd. The outcome might provide a hint about where the Republican Party is headed come November.
Bradley Byrne is the corporate candidate, the hand-picked successor of two-term governor Bob Riley. That means Byrne was plucked straight from the Bush/Rove political tree. Dr. Robert Bentley is the favorite of "values" voters. He's a courtly dermatologist and pro-lifer who has come from nowhere to make a serious race of it. The winner will take on Democrat Ron Sparks in the November general election.
Byrne essentially is Alabama's Haley Barbour, the kind of Republican who has never met a consumer he didn't want to screw. Bentley is Alabama's Mike Huckabee, a guy who appears to mix his religious zeal with a dollop of professional competence.
It's been long assumed, at least in these quarters, that Byrne easily would become Alabama's next governor. But with the economy languishing in a Bush-driven recession, oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, and Riley wasting taxpayer dollars on a heavy-handed attack against in-state gambling interests, the pendulum seems to have swung away from the corporate crowd.
No matter what happens today, the fact that Byrne was pushed into a runoff could be seen as a loss for the crony-capitalism crowd. And if Bentley actually pulls off the upset, it would be a giant middle finger in the face for Riley, one of the most loyal and corrupt of all Bushies--a guy who still manages to steer clear of his strong ties to GOP felons Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon.
Leave it to Alabama to serve as a perfect laboratory for GOP dysfunction. The governor's race was expected to be between Byrne and the leaders of two other GOP factions--Tim James for the Knuckledraggers (the anti-immigrant, keep "them" in their place crowd) and Roy Moore for the God Squad (those who believe the answers to all of Alabama's problems can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy).
Bentley was expected to finish no better than a distant fourth. His greatest claim to fame was that he had once treated the late Alabama coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant. But Bentley seemed to strike a chord with voters when he said that, if elected, he would not accept a salary as governor until Alabama reached full employment.
Bentley also gained traction simply by watching the corporatists self destruct. Byrne says he wants to improve education in Alabama, but he persistently attacks the Alabama Education Association (AEA). Byrne apparently thinks you improve classroom performance by paying teachers minimum wage and ensuring that they have no workplace protections. Byrne also has indicated he will continue Riley's anti-gambling crusade, which has closed facilities around the state and cost thousands of Alabamians their jobs in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Meanwhile Bentley has quietly stated that he will support AEA when he thinks the organization is right. And while he personally opposes gambling, he would support a statewide referendum on gaming issues.
Byrne supporters, in a sign that they might be worried, have attacked the idea of Democrats crossing over to vote for Bentley in the runoff. Bentley, meanwhile, has said his strongest opposition has come from members of his own party--and he welcomes the support of Democrats.
This already has been a year of stunning electoral upsets for Alabama. In the Democratic primary, Ron Sparks and his populist message won in a landslide over corporatist (and Obama buddy) Artur Davis. Could we be in for another shocker today? One recent poll indicates the answer is yes, showing Bentley with a 20-point lead.
I would be astounded if that came to pass. But the mere fact that Bentley seems to be making a race of it indicates that, even in Alabama, people are growing leery of corporate control over government.
Byrne has raised way more money than Bentley and received endorsements from most of the state's Republicans elites. But we are seeing signs that many Alabamians, and maybe Americans in general, are ready to move beyond the Bush era of crony capitalism. Reports The Gadsden Times:
Bentley cast himself as an outsider within his party and Byrne as the “establishment” GOP candidate. Bentley said as the nominee he will be a unifier.
“When you are for the status quo, all these people are going to endorse you,” Bentley said of Byrne’s heavyweight endorsements. “I’m going to be a governor for not only Republicans, but I’ll be the governor for Democrats.”
On the evening of September 11, 2001, two of America's greatest songwriters--Don Henley and Glenn Frey of the Eagles--developed the idea for a song that would express their feelings about the horrific events that had taken place earlier that day.
The song became known as Hole in the World and was released in 2003. With its plaintive lyrics and soaring, gospel-tinged chorus, Hole in the World became a sort of national hymn about a jarring, otherwordly event.
We can't help but think of that song as another otherworldly event--a catastrophic oil leak--unfolds in the Gulf of Mexico. And those thoughts were reinforced recently when author Naomi Klein produced a splendid essay. It's title? "Gulf Oil Spill: A Hole in the World."
We've seen hopeful signs in recent days, with reports that BP has placed a tighter-fitting cap on the gushing leak and plans to test it today. Even if the system works, it is a temporary fix; relief wells that are due to be completed in August still would be needed to stop the leak. Plus, the extent of damage already inflicted on the Gulf of Mexico remains undetermined.
Even if a best-case scenario plays out, we will be left with this question: How did we get into such a mess in the first place? Naomi Klein provides some compelling insights.
The BP spill is not just an industrial accident, Klein writes; it is a violent wound inflicted upon earth itself. And it reflects the ugly conceit with which modern capitalism has come to be practiced. Writes Klein:
If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money – not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots. And while our politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.
An intense blame game has been going on for weeks. But Klein says there is plenty of blame to go around, starting with our belief in the brilliance of man:
This Gulf coast crisis is about many things--corruption, deregulation, the addiction to fossil fuels. But underneath it all, it's about this: our culture's excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us. But as the BP disaster has revealed, nature is always more unpredictable than the most sophisticated mathematical and geological models imagine.
BP and its CEO, Tony Hayward, proved to be perfectly in step with their times. Writes Klein:
This refusal to contemplate failure clearly came straight from the top. A year ago, Hayward told a group of graduate students at Stanford University that he has a plaque on his desk that reads: "If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?" Far from being a benign inspirational slogan, this was actually an accurate description of how BP and its competitors behaved in the real world. In recent hearings on Capitol Hill, congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts grilled representatives from the top oil and gas companies on the revealing ways in which they had allocated resources. Over three years, they had spent "$39bn to explore for new oil and gas. Yet, the average investment in research and development for safety, accident prevention and spill response was a paltry $20m a year."
Cockiness was not limited to the corporate class. It spilled over into the political class, as well:
Drilling without thinking has of course been Republican party policy since May 2008. With gas prices soaring to unprecedented heights, that's when the conservative leader Newt Gingrich unveiled the slogan "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" – with an emphasis on the now. The wildly popular campaign was a cry against caution, against study, against measured action. In Gingrich's telling, drilling at home wherever the oil and gas might be – locked in Rocky Mountain shale, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and deep offshore – was a surefire way to lower the price at the pump, create jobs, and kick Arab ass all at once. In the face of this triple win, caring about the environment was for sissies: as senator Mitch McConnell put it, "in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty." By the time the infamous "Drill Baby Drill" Republican national convention rolled around, the party base was in such a frenzy for US-made fossil fuels, they would have bored under the convention floor if someone had brought a big enough drill.
With the ebb and flow of an evolving story, one element has remained the same:
Human limitation has been the one constant of this catastrophe. . . . The company's claim that it will complete relief wells by the end of August – repeated by Obama in his Oval Office address – is seen by many scientists as a bluff. The procedure is risky and could fail, and there is a real possibility that the oil could continue to leak for years.
Can something positive still come out of this disaster in the gulf? Klein says it is possible. But humans had better wise up:
The most positive possible outcome of this disaster would be not only an acceleration of renewable energy sources like wind, but a full embrace of the precautionary principle in science. The mirror opposite of Hayward's "If you knew you could not fail" credo, the precautionary principle holds that "when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health" we tread carefully, as if failure were possible, even likely. Perhaps we can even get Hayward a new desk plaque to contemplate as he signs compensation cheques. "You act like you know, but you don't know."
That brings us back to one of our all-time favorite Eagles songs--and that is saying something in a catalog that includes such classics as "Desperado," "One of These Nights," "The Last Resort," "Take It Easy," "Hotel California," "Doolin-Dalton," "Life in the Fast Lane," "Peaceful Easy Feeling," "Take It To The Limit," and many more.
"Hole in the World" is about a different sort of human-made tragedy than the one we face at the moment. But it's central question--oh, how can people be so blind?--still applies:
With the arrest of an Army intelligence analyst in the Wikileaks case, a question comes to mind: Should more progressives be disgusted with President Barack Obama for his treatment of those who uncover government wrongdoing?
The question hits close to home here at Legal Schnauzer because of the abuse heaped on Tamarah Grimes, a former U.S. Justice Department paralegal in the Middle District of Alabama who blew the whistle on misconduct in the Don Siegelman prosecution. Is mistreatment of whistleblowers becoming an alarming trend in the Obama administration?
The director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) might have been ahead of the curve when he recently said that he was "disgusted" with Obama, partly because of the president's tendency to protect the powerful at the expense of the powerless.
Those feelings of disgust might be heightened after the arrest of Pfc. Bradley Manning in the Wikileaks case. Reports The Washington Post:
Manning was detained in May after Wikileaks.org, a Web site that aims to expose government and corporate secrets, released the video it had allegedly obtained from him. The footage, taken by cameras on U.S. Apache helicopters, shows several civilians, including two Reuters news agency employees, being killed in a U.S. strike in Iraq in July 2007.
The Manning case presents some thorny issues. On the one hand, Manning brought serious wrongdoing to light. On the other hand, it appears he went to considerable trouble to unearth classified material. It seems Manning did not just witness wrongdoing in the normal course of his duties; he went to great effort to find it. Does that mean he acted in an unethical, or even unlawful, fashion?
The Obama administration apparently thinks so. But the Tamarah Grimes case shows the White House generally has not been friendly toward whistleblowers, no matter how ethically they behave. The Manning case seems to provide another example of the administration talking about transparency on one hand but retaliating against those who actually provide transparency on the other. And there is this question: Did the material that Manning allegedly disclosed qualify as being classified? Reports the Post:
The case against Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, reflects the tough stance the Obama administration appears to be taking against the disclosure of classified information. A memo by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last week warned that such leaks would not be "tolerated" and would be prosecuted when proved--an attitude that some analysts suggested could carry a cost.
What is that cost? Wrongdoing is likely to go undetected--and unpunished:
"Potential whistleblowers may judge that the risks of revealing classified information are too high," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. "When real misconduct is involved, that would be an unfortunate conclusion to draw. Many of the most important violations of law and policy, from warrantless wiretapping to torture of detainees, have become public through unauthorized disclosures of classified information."
As we approach the 18-month mark in the Obama administration, the Wikileaks case just adds to the profound sense of disappointment many progressives have in the president's performance.
To be sure, Obama has been hamstrung by the colossal mess he inherited from George W. Bush. And our country certainly is in better shape than it would have been if Republican John McCain had been elected in November 2008.
But how do you explain this? On June 1, 2009, Tamarah Grimes wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder outlining prosecutorial misconduct in the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Eight days later, Grimes was fired from her job as a paralegal in the Middle District of Alabama. Grimes remains without a job, but Bush appointee Leura Canary still is in place at U.S. attorney in Montgomery.
Grimes almost certainly can relate to what is happening to Bradley Manning. Like him, she was referred for criminal investigation. And the ugly episode can't be blamed entirely on George W. Bush. Consider this passage from one of our earlier posts about the Grimes case:
. . . it no longer is a matter of "looking back" at abuses under the Bush administration. The abuses are happening right now--under Obama. And there is little sign that they are going to be addressed anytime soon.
How long are progressives, who put Obama in the White House, going to tolerate an administration that turns a blind eye to grotesque abuses in the justice system.
In fact, Obama seems to have turned a blind eye toward the concerns of progressives in general. Considering that progressives are largely responsible for his victory, that doesn't seem like such a smart idea. The head of the ACLU perhaps spoke for many progressives when he said recently that he was "disgusted" with Obama.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, tried to back off slightly from his original remarks. But we think Romero has every right to be disgusted with a president who once said "no one is above the law," but has taken little action to show he actually means that. Writes Josh Gerstein, of Politico:
In an interview with POLITICO, Romero confirmed the gist of the quote, though he emphasized it wasn't intended as an ad hominem attack.
"I'm not disgusted at President Obama personally. It's President Obama's policies on civil liberties and national security issues I'm disgusted by. It's not a personal attack," Romero said.
Then, in words I wish I had thought of myself, Romero got right to the point:
Asked why he's so animated now, Romero said: "It’s 18 months and, if not now, when? . . . Guantanamo is still not closed. Military commissions are still a mess. The administration still uses state secrets to shield themselves from litigation. There's no prosecution for criminal acts of the Bush administration. Surveillance powers put in place under the Patriot Act have been renewed. If there has been change in the civil liberties context, I frankly don't see it."
After eight years of a Bush presidency that seemed to have little respect for the rule of law, progressives were hoping for a quick about-face from Obama. But it hasn't happened:
"The unwillingness of the administration to stick by its guns and prosecute the Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court does not bode well for the broader civil liberties agenda," he said. "The fact they've not announced anything raises the specter of doubt that, in itself, is debilitating to the Justice Department and raises serious questions about the administration's commitment to the rule of law. Their silence speaks volumes."
The silence indeed speaks volumes. And if the administration does not soon begin to speak up on justice issues, we suspect Democrats are going to pay a price at the ballot box in November.
Romero long has been a prominent voice calling for the prosecution of Bush-administration officials. He has said that the rule of law must hold fast, that no one down the chain of command should be viewed as "too small-level a criminal" to prosecute--and no one up the chain of command should be "too much of an untouchable criminal" to pursue. That, Romero says, includes George W. Bush himself.
Here is a video from about a year ago in which Romero makes a very clear statement about his position. It's a position we think the Obama administration should adopt pronto.
John Wathen, an activist photographer and videographer, was harassed at the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge Tuesday, told by a BP contractor and an Alabama state trooper that he was not allowed on the beach with a camera where workers were moving oil with heavy machinery, and that “no media” was being allowed in the area.
Here is a video of Wathen's encounter with one Alabama state trooper:
It has become increasingly difficult, Wilson writes, for the press to cover the oil-spill story. BP and the Obama administration have made a pledge of transparency regarding coverage. But Wilson says the reality does not match the rhetoric:
If it wasn’t for the Louisiana bureau of the Associated Press, a hand-full of broadcast reporters, and other independent journalists and activists challenging the media access fight at every level, the public would know little of the horrible, permanent travesty at work in the Gulf of Mexico.
President Barack Obama's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) probably is seen as a political story at the moment. But it soon should focus attention on soaring health-care costs and the fraud that helps drive them.
Berwick is known as an expert in controlling costs, and he should turn a critical eye toward universities. That's because major research institutions have bilked Medicare, and taxpayers, out of billions of dollars.
We have covered this story extensively because the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has been a prime offender, with a whistleblower estimating the university's fraud over a 10-year period at $600 million. Rob Riley, the son of Alabama Governor Bob Riley, reportedly is another offender. A federal lawsuit alleges that one of Rob Riley's companies has engaged in Medicare fraud, in conjunction with a number of UAB associates.
If Obama and Berwick want to get health-care costs under control, they need to start by scrutinizing the activities of places like UAB and people like Rob Riley.
Dr. Berwick’s major credential for the job is that he leads the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a consulting group that promotes measures to improve the quality and safety of health care while reducing its costs. He has been enormously successful at getting health care professionals and institutions to work together to reform their practices—exactly what the agency needs.
As for health-care fraudsters, Obama has signaled that he is serious about taking them on. Several months back, the president authorized the use of high-tech "bounty hunters" to root out health-care fraud. The anti-fraud plan was part of Obama's final push to get a health-care reform bill passed, and he signed the legislation on March 23.
Business groups opposed to reform claimed that the health-care system already is riddled with fraud. So Obama made attacking fraud a key part of his plan, and we suspect Berwick will be a key player in that plan.
As head of CMS, Berwick figures to be a strategist and administrator, not a watchdog. But taking Obama's lead and working with the Department of Justice, he should help set a tone that says: "Medicare fraud will not be tolerated."
Let's take a closer look at what we know about UAB, one of the top gobblers of federal research dollars in the Deep South. As we have reported here at Legal Schnauzer,UAB has been riddled with both research-funding fraud (misspent Medicare and NIH dollars) and scientific research fraud (fudged results on clinical studies).
In both kinds of cases, the taxpayer is the loser, paying through the nose for cheaters who hide out at research universities.
What is Obama's thinking on the subject? He says it merits the use of "bounty hunters." Consider this from an Associated Press report:
Obama's anti-fraud announcement was aimed directly at the political middle.
Waste and fraud are pervasive problems for Medicare and Medicaid, the giant government health insurance programs for seniors and low-income people. Improper payments--in the wrong amounts, to the wrong person or for the wrong reason--totaled an estimated $54 billion in 2009. They range from simple errors such as duplicate billing to elaborate schemes operated by fraudsters peddling everything from wheelchairs to hospice care.
The bounty hunters in this case would be private auditors armed with sophisticated computer programs to scan Medicare and Medicaid billing data for patterns of bogus claims. The auditors would get to keep part of any funds they recover for the government. The White House said a pilot program run by Medicare in California, New York and Texas recouped $900 million for taxpayers from 2005-2008.
The problem of health-care fraud is widespread in higher education. That's why many universities tried to cut deals with the Bush administration before Obama took office. Consider this passage from one of our earlier posts:
Among those waiting until the last minute, according to a report by Carrie Johnson of the Washington Post, is Yale University.
Yale recently agreed to pay $7.6 million to settle claims that its researchers overbilled on federally funded research grant. The Associated Press article mentions similar settlements have been reached at other institutions, including Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, University of Connecticut, and UAB.
That list only scratches the surface of the problem. Other institutions that have had problems with research fraud include Harvard, University of Chicago, Duke, Stanford, University of Washington, University of Mississippi, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, New York University and . . . well, you get the idea; the problem is widespread.
The bottom line? Research universities have been eating, and cheating, at the federal trough for years--and mostly getting away with it. Obama, as part of his plan to reform our health-care system, has pledged to bring that to a halt. Our guess is that Dr. Donald Berwick will be a key ally in that effort.
We even have a helpful suggestion: Mr. President, why don't you and Dr. Berwick start at UAB, which ranks behind only the University of North Carolina and Duke University among Southern institutions raking in federal research dollars? And while you're at it, look at Rob Riley and his connections to UAB physicians.
Obviously, UAB's research freight train still is chugging along. But is it running on the right tracks, on an ethical course? Our guess is that it probably is not. Obama and Dr. Berwick need to send some bounty hunters to the scene.
With an environmental catastrophe evolving in the Gulf of Mexico, you might think big-oil companies would be restrained in their thinking about future exploration. You also might think that the Obama administration would be hyper vigilant about any future oil drilling in vulnerable ecosystems.
Believe or not, Rolling Stone reports, BP could start drilling in the Arctic Ocean this fall, certainly in 2011. While President Barack Obama is taking a tough-guy approach with big oil at the moment, experts do not expect it to last:
Indeed, top environmentalists warn, the suspension of drilling appears to be little more than a stalling tactic designed to let public anger over BP's spill subside before giving Big Oil the go-ahead to drill in an area that has long been off-limits: the Arctic Ocean. The administration has approved plans by both BP and Shell Oil to drill a total of 11 exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas above Alaska—waters far more remote and hostile than the Gulf. Shell's operations could proceed as soon as the president's suspension expires in January. And thanks to an odd twist in its rig design, BP's drilling in the Arctic is on track to get the green light as soon as this fall.
Key members of the Obama administration have been gung ho about drilling in the Arctic--and that's because an awful lot of oil is at stake:
Ken Salazar, the Interior secretary whose staff allowed BP to drill in the Gulf based on pro-industry rules cooked up during the Bush years, has made no secret of his determination to push the "frontier" of oil drilling into the Arctic. The region's untapped waters are believed to hold as much as 27 billion barrels of oil—an amount that would rival some of the largest oil fields in the Middle East.
Both BP and Shell Oil have their eyes on the Arctic Ocean. But BP's plans are particularly alarming. BP created an oil rig by building an island--a "glorified mound of gravel," Rolling Stone calls it--that means the operation is not subject to offshore drilling restrictions:
Here's what BP has in store for the Arctic: First, the company will drill two miles beneath its tiny island, which it has christened "Liberty." Then, in an ingenious twist, it will drill sideways for another six to eight miles, until it reaches an offshore reservoir estimated to hold 105 million barrels of oil. This would be the longest "extended reach" well ever attempted, and the effort has required BP to push drilling technology beyond its proven limits.
Should we trust BP with such a high-risk drilling operation? Evidence in the Gulf of Mexico, and elsewhere, provides a clear answer:
BP, a repeat felon subject to record fines for its willful safety violations, calls the project "one of its biggest challenges to date"—an engineering task made even more dangerous by plans to operate year-round in what the company itself admits is "some of the harshest weather on Earth."
Warning signs seem to be everywhere. But the U.S. Minerals Management Service has given its blessing to BP's plans:
The Obama administration has been warned by its own scientists that drilling in the Arctic poses a grave risk to the environment. Last September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration urged the president to halt future leases in the Arctic, warning that federal regulators operating on Bush-era guidelines had "greatly understated" the risks of drilling. Both industry and government, the scientists added, displayed a "lack of preparedness for Arctic spill responses" and had failed to "fully evaluate the potential impacts of worst-case scenarios."
What challenges come from drilling in the Arctic? Well, they are daunting:
Experts also warn that a spill in the Arctic would be far worse than the disaster currently unfolding in the Gulf, where experienced contractors and relief equipment are close at hand. By contrast, the sites in the Arctic where Shell plans to drill are devilishly remote. The closest Coast Guard station is on Kodiak Island, some 1,000 miles away. The nearest cache of boom to help contain a spill is in Seattle—a distance of 2,000 miles. There are only two small airports in the region, and even if relief supplies could somehow be airlifted to the tundra, there are no industrial ports to offload equipment into the water. Relief equipment can realistically be brought to the region only by boat—and then only seasonally. The Arctic is encased in ice for more than half the year, and even icebreakers can't assure access in the dark of winter.
What is at stake? The Arctic features bountiful marine life, including polar bears, walruses, seals, gray and bowhead whales, and migratory seabirds from every continent but Europe.
Is it possible that we will not learn anything from the disaster in the Gulf? At the moment, it certainly looks that way:
"Drilling in the Arctic should make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck," says Sylvia Earle, the former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "There are values there that transcend the value of any fossil fuel we can extract--irreplaceable ecosystems that we don't know how to put together again. There are some places you should not drill, period."
So it seems like a good time to remember one of the great "happy songs" ever written. And National Public Radio (NPR) did just that recently when it paid tribute to "Walking on Sunshine," the smash hit from Katrina and the Waves that was all over the radio in the summer of 1985.
We were particularly pleased to see the NPR tribute because I am proud to say that I own a vinyl copy of Katrina and the Waves, the introductory album that included "Walking on Sunshine."
That was the only album of any significance the band ever did. But it's so darned good that, on my Blogger bio, I list Katrina and the Waves as one of my favorite bands. And I still break the album out and give it a spin on a regular basis.
"Walking on Sunshine" is in the top 10 of just about every list of great summer songs that I've seen. A remastered 25th-anniversary edition of the single has been released, with a B-side that features the Soweto Gospel Choir's version of the song. The choir's version is a rouser and should not be missed. You can check it out here.
You can catch the original version below, with the fetching Katrina Leskanich on lead vocals. Kimberly Rew, who wrote the song, is on lead guitar to Katrina's right. Vince de la Cruz on bass and Alex Cooper on drums round out the British foursome:
Some folks probably would consider Katrina and the Waves to be "one-hit wonders." But they were much better than that. Their debut album, which actually was a compilation of two albums that had been released only in Canada, is superb from start to finish.
In our view, Katrina and the Waves would have had a much more distinguished career if they had been managed and marketed better. Leskanich tells NPR that after the success of "Walking on Sunshine," the record label wanted every song to sound pretty much like that.
In essence, the label wanted Katrina and the Waves to be The Monkees, with a female lead singer, and generated a series of goofy videos that made the band look silly. But Rew, the band's primary songwriter, wrote about a variety of subjects. The debut album includes songs about break-ups ("Do You Want Crying"), substance abuse ("Red Wine and Whiskey"), unemployment ("Going Down to Liverpool"), and big-time criminals ("Machine Gun Smith.")
Record execs wanted to force Katrina and the Waves into a narrow box, and it almost certainly stunted the band's career. The Waves made a brief comeback when they won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with another Rew composition, "Love Shine a Light." But Leskanich soon departed, and the band dissolved in 1999.
"Walking on Sunshine" is far and away Katrina and the Waves' best-known song. But it might never have been widely heard if not for "Going Down to Liverpool." The American girl group The Bangles covered that song, and it gained the attention of Prince, who wrote "Manic Monday" for The Bangles. A good word from Prince was enough to convince Capitol Records to sign Katrina and the Waves to a recording contract.
Here is "Red Wine and Whiskey," one of the songs that did not fit with the record execs' image for the band:
The band did produce a number of up-tempo numbers that would have been fitting followups to "Walking on Sunshine." One was "Que Te Quiero" ("How I Want You," in Spanish), which is a terrific song if you can forgive the goofy video:
If I had been the band's Brian Epstein, my choice as a followup would have been "The Game of Love," an infectious rocker in the "Walking on Sunshine" mode. You can check it out here:
Katrina and the Waves did not have the sustained mega career that they should have had in rock and roll. But don't feel bad for the band members; they are doing just fine--thanks mainly to one unforgettable song. Reports NPR:
Tim Lee heads up Tummy Touch Records, Katrina and the Waves' current record label. "Every time a song gets played on the radio, you get, what, a buck, a buck 50," Lee says. "If the song's played 2 million times, as 'Walking on Sunshine' has been, it really adds up."
The members of Katrina and the Waves were wise enough to hang onto their publishing rights, and that has paid off:
That's the money that typically goes to the songwriter, in this case the band's guitarist, Kimberley Rew. Lee says Rew shares that money with the rest of the band.
Over the years, the song showed up all over the place: in movies like American Psycho and High Fidelity, and in countless commercials, for everything from diapers to medicine.
" 'Walking on Sunshine' was the crown jewel in EMI's catalog," says Jarrett Mason, who worked for EMI Publishing from 2004 to 2008. He says that of the roughly 1.3 million songs in EMI's catalog, "Walking on Sunshine" was one of its biggest earners—and that advertisers would pay $150,000 to $200,000 to use it for one year.
Katrina and the Waves were a much better band than most people know. But one really big hit can do wonders for the pocketbook:
By some estimates, "Walking on Sunshine" has made the band about $1 million per year over the past decade. Rew has written more than 200 songs since then, but he lives off the money from "Walking on Sunshine."
"If we had more songs which more people knew, that would be so much the better, but basically we're lucky to have one," Leskanich says.
The biggest sports story in the South at the moment involves an administrator, not an athlete.
The tawdry tale led to the resignation Monday of University of Georgia Athletics Director Damon Evans. It also inadvertently revealed one of the ugly secrets about our court system.
Evans, 40, was a historic figure, the first black athletics director in the history of the Southeastern Conference. By most accounts, he had performed well since replacing Georgia legend Vince Dooley in 2004. But a series of boneheaded decisions last Wednesday evening cost Evans his dream job.
* He refused to take a breath test, but admitted to having three vodka cocktails;
* His passenger was Courtney Fuhrmann, a 28-year-old female who was arrested for disorderly conduct. (In the mugshots above, both Evans and Fuhrmann seem to be struggling to hold their eyes open.);
* Police noted a pair of red panties that were resting between Evans' legs. They belonged to Fuhrmann, he told officers.
* Evans made his position known to the officer in an apparent effort to get off without an arrest;
Evans is a Georgia graduate and is a former Bulldog football standout. But the mountain of unseemly details proved to be too much. The AD and his alma mater parted ways yesterday.
From a legal standpoint, the most revealing part of the story came after Evans had met with an attorney, Edward Tolley of Athens, Georgia. Reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
"I explained to Damon in general terms what the law is," Tolley told the AJC after the meeting. "I'm sending him to somebody who is an expert with the law in this area and familiar with the Atlanta judicial system. Local representation is important in cases like this."
Why would "local representation" be important in a DUI case? As long as a lawyer is licensed in Georgia, and is familiar with the relevant law, why would it matter if he is from Atlanta, Statesboro, Macon, or Plains?
The answer? It shouldn't. But what Tolley probably was saying, in a delicate way, is this: "A lawyer in Atlanta is likely to have appeared before the judge a number of times, and they might even be social buddies. Heck, the Atlanta lawyer perhaps has contributed to the judge's campaigns--and most of our judges are elected--or provided other favors to the bench. That will greatly enhance Mr. Evans' chances of getting off lightly in this DUI case."
It would have been interesting if an enterprising reporter had asked, "Does your decision to refer Mr. Evans to an Atlanta lawyer have anything at all to do with justice or the safety of the public?"
Tolley's likely response? "Hmmm . . . ahhh . . . geeee . . . Can I get back to you on that?"
