For Volleyball Coach, the Streak Is Beside the Point  

   Revealed: millions spent by lobby firms fighting Obama health reforms Six lobbyists for every member of Congress as healthcare industry heaps cash on politicians to water down legislation Comments (42)
Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 October 2009 Article history
A demonstration in Washington against Obama's healthcare reform plan. Photograph: Rex Features  America's healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.A former member of Bill Clinton's cabinet says fears that the industry could throw its money behind the populist rightwing backlash against public insurance have scared the Obama White House into pulling back from the most significant reforms in return for healthcare companies not trying to scupper the entire legislation.Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms' money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect".Reform groups say vast spending, and the threat of a lot more being poured into advertisements against the administration, has helped drug companies ensure there will be no cap on the prices they charge for medicines ‑ one of the ways the White House had hoped to keep down surging healthcare costs.Insurance companies have done even better as the new legislation will prove a business bonanza. It is not only likely to kill off the threat of public health insurance, which threatened to siphon off customers by offering lower premiums and better coverage, but will force millions more people to take out private medical policies or face prosecution."It's a total victory for the health insurance industry," said Dr Steffie Woolhander, a GP, professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Programme (PNHP)."What the bill has done is use the coercive power of the state to force people to hand their money over to a private entity which is the private insurance industry. That is not what people were promised."PNHP blames a political process it says is corrupted by millions of dollars poured into the election campaigns of members…

 Apple’s Struggle With Political AppsBy JOSHUA BRUSTEINApple has again changed its mind.Earlier this week, it rejected the iPhone app of a Republican opponent to Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a Democrat, saying it was a personal attack on Mr. Waxman. But on Tuesday, Apple reversed itself and approved the app.It is just the latest in a string of incidents in which Apple has changed its decision on whether to approve an app that arguably made fun of or criticized public figures.In this case, Ari David, a 39-year-old comedian who has never held public office, developed the app as a version of his Web site to promote his campaign in the Republican primary for California’s 30th Congressional District on June 8.It has some rough words for Mr. Waxman; Mr. David thinks, for instance, that the congressman “TRIED TO STRANGLE family farms with insane Soviet-style regulation.” The criticisms, though, are tied to Mr. Waxman’s political career.When Apple rejected the application, it told the developer who made it for Mr. David that it was defamatory. Mr. David complained about that decision on his blog, citing apps in the iTunes store that he saw as insulting to Christianity or supportive of Che Guevara to argue that Apple has a liberal bias.When asked about the decision by a reporter this week, the company at first reiterated its description of the app as inappropriate, but then reversed itself later in the day.“When this issue was brought to our attention, we reviewed it further and realized we made a mistake,” said Trudy Muller, a spokesperson for Apple. “While we don’t approve apps that attack individuals, that is not what this app is primarily about.”Mr. David said he was satisfied with Apple’s response. “They clearly did the right the thing and I’m looking forward to a free exchange of social ideas in Apple’s content offerings,” he said.Mr. Waxman’s office declined to comment.Earlier this year, Apple rejected the cartoonist Daryl Cagle’s app of cartoons about Tiger Woods even though it had approved one that contained a series of cartoons about President Obama. It also rejected an app of political cartoons by the Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, and then relented, saying the initial rejection was a mistake.In some ways, these incidents raise questions similar to the decades-long debate over whether speech in shopping malls should be protected by federal or state governments. A mall is private property, yet it has become a public place, and you could say the same for Apple’s app store.When candidates, journalists and others increasingly turn to apps as the de facto outlet for political speech and discussion, what, if any, are Apple’s responsibilities? And does it matter that the content is subject to Apple’s seal of approval?The company still seems to be working out this issue for itself, said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard.“I think it’s evidence that Apple hasn’t made up its mind yet on how it…

 The seduction of British intelligenceThe torture scandal shows how easily our intelligence services were led astray by US promises of an influence 'upgrade' Crispin Black guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 March 2010 13.01 GMT Article historyIn a lecture this week, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller criticised George Bush and his administration for torture of terror suspects. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty ImagesVikram Dodd's elegant destruction of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's evasions over the torture by US intelligence of terrorist suspects should be the last word on whether our spooks knew about it or not. But there is another nagging question that is more difficult to answer and in a way more disturbing. Why did our senior intelligence officials not take a firmer stand? Could they not anticipate the damage it would do to the reputation of the intelligence services, particularly among our large Muslim minority? Keeping their loyalty, I would assume, is the key aim of our counter-terror strategy.It is especially odd given that the formative years of just about every top official at Albert Embankment were spent pursuing the IRA – within the law and under a strict set of political riding instructions. It was a cardinal principle of both intelligence and military operations that the key to neutering the IRA was to undermine support for its message and methods among potential future sympathisers. That is part of the reason why IRA suspects were treated just like any other suspected criminals and subject only to routine police questioning. Most remained silent. However, in the long term our subtle approach worked enhancing the flow of actionable intelligence.Ironically, the intelligence relationship with the Americans so dominant in every other sphere played very little part in helping us. The 1992 film Patriot Games, in which CIA analyst Jack Ryan (played by Harrison Ford) takes on the IRA, is pure fantasy.Ted Kennedy's view that the British were colonial oppressors in Northern Ireland ruled the roost in Washington. But at least this allowed us to deal with the problem using our own analysis and judgment. All this appears to have counted for nothing as the penny began to drop with MI5 in 2002 that the US-led war on terror was as much about old-fashioned vengeance as prevention.To understand why seasoned British counter-terror professionals allowed so much experience to be negated so quickly, you have to understand the seductive power of the intelligence alliance with the Americans. It's not that our spooks are dazzled by their competence or particularly impressed by their vast resources. In private many are dismissive of both American intelligence practice and American culture – indeed Manningham-Buller was pretty rude about both in her lecture. Many of them despised George Bush and the shine is off Barack Obama particularly since his administration equivocated over the Falklands.But the Americans offer something that…

 Payton’s Winding Path "After Payton was hired by the Saints in 2006, he stood in front of his team before the season. He said many of their stories mirrored his, that their locker room was full of the unwanted and underrated, the unlikely and unloved. He told the Saints they would contend for a championship and they insisted that they believed him."Payton, not Peyton