1) White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News... Obama/Anti Free Press
2) White House: Obama Not Demanding Government-Run Health Insurance Option... Obama Lies/Politics
3) New Gas Extraction Technology Could Rescue the World... Oil/Energy Independance
4) Sheriff: Media Outlet May Be In On Balloon Hoax... Media Corruption/Hoax
5) Easy-money mortgages still provided, by the feds... Liberals/Housing Bust/Economy
6) Top White House Official Says Obama Team 'Controlled' Media Coverage During Campaign... Democrats/Media Bias
7) Florida plan advises hospitals to bar some patients in event of severe flu pandemic... Healthcare/Rationing
8) Harvard’s Bet on Interest Rate Rise Cost $500 Million to Exit... Liberal/Economics
9) Sotomayor Says White House Even Picked Out Her Clothes... Liberals/Image



1) White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News... Obama/Anti Free Press
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-escalates-war-fox-news-1925819282/

October 19, 2009
Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.

Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."

Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits."

But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments.

So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels.

The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.

Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."

Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree."

David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest."

"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate.

"What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett."

Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers."

"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy."

Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off."

"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon."

Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling."

"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year."

He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."










2) White House: Obama Not Demanding Government-Run Health Insurance Option... Obama Lies/Politics
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-obama-demanding-government-run-health-insurance-option/

October 19, 2009
Lawmakers are trying to blend five versions of health care legislation into something that will pass Congress. But the House and Senate are deeply at odds over the so-called 'public option.'

As White House aides said President Obama will not demand a government-run option be part of his sweeping health care overhaul bill, top Democrats refused to back down from their steadfast support of the so-called "public option" on Sunday.

The war of words underscored the intraparty rift over the necessity of the plan in the final legislation.

In an interview Sunday with NBC's "Meet the Press," senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Obama believes the public plan is still the "best possible choice," but she said he's not demanding it be included in the final legislation. The president's top adviser, David Axelrod, also downplayed the importance of a government-run insurance option, saying Senate opposition in both parties means "we have to work through these issues."

"The president has very consistently and clearly articulated his support for a public option," Axelrod said in an interview with ABC's "This Week."

But, Alexod added, "that doesn't mean that we -- we halt the process. There are people in the Senate -- Republicans and Democrats -- who have objections to that. We have to work through these issues, and we're going to do that."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who is deeply involved with congressional Democrats in trying to merge the various committee proposals, also appeared to set aside the public option. "It's not the defining piece of health care. It's whether we achieve both cost control, coverage as well as the choice," Emanuel told CNN's "State of the Union."

But some top Democrats, like Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said they're not backing down from a public option, which they argue is essential in achieving Obama's pledge to extend insurance to the millions of uninsured.

"I haven't given up on this," Dodd said in an interview Sunday with NBC's "Meet the Press."

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., also said he's still fighting for a public option to compete with private insurance companies -- and thinks the idea is gaining momentum.

"I'm not prepared to recede at all. I think the public option is gaining momentum," he told "Fox News Sunday." "I'm going to continue to fight for the robust public option."

And Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said he won't rule out supporting a government-run insurance plan as long as it is not tied to Medicare reimbursements.

"I will not support any public option tied to Medicare levels of reimbursement. My state has the second to third lowest level of Medicare reimbursement in the country. That would work an extreme hardship on my state. So I will not support that," Conrad said on "Fox News Sunday."

The White House and lawmakers are trying to blend five House and Senate committee versions of health care legislation into a bill that will pass both chambers, where near unanimous Republic opposition was expected.

House Democrats are insisting that there be a government option in competition with the private insurance industry to drive down the cost of coverage. In the Senate, Republicans and some Democrats oppose the measure, meaning inclusion of the public option would foreclose winning the 60 votes needed to advance a bill.

The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 last week to send its version of reform legislation to the Senate floor, becoming the last of the five panels to act on the legislation and marking the biggest advance so far toward health care reform.

The committee's version of the bill does not contain a government-run health insurance plan or require employers to offer insurance to their employees. But the bill created in July by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions includes the two fundamental provisions that the finance committee legislation does not -- and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be forced to meld the two bills into one for the full Senate to consider.

Reid has said a public option is essential to reform, and other leading Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have stressed its importance in expanding coverage to the millions of uninsured.

"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents three weeks ago. "I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us."












3) New Gas Extraction Technology Could Rescue the World... Oil/Energy Independance
http://www.newmediajournal.us/science_tech/10132009.htm

Engineers have performed their magic once again. The world is not going to run short of energy as soon as feared.

America is not going to bleed its wealth importing fuel. Russia's grip on Europe's gas will weaken. Improvident Britain may avoid paralyzing blackouts by mid-decade after all.

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, said proven natural gas reserves around the world have risen to 1.2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent, enough for 60 years' supply – and rising fast.

"There has been a revolution in the gas fields of North America. Reserve estimates are rising sharply as technology unlocks unconventional resources," he said.

This is almost unknown to the public, despite the efforts of Nick Grealy at "No Hot Air" who has been arguing for some time that Britain's shale reserves could replace declining North Sea output.

Rune Bjornson from Norway's StatoilHydro said exploitable reserves are much greater than supposed just three years ago and may meet global gas needs for generations.

"The common wisdom was that unconventional gas was too difficult, too expensive and too demanding," he said, according to Petroleum Economist. "This has changed. If we ever doubted that gas was the fuel of the future – in many ways there's the answer."

The breakthrough has been to combine 3-D seismic imaging with new technologies to free "tight gas" by smashing rocks, known as hydro-fracturing or "fracking" in the trade.

The US is leading the charge. Operations in Pennsylvania and Texas have already been sufficient to cut US imports of liquefied natural gas (LGN) from Trinidad and Qatar to almost nil, with knock-on effects for the global gas market – and crude oil. It is one reason why spot prices for some LNG deliveries have dropped to 50pc of pipeline contracts.














4) Sheriff: Media Outlet May Be In On Balloon Hoax... Media Corruption/Hoax
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,568463,00.html

October 19, 2009
FORT COLLINS, Colorado — The story that a little boy had floated away in a giant helium balloon was a hoax concocted to land a reality television show, authorities said, and the boy's parents will likely face felony charges.

The stunt two weeks in the planning was a marketing ploy by Richard and Mayumi Heene, who met in acting school in Hollywood and have appeared on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said Sunday. The Heenes have reportedly been working on a reality TV deal in Los Angeles.

Investigators are examining the possibility of other conspirators, "including the possibility that even some of the media outlets may have had some knowledge about this," Alderden said.

Documents show that a media outlet has agreed to pay money to the Heenes with regard to the balloon incident, Alderden said. He didn't name the media outlet, but said it was a show that blurs "the line between entertainment and news." It wasn't clear whether the deal was signed before or after the alleged hoax, or whether that media outlet was a possible conspirator.

Alderden did not name an outlet or provide any details.

"Let's call it (my statement) short of speculation that a media outlet was in on the hoax, but let's not discount the possibility," he said.

Six-year-old Falcon Heene may not have even been hiding in the rafters of the family's garage during the intense five-hour search for him Thursday, Alderden said.

"For all we know he may have been two blocks down the road playing on the swing in the city park," the sheriff said.

Alderden also said investigators want to talk to Robert Thomas, a Denver man who claimed Heene had told him he was planning a media stunt to promote a proposed reality show. Thomas, a self-described researcher, sold his story to the Web site Gawker.com, which billed it with the headline: "Exclusive: I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax."

Web site editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder confirmed that the site paid Thomas for his story but declined to say how much it paid him. In an e-mail Sunday to The Associated Press, Snyder said editors there had not contacted the Heene family or offered them money for their story, referring to Alderden's reference to a deal being struck by a media outlet.

"No, that wasn't us," Snyder said.

Snyder said Thomas, 25, was planning to meet with investigators Sunday night, though sheriff's officials didn't return messages seeking confirmation.

Messages left for Thomas by the AP were also not returned.

In a statement, Gawker.com described how Thomas told them the hoax was part of Heene's plan to shop a proposed reality series billed as "Mythbusters-meets-mad scientist." Thomas told the site that the plan called for releasing a flying-saucer shaped balloon to garner attention for the Heene family, the proposed show and UFOs.

Thomas said in his Gawker.com story that the plan he knew about did not involve the Heenes' children.

Thursday's stunt temporarily shut down Denver International Airport and caused the National Guard to scramble two helicopters in an attempt to rescue the boy, who was believed to be inside the flying-saucer shaped homemade balloon that hurtled more than 50 miles across two counties.

The drama played out on live television to millions of viewers worldwide. When the balloon landed without the boy in it, officials thought he had fallen out and began grim search for his body.

In fact, the balloon — which was held together with duct tape — would not have been able to launch with the 37-pound(17-kilogram)-boy inside, Colorado State University physics professor Brian Jones has determined.

The parents weren't under arrest, the sheriff said. He said he expected to recommend charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant. Federal charges were also possible.

The most serious charges are felonies and carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Alderden said they would be seeking restitution for the costs, though he didn't have an estimate.

The cost for just the two military helicopters was about $14,500.

Richard and Mayumi Heene were shopping for snacks at Wal-Mart with their three sons as Alderden told reporters that the whole thing was a hoax.

Richard Heene told The Associated Press he was "seeking counsel."

"This thing has become so convoluted," Heene said as tears welled in his eyes. He said his wife was holding together better than he was.

The couple's attorney, David Lane, issued a statement later Sunday saying the Heenes were willing to voluntarily turn themselves in to face charges. Lane said he advised the family against making public statements.

The sheriff said all three of the Heenes' sons knew of the hoax, but likely won't face charges because of their ages. The oldest son is 10. One of the boys told investigators he saw his brother get in the balloon's box before it launched.

Heene, 48, a storm chaser and inventor, has described himself as an amateur scientist, but Alderden said Heene has only a high school education. He most recently earned a living by laying tile, the sheriff said.

"He may be nutty, but he's not a professor," Alderden said.

Alderden said that during the drama, the family's actions led them to believe the story was genuine. But during an interview on CNN Thursday night, Alderden said investigators had an "aha" moment when Falcon turned to his dad and said what sounded like "you had said we did this for a show" when asked why he didn't come out of his hiding place.

On Friday, Falcon got sick during two separate TV interviews when asked again why he hid.

Alderden said they didn't question the family Friday because they wanted to keep the family's cooperation by maintaining the appearance that they believed their story. Richard Heene was asked to stop by the sheriff's office under the pretext that he needed to pick up his balloon, and was questioned once he got there.

With Heene gone, other investigators went to the house. Alderden said they were looking for computers, e-mails, phone records and financial records.

Records show that police have responded to the house at least twice in the past year, including a possible domestic violence incident in February. No charges were filed.

Alderden said officials tried Saturday to persuade Mayumi Heene, 45, to go to a safe house, but she declined.

"We talked to her at length about domestic violence, about her safety, about her children's safety," the sheriff said. "We have a concern, but we didn't have enough that would allow us or child protective services to physically take the kids from that environment."

Alderden said the children were still with the parents Sunday and that child protective services had been contacted to investigate the children's well-being. On "Wife Swap," Heene was portrayed as erratic, at one point throwing a glass of milk on a participant on the program.

"Clearly, from all indications, Mr. Heene has somewhat of a temper," Alderden said.

As to the hoax that could end up with one or both in prison:

"It certainly got big and whether anybody realized it that it would get the type of international media attention, I suspect this is probably beyond what they thought," Alderden said.

The producers of "Wife Swap" in a statement said they had been working with the family on developing a show but weren't anymore. It was unclear whether that proposed show was the same one Robert Thomas said Heene was working on.













5) Easy-money mortgages still provided, by the feds... Liberals/Housing Bust/Economy
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/19/feds-help-feed-new-market-for-easy-mortgages/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_photo_feature

October 19, 2009
After the collapse of much of the private mortgage market last year, Congress and the George W. Bush administration greatly expanded the FHA's original Depression-era program aimed at assisting sales of modestly priced homes by more than doubling the ceiling on loans that the agency can insure to $625,500 while maintaining its loose lending terms - ensuring that nearly any home sale could be covered by the agency.

The FHA's predominance was enhanced further this year when Congress lifted the ceiling to more than $729,000 for major urban areas and passed an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that can be accelerated for borrowers to use as a down payment on FHA loans and avoid any cash commitment to their home purchases.

While these changes were intended to be temporary and expire by the end of the year, given the fragility of the housing and mortgage markets, Congress is considered likely to extend them this fall.

The significant expansion and liberalization of FHA's loan programs is enabling Americans to go back to many of the same bad credit practices that analysts say were at the root of the housing crisis, likely feeding further waves of default and foreclosure. But this time it is the taxpayer - not the banks - who could end up holding the bag.

Whitney Tilson, manager of investment firm T2 Partners LLC and author of "More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times," called "cataclysmic" the surging default rates of more than 30 percent on loans insured since 2006 by the FHA. That is not far below the 40 percent rate of default and foreclosure on the notorious subprime loans that ignited the credit crisis.

"The FHA's portfolio is exploding and the taxpayer is now on the hook for 100 percent of the losses," he said.

"I find it hard to distinguish between the actions of FHA and the self-denominated subprime lenders," said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae who recently testified before a House panel on FHA's growing default problems. "The results are the same - unsustainable loans that prolong and perpetuate our nightmare of foreclosures."

Mr. Pinto estimates that 20 percent of the FHA's entire portfolio of $725 billion mortgages will end up in foreclosure - a rate recently borne out by estimates FHA provided to Congress. He predicts that the agency will require a taxpayer bailout within two to three years.

One reason defaults are soaring is that the agency is attracting nearly all of the business of homebuyers who haven't saved enough to make down payments, he said. Loans with little or no down payments have high rates of default because the borrowers have little financial stake in losing their homes to foreclosure.

The agency requires a minimal 3.5 percent down payment - far below the 20 percent now required by private lenders. That's very little "skin in the game," especially in today's market where the buyer's equity can be quickly wiped out, Mr. Pinto said. Home prices have fallen an average of 30 percent nationwide.

Many borrowers have been able to avoid even that minimal level of personal investment in their homes. The government is enabling these buyers to put up no cash at all by allowing them to get advanced payments of the $8,000 homebuyers tax credit through arrangements with nonprofit housing groups and state housing agencies. The tax credit can be used the same way to pay closing costs.

Beyond the loosened standards on down payments, the FHA remains willing to make loans to people with low credit ratings, even those with histories of default, foreclosure or bankruptcy. Those with histories of default are far more likely to default again.

Even though the number of defaults is escalating, FHA Commissioner David Stevens insists that the $30 billion of insurance reserves will cover any losses and has repeatedly denied that the agency is headed toward a taxpayer bailout. The reserves are replenished by borrowers, who pay the agency yearly premiums of 0.5 percent of the loan and an upfront 1.5 percent payment when their loans close.

But analysts say his optimistic assessment is based on the shaky assumption that the nascent recovery in the housing market will quickly put an end to falling house prices and burgeoning default and foreclosure rates. Many private economists predict that the rates of default will continue to rise even after housing sales recover. They also say home prices may continue to fall for a while longer, leaving increasing numbers of homeowners underwater on their loans and more prone to default.

In another defense of the agency, Mr. Stevens points out that the average credit scores of FHA borrowers has risen in the past year as the disappearance of private home loans sent buyers flocking to the program. But the deep recession also is causing increasing defaults among people with better credit, who cite the loss of income because of layoffs or reduced work hours as their principal reason for not being able to make their mortgage payments.

The FHA has a program that will help people who missed two or three payments under such duress by using the insurance fund to make those payments for them and then recouping the money when the property is sold - a provision that has been used in about 400,000 cases so far and could help to bring down the foreclosure rates on loans that go into default as a result of the recession.

The agency recently announced steps to tighten its standards for lenders to counter concerns about rising defaults as well as criticism from the agency's inspector general that its program is riddled with fraud and corruption by lenders. The agency proposed requiring lenders, many of whom were subprime dealers, to assume liability for the loans they make and have a net worth of at least $1.25 million.

The agency also is considering tightening standards for borrowers who pose multiple risks, such as those with histories of default. But while the agency has moved quickly to crack down on lender abuses that likely contributed to high default rates, Adam Sharp, a financial adviser and blogger for BearishNews.com, said it is perplexing that the FHA has not moved to tighten borrowing standards that have emerged as the lowest in the post-crisis mortgage market.

"I suppose responsible lending would spoil the housing recovery," he said. "The FHA has effectively replaced subprime lenders who went bust. They're under pressure to prop up housing prices, and are insuring heaps of risky loans in an effort to do so."

The FHA's backers in Congress, led by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, maintain that high default rates are the price of Congress' decision to use the FHA to prevent a complete collapse of the housing and mortgage markets in a time of extreme distress.

"By keeping affordable loans flowing, particularly to the growing ranks of first-time homebuyers, the FHA has been critical to our nation's economic and housing market recovery," said U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. The FHA is part of HUD.

But even some liberal housing advocates say the FHA's spectacular expansion could be worrisome.

The agency's low downpayment requirement "may be workable under some circumstances, but this practice is likely to run into problems in the context of declining house prices and the most severe downturn since the Great Depression," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

"Furthermore, given the huge ramp up in its lending in a very short period of time, it seems unlikely that the FHA has been able to adequately scrutinize the loans that it is buying."

While any bailout of FHA likely would be small in comparison with the gigantic sums spent bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. Baker said, "the crippling of the FHA as a lender would be another blow to the housing market" and would be "a serious political blow to efforts to ensure access to mortgages for moderate-income families."













6) Top White House Official Says Obama Team 'Controlled' Media Coverage During Campaign... Democrats/Media Bias
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/19/white-house-official-says-obama-team-controlled-media-coverage-campaign/

October 19, 2009


White House Communications Director Anita Dunn is seen in a video from January talking about how the Obama campaign exercised absolute "control" over media coverage.

The Obama campaign's press strategy leading up to his election last November focused on "making" the media cover what the campaign wanted and on exercising absolute "control" over coverage, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told an overseas crowd early this year.

In a video of the event, Dunn is seen describing in detail the media strategy used by then-Sen. Barack Obama's highly disciplined presidential campaign. The video is footage from a Jan. 12 forum hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development in the Dominican Republic.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," Dunn said, admitting that the strategy "did not always make us popular in the press."

The video drew attention after Dunn kicked off a war of words with Fox News last Sunday, calling the network "opinion journalism masquerading as news." The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" in August after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Dunn complained about the fact-checking last Sunday. In the January forum, she provided details about the lengths to which the Obama campaign went to control the media message.

She explained that the campaign favored live interviews so that Obama's words could not be edited -- "so that what the voters heard we determined, as opposed to some editor in a TV station."

She said Campaign Manager David Plouffe put out Web videos so the campaign could avoid talking to reporters and focus the media message.

"Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it," she said. "One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. ... We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it."













7) Florida plan advises hospitals to bar some patients in event of severe flu pandemic... Healthcare/Rationing
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-swine-flu-crisis-propublica-sboct18,0,2336680.story

October 17, 2009


Florida health officials are drawing up guidelines that recommend barring patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals if the state is overwhelmed by flu cases.

The plan, which would guide Florida hospitals on how to ration scarce medical care during a severe flu outbreak, also calls for doctors to remove patients with poor prognoses from ventilators to treat those who have better chances of surviving. That decision would be made by the hospital.

The flu causes severe respiratory illnesses in a small percentage of cases, and patients who need ventilators and are deprived of them could die without the breathing assistance the machines provide.

In June, Florida Surgeon General Ana M. Viamonte Ros sent the draft guidelines — which had already undergone a series of internal revisions — to 16 state medical organizations for their feedback.

But the state has not yet publicized the guidelines or solicited input from the general public. The Florida Department of Health released a copy of the draft plan at the request of ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, which provided it to the Sun Sentinel.

The document addresses one of the most heart-rending issues in medicine: What to do if the number of people in need of ventilators and other treatment dramatically exceeds what is available.

The goal, the plan says, is to focus care on patients whose lives could be saved and who would be most likely to improve. While it says those decisions are not to be made based on patients' perceived social worth or role, the plan calls for different rules for some populations.

The list of conditions that disqualify hospital admission would be applied to most people only in the two most severe levels of a pandemic. However, they would also be applied in the first level ofa pandemic for patients transferred to hospitals from "other institutional facilities," such as nursing homes and mental health facilities.

Florida's planning effort reflects a growing acknowledgment that hospitals across the nation would be unable to cope with the flood of patients that a severe influenza pandemic, like the one that gripped the nation in 1918, would unleash. That resource gap is in the spotlight now, as the country is battered by a second wave of pandemic swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus.

"What we have seen are real stresses, particularly on the emergency departments," Thomas Frieden, commissioner of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference last week.

The H1NI virus is much milder than the 1918 flu, but a small proportion of H1N1 patients, including some who have no risk factors and are young and healthy, develop severe breathing problems requiring mechanical ventilation and life support.

So far, intensive care units in the U.S. haven't been overwhelmed with people needing ventilators.

"That's something that we're tracking closely," Frieden said.

In Winnipeg, Canada, all regional critical care beds were full at the peak of the outbreak last spring, and in Mexico, patients experienced long delays before being admitted to ICUs. Four died before being transferred from the emergency room.

Florida health officials believe that the number of severely ill flu patients will likely remain at a manageable level, provided residents get vaccinated, that they know when to stay home and when to seek medical care (visit myflusafety.com or call 877-352-3581 for information), and that the existing flu strain does not mutate into a more virulent form.

In the case of a much severer scenario, Florida's draft guidelines call for hospitals to turn away anyone whose doctor has signed a "Do Not Resuscitate" order, which instructs rescuers not to revive a patient whose heartbeat or breathing stops.

A recent report from a panel of national experts convened by the Institute of Medicine urged states not to use DNR orders for this purpose, because they reflect preferences about end-of-life planning "more than an accurate estimate of survival."

The Florida plan also calls for intensive care unit patients and those using ventilators to be reassessed after 48 to 72 hours.

Those whose chances of survival have significantly worsened would be taken off the machines or discharged from critical care to make way for others who may have a better chance of survival. If needed, they would be given palliative care to keep them comfortable.

One goal of Florida's plan is to "reduce or eliminate" the legal liability of health care workers who, in good faith, deny or withdraw treatment from some patients in an emergency. The plan includes sample executive orders that the governor could issue to shield workers and authorize hospitals to implement the guidelines.












8) Harvard’s Bet on Interest Rate Rise Cost $500 Million to Exit... Liberal/Economics
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHou7iMlBMN8

Oct. 17, 2009
Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired.

Harvard paid $497.6 million to investment banks during the fiscal year ended June 30 to get out of $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, the school’s annual report said. The university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said it also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps.

The transactions began losing value last year as central banks slashed benchmark lending rates, forcing the university to post collateral with lenders, said Daniel Shore, Harvard’s chief financial officer. Some agreements require that the parties post collateral if there are significant changes in interest rates.

“When we went into the fall, we had some serious liquidity management issues we were dealing with and the collateral postings on the swaps was one,” Shore said in an interview yesterday. “In evaluating our liquidity position, we wanted to get some stability and some safety.”

Harvard sold $2.5 billion in bonds in the fiscal year, in part to pay for the swap exit, even as the school’s endowment recorded its biggest loss in 40 years, the report released yesterday said. This is the first time the university has detailed the cost of exiting its swaps.

Further Pressure

“Substantial losses” in Harvard’s General Operating Account, a pool of cash from which bills are paid, further put pressure on the school, the report said. The net asset value of the account fell to $3.7 billion from $6.6 billion during the fiscal year, according to the report.

Harvard has typically invested a large portion of this operating account alongside the endowment, generating “significant positive investment results,” the report said. This year, the endowment’s losses hurt Harvard’s cash, according to the report.

Swaps are a type of derivative where two parties agree to exchange payments tied to a financing, typically receiving a variable-rate for a fixed-rate payment. The terminated contracts include three tied to $431.7 million of bonds the university sold in 2005 and 2007, the annual report said.

Unwinding Swaps

From New York to San Francisco Bay, tax-exempt issuers have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to unwind bond-and-swap transactions officials initially said would cut borrowing costs. The deals fell apart when municipal-bond insurers, who backed much of the underlying debt, lost their AAA ratings in 2008 and interest rates, instead of climbing, plunged to record lows in the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression.

The swaps are often pegged to Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association lending benchmarks or the three- month dollar London-Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor. Libor closed yesterday at 0.28 percent, from a 10-year high of 6.89 percent on June 1, 2000.

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; Georgetown University in Washington and Rockefeller University in New York have reported losses related to interest-rate swaps, in some cases prompting the schools to pay termination fees to end the contracts.

Lawrence Summers

The annual report provides new details on Harvard’s derivative-related losses. Many were entered into in 2004, said Harvard spokeswoman Christine Heenan. Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, was the university’s president at the time. White House spokesman Matthew Vogel declined to comment.

Harvard Management Co., which administers the endowment, has been run since July 2008 by Jane Mendillo, former chief investment officer of nearby Wellesley College. She took over from Mohamed El-Erian, now chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees the world’s largest bond fund from Newport Beach, California. He succeeded Jack Meyer, who ran it for 15 years, in February 2006.

Harvard’s loss “says that people don’t understand the complexity of the products they are buying and selling and that doesn’t begin and end with mortgage securities,” said Robert Doty, a municipal finance adviser at American Governmental Services in Sacramento, California.

“It shows that with these products that are so highly complex, people are a long way from knowing as much about these products as they think they do,” he said.

Financing Construction

The Harvard swaps involved bonds sold to finance a medical research building, graduate housing, parking and a Center for Government and International Studies, according to reports from Moody’s Investors Service. They were also used to lock in rates for future bond sales for an expansion of the campus across the Charles River in Boston that has since been scaled back.

Harvard had 19 swap contracts with New York-based Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Morgan Stanley; Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. and other large banks, according to a bond-ratings report by Standard & Poor’s released on Jan. 18, 2008.

Harvard paid “a large termination fee, but within the range that we’ve heard about over the last year,” Matt Fabian, the senior analyst and managing director of Municipal Market Advisors in Westport, Connecticut, said in an e-mail. “There is a reason why, regardless of the issuer’s sophistication, there should be limits to their exposure to derivatives and variable rate bonds.”

Harvard has frozen employee salaries, slowed hiring, cut staff and offered other workers early retirement as part of a cost-cutting program to compensate for losses in its endowment. The fund, which dropped to $26 billion in value over the fiscal year from $36.9 billion, paid 38 percent of the school’s bills during that time, the report said.

Alumni Request

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s biggest unit, which includes its undergraduate school, is asking alumni and donors for more funds that can be used immediately and without restrictions to help close a projected $110-million deficit in its 2011 budget, Dean Michael Smith said in a recent speech. Current-use gifts rose 23 percent to $291 million from $237 million in fiscal 2008, the report said.

Harvard might have paid less to escape the swaps if it held out for better terms, Fabian said.

“A lot of issuers don’t have that kind of cash, and so they waited, and relied on their dealers’ patience and largesse to hold off terminating,” Fabian said. “If Harvard had waited, the cost of terminating may well have been lower, but they weren’t willing to take that risk.”













9) Sotomayor Says White House Even Picked Out Her Clothes... Liberals/Image
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/politics/Justice-Sotomayor-says-White-House-Left-Nothing-to-Chance-64724512.html

Oct 19, 2009
The newest Supreme Court member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, poses with her colleagues at the Supreme Court in Washington.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination process was so controlled that the White House even approved her clothes, she told Yalies when she appeared at her 30th Yale Law School reunion on Saturday.

Sotomayor described her grueling nomination process privately when she spoke to 1,800 alumni, students and faculty, the New Haven Register reports.

State Sen. Ed Meyer attended the event and said Sotomayor became teary at times, but kept the crowd laughing.

The Yale Law School grad talked about shopping for clothes to wear to her acceptance ceremony, but government officials took over the fashion decisions. They told her to bring five suits and then recommended which one she should wear, Meyer said.