Reality High

Oil Executives & the Bush Administration: Links & Investigations

(1)A White House document shows oil executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force which critics say secretly formed energy policy favorable to the industry, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The document, obtained this week by the newspaper, shows that officials from four major oil companies met in the White House complex with Cheney aides who were formulating the Bush administration's energy policy, the report said. The newspaper said the document shows that officials from Exxon MobilCorp. , Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met with the Cheney aides.

(2)When Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., asked last week during a hearing on oil industry profits whether any of the companies' representatives had participated in the task force, four of the executives said they did not and the fifth said he did not know. The oil executives weren't put under oath at the hearing, but it is still a crime to lie to Congress, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss. Lautenberg wants the Justice Department to look into it. "It's bad enough to hide the truth to the American people, but it's illegal to make false statements to the Congress, whether you've raised your right hand or you haven't," Lautenberg said.

Here's the deal: the oil companies were there to answer questions about recent prces, especially after Katrina, and suddenly with this leaked information, this story as gotten legs. As a New deal Democrat, the whole situation strikes me as one of the greatest bell-wethers of what's to come. This is the test of wether America is once again home to the Robber-Barons, and this time they're not building libraries. Sources: (1)Oil execs met Cheney task force: WP - ABC News, November 16 (2)Congress To Oil Execs: Clarify - CBS news, November 17

Polling vs. Voting in Ohio: Something's gotta give.

In this past election, Ohio had several different measures on the ballots including several different rules that would effect the voting rules in that sate. All measures about voting failed however a critical financial matter also on the ballot passed. Here's where it gets interesting: All of the measures were going to pass based on polling before the vote. The numbers on the first measure were as close as anyone could hope for:

(1)A poll run on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday, November 6, showed Issue One passing with 53% of the vote. Official tallies showed Issue One passing with 54% of the vote. The polling used by the Dispatch had wrapped up the Thursday before the Tuesday election. Its precision on Issue One was consistent with the Dispatch's historic polling abilities, which have been uncannily accurate for decades. This poll was based on 1872 registered Ohio voters, with a margin of error at plus/minus 2.5 percentage points and a 95% confidence interval. The Issue One outcome would appear to confirm the Dispatch polling operation as the state's gold standard.

Ok, so we know that the poll was dead on when it came to the first measure, but here's where it gets interesting...

(2)ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting) PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits) PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No ISSUE 4 (Ind. Comm. to draw Congressional Districts) PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No ISSUE 5 (Ind. Board instead of Sec. of State to oversee elections) PRE-POLLING: 41% Yes, 43% No, 16% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 29% Yes, 70% No

Issue Five is the really important ones because it goes right after the person charged with running the voting, the Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. And things only get better from there. Everyone in Ohio voted on electronic voting machines brought in by Blackwell. These have many problems in the past and look like they have continued to have issues as seen in the other article linked below about Lucas County. While I haven't put foreword any views on these yet, from what I know about them, they are unstable, unreliable, and easy to tamper with. Also, a paper trail is not a suitable solution to the problems. I'll try to hit on all that in the future. Something's goota give. Who was right? The polls or the election machines? For that matter, when these two started diverging, why did all the networks running the exit polls say, "Oops, we must have been wrong." What we need is to be able to step back and say, waitaminute, something's wrong here. If the networks really want a scoop here it is. Get your crews exit polling in 2006. Sources: (1)Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? - Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, November 11 (2)The Staggeringly Impossible Results of Ohio's '05 Election - Huffington Post, November 13 (3)State plans to investigate voting chaos; Tuesday's problems are latest for Lucas County - Toledo Blade, November 10

The GAO Report on the FDA's Plan B Rejection

So there's been real news on Plan B which I discussed breifly last week and it comes in the form of a GAO report on how the FDA decided not to approve Plan B for over the counter use. The following comes from the report abstract which you can reach here.

GAO was asked to examine (1) how the decision was made to not approve the switch of Plan B from prescription to OTC, (2) how the Plan B decision compares to the decisions for other proposed prescription-to-OTC switches from 1994 through 2004, and (3) whether there are age-related marketing restrictions for prescription Plan B and other prescription and OTC contraceptives. To conduct this review, GAO examined FDA's actions prior to the May 6, 2004, not-approvable letter for the initial application.

While FDA followed its general procedures for considering the application, four aspects of FDA's review process were unusual. First, the directors of the offices that reviewed the application, who would normally have been responsible for signing the Plan B action letter, disagreed with the decision and did not sign the not-approvable letter for Plan B. The Director of the Office of New Drugs also disagreed and did not sign the letter. Second, FDA's high-level management was more involved in the review of Plan B than in those of other OTC switch applications. Third, there are conflicting accounts of whether the decision to not approve the application was made before the reviews were completed. Fourth, the rationale for the Acting Director's decision was novel and did not follow FDA's traditional practices.

The third count is the one that has really come to life as several people have said that the decision to reject the OTC (over the counter) use of Plan B may have been made before the scientific information (the information that the FDA is suposed to make its decision on) had come in. Sources: Report Abstract GAO - November 14 Decision Process to Deny Initial Application for Over-the-Counter Marketing of the Emergency Contraceptive Drug Plan B Was Unusual GAO - November 1

Thank you Senator Rockefeller

Thank you, Senator Rockefeller, for two very important things. Thank you for saying that you would not have voted for this war if you knew what you know now. Also thank you for explaining simply why the closed session was necessary.

(1)BLITZER: Senator Rockefeller, you were among those who voted to give the president the authority to go to war. And you made some very strong statements in advance of the war suggesting that the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein had all sorts of weapons of mass destruction. Let me play this soundbite from what you said on the Senate floor October 10, 2002. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROCKEFELLER: There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress that Saddam Hussein has been able to make in the development of weapons of mass destruction. (END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: You want to revise and amend those words, Senator? ROCKEFELLER: Of course. I mean, I was dead flat wrong. And as soon as we -- since I'm on the Intelligence Committee, and as soon as we did our report on weapons of mass destruction or before we completed it, I realized that I had just been living off this information, this false information, intelligence. We blasted the folks who created the intelligence. And I went down to the floor of the Senate and I said, look, I'm wrong. I would never vote for a war knowing what I know now. But the point also is, Blitz, that the Senate of the United States doesn't take us to war. It is the president of the United States that takes us to war. It is the president of the United States that takes us to war. It's the vice president of the United States that takes us to war. That's where the whole theory that within several days of 9/11 in New York City, that the president, the vice president, and Donald Rumsfeld were already thinking not just about getting into Afghanistan, which was the right thing to do, but also declaring war on Iraq. And that taking place within a week after the end of the happening of 9/11. BLITZER: Senator Rockefeller, here is how The Wall Street Journal summed it up on Thursday in an editorial. "The scandal here isn't what happened before the war. The scandal is that the same Democrats who saw the same intelligence that Mr. Bush saw, who drew the same conclusion, and who voted to go to war are now using the difficulties we've encountered in that conflict as an excuse to rewrite history." What do you say about that? ROCKEFELLER: No. We're not trying to rewrite history. We're trying to figure out what history actually was. We did that with the weapons of mass destruction. And Senator Allen knows as well as I do that probably the only weapons of mass destruction left over were those that were used in the ten-year war of Iraq against Iran prior to 1990. But, the point was that we have waited now 20 months to go into this so-called phase two. Not just the collection of intelligence, but the use or the misuse of intelligence by the executive branch or anybody else. And that is what we have been trying to get at. We have been denied the opportunity to even conduct a phase two discussion. That is why we shut down the Senate floor, closed it off. And in two hours we have accomplished more than we had in 20 months.

My Emphasis added. Sources: Interview With Senators Rockefeller, Allen; Interview With British Defense Secretary John Reid - CNN, November 6

Sex, Drugs, and Politics: Plan B and HPV Vaccine

Welcome to the Bush administration where progess is bad. This may just be because they've branded "Progressives" as bad. In a related note, a concervitave friend of mine refered to himself as a "Progressivbe Republican." Man, that's something I'd ike to hear more often. But, back to the title line. There are two very big things going on in sexual medication right now and it's not a new ED drug. The first is how the FDA has been handling Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, which is trying to be approved for over the counter use. This Emergency Contraception Timeline takes you from July 1999 to September 2005 and is the most complete that I could find. Of particular interest are the following:

(1)December 16, 2003: FDA’s own independent panel of scientific experts votes 23 to 4 to recommend Plan B be made available over-the-counter, with no age restriction. The panel also voted unanimously that Plan B is safe for nonprescription use. January 21, 2005: FDA fails to issue a decision on the Plan B application by the deadline imposed under the federal law governing performance standards for drug approvals. August 26, 2005: Crawford [FDA Commisioner] announces that because of the unique regulatory issues in having the same product sold over-the-counter for one age group and by prescription for another, a public comment period is needed.

That public comment period ended this past Tuesday. The FDA received over 10,000 responses. The current proposal is for the drug to be sold only to those 17 and up over the counter and with a perscription for those aged 16 and under. The drug must be ingested within 72 hrs of unprotected sex and so access is critical. Someties waiting to get a perscription may be waiting too long. So what are the arguments against offering plan B?

(2)The method has become embroiled in the politics of abortion because, while it usually prevents ovulation or fertilization, it may also work after conception, by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting. Social conservatives also argue that making Plan B available over the counter would enable statutory rapists to cover up their abuse, expose women to medical problems, and encourage promiscuity and risky sexual behavior, especially by teenagers.

Without going into the abstinance only education debate, let me say that I believe that there are enough STDs and consequences to having unprotected sex without having to worry about pregnancy. That brings us to the new HPV Vaccine. The human papilloma virus, specifically those types which cause genital warts, have been directly linked to cervical cancer.

(3)Clinical trials for vaccines against the human papilloma virus (HPV), strains of which cause cervical cancer and genital warts in women, show that the medication is nearly 100 percent effective, according to recent company reports and studies published in two leading journals, Nature and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Two separate vaccines are being developed by pharmaceutical giants Merck and GlaxoSmithKline. Cervical cancer afflicts nearly 10,000 women each year, killing 4,000. .... Most public health experts recommend that the vaccine be given to girls at or prior to puberty to reduce the risk of transmission. Some are even recommending making the vaccine a prerequisite for attending school. But religious and other socially conservative groups oppose such policies, fearing that requiring the vaccinations could inadvertently encourage sexual activity.

There's that same argument papping up again. The effects of this are easily seen. Around 75% of cervical cancers could be prevented by this vaccine, that's 3000 women per year and there are people who would want to stop this in the hopes that they're kids won't have sex until mairage. Franky, it's just not worth giving those lives. With the effectiveness of these vaccines, we have the opportunity to effectively wipe out annother disease the way that we did polio. If you thought that the right wing was only going after homosexual freedom, you've been misguided. They're going after heterosexual rights too. Sources: (1) Emergency Contraception Timeline - Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, September 9 (2)Critics' focus on morning-after pill may spur use - Miami Herald, November 2 (3)Cervical Cancer Vaccine Raises ‘Promiscuity’ Controversy - The New Standard, Nov 2 (4)A Vaccine to Wipe Out Cervical Cancer - ABC News, Nov 1 (5)Plan B (0.75mg levonorgestrel) Tablets Information - FDA.gov, August 31

Senate "Hijacking": Rule 21

(1)Frist said Democrats had "hijacked" the Senate, and Democrats threatened to close the chamber each day until Republicans agreed to move forward with the investigation. "This is an affront to me personally," said Frist, a Tennessee Republican. "This is an affront to our leadership. It is an affront to the United States of America, and it is wrong."

The first thing that you need to know is that you can't hijack a body using its own rules. This should be obvious. Sorry Frist, no dice. While Frist was wrong about that one, Frist was right about the next point, this is an affront to his leadership. This totally undermines his leadership - tough. The Senate isn't like the House in many ways, and one is that it's agenda is not set by the majority leader the way that it is in the House. Finally, Frist is back to wrong when he says that this is an affront to the USA and is wrong. The minority party was meant to have a voice in the Senate and it is credit to this country when they do. So what exactly is rule 21? Why don't I hear much about it? Well, here it is:

(2)Standing Rules of The Senate RULE XXI SESSION WITH CLOSED DOORS 1. On a motion made and seconded to close the doors of the Senate, on the discussion of any business which may, in the opinion of a Senator, require secrecy, the Presiding Officer shall direct the galleries to be cleared; and during the discussion of such motion the doors shall remain closed. 2. When the Senate meets in closed session, any applicable provisions of rules XXIX and XXXI, including the confidentiality of information shall apply to any information and to the conduct of any debate transacted.

Well the first reason that there isn't much to say about rule 21 is that there's not much to it. The second reason is clause 2, which states that everything that goes on under the cover of rule 21 is off limits to discussion outside of the Senate. Most people are calling this a "stunt", and you know what, it pretty much is. But this is a stunt pulled with the best of intentions. The Democrats did not feel that the investigation currently underway in the Senate which was gathered to look at how the administration used prewar intelligence was not going foreword. This is directly tied into the CIA Leak investigation and after the headlines were stolen by the nomination of Judge Alito. This "stunt" brings the focus back onto the case for war. It's great that the Dems showed some spine. I'm not sure when the last time that I heard "democratic leadership" and "Senate" in the same sentence but even if the President is proved to have purposefully misled people, the Senators are still saying that they would have signed the authorization form. It's about time for them to really step up to the plate and offer a real opposition party. Sources: (1) Roberts blasts closed session 'stunt' CNN - November 2 (2) Senate Rule 21 - Senate.gov

Year One

Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of this blog. Wow, It has been 365 days, 75 posts, 5 political cartoons, and most recently, a podcast. In the past year this blog tackled two major stories. The first was the Andrea Stewart Cousins / Nicholas Spano race. The second being the president's Social Security Privitization plan. I tried to countered the president's 60 stop tour with a 20 stop tour of my own, but only managed to make it to 15. And also took on the President's claims about certain quotes from FDR which actually put me somewhere I never expected to be: # 3 on a google search for "fdr quotes". After the social security plan fizzled out, I sort of lost my way here, but as election day rolls around, I realized that I was coming up on the one year mark. I have given quite a bit of thought to shutting the blog down entirely. Given that I now do the radio show, I stopped using this as an outlet, but increasingly, I find that I want to look deeper into things, take a look at issues from multiple sides, and most importantly, go back to the very basic documents and sources that all the talk comes from. I watched the documentary "Left of the Dial" again today and immediately remembered why I started this blog. I remembered the helplessness that was eventually empowering. I will tell you now that I am planning to continue my work here on this blog. I am quite proud of what I have done with some issues, and there is certainly more to do. Late tomorrow I'll reveal the next stories that I'll be focusing on. Thanks to everyone who reads and refers. Year one in the bag, year two coming up.

Take it to the Air (The Burn Ward)

One of my recent interests has been radio. Recent being within the past year and while I have tried not to spill my life and hobbies into this blog, this is different - there's a relevant point here. WITR, RIT's radio station has allowed be to become a member of one of the most exciting talk shows in the area. The Burn Ward is live on air and streaming internet Thursdays at 8pm EST. Last week was my first on with a regular spot and I've started a podcast of the burn ward for your listening pleasure. I'm looking into wether or not I have the bandwidth to put this into the iTunes directory, but for now, those of you who use clients such as iPodder can use the following address to get the Burn Ward weekly: http://www.rhcomic.com/audio/burnward/burnward.xml . It will be updated during the day Friday. Enjoy. Comming later this week I'll post info on how to listen live and call in or IM the hosts on air.

Away

Reality High will continue to be down for the remainder of the summer. Updates will resume in September.

July 4th

Happy July 4th. While you celebrate today at picnics, BBQs, and fireworks, I hope that everyone will celebrate not only those who fought so long ago but also those who are fighting today. In my opinion, there is no better way to support our troops than to go to Operation Truth and get your facts on their situation from them. The most immediate issue facing out veterans is a shortfall in the the VA budget. The bill to make up for these deficits is different in both the House and Senate. The Senate has approved $500 million more than the House bill. The two bills will be reconciled after the holiday and Op Truth is asking people to support the Senate version (1). Sources: (1)House and Senate Disagree Over Veterans' Affairs Funding Op Truth - July 1