http://thisishell.net

The Nine Circles of Hell! – all the news that gives you fits in print – for Monday, August 2, are:

Republicans backing plan to privatize Medicare, Social Security

Insurers profit while beneficiaries are given unusable checks

Under scrutiny for missing past scandals, SEC investigating BP

Obama’s order to limit dispersant, “meaningless paperwork exercise”

US firms linked to financing Palestinian leader’s assassination

Kuwait’s migrant workers unpaid, threatened, abused

In Iraq, “democracy didn’t bring us anything”

Pakistani government non-response to flood could aid Taliban

FBI watched non-criminal Howard Zinn for 25 years

Republicans backing plan to privatize Medicare, Social Security
The New York Times
(8/2/10)

Congressman Has a Plan, but G.O.P. Is Wary

Still early on a recent weekday morning, the mostly elderly crowd that half-filled a hall in this small town looked like it might be thinking about another cup of coffee. But Representative Paul D. Ryan, the rangy Republican who represents this southern Wisconsin district, was in full PowerPoint roll, gesturing and barking out, in staccato tones, why the nation must make major changes to Social Security and Medicare.

“The question is, Could this happen here?” Mr. Ryan said, as an image of a burning street from the recent riots in Greece flashed on a screen behind him.

“Do you want this welfare state, which puts us down this tipping point, advances this culture of dependency, moves us away from the America idea towards more of a western European social democracy welfare state? Do you want that which invites a debt crisis? Or the alternative party is offering you an opportunity society on top of a safety net where we reclaim these ideals and principles that founded this country? That’s what we owe you. And if we get back in office and we shrink from that challenge, shame on us.”

In this highly charged election season with both houses of Congress potentially at stake, not a lot of politicians are lining up publicly behind Mr. Ryan. He is, nonetheless, suddenly a rising star in some corners. And like many politicians whose ideas were once considered extreme, only to later be mainstream — like Ronald Reagan — Mr. Ryan is seen as on the leading edge of something.

Why? His “Roadmap for America’s Future,” an elaborate (critics say drastic) plan that aims to erase the federal debt by 2063, simplify the tax code, and significantly alter (his critics say eviscerate) Medicare and Social Security. When asked to handicap the 2012 Republican presidential field, Sarah Palin called Mr. Ryan “sharp.” Newt Gingrich dubbed him “extraordinarily formidable.” And, in a column, George Will imagined him as vice president to a President Mitch Daniels (now the Republican governor of Indiana).

Mr. Ryan, 40 and the ranking Republican on the House budget committee, has been in Congress 12 years, but it may have been President Obama who gave him and his Roadmap the broadest attention yet. This year, Mr. Obama alluded to the plan as a “serious proposal,” though the White House promptly made it clear that it had problems with its details …

Rep. John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, the minority leader, has praised Mr. Ryan but said the Roadmap would not be a part of the Republican agenda this fall. “There are parts of it that are well done,” Mr. Boehner told reporters last month. “Other parts I have some doubts about, in terms of how good the policy is.”

In fact, only 13 House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, and Republican leaders, hoping for gains in the fall and, ultimately, in 2012, seem concerned at the possibility that the Roadmap may eventually become something candidates will be forced to take a position on. After all, what candidate wants to talk about major changes to Medicare and Social Security?

Even some of Mr. Ryan’s loudest supporters are reluctant to support the Roadmap top to bottom. Mr. Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, lavished praise on Mr. Ryan’s intellect and discipline, but did not go so far as to endorse the Roadmap. “I think it’s a very good starting point,” Mr. Gingrich said. “It’s not a yes-no. When you undertake change on that scale, you have to have a national conversation” …

For people now younger than 55, Medicare would become a voucher program in which they would buy private insurance, and Social Security would allow people to create individual investment accounts paid for with payroll taxes. With both entitlement programs, the age eligibility requirements would gradually go up. Advocates praise the plan as a realistic way to take on the nation’s out-of-control debt and prevent the utter collapse of a Medicare and Social Security program, while critics say it guts those programs and would leave old, vulnerable people fending for themselves. Most political consultants advise steering clear of the whole conversation: messing with Social Security and Medicare, they calculate, never wins votes — something Wisconsin Democrats have instantly homed in on.

“We will be talking about his oddball plan to end Medicare and privatize Social Security,” Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the state Democratic party, said. “Republicans usually do a tap dance around the reality of the Republican fantasy of ending Social Security and Medicare. One thing you can say for him — he really wants to make it the reality.”

Insurers profit while beneficiaries are given unusable checks
The Washington Post
(8/1/10)

Insurers hold billions in federal death benefits in unprotected accounts

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan P. Baumann, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-by-12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial, which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else that looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said.

In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Lohman, 52, left the money untouched for six months after her son’s August 2008 death.

“It’s like you’re paying me off because my child was killed,” she said. “It was a consolation prize that I didn’t want.”

As time went on, she said, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she said, when she went to a Target store to buy a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15.

Lohman, a public health nurse who helps special-needs children, said she had always believed that her son’s life insurance funds were in a bank insured by the FDIC. That money — like $28 billion in 1 million death-benefit accounts managed by insurers — wasn’t actually sitting in a bank.

It was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account, earning investment income for the insurer. Prudential paid survivors such as Lohman 1 percent interest in 2008 on their Alliance Accounts, while it earned a 4.8 percent return on its corporate funds, according to regulatory filings.

“I’m shocked,” Lohman said, breaking into tears as she learned how the Alliance Account works. “It’s a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier. Is there anything lower than that?”

Millions of bereaved Americans have unwittingly been placed in the same position by their insurance companies. The practice of issuing what they call “checkbooks” to survivors, instead of paying them lump sums, extends well beyond the military.

In the past decade, these so-called retained-asset accounts have become standard operating procedure in an industry that touches nearly every American. There are more than 300 million active life insurance policies in the United States, and the industry holds $4.6 trillion in assets, according to the American Council of Life Insurers.

Under scrutiny for missing past scandals, SEC investigating BP
Reuters
(8/2/10)

SEC probes BP potential insider trading: sources

U.S. securities regulators are investigating whether people may have illegally profited from trading on nonpublic information at BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) in the weeks and months following the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, two sources familiar with the investigation said on Monday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating whether BP properly disclosed information on risks related to its deepwater oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the sources said.

For roughly two months after an explosion sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, BP’s stock price dropped steadily and the company’s value fell by half.

The SEC probe is one of a number of investigations of the company and others tied to the spill. Congressional committees and a presidentially appointed panel are probing various aspects of the spill. The Justice Department is looking at potential civil and criminal violations of federal environmental laws.

The sources cautioned that the investigation is preliminary and requested anonymity because they have not been authorized to speak publicly about the matter …

After coming under harsh criticism for having missed major investment scandals in the last years, the SEC is acting significantly more aggressively.

Last week, the regulator accused septuagenarian brothers Samuel and Charles Wyly of earning millions by trading on nonpublic information.

The SEC also took a bold move against Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and earlier this year charged the bank with civil fraud in connection with a subprime mortgage product. Goldman subsequently settled with the SEC.

“Clearly this means that the current crew (at the SEC) is taking a more aggressive stance,” said Richard Sauer, a former administrator in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division.

Obama’s order to limit dispersant, “meaningless paperwork exercise”
The Washington Post
(8/1/10)

Documents indicate heavy use of dispersants in gulf oil spill

While the BP well was still gushing, the Obama administration issued an order that limited the spreading of controversial dispersant chemicals on the Gulf of Mexico’s surface. Their use, officials said, should be restricted to “rare cases.”

But in reality, federal documents show, the use of dispersants wasn’t rare at all.

Despite the order — and concerns about the environmental effects of the dispersants — the Coast Guard granted requests to use them 74 times over 54 days, and to use them on the surface and deep underwater at the well site. The Coast Guard approved every request submitted by BP or local Coast Guard commanders in Houma, La., although in some cases it reduced the amount of the chemicals they could use, according to an analysis of the documents prepared by the office of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

The documents indicate that “these exemptions are in no way a ‘rare’ occurrence, and have allowed surface application of the dispersant to occur virtually every day since the directive was issued,” Markey wrote in a letter dated Aug. 1 to retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen, the government’s point man on the spill. Markey chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Some of them dealt with separate dispersant applications on the same day. Markey said it appeared that the order “has become more of a meaningless paperwork exercise” than a real attempt to curb use of the dispersants.

US firms linked to financing Palestinian leader’s assassination
The Wall Street Journal
(7/31/10)

Hamas Probe Leads to American Firms

American investigators, cooperating in a probe of the January assassination of a top Palestinian leader in Dubai, have identified a handful of U.S.-based companies believed to have been used to transfer money to suspects in the case, a finding that brings international authorities closer to identifying who funded the operation.

The findings show American authorities playing a bigger role in the investigation than previously revealed. The case is especially delicate for the U.S., because Dubai police have said their prime suspect in the case is Mossad, the intelligence service of Israel, a key U.S. ally.

International investigators see money transfers made through the U.S. companies as key clues in a globe-spanning manhunt aimed at identifying more than two dozen suspects in the case, according to officials familiar with the matter.

The U.S. companies identified by investigators include Internet-based businesses that match freelance job-seekers with employers and process payments between the two sides. Authorities have identified financial transfers from several of these intermediary businesses into prepaid, cash-card accounts used by suspects in the Dubai killing, according to international investigators.

Kuwait’s migrant workers unpaid, threatened, abused
The New York Times
(8/1/10)

Immigrant Maids Flee Lives of Abuse in Kuwait

With nowhere else to go, dozens of Nepalese maids who fled from their employers now sleep on the floor in the lobby of their embassy here, next to the visitors’ chairs.

In the Philippines Embassy, more than 200 women are packed in a sweltering room, where they sleep on their luggage and pass the time singing along to Filipino crooners on television. So many runaways are sheltering in the Indonesian Embassy that some have left a packed basement and taken over a prayer room.

And in the coming weeks, when Ramadan starts, the number of maids seeking protection is expected to grow, perhaps by the hundreds, straining the capacity of the improvised shelters, embassy officials say. With Kuwaiti families staying up into the early hours of the morning, some maids say they cook more, work longer hours and sleep less.

Rosflor Armada, who is staying in the Philippines Embassy, said that last year during Ramadan, she cooked all day for the evening meal and was allowed to sleep only about two hours a night.

“They said, ‘You will work. You will work.’” She said that she left after her employers demanded that she wash the windows at 3 a.m.

The existence of the shelters reflects a hard reality here: With few legal protections against employers who choose not to pay servants, who push them too hard, or who abuse them, sometimes there is nothing left to do but run. The laws that do exist tend to err on the side of protecting employers, who often pay more than $2,000 upfront to hire the maids from the agencies that bring the women here.

The problems in Kuwait, including a lack of legal protection, are hardly unusual or even regional; this summer, New York became the first state to grant workplace rights to domestic employees in an effort to prevent sexual harassment and other abuses. But human rights groups say the potential for mistreatment is acute in several countries in the Middle East, especially those with large numbers of migrant workers who rely on a sponsorship system that makes employers responsible for the welfare of their workers.

That system is particularly entrenched in Kuwait, where oil riches allow many families to have several servants, human rights advocates say. And conditions for some workers here are bad enough that the United States Department of State in a 2010 report singled out Kuwait, along with 12 other countries, for failing to do enough to prevent human trafficking.

The report noted that migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, but “upon arrival some are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including through such practices as nonpayment of wages, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports.”

The informal shelters here are open secrets and touchy subjects.

Embassy officials are loath to talk about them and generally do not allow visitors, citing concerns about the privacy of the women and a reluctance to antagonize Kuwaiti officials, whose cooperation they need in order to repatriate many of the women. The government runs a shelter for about 50 women, but few domestic workers know about the place, according to their advocates.

In Iraq, “democracy didn’t bring us anything”
The New York Times
(8/1/10)

A Benchmark of Progress, Electrical Grid Fails Iraqis

Ikbal Ali, a bureaucrat in a beaded head scarf, accompanied by a phalanx of police officers, quickly found what she was out looking for in the summer swelter: electricity thieves. Six black cables stretched from a power pole to a row of auto-repair shops, siphoning what few hours of power Iraq’s straining system provides.

The first of three articles examining America’s legacy in Iraq. The subsequent articles will examine the price paid by both Iraqis and Americans, in lost and altered lives.

“Take them all down,” Ms. Ali ordered, sending a worker up in a crane’s bucket to disentangle the connections. A shop owner, Haitham Farhan, responded mockingly, using the words now uttered across Iraq as a curse, “Maku kahraba” — “There is no electricity.”

From the beginning of the war more than seven years ago, the state of electricity has been one of the most closely watched benchmarks of Iraq’s progress, and of the American effort to transform a dictatorship into a democracy.

And yet, as the American combat mission — Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the Pentagon’s argot — officially ends this month, Iraq’s government still struggles to provide one of the most basic services.

Ms. Ali’s campaign against electricity theft — a belated bandage on a broken body — makes starkly clear the mixed legacy that America leaves behind as Iraq begins to truly govern itself, for better and worse.

Iraq now has elections, a functioning, if imperfect, army and an oil industry on the cusp of a potential boom. Yet Baghdad, the capital, had five hours of electricity a day in July.

The chronic power shortages are the result of myriad factors, including war, drought and corruption, but ultimately they reflect a dysfunctional government that remains deadlocked and unresponsive to popular will. That has generated disillusionment and dissent, including protests this summer that, while violent in two cases, were a different measure of Iraq’s new freedoms.

“Democracy didn’t bring us anything,” Mr. Farhan said in his newly darkened shop. Then he corrected himself. “Democracy brought us a can of Coke and a beer.”

The overall legacy of the American invasion today, like that of the war itself, remains a matter of dispute, colored by ideology, politics and faith in democracy’s ultimate ability to take root in the heart of the Arab world.

Even Iraqis suspicious of American motives hoped that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would bring modern, competent governance. Still, the streets are littered with trash, drinking water is polluted, hospitals are bleak and often unsafe, and buildings bombed by the Americans in 2003 or by insurgents since remain ruined shells.

What is clear is that Iraqis’ expectations of a reliable supply of electricity and other services, like their expectations of democracy itself, have exceeded what either Americans or the country’s quarrelling politicians have so far been able to meet.

“Iraqi politicians are killing our optimism,” Hassan Shihab said, complaining about blackouts after Friday Prayer at a mosque in Baquba, northwest of Baghdad. Dictatorship, he added, “was more merciful.”

Pakistani government non-response to flood could aid Taliban
The Associated Press
(8/2/10)

Risk of disease rises amid deadly Pakistan floods

Pakistan dispatched medical teams Monday to the deluged northwest amid fears that cholera could spread after the worst floods in the country’s history.

The disaster has killed as many as 1,500 people so far, the French news agency Agence France Presse reported on Monday. Two million people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the Associated Press.

Residents have railed against the government for failing to provide enough emergency assistance nearly a week after extremely heavy monsoon rains triggered raging floodwaters in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.

The government says it has deployed thousands of rescue workers who have so far saved an estimated 28,000 people and distributed basic food items. The army has also sent some 30,000 troops and dozens of helicopters, but the scale of the disaster is so vast that many residents said it seems like officials are doing nothing. Thousands more people in the province remain trapped by the floodwaters.

The anger of the flood victims poses a danger to the already struggling government, now competing with Islamist movements to deliver aid in a region with strong Taliban influence.

FBI watched non-criminal Howard Zinn for 25 years
Salon.com
(7/30/10)

FBI releases 400-page Howard Zinn file

Surprising no one, the FBI announced today it had tracked the left-wing historian Howard Zinn for 25 years, despite having apparently no evidence that he ever committed a crime.

The bureau released over 400 pages of its file on Zinn, covering 1949 to 1974 — when the bureau says its investigations ended — in response to FOIA requests. Download the documents here. (See anything interesting? Leave a comment or shoot us an e-mail.)

As we often learn with these FBI releases, the bureau expended a remarkable amount of resources tracking the writings and movements of those who were linked to Communists (even by three or four degrees of separation) or who opposed the Vietnam War.

One document (Page 217) records that Zinn, who died in January, participated in a public anti-draft meeting on Boston Common in November 1967. This fact was observed by no less than five special agents of the FBI, whose names are recorded.