Govt agency blows $800K on a conference
* is outraged

Govt contractor can’t account for a billion $ in cash flown into Iraq
* mistakes happen

* is US Congress

If lack of an individual mandate purchase insurance would send plans into a “death spiral”, as the Obama administration and others suggest, why hasn’t that happened in Pennsylvania?

Blue Cross / Blue Shield (still a non-profit here) offers guaranteed issuance individual health insurance polices across the state of Pennsylvania. There are no limitations on coverage of pre-existing conditions. For a 40 year old, non-smoking male, an 80% coverage policy (most diagnostic and preventive care is covered at 100%) with an annual out of pocket maximum roughly in line with ACA requirements the monthly premium is around $400. 100% coverage plans are also available, but cost as much as 50% more.

While this insurance is expensive, and out of reach for many with modest incomes, it is available to all and premium increases in the last decade are comparable to increases to all individual policies nationally.

If the “death spiral” of only only the very sick signing up for individual plans was a real, demonstrable possibility, why hasn’t it happened in Pennsylvania with individual plans available for a decade or longer?

If the lack of a mandate would send the individual insurance market into a “death spiral”, as some critics and the insurance industry suggest, why hasn’t that happened in Pennsylvania?

Here in PA, anyone can purchase an individual (or family) health insurance policy from Blue Cross / Blue Shield. The non-profit even offers some level of community rating, with slightly different rates in several geographic areas. While insurance is expensive, and out of reach for many modest wage earners (a plan covering 80% of health care costs up to an out of pocket max for the year is around $400/month for a 40 year old), the rates haven’t risen substantially faster than health insurance rates for individuals in other states without guaranteed issue.

David,

Not related to this post, but you might want to let your admins know that http://firedoglake.com is popping with a Malware warning when using Google Chrome.

The personhood amendment defeated on a ballot initiative last year was in Mississippi, not Missouri, if that’s what you were referring to, David.

Oh, looks like this won’t effect Mom, since it’s only on people with incomes above $250K/year.

My general feelings, however, are that capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as interest and dividends. It’s all unearned income, or in the case of professional house flipper, income that should often be discouraged.

More than a third of my 83 year old mother’s income is from dividends. The rest is social security ($800/month) and a federal retirement annuity ($500/month). Last year, she made around $30K gross.

Taking dividends isn’t going to hit just the 1%, not by a long shot. It’s going to hit people solidly in the middle class, especially the retired and those near retirement age.

Smart investors don’t try and make a lot from the market on sale of individual stocks (profit from taxed at capital gains rates) as they near retirement. They do invest in stocks that have decent rates of return, typically small to regional sized banks, utilities companies, and REITs (real estate investment trusts).

Given that conventional savings accounts, money markets, and certificates of deposit are effectively paying 0 to 1% interest for years, there’s more than a few people who went the dividends route to get some return on their retirement savings. My mother isn’t one of those, she inherited her stock 20 years ago and has been holding it.

A surtax on dividends is going to hurt, and not the people making bank on the carried interest exemption.

If such a law lead to Christina Aguilera never singing the national anthem again, I could probably support it.

Could do without the unflattering photo and thinly veiled reference to “fembot” at the end of this piece. As someone who heard, read, and saw all the “Hitlery” bullshit during Clinton’s presidency, I don’t like attacking politician’s spouses whether it’s someone I support or oppose.

This afternoon I opted to pay for a full blood panel on my sick cat – $150. I didn’t take the time to shop around to find out if that was a good price or not. From what we can tell, it seems nothing too serious other than an infection which will hopefully respond to antibiotics.

He also got sub-cutaneous fluids, an antibiotic injection, and more oral antibiotics to be taken over 2 weeks.

The thing I was most impressed about was they could run a full blood panel right there in the office in less than 30 minutes. That’s something you can’t get as a human being in this world, unless you’re admitted to a hospital.

The Fannie Mae lobbying / advising / whatever it was is just the tip of the iceberg. The guy has been in politics for 30 years, and therefore is an easy target for a “swift-boating” by any random PAC with untraceable contributions.

How many times did Newt vote to increase taxes? How many times did he change his position on Libya?

Shooting fish in a barrel.

With news that evil Fannie Mae paid Newt $1.6M+ during the housing bubble, I feel it’s safe to say we’ll see his poll numbers dropping in another week or two.

The cycle of new front-runner / challenger to Romney emerging, getting a little bit of media scrutiny, and then dropping continues. Maybe Santorum will get his turn next. Pawlenty would have had his shot at the cycle if he hadn’t dropped out so quickly.

That hasn’t been, and I severely doubt there will be, any serious challenger to Romney’s nomination. Mitt will win NH easily, do “better than expected” in SC, and cream everyone left on the day of the first multi-state primary.

Romney doesn’t need to poll high nationally today to win in a walk. He just needs to win half of the first 10 states. Unlike the Democratic Party, I believe the Republican primaries and caucuses are all “winner take all”. He’ll be the nominee by the ides of March.

The people who are defending a man who clearly put the reputation of himself and the university above the considerations of finding out the truth of McQuearys accusation, and thereby protecting any future victims, had, either knowingly, or unknowingly, empowered and shielded Sandusky, are the ones who need to be ashamed.

If Joe Paterno was involved in covering this up, why didn’t he hang McQueary out to dry in his grand jury testimony? Assuming what you suggest is true, he could have said he didn’t remember. He could have said McQueary told him something but that it wasn’t of a sexual nature.

Paterno testified he told Athletic Director Curley that McQueary reported something sexual. Curley denied being told that by anyone.

I suppose you could suggest Joe Paterno lied in telling enough the truth to cover his own ass. However, that would be pure speculation. The truth is, we don’t know exactly what McQueary testified he told Paterno. We will probably never know unless the grand jury transcript is unsealed. Certainly, we will not know anytime soon.

We do know that soon after the grand jury presentment was accidentally, according to the Attorney General, PSU President Graham Spanier issued a statement of “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz, the two senior officials charged with perjury. Spanier threw Paterno and McQueary under the bus in that moment to the impartial view of anyone who read the presentment.

I think Paterno had a moral responsibility to do more than he did. Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be told someone I’d known for over 40 years did something sexual to a child. I’d like to believe I would have done things differently than Paterno.

That said, I’m happy the Board of Trustees is going to appoint a special committee to investigate what happened at Penn State. I’m significantly less happy the committee is being led by current Trustees. Given they oversee the actions of university administrators, I don’t see how they can be expected to impartial, especially should evidence surface that one or more trustees had knowledge of allegations against Sandusky.

Unlike many commenters, and many more still media pundits, I am not sure what I would do. In the minds of many, the alleged nature of Sandusky’s crimes is not even a passing thought. A presumption of innocence is saved only for those accused of less wicked things than a crime against a child, or less wicked than a sex crime. Many people, including day care workers, members of the Duke Lacrosse team, Dominique Strasse-Kahn, and Anwar Al-Alaki, have been pronounced guilty by media, prosecutors, and governments, and that is apparently good enough.

I understand the media witch hunt and suggestions of guilt by association. I have been surprised to see people of like political mind as me, generally, on twitter, blogs, and sites like FDL join voraciously in the same. While some condemn Joe Paterno and others on less than hearsay (that’s what a presentment is, by the way), but more pure conjecture, the Mayor of Oakland is trying to use an apparently unrelated shooting as rationale for kicking the Occupation out of Oscar Grant Plaza. That anyone can be blind to the equivalence astounds me.

There’s a lesson here for the Obama administration, though. And the Department of Defense, CIA, Homeland Security, and Mayors Quan and Bloomberg. The next time they want to commit an extra-judicial assassination, or send in the shock troops to beat down some hippies, they should simply claim the targets raped children.

Emptywheel has already answered all your questions. She has all the quotes and the whole timeline and who testified to what, based on the grand jury presentment.

Joe Paterno is Crucial Witness Against PSU

I don’t disagree that Joe couldn’t continue to coach at Penn State, because he should have done more. Personally, I think him retiring at the end of the season was enough. That became moot pretty quickly because CNN was going to be camped out in Happy Valley. Assuming no spectacular new revelations or riots this weekend, with Paterno fired and McQueary on permanent leave, CNN will likely be off campus by lunch on Monday.

Fair or not, the university HAD to fire him. I think it was in poor taste to do it over the phone, but you may have your own opinion.

Back in March, the only allegations publicly known were the last victim (originating in Clinton County, the 2005-2008 case), although, Ganim had dug up some things on the closed 1998 investigation at that time, too. Here is that first story, which readers may be interested in.

Why are you just hearing about this now? I have no idea. It was fairly common knowledge to Penn State sports fans I know since that story was published.

I’ll quote the grand jury’s presentment on what Paterno testified to (link in previous post), because your quote is also a little off:

Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant’s report at his home on a Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley, Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno’s immediate superior, to his home the very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.

That’s the last and only mention of Paterno’s testimony. The grand jury found McQueary’s testimony credible, and found Curley and Schultz’s testimony “not credible” and indicted the two of them for perjury.

The most recent Ganim article notes:

Even though Paterno himself had told the grand jury that McQueary saw “something of a sexual nature,” Paterno said this week that he had stopped the conversation before it got too graphic. Instead, he told McQueary he would need to speak with his superior, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and with Schultz.

I find that possibility reasonable, at least as reasonable that Paterno was involved in a cover up.

I’m not trying to quell discussion, at all. This story is horrific, and deserves discussion. Still, when glaring errors and mischaracterizations are made, I’m going to point them out.

Joe Posnanski, I think, has written the best thing about Paterno and this situation to date.

David,

You should be ashamed to write something so factually inaccurate and full of assumptions. If I refuted everything you wrote that’s wrong, misattributed, or supposition without supporting facts, my comment would be longer than your post. Here’s a few highlights.

First, you should be aware that witnesses in both high and low profile cases hire criminal and civil attorneys to advise them all the time. That Joe Paterno hired the best he could find should not be a surprise to anyone.

Next, Joe Paterno never said McQueary reported “horsing around”. This misattribution from the grand jury presentment is actually how Athletic Director Tim Curley described his meeting with McQueary. Perhaps you were wrongly informed by poor source material. We don’t know exactly what or in what detail McQueary discussed the incident with Paterno. Here’s the related quotes from the actual grand jury presentment, you didn’t see fit to link to.

the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno’s home, where he reported what he had seen.

That’s it. It doesn’t say he reported seeing the boy raped. This is because grand jury presentments are not transcripts. They are one sided findings dedicated to particular goals; finding facts that indict people. Paterno’s testimony, in fact, supports McQueary’s testimony that AD Curley and VP of Finance Gary Schultz committed perjury when they claimed not to have been informed the incident was of a sexual nature.

If Joe Paterno was active in trying to cover this up, why didn’t his testimony support Curley and Schultz, instead of McQueary? Regardless, a grand jury that heard the actual testimony of everyone don’t seem to agree with you that Joe Paterno committed perjury.

Jerry Sandusky was, in fact, considered and interviewed for head coaching positions both before and following his retirement from Penn State. You would find articles with that information if you bothered to google “sandusky head coach”.

Terry Holland, UVa’s athletic director 11 years ago, interviewed Sandusky at least twice as a possible replacement for Cavalier head coach George Welsh before deciding on Al Groh.

In regards to the Cleary Act investigation by the Dept of Ed, it seems a given they would conduct one, but I doubt it finds Penn State habitually and chronically misreported campus crimes. Anyone that seriously believes the Dept of Education is going to cut off student aid to the largest university and research institution in Pennsylvania raise your hand.

Finally, I will note that if you want some better source material then I suggest reading Sara Ganim of the Harrisburg Patriot-News. She was the first to break the story of the investigation into Sandusky back in March. She has worked this story for years, since hearing rumors as far back as 2009 when she worked for the Centre Daily Times. Since she doesn’t write rumors like some ‘journalists’, it wasn’t until this year this horrific story saw the light of day.

Here’s an article of Sara’s from today, reviewing the timeline of various investigations and missed chances at catching Sandusky earlier. She’s done amazing work, and I think has a good chance at a pulitzer:

Who Knew What About Jerry Sandusky?

Why not rush to judgement? Sandusky is accused, and in a child sex case, or just about any sex case, that’s equivalent to being guilty.

It’s not like any sex crime cases have been proven to be totally unfounded (DSK, Duke Lacrosse Team, any number of 80′s day care witch hunts).
/snark off

I understand the anger and disappointment, especially aimed at Sandusky, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and VP of Finance and Business Gary Schultz. I can see where PSU President Graham Spanier may be included in that list, as well.

The problem I have with calls for Paterno’s head to roll is the same problem I would have with the witness who reported something about the incident to him – they both reported what went on to someone in authority. That couldn’t have been easy for either individual, who knew Sandusky personally and probably couldn’t begin to think he was capable of something like that.

As an alumnus of Penn State, former employee of the University, and long time resident of the area, there’s a lot of questions in my mind. Some things certainly don’t add up, among them Schultz’s knowledge of a prior accusation and investigation into Sandusky when he was apparently informed of the 2002 incident.

What I can’t wrap my head around is why Curley, Schultz, and possibly others would attempt to cover something like this up. You have to recall that 2002 was basically the height of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in the US. In addition, Penn State never had a reputation for covering up even minor accusations or crimes committed by athletes (or staff). A promising quarterback was suspended from the team for the high crimes of underage drinking and public drunkenness back in 1989. Other athletes were bounced from programs for marijuana use.

Maybe it was as simple as the thought processes of Catholic Bishops – they didn’t want anything as shocking and disturbing as this to come out and cast the university in a bad light. But if that was true, why commit perjury in front of a grand jury at least in the manner they did? Why not claim they found the witness’s story implausible? Why even answer questions at all without qualified immunity?

More will come out in the months, possibly years, that follow. More still, I fear, we will probably never know. What exactly was seen, and what was told by whom to whom and when?

I just have a good idea that when people are done extracting a pound of flesh from Paterno, they will move on to the witness who informed him. And then, the next person who sees something and considers reporting it will have something else to think about before they do so – if they, too, will become a victim by speaking up, but not loud enough and to the right ears to satisfy everyone else.

David,

Can you confirm expanded Medicaid access isn’t subject to any asset test? Because current Medicaid beneficiaries are.

This means even if you have no or very little income, any liquid asset (401K, savings account, IRA, checking account, etc) that adds up to “over the limit” disqualifies you for Medicaid. In my home state of PA, that limit is just $2500.

“GOAL: The goal of the joint committee shall be to reduce the deficit to 3 percent or less of GDP”

They were right. We have become Greece. At least, we will become them if we pass this abomination of a “deal”.

Regarding the minimum wage, there’s really good research that says raising it has no negative impact on employment. In fact, it might even raise employment as the end of wages increases.

Here’s David Carr’s and Alan Kreuger’s original paper that started everything:
http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~card/papers/njmin-aer.pdf

Here is more comprehensive work, including data as recent as 2006:
http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf

I believe many policy makers disregard the impact of the minimum wage on many workers. Companies like Wal-Mart and some of their competitors have made a decision to pay more than the minimum. If we were to raise the minimum wage significantly to $9 or $10 per hour, I think many people, who we might refer to as “semi-skilled” workers (receptionists, some health care and manufacturing workers, etc.), would also see wage gains over a one to two year period. Note that this group probably makes between $10 and $15 per hour, currently.