OPINION

The winter of America's discontent

Dissatisfaction with both political parties runs deep.

by Tim Rutten

February 5, 2010

It has been more than four decades since the Congress of the United States has been able to summon the will to pass a major piece of social legislation. Not since 1965, when Medicare and the Voting Rights Act both overcame decades of opposition to become law, has Congress proved itself up to the task.

Significant healthcare reform is all but dead for this session, and the chances of substantively addressing the regulatory breakdown that allowed Wall Street's irresponsible speculation to precipitate the worst global financial crisis since the Depression seem to recede with each passing day. So too the prospects for passage of further stimulus measures to remedy the crisis of unemployment and underemployment that continues to ravage the lives of families in states from Michigan to California.

In the face of these daunting issues, what was it that preoccupied the Senate on the eve of its long weekend recess? The legislative drama du jour is the standoff between the White House and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), who has put a personal hold on more than 70 executive branch appointments until the Obama administration agrees to fund a couple of pork-barrel projects he has earmarked for his state. One involves tens of millions of dollars for an FBI laboratory focusing on improvised explosives -- something the bureau doesn't think it needs. The other involves contract specifications for an aerial tanker that Northrop Grumman and Airbus would manufacture in Alabama, if they win the deal. (Boeing also is competing for the plane, which it would build in Topeka, Kan., and Seattle.)

Unless the administration agrees to give Shelby what he wants, he intends to invoke an archaic senatorial privilege that allows him to prevent the chamber from considering any of the administration's nominees to executive branch vacancies, no matter how crucial. Without the 60 votes to force cloture -- another archaic convention -- there's nothing the Democrats or the White House can do.

Outside the Senate, Shelby's conduct would be called extortion; inside the chamber, it's a "parliamentary tactic."

It's also the sort of shabby situation that brings into sharp focus both the sources of congressional dysfunction and the popular discontent on both the left and right with the congressional parties. Earmarks and pork are anathema to a majority of conservatives and independents; the Senate's outdated, made-for-obstruction rules and susceptibility to special interests are a source of increasing frustration to liberals and some independents. Yet, here we have one senator from one Southern state obstructing with impunity an entire nation's business -- purely for his narrow constituency's financial interests.

You don't have to attend a "tea party" convention to see the corrosive effect this sort of otherworldly political navel-gazing has on American attitudes toward the institutions of national government and the parties vying to control them. Evidence of the damage is scattered throughout the recent polls:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, for example, found that although 52% of the nation's voters retain a favorable view of President Obama, only 38% have a similar appraisal of the Democratic Party. The Republicans fare even worse; just 30%, fewer than

1 in 3 voters, view the GOP favorably.

A recent CBS News poll found that nearly half of all Republicans, 45%, disapprove of their party's congressional delegation.

A national Washington Post/ABC News poll found that just 24% of Americans, fewer than 1 in 4, trust congressional Republicans, like Shelby, "to make the right decisions for the country's future." (Wonder why?) The House and Senate Democrats didn't fare all that better, and are trusted by just 32%. Forty-seven percent of those polled -- still less than half -- have confidence in Obama's ability to make the right decisions.

When people's mistrust of their elected officials and the parties reaches these levels, there is little for political leaders to do but take counsel from their own anger and anxieties -- and, these days, the popular mood fairly seethes with both those things. Discontent with the present and apprehension about the future have become the background noise of our politics, yet both sides of the congressional aisle seem deaf to the din.

In one of his magisterial explorations of German politics between the wars, the historian Ian Kershaw mused that "there are times -- they mark the danger point for a political system -- when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing."

It would be reckless not to insist that this country and its politics remain, in crucial ways, far distant from Weimar. It would be rash, though, to pretend that the distance remains as great as it once was.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten6-2010feb06,0,1273082,print.column

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EDITORIAL

Vaccination vindication

A study that showed a possible link to autism has been retracted.

February 6, 2010

It has been obvious for years that a British study positing a possible link between a common vaccine combination and autism failed the physician's injunction to "do no harm." Still, it's significant that the influential medical journal that published Dr. Andrew Wakefield's discredited study in 1998 finally has retracted it.

The decision by the Lancet won't change the minds of some parents. It will not entirely dispel the conspiracy theories about how the medical establishment covered up a connection between autism and the MMR vaccine, which protects infants against measles, mumps and rubella. Still, the conclusive repudiation of what has been a sacred text for the anti-vaccination movement should reassure at least some of the families that have refused to accept an overwhelming medical consensus that MMR was safe as well as effective.

In belatedly rejecting the Wakefield study, the Lancet criticized more than its bad science. Dr. Richard Horton, the journal's editor in chief, linked the retraction to a medical panel's judgment that Wakefield's research had been not only dishonest but a violation of ethical rules. The panel also said that Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for the suffering of children who participated in the study. But it is not just the participating children who suffered -- and not just Wakefield who showed callous disregard. Those who propagated the vaccine-autism connection exhibited willful blindness to multiple studies debunking it.

The Wakefield study seems to have had worse consequences in Britain, where vaccinations declined dramatically after its publication, than in this country. Even so, the anti-vaccination movement it unleashed -- one that has been amplified by the Internet and a culture of skepticism toward mainstream medicine -- certainly influenced decisions by parents in the U.S. not to have their children vaccinated. It's hard to believe, for example, that anti-vaccine propaganda played no part in recent increases in measles cases or in the number of parents seeking "personal belief" exemptions from vaccinating their children.

Children with autism disorders face serious challenges, as do their parents, teachers and caregivers. The diagnosis is deeply unsettling to parents, who are understandably susceptible to theories pointing to an external cause. But the price of the vaccination scare stoked by the Wakefield study has been more sick children. We hope this will be a retraction heard round the world.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lancet6-2010feb06,0,6383699,print.story

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From the Daily News

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DCFS children's deaths rose in 2009

The county's child welfare and protection agency saw an increase last year in deaths of children whose cases it had investigated, but its head said Friday that the department doesn't plan any major policy overhauls.

Last year, 17 children died from abuse or neglect after the Department of Children and Family Services had investigated earlier complaints of mistreatment.

The figure, an increase from 2008's total of 14 deaths, includes both open and closed investigations.

Those deaths at the hands of a parent or caregiver include several well-publicized cases, including Dae'von Bailey, Lars Sanchez and Isabel Garcia whose alleged mistreatment had been reported to DCFS before their deaths.

While some media reports said the increase in deaths partly contributed to a policy change that would seek to place more kids in foster care to prevent them from harm at home, DCFS Director Trish Ploehn said Friday that the reports were not accurate.

Ploehn said her department remains committed to returning children to their families whenever it is safe and in the best interest of the children.

"Our highest priority is to ensure that families are supported with adequate resources to care for their own children," Ploehn said in a prepared statement. "We remain committed to the direction we have been taking ... to focus on keeping families together."

Ploehn said the number of deaths fluctuates from year to year and is still below a high of 20 in 1998 and 1999 when the department oversaw 50,000 foster children.

Following reforms in recent years, the number of foster children has dropped to 15,680 now. The recent increase in deaths of children doesn't indicate the reforms have failed, Ploehn said. She noted DCFS investigates 160,000 to 180,000 reports of abuse and neglect each year.

Deanne Tilton Durfee, executive director of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, agreed the increase in deaths is not a "significant increase in the larger spectrum of things," but she said every child death is a tragedy "so we have to pay attention to that."

"My perspective is that we need to assure that families are provided services to keep them safely together, but at the same time not view foster care as necessarily a totally negative experience," Tilton Durfee said. "For some children, foster care may be a very positive experience."

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14346137

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Danish Forces Free Ship Captured by Pirates

Nairobi, Kenya—Danish special forces stormed a ship captured by armed Somali pirates Friday and freed the 25 crew on board, an EU naval spokesman said, marking the first time a warship has intervened during a hijacking.

After the vessel Ariella sent out a distress signal early Friday, the Danish warship Absalon sent a helicopter to confirm the presence of pirates, and communicated with the crew to ensure they were in a safe location, said Cmdr. John Harbour, spokesman for the European Union Naval Force.

Then Danish special forces aboard the Absalon approached the Ariella in inflatable dinghies. The forces scaled the side of the ship and freed the 25 crew, who had locked themselves in a secure room, Mr. Harbour said. The forces continued to search the vessel for the pirates.

Mr. Harbour praised the NATO forces for their fast reaction and coordination with other forces in the area. "There's been many instances where there's been excellent cooperation and three, four or even five nations have helped deter a pirate attack," he said. But, he added: "This is the first where a warship has been able to send forces to stop a hijacking while it was in progress."

Warships typically don't intervene in hijackings because of the danger that crews may be hit by crossfire. Forces were able to intervene in this case because the ship had registered with naval authorities, was traveling along a recommended transit corridor and was part of a group transit, ensuring the ships had a helicopter within 30 minutes' reaction time, Mr. Harbour said.

Denmark rarely releases information on operations carried out by its elite forces, but the storming of the ship may have been carried out by the country's elite Frogman Corps, which were part of a NATO deployment.

"There is an operation going on down there and we're involved. It is still going on right now," said Pernielle Kroer, spokeswoman for the Danish Navy.

The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Ariella sent out a distress signal early Friday that was picked up by the Indian warship Tbar in the Gulf of Aden. The Indians relayed the signal to a French plane overhead, which spotted a group of armed pirates on the deck. Then the Danish troops were notified.

Other EU and American forces have intervened in pirate hostage situations, but not during the hijacking itself. French commandos stormed a yacht last April with five hostages on board but one, skipper Florent Lemacon, was killed during the operation. American snipers also shot dead three pirates in April 2009 holding an American captain hostage on board a lifeboat after the crew of the Maersk Alabama had persuaded the pirates to leave the main ship.

Details on the nationalities of the crew on board the Arielle and its cargo were not immediately released. Somali pirates have seized three ships this year and hold a total of nine vessels and more than 180 crew. Piracy is one of the few ways to make money in Somalia, an arid, impoverished land torn apart by civil war. The government does not hold its own capital and can't send forces to counter the flourishing pirate bases that dot its 1,900-mile-long coastline.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704533204575047052882929336.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

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Haitians, Parents Defend Arrested Americans

Family of Accused Idaho Woman Says She Was Trying to Help; Children's Relatives Detail How They Sent Them Away

The Haitian government is accusing Laura Silsby and nine other American missionaries with illegally abducting 33 children, most of them from the small town of Callebasse, in the mountains south of the capital.

But some of the children's own families and friends here disagree. On Friday, some said they willingly handed over the children, want the Americans freed, and want them to continue with plans to have the children live in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

The account from Callebasse stands in contrast to the image portrayed by the Haitian government of Ms. Silsby and the other missionaries. On Thursday, a Haitian judge charged the ten U.S. citizens with abduction and conspiracy, charges that could land them in jail for years.

But the message from the town where 20 of the 33 children were taken is consistent with the message from Ms. Silsby's own family and friends. Adonna Sander, Ms. Silsby's mother, said Thursday night that her daughter's group had written permission from the children's parents to take them.

At least three people who agreed to send their children weren't their birth parents. Milien Brutus, 28, the brother of one nine-year-old boy, authorized passage with the Idaho group, as did Melanie Augustin, 57, who agreed to send a girl she adopted as an infant, nine-year-old Loudinie Jovene. Natanya Geffraid, a 24-year-old woman with no children of her own, signed off on sending a child to whom she said she is godmother.

The Idaho group also promised to bring the Callebasse villagers to visit the children next year in the Dominican Republic.

"They said we would all go in a bus together," said Ms. Augustin. She added that acquiring a Haitian passport was beyond the means of anyone in Callebasse, citing a price of 1,000 Haitian dollars, or US$125. The villagers said no one from the government had come yet to talk to them about what happened.

On Friday night, families of the detained Americans released a statement saying they would continue to seek their relatives' release.

The case illustrates the complexities of adopting children in a poor country with few working government institutions and a corrupt bureaucracy. Most children in Haitian orphanages aren't orphans, but have been put there by desperately poor families that hope they will be better fed and educated.

At the same time, there are many cases of Haitian children being trafficked for forced labor or sex, and the Haitian government says it must enforce regulations for adoptions strictly to avoid such situations. It is worried that the recent earthquake will lead to more trafficking.

Haiti has a long tradition of families handing over their children. Some villagers here considered the Jan. 28 arrival of Ms. Silsby and an Idaho church group "a miracle," and a blessing from God.

Ten Americans have been detained in Haiti on charges of child kidnapping and criminal association, after for trying to take 33 children out of the country after the earthquake. WSJ's Adam Horvath joins the News Hub with details on the case.

"But she cried so much, I took her back," Mr. Cantave said.

Pointing to a small square of brown earth behind his whitewashed stucco home, Mr. Cantave explained his own wealth was only what he can raise from the dirt—in this season, the carrots and cabbages he will try to sell at a nearby street market. He said he considered the chance to send two of his three children off to school no less than winning a lottery.

"The chance to educate a child is a chance for an entire family to prosper," he said, as neighbors—many of whom also sent children with the Idaho church group—nodded in agreement. To the question, what kinds of adults might these educated children become, they shouted: "nurse," "doctor," "airplane pilot," "mechanic," "plumber" and "someone with a job in an office."

Ms. Silsby's father said it was typical of his daughter to help out people she thought were in need. "She's always been very helpful to help people if they need a place to stay," he said.

Steve McMullen, a longtime friend of the Sander family in Idaho, said he spoke by phone to Ms. Silsby while she was in the Dominican Republic, and that during the call she said she was in a government office registering the names of the children her group was intending to bring back into the country from Haiti.

But the plans went awry. Sitting in his Twin Falls office, Mr. Sander shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "We better pray for a miracle."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704533204575047720443045194.html?mod=WSJ_World_LeadStory#printMode

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From Fox News

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Federal Authorities Intercept Suspected Illegal Immigrant Boat

February 05, 2010

Associated Press

OCEANSIDE, California — 

Federal authorities say a 25-foot boat packed with suspected illegal immigrants has been intercepted off the coast of Southern California.

The Coast Guard says 23 people were taken into custody after the wooden boat was spotted about 1:40 a.m. local time Friday, about 6.5 miles off the coast.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Jetta Disco says the 17 males and six females on board were all wearing life jackets and appeared to be in good health, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

One man was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers. The other 22 were taken to Shelter Island and handed over to the Department of Homeland Security's Maritime Task Force for questioning.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,584984,00.html

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Pathologist Testifies Peterson's Ex-Wife Didn't Die in Fall

February 05, 2010

Associated Press

JOLIET, Ill. — 

A pathologist who concluded that the death of Drew Peterson's ex-wife was a homicide and not an accident as first determined testified Friday that her injuries weren't consistent with a fall in a bathtub.

Dr. Larry Blum, in his first public comments since the 2007 autopsy of Kathleen Savio, said he didn't think bruises on her body and a laceration to the back of her head came from a single fall. Savio's body was found slumped forward in a dry bathtub in 2004, and Blum said that her position wasn't consistent with a fall in the tub.

"There was no blood, hair or tissue on the tub," he said. "So the evidence doesn't bare that out."

Blum said Savio did drown but her death was not accidental, as another pathologist initially found.

"It was my opinion that it was a homicide," Blum said.

Peterson, a 56-year-old former Bolingbrook police officer, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Savio. Her body was exhumed in 2007 following the disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. Drew Peterson has not been charged in Stacy Peterson's disappearance, but authorities say he is a suspect.

Blum's findings will be at the center of the courtroom battle between Will County prosecutors and Peterson's attorneys, who argue that Savio's death was accidental.

Blum testified at a hearing to determine what hearsay evidence will be allowed at Peterson's upcoming trial. Hearsay, or statements not based on the direct knowledge of a witness, usually isn't admissible in court. But Illinois judges can allow it in murder trials if prosecutors prove a defendant may have killed a witness to prevent him or her from testifying.

There's little available forensic evidence in Savio's case, so prosecutors are expected to rely on statements Savio allegedly made to others saying she feared Peterson could kill her.

Blum, who said he laid down in Savio's tub as part of his investigation, testified the injury to the back of Savio's head may have been made shortly after her death and not as a result of a fall. He also pointed to a wound in the area of Savio's diaphragm as one that wouldn't have been caused in a fall.

"The bruise was deep, down to the bone," he said.

He also agreed with Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow's suggestion that the diaphragm injury might have been caused by what Glasgow called a "bear hug."

Blum also testified that Savio had no measurable drugs or alcohol in her system when she died — an effort to head off the argument defense attorneys have raised that perhaps Savio was in a condition that would have made a fall more likely.

Earlier in the day, Mary Parks, who studied nursing with Savio, testified about a day in late 2003 when Savio showed her red marks on her neck and told her Peterson made them.

"She told me her ex-husband had come into the house and had pinned her down," Parks testified.

Parks said Savio told her that during the incident Peterson told Savio, "Why don't you just die?"

She also said that Savio told her Peterson was intent on leaving her with nothing in the couple's divorce — but that even leaving her without any money, a share of the business the two owned, child support or custody of their two sons wouldn't have been enough for him.

"Kathy was very sure that if she gave up every cent ... that her ex-husband still would not leave her alone," Parks said.

Parks said she contacted prosecutors after Savio was found dead but was told there was no investigation into the case.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,584977,00.html

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Amber Alert Issued for 8-Month-Old Boy Taken From Mo. Home by Masked Men

February 05, 2010

Associated Press

CARTHAGE, Mo. — 

Carthage, Mo., police are looking for an 8-month-old boy taken from his home by two masked men.

Authorities issued an Amber Alert for Eddie Salazar after he was taken Thursday night. He is about 20 pounds, with dark hair and brown eyes.

Carthage police say two men wearing all black and ski masks broke into the family's home while the father was sleeping on the couch. The father was beaten unconscious and the house was ransacked before the boy was taken.

Carthage police chief Greg Dagnan tells KSHB-TV in Kansas City that early information indicates the abduction was random. He says early information on the suspects is so vague officers aren't sure where they might be headed.

Anyone with information is asked to call 417-237-7200 or 911.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,584943,00.html

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From the Department of Justice

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Balli Aviation Ltd., a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based Balli Group PLC, pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a two-count criminal information in connection with its illegal export of commercial Boeing 747 aircraft from the United States to Iran, announced David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Thomas Madigan, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement; and Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Under the plea agreement, Balli Aviation Ltd. agreed to pay a $2 million criminal fine and be placed on corporate probation for five years. The $2 million fine, combined with a related $15 million civil settlement among Balli Group PLC, Balli Aviation Ltd., the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), and the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), that was also announced today, represents one of the largest fines for an export violation in BIS history. Under the terms of the related civil settlement, Balli Group PLC and Balli Aviation Ltd. have agreed to pay a civil penalty of $15 million of which $2 million will be suspended if there are no further export control violations. In addition, Balli Aviation Ltd. and Balli Group PLC are denied export privileges for five years, although this penalty will be suspended provided that neither Balli Aviation nor Balli Group commits any export violations and pays the civil penalty.  Under the terms of the settlement, Balli Group PLC and Balli Aviation, Ltd. will also have to submit the results of an independent audit of its export compliance program to BIS and OFAC for each of the next five years.

According to count one of the information filed with the court, beginning in at least October 2005, through October 2008, Balli Aviation Ltd. conspired to export three Boeing 747 aircraft from the United States to Iran without first having obtained the required export license from BIS or authorization from OFAC, in violation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the Iranian Transactions Regulations. More particularly, the information states that Balli Aviation Ltd., through its subsidiaries, the Blue Sky Companies, purchased U.S.-origin aircraft with financing obtained from an Iranian airline and caused these aircraft to be exported to Iran without obtaining the required U.S. government licenses. Further, Balli Aviation Ltd. entered into lease arrangements that permitted the Iranian airline to use the U.S.-origin aircraft for flights in and out of Iran.

Count two of the information states that Balli Aviation Ltd. violated a Temporary Denial Order (TDO) issued by BIS on March 17, 2008, that prohibited the company from conducting any transaction involving any item subject to the EAR. Starting in or about March 2008 and continuing through about August 2008, Balli Aviation Ltd. willfully violated the TDO by carrying on negotiations with others concerning buying, receiving, using, selling and delivering U.S.-origin aircraft which went to the Export Administration Regulations.

"As this case demonstrates, corporations that conduct business with Iran in violation of U.S. export laws and sanctions face serious consequences," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "The many agents, analysts and attorneys who worked on this successful investigation and prosecution deserve special thanks for their efforts."

"These charges reflect the commitment of the United States to vigorously enforce our laws against corporations that illegally seek to acquire U.S. aircraft from the U.S. on behalf of Iranian customers," said Channing Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. "Those who seek to profit by violating and circumventing U.S. trade laws should take heed of today's guilty plea by Balli Aviation."

"The significant fine is a direct consequence of the level of deception used to mislead investigators," said Thomas Madigan, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement. "The case agents worked through a complex corporate maze to obtain the facts and bring the violators to justice."

"Today's case should serve as further warning of Iran's continued efforts to circumvent sanctions and obtain U.S. technology. Together with our colleagues from the Justice and Commerce departments, OFAC will continue to aggressively pursue both domestic and foreign entities that seek to violate U.S. sanctions programs by exporting goods to Iran from the United States." said Adam J. Szubin, Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control.

In announcing the plea, Assistant Attorney General Kris, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillips, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Madigan and OFAC Director Szubin commended Assistant Director for Operations John Sonderman, Special Agent in Charge Rick Shimon, Special Agent Joseph Varga, and Chief Counsel Attorney Gregory Michelsen, all of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. They also thanked Trial Attorney Jonathan C. Poling of the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Asuncion of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, who are prosecuting this matter.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-nsd-131.html

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