Senate Approves Requiring Military Custody in Terror Cases

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/us/politics/senate-approves-military-custody-for-terror-suspects.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 9:39 AM
Subject: re: Senate Approves Requiring Military Custody in Terror Cases
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that "No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". The amendment does not define "due process", but throughout our history to this point, it has been interpreted to mean that only a duly constituted court of law can wield such power.  A proposed federal statute that would grant to the Executive "the legal authority to keep [citizens] suspect of terrorism in military custody, indefinitely and without trial"  would violate both the separation of powers and the Fifth Amendment.  Congress does not have the power to grant this to the Executive and only a tyrannical Executive would accept it.

Barry Haskell Levine

Things to Tax

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/opinion/krugman-things-to-tax.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:43 AM
Subject: re: Things to Tax
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  It is with some trepidation that I disagree with professor Krugman from whom I have learned so much of economics. But we don't need a new transaction tax to raise revenues. It would be better to tweak our existing capital gains tax.  Any profit on an asset held less than a day should be taxed at no less than 95%. That rate can ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate (15%?) over a year or two.   Unlike the transaction tax, this would have no deterrent effect on those investments which are really fueling the economy and would fall only on those who are using the stock market as a casino.

Barry Haskell Levine

Ratings Shrink President’s List for Judgeships

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/politics/screening-panel-rejects-many-obama-picks-for-federal-judgeships.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 7:46 AM
Subject: re: Ratings Shrink President’s List for Judgeships
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

      The ABA deemed 97% of the president's nominees for judgeships "qualified". That seems scant cause for outcry.  These nominees were suggested by members of Congress, among whom partisanship routinely trumps qualifications. Anyone engaged in research will recognize the service the ABA provides here; we call it "peer review".

Barry Haskell Levine

Central Bankers: Stop Dithering. Do Something

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/central-bankers-stop-dithering-do-something.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Subject: re: Central Bankers: Stop Dithering. Do Something
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editors:

   If the Federal Reserve were an agency of the U.S. government committed to economic recovery, it would long ago have committed to robust stimulus. The Fed however is only a quasi-governmental agency. It is run by bankers for the banks.  Sure, a bit of inflation is tolerable in a healthy economy.  But bankers fear that inflation would let borrowers (read "us") repay debts to creditors (read "the banks") in debased currency. As long as our monetary policy is in the hands of this cabal, we shouldn't expect the People's interests to be served.

Barry Haskell Levine

Fixing Medicare

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/fixing-medicare.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: re: Fixing Medicare
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Dr. Patrick Dowling diagnosed our problem two years ago on these pages: "the more tubes you put in, the more you get paid".  Americans today pay more for healthcare than anyone ever since the invention of money, and the costs are only increasing. If the current trend continues it will devour our entire economy within the foreseeable future.  This is not a problem that more competition will fix. We need a new paradigm, paying for health, not for treatment.

Barry Haskell Levine

Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-organizers-consider-value-of-camps.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 8:23 AM
Subject: re: Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  The battleline of Occupy Wall Street now moves from Zuccotti park to cyberspace. In the 21st century, that's the obvious venue for the exercise of our Freedom of Assembly. But the visceral excitement of chanting and marching must now be replaced by the hard work of institutionalizing change.  Any concrete demand risks trivializing and fragmenting the movement, but there's one plank that I think will keep almost everyone on board. We should now turn to working for a constitutional amendment constraining corporate personhood. For our first century, we allowed that corporations were  "legal persons"with whom one could enter contracts, but were not "natural persons" endowed with rights. That distinction was lost in 1886; it's past time that we put it back.
Barry Haskell Levine

Students Lose Zeal for Aiding Obama Again

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/politics/students-lose-enthusiasm-to-fight-for-obama-again.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:13 AM
Subject: re: Students Lose Zeal for Aiding Obama Again
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  When senator Obama was building an outsider's campaign on small donations to challenge the entrenched powers, America's youth embraced him as one of their own. Now that he is wooing big donors in the banking, insurance, energy and defense sectors, their ardor has cooled. In each case, the channels of money are the channels of power. If we are to have a government truly of the People, by the People and for the People, it has to be divorced from this courtship of donors, large or small. Until we have public financing for campaigning, "one man one vote" is an empty slogan.

Barry Haskell Levine

How Romney Could Win

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/opinion/keller-how-romney-could-win.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=how%20romney%20could%20win&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Subject: re: How Romney Could Win
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Bill Keller gazes at the drawn curtain of the voting booth and
projects his own dreams onto others, voting for Obama but wishing he
were more like Romney.  Surely the most parsimonious explanation is
rather that a majority voted for Obama because they wanted a president
like the candidate had portrayed. Americans voted for "change" and
their disappointment is not that president Obama is too far Left. The
disappointment is that we're still living in Cheney's America.  The
hypothetical candidate who could make inroads into president Obama's
majority stands not to his Right but to his Left, .
Barry Haskell Levine

A Gold Rush of Subsidies in the Search for Clean Energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/a-cornucopia-of-help-for-renewable-energy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 8:03 AM
Subject: re: A Gold Rush of Subsidies in the Search for Clean Energy
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   American energy policy is stuck in a quagmire of words. When the public eats the cost of mercury in the atmosphere or acid rain or anthropogenic climate change, that's not charged to coal-fired electricity generation. Those are "externalities". But when the public eats the cost of starting up a renewable energy sector that's called "subsidies" and the clamor is predictable. Coal is only "cheap" because we have never tallied its real cost. If our energy policy is going to be a matter of reasoning, rather than partisan sniping, it will have to start with tallying real costs for all the options. Put a price on ocean acidification and global climate change and mercury in the atmosphere and fouled groundwater and 10,000yr safe storage of radioactive wastes and fisheries disrupted. Only then can we make rational choices about our energy future. Solar and wind might look more attractive if we kept honest books.
Barry Haskell Levine

Legends of the Fail

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/opinion/legends-of-the-fail.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=legends%20of%20the%20fail&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 8:33 AM
Subject: re: Legends of the Fail
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Professor Krugman tidily lays out the argument that a sovereign nation needs to command its own currency, but balks at the logical conclusion. The government of the United States needs to nationalize the Federal Reserve.  By 1835, Alexander Hamilton's public/private experiment had served its purpose; It was no longer tolerable to give so much influence to the bankers. It is past time for a new Andrew Jackson to restore sovereignty to the people.

Barry Haskell Levine

Less Than $26 Billion? Don’t Bother.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/less-than-26-billion-dont-bother/?scp=2&sq=emanuel&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 7:10 AM
Subject: re: Less Than $26 Billion? Don’t Bother.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Dr. Emanuel points to the $11billion that our Health Insurance companies report as annual income and calls it a sum to small to bother with. Doing so, he obscures the larger truth; our Health Insurance companies don't need to exist. Under SinglePayer the function shrivels to paying the healthcare costs as they're incurred.  Add up the profits of the Insurance companies and all their salaries and benefits, and you have a sum that is not negligible. And then we would still have to rein in the costs of delivering too much healthcare to the dying.
Barry Haskell Levine

For Our Allies, Death From Above

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/in-pakistan-drones-kill-our-innocent-allies.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=clive%20stafford%20smith&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:59 AM
Subject: re: For Our Allies, Death From Above
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
    The claim that "precision [drone] strikes" had killed "no innocent civilian" in fifteen months is the official U.S. position. It is an officially sanctioned lie. In 1987, attorney general issued a directive authorizing the CIA to lie. Although Meese may have intended only to castrate the Freedom of Information Act, he actually stuck his knife into American democracy.  No CIA statement since then should be taken at face value, and--while that directive remains in place--none of their lies are crimes. Twenty-four years later, our department of Justice is finally revisiting this outrage. It is twenty-four years too late for American democracy, and for our dead allies in Pakistan.
Barry Haskell Levine

re: /health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bisphosphonates&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 4:09 PM
Subject: re: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/health/a-reminder-on-bone-health-and-osteoporosis.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bisphosphonates&st=cse
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Before any new drug is approved for sale in the U.S. by the FDA, the manufacturer must submit evidence not only for safety and efficacy, but also how the drug is Absorbed, Distributed through the body's tissues, Metabolized and Excreted. In the case of the bisphosphonate drugs which are laid down in new bone and are never excreted, a sufficient safety trial would have to last to the grave. This study was never done for any of the drugs in this class. Once the FDA gave its approval, the Marketing divisions went into high gear and never looked back. The patients who have now been using these drugs for over a decade are therefore--wittingly or unwittingly--enrolled in this safety study. So far, the side-effects have been rare the risk/benefit ratio looks pretty good. As their patents run out, we will see the big companies flogging newer classes of drugs for osteoporosis. Until then, the very profitability of these drugs poses a barrier to R&D on something better.
Barry Haskell Levine