Is wearing or not wearing a suit jacket such a big deal?

When I started working in the business world almost 20 years ago, there were still a few holdouts such as EDS or IBM where everyone had to wear a suit and tie. (EDS people could take off their jackets while sitting in their office or cubicle as I recall.) Much has changed since then and Bill Gates even goes without a tie. Microsoft people and may in the tech industry never wear ties when meeting with clients. It's rare that I wear a tie when visiting my own corporate clients and they're not wearing them either.

Of course Obama is in the White House but I don't see where it's important for him to wear a jacket if he doesn't want to wear a jacket. Formal meetings or functions are another story, but really, this is a non-issue. Bush was another generation and from a stodgy old money family. Besides, wearing a jacket in the Oval Office didn't do much for him or the country.

I'm with Obama on this one. It's 2009 for goodness sakes.

It's the same Oval Office. The same desk. Even the same curtains. But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won't find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.

It wasn't just a personal preference. In the Bush administration, it was a rule: Jackets in the Oval Office — and now, it seems, one of the first Bush-era regulations to get scrapped in the Obama White House.

Read the rest of this post...

MSNBC: NSA regularly spied on US journalists, media outlets

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann interviewed a former National Security Agency analyst tonight. The analyst says that, under the ruse of making sure that the NSA did NOT target American media and journalists, they actually collected information on every communication those journalists and media organizations had 24/7.

This is extremely complicated stuff, and appears to be a rather significant story. Ironically, we had reported back in 2005 on this very issue, asking whether the Bush administration was spying on American journalists. At the time, there was a specific question as to whether CNN's Christiane Amanpour was a subject of inquiry. At the time, CNN's David Ensor dismissed the story, saying that he had a contact in the intelligence agency who "looked into it" and said, nah, it's not happening, don't worry. Yes, because I'm sure the NSA would tell David Ensor if they were spying on him. Anyway, seems Mr. Ensor may get to do a follow-up story.

Olbermann says he's going to have the analyst on again possibly tomorrow night. Hopefully Keith can help the guy cut through some of the spy-talk the source is used to using. It's still very confusing what exactly they did here, what they collected, on whom, etc. Read the rest of this post...

This just in: Obama sworn in AGAIN because of Roberts' mistake, concern he wasn't legally sworn in

Just got the following from the White House press folks:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 21, 2009

The following is a statement from White House Counsel Greg Craig.

"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday. But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time."

I have to tell you, I thought about this very thing when it happened. Apparently, someone else did too. To be safe, the White House might want to have Obama re-sign any documents he signed between the first oath and the second.

More from the White House pool report:

At 735 pm, Roberts administred the oath of office again to obama in the map room. Robert gibbs said the wh counsel, greg craig, believes the oath was fine Tuesday, but one word was out of sequence so they did this out of a "an abundance of caution."

"We decided it was so much fun..." Obama joked while sitting on a couch. Obama stood and walked over to make small talk with pool as roberts donned his black robe.

"Are you ready to take the oath?" Roberts asked.

"I am, and we're going to do it very slowly," obama replied. Oath took 25 seconds.

After a flawless recitation, roberts smiled and said, "congratulations, again."

Obama said, "thank you, sir."

Smattering of applause.

"All right." Obama said. "The bad news for the pool is there's 12 more balls."

Read the rest of this post...

Report: Bank of America seeks additional $80 billion

A complete rethinking of the mega-banks needs to start today. The behemoth banks are much too big (to fail), but also too big to manage and keep afloat. They used their size during the credit boom to piece together massive deals for corporate clients, but now that the bubble has burst, the problems are too big for everyone. There was a reason for the Depression-era banking laws -- but of course, the Republicans never cared much for history. Especially, successful programs from FDR or any Democrat. Let's see if we have Democrats who aren't afraid of *real* change or Democrats who want to offer GOP-lite programs.

Bank of America Corp. needs more than $80 billion in new common equity capital to support the huge amount of assets on its balance sheet, an analyst said Tuesday.

Friedman, Billings, Ramsey's Paul Miller also said Wells Fargo & Co. probably will have to cut its dividend soon as that bank tries to boost capital.

Shares of Bank of America slumped 29% to close at $5.10 on Tuesday. That's the lowest level since late 1990. Wells Fargo lost 24% to close at $114.23, the lowest level in roughly a decade.

Read the rest of this post...

So I was talking to a taxi driver...

I learned long ago that a lot of wisdom comes from taxi drivers. I was doing an internship at the US Embassy in Argentina while I was in grad school, and I remember one of the diplomats telling me, impressionable 23 year old that I was, that wherever you go, always ask the taxi drivers "¿Qué tal la situación?" It translates to "how is the situation," but it really meant, "so what's your take on current state of the country?" Oh the answers you'd get, really quite fascinating, and informative.

Anyway, I was heading off to buy paint samples for the new condo (I so don't have that gene) and I asked the taxi driver if he made any money yesterday, during the inaugural. No, it was a zoo, he told me. Then he started to tell me the story of a couple he took to the airport. They were obviously from out of town, here for the inauguration. Their response? We can't even talk about it. A few minutes later, they told him what happened. Basically, they flew all the way out here from somewhere not close, paid a ton of money for a hotel, were lucky enough to get tickets to the inaugural (for the 300,000 people area), and, like everyone else, they froze their 50 year old butts off standing in unmoving lines for hours until they missed the inauguration.

I mention this because a few of the readers got upset yesterday when I wrote about how Joe had experienced the same thing - left his house at 8am, in 22 degree weather, and ended up standing in line for hours until he too missed the swearing in. It's not griping, and making a mountain out of a molehill, pointing out that someone botched the logistics big time yesterday, and they didn't just ruin the day for a lot of people who were really excited about seeing the swearing in in person, but a lot of people paid a lot of money to come in from out of town to see this, and they really got screwed. This didn't happen to a couple hundred people, it happened to thousands, if not tens of thousands. I have numerous friends, all of whom didn't get in. Joe talked to lots of people last night, when he was out and about, and lots of people didn't get it in.

And from a congressional office's perspective, they gave out their share of the 300,000 tickets to their closest allies and friends. So the people who got screwed, the ticketholders, were the very people congress members were trying to woo. Now, for the people-of-the-people out there, some of you may say "good, screw the important people." But if you're a member of Congress, the last people you want to screw over are your most important constituents. This was a mess.

There's something to keep in mind here. Yesterday's snafu had nothing to do with the mobs of people on the mall. The people who had tickets where in line with 300,000 people, not with 2 million. And we've dealt with security for 300,000 people before, during previous inaugurations, and in other events. There is no excuse for botching this. And the excuse from the Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer is beyond laughable (and belies his previous job at the DC Metropolitican Police Department, where incompetence in leadership, and making absurdly irrelevant excuses, has been raised to an art form). In a nutshell, Gainer said that no one had planned on people wearing winter jackets.

Part of the problem, Gainer said, was that people wearing bulky winter clothing took up more space than officials had expected.

Huh? Just how much space did you "expect" bulky winter clothing to take up, that it surprised you? Or are you saying that you never expected people to wear winter coats in Washington, DC in January, when it easily slips into the 20s and even the teens?

It was 22 degrees yesterday. It's January. This is Washington, DC. January is our coldest month. The average temperature for the month is somewhere between 27F and 42F. It's a good bet in winter that the temps will drop, at least a few days, into the teens. And this winter, has been pretty cold already, so it was a good bet it might hit the 20s. And this being a more southern region, it was a very good bet that people would wear some damn heavy coats - this ain't Chicago where mid-20s is considered downright balmy.

But Gainer says in the article that only a handful of people were inconvenienced (that was another classic MPD move that Gainer obviously learned well - deflect any criticism as the rantings of a few whiners). Well, judging by the non-scientific survey of my friends, lots of whom didn't get in, and who tried to get in at different sides of the mall, and judging by the reports in the press about this, it wasn't just a handful of people. There were lots of people in lines on both sides of the mall, north and south, trying to get in, waiting for hours, who couldn't. And there was no one - no one - directing people to where the lines even were. It was a total botched job and an embarrassment (and these are the same people in charge of our security). Welcome to my city. Read the rest of this post...

Madame Secretary

She's confirmed.

Read the rest of this post...

Change the default mode "from pissed off to happy"

This morning in the open thread I asked: How's everyone doing on the first full day of the Obama administration?

One thing I've realized is that I'm not angry anymore. I feel like I was just pissed for the past eight years -- and it seemed like a really, really long eight years. But, I'm not now.

Bill Savage, who writes at The SLOG as "Chicago Fan," sent the link to what he wrote, which really captures the change in mood:

For me, the main thing about the Obama presidency is that it re-sets my default mood. Since Bush v. Gore and the judicial coup d'etat of 2000, my default political mood has been pissed off. Occasionally things would make me more pissed off or less pissed off, and once in a blue moon I'd be happy, but pissed off was the baseline from which everything started. And that was before 9/11 and Iraq.

Now, with a President who can speak in complete sentences, who believes in the rule of law, who believes in hiring people for their competence and ability rather than their personal loyalty and religion—my default political mood is happy. Things will piss me off about Obama, I'm sure, and some things will elate me: but the baseline is changed from pissed off to happy, and that's a huge shift.

Huge shift.

Read the rest of this post...

Need to fill your CareFirst Blue Cross prescription? Good luck.

You may recall my ongoing health care nightmare. In a nutshell, I have the best self-employed health insurance that Blue Cross Blue Shield offers in DC, and the prescription coverage is pretty mulch zilch. Oh, they'll tell you it covers $1500 a year in prescription drugs, but try to pick up an asthma drug, at $350 a month, and see how many months of breathing you get under the plan (that would be 4). And if you have something really bad, like MS or HIV (I don't, but know people who do), your monthly drug costs are easily in the range of $2000/month. And, as I've noted before, CareFirst doesn't increase your annual limit - so I was permitted $1500 in prescriptions in 1997 when I got the plan, and I'm still stuck at $1500 a year, which buys a lot less today than it did in 1997 (even though my premium has tripled). So, if I ever come down with anything chronic, or catastrophic, I basically have no prescription drug coverage. And it's the best plan I can get with Blue Cross as a self-employed person. What a country.

Anyway.... our latest saga is something I think a lot of you will find illustrative, and helpful. Being a good citizen, I'm trying to lower my prescription drug costs, since CareFirst basically offers me next to nothing in coverage, and that coverage is dwindling, so I'm shopping around. Specifically, I need a drug to help with some allergy-induced breathing problems. The brand name drug, Advair, is absurdly expensive for a one-month supply (on the order of $270 to $320 per month). So, my doctor came up with a solution - just buy the component parts, the two drugs that make up Advair. Surely that's cheaper. Well, kind of. The one drug, my doctor has lots of free samples of, so that we have covered for free, for now. The second drug, salmeterol, is still kind of pricey. And there's another catch - sometimes it kills people.

You see, if you take salmeterol by itself, without the other drug they mix with it, people seem to have a habit of dropping dead occasionally from breathing problems, the same problem the drug is supposed to fix. But when you combine the drug with another drug, which is what Advair does, it actually works very well and everyone at the FDA gave it a thumbs up.

So, the solution I'm having to follow is this. I am having to take the two different drugs separately, and hopefully I'm not dumb enough to miss a dosage of the one drug and risk killing myself. Now, I'm a smart guy, but even I know that it's kind of easy to forget what drug you've taken when, when you're doing a lot of prescriptions. And I'd have to imagine that some people out there are even flightier than me - so they might even run a great risk of missing a dose of the companion drug, and thereby putting their lives at risk. This is the solution to our high drug costs in this country, have patients put their lives at risk and hope they're smart enough not to screw things up.

Oh, but it gets better.

Being the diligent guy I am, I called around to find a good deal on salmeterol, and some other prescription drugs, since I want to help my insurance company cut costs. Good luck with that. I called Costco (and you can check their prices online too) and was told that the salmeterol is $150 a month. I then called CareFirst/Walgreens (they have an exclusive deal for CareFirst partients to buy drugs online) and was quoted $199 a month. But the Walgreen's lady told me something interesting. That might not be the "real" price. Huh, I said. Well, she explained, sometimes they negotiate better prices with the drug companies, so the price I actually pay might be lower. Great, I said, so how do I find out what the real price is? She couldn't tell me.

So, I called BlueCross directly and was given the number for Argus, their prescription drug people. The nice man at Argus was a blithering idiot. First off, he couldn't understand the concept of my asking "how much does the drug cost." He kept going away for ten minutes and then returning with my co-pay. I kept telling him, I don't want to know my co-pay, I want to know the overall price of the drug, and then, if you want, telling me my co-pay wouldn't be a bad thing either. He'd go off again for five minutes, and return with another off-the-mark answer. The thing is, every time I'd hear him talking to someone behind him - why they couldn't just put the other guy on the phone was beyond me. In any case, the guy finally gave me a quote for the salmeterol - $72 - which was almost a third of what CareFirst/Walgreen's told me, even though they're all quoting me the price I'd pay buying it online from them. And the guy kept coming up with different price quotes on various drugs ("oh, I'm sorry, I got that wrong, let's try again"), so God only knows what the drug really costs.

So, if you want to buy your drugs directly from CareFirst, they won't tell you how much they cost without pulling teeth. Way to comparison shop. But again, the story gets even better. Costco offers cheap drugs on a lot of things, but Costco, for some reason, doesn't take CareFirst-DC insurance for their online pharmacy. Why is that, I asked? Because CareFirst-DC wants you to go to their own online pharmacy run by them and Walgreen's, Costco told me. But I can't find out how much CareFirst/Walgreen's even charges for prescriptions, even when you call them by phone. So how am I to comparison shop, get the lowest price, and save CareFirst money, when the only online pharmacy I'm permitted to use under their plan is their own, and they won't tell me how much the drug even costs?

Are you seeing a pattern here?

These guys are begging to be regulated by the federal government. They're not interested in cutting drug costs. CareFirst couldn't care less how much I spend on prescription drugs each year because they're never upping my coverage limit beyond $1500 a year - that's all they pay, period. What CareFirst is interested in is making sure that every dollar I spend on drugs goes through them, regardless of whether that option is more expensive than alternative pharmacies. The incentive structure is totally wrong.

I did finally get one woman on the phone at CareFirst/Walgreen's today, and asked her if we can submit the order, not give them my credit card yet, and then when they try to charge me, ask them how much they're charging me for. She said that would work, but I'd first need to get my doctor to fax them the prescription. So that's what I'm doing. And if CareFirst/Walgreen's charges more than Costco, I'm going to have to get a handwritten prescription from my doctor, or have them fax Costco the same prescription, and trudge out to Costco in the suburbs since there they probably will take my CareFirst insurance (apparently, the walk-in service doesn't compete with Walgreen's monopoly - then again, it clearly does, and I don't yet have confirmation that Coscto's walk-in service can take my insurance).

Folks, this is a deplorable state of affairs. I needed a law degree to try to figure this out. We need a health care system that doesn't limit your annual amount of prescriptions in a way that basically makes your prescription plan meaningless if you have a chronic, or catastrophic illness. We need a system that forces ever pharmacy to accept whatever insurance policy you have, so long as it's a reputable policy from a reputable company. We can't go on living with firms like BlueCross and CareFirst and Walgreen's who seem more interested in making money than cutting costs, or helping people stay alive.

UPDATE: I just read my policy, and get this. My copay is twice as high if I use a mail-order pharmacy - i.e., if I buy less expensive drugs - than if I go to a retail pharmacy. Another provision to help Walgreen's and screw the customer? Yeah, CareFirst Blue Cross is very very concerned about those soaring drug costs. So concerned that they provide disincentives to anyone trying to buy their drugs cheaper. It's time for Obama to clean this industry up, and out. Read the rest of this post...

"At 8:35 AM, the President arrived in the Oval Office..."

Got my first email from the White House Press Office earlier today. I'll admit getting a kick out of it -- and, knowing that the connotation "the President" now refers to Barack Obama. So, after a very big day, your new President was on the job early this morning:

Below is a statement from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

At 8:35 AM, the President arrived in the Oval Office and spent 10 minutes alone in the office. He read the note left to him by President Bush that was in an envelope marked “To: #44, From: #43”. At 8:45 AM, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel came in to discuss the schedule of today’s events. The First Lady came into the Oval Office at 9:10 AM. We will release a picture shortly.

Read the rest of this post...

Rick Warren gets mixed reviews

As the article notes, leading the nation in a recitation of the Lord's prayer, when we are not a Christian nation - we are a nation with a Christian majority, a far different matter - and many of our citizens are people of faith who aren't Christians, struck me as pure Warren-the-activist. It was his little slap in the face at everyone who criticized his selection. And it's the reason he shouldn't have been there in the first place.

You'll notice that Warren also went out of his way to talk about Jesus, even naming him in different tongues. That was again Warren's way of taking a poke at Jews, Muslims, and probably even non-evangelical Christians, who aren't Christian anyway, according to evangelicals. Rev. Lowery, on the other hand, gave a benediction about God that could have been given by any person of faith, that could be read in a mosque, a synagogue, or a church, and fit right in. That's what a true religious leader does. That's why Lowery is a civil rights hero. And it's why Rick Warren will be remembered as nothing more than a smooth-talking pop preacher who couldn't resist using Obama's big day to take a dig at whoever he was busy judging on that particular day.

One last bit of commentary from Dana Milbank who wrote:

"The Rev. Rick Warren, who spoke much too long in his opening prayer..."

After all, yesterday was all about Rick Warren, so who cares if that other guy - what's his name? - got sworn in late.

Read the rest of this post...

Possibly largest data privacy breach, ever

You might not have noticed, as the company involved decided to come clean on the day of the inauguration. Uh huh.

A data breach last year at Princeton, N.J., payment processor Heartland Payment Systems may have compromised tens of millions credit and debit card transactions, the company said today.

If accurate, such figures may make the Heartland incident one of the largest data breaches ever reported.

Robert Baldwin, Heartland's president and chief financial officer, said the company, which processes payments for more than 250,000 businesses, began receiving fraudulent activity reports late last year from MasterCard and Visa on cards that had all been used at merchants which rely on Heartland to process payments.

Baldwin said 40 percent of transactions the company processes are from small to mid-sized restaurants across the country. He declined to name any well-known establishments or retail clients that may have been affected by the breach.

Baldwin said it would be unfair to mention any one of his company's customers....

...Avivah Litan, a fraud analyst with Gartner Inc., questioned the timing of Heartland's disclosure -- a day in which many Americans and news outlets are glued to coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration as the nation's 44th president.

"This looks like the biggest breach ever disclosed, and they're doing it on inauguration day?" Litan said. "I can't believe they waited until today to disclose. That seems very deceptive."

Yeah, wouldn't want to let people know that their credit card might have been compromised. That would be unfair to the guy who may have lost them. Read the rest of this post...

Religious right: Obama "professes" to follow Christ

The clear implication is that Obama may only be claiming to be a Christian.

They really are quite small, bitter people, these evangelical Republicans. On the day of Obama's inauguration, they just had to get one more jab in about the Muslim thing - or was it, more generally, the evangelicals' quaint little belief that all other Christians aren't "real" Christians? Either way, it's just another reminder of why we should all thank God that President McCain, Vice President Palin, and the neanderthal wing of the Republican party won't be inhabiting the White House any time soon.

Read the rest of this post...

China censors Obama's inauguration speech

The Beijing government really is pathetic. From the AP:

The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech omitted his references to communism and dissent, and a live broadcast on state television Wednesday quickly cut away to the anchor when sensitive topics were mentioned.

The comments by the newly installed U.S. president veered into politically sensitive territory for China's ruling Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and the entirely state-run media. Beijing tolerates little dissent and frequently decries foreign interference in its internal affairs.

At one point, Obama said earlier generations "faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." He later addressed "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent — know that you are on the wrong side of history."

The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official China Daily newspaper, was missing the word "communism" in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.

The censored version was carried by the state-run Xinhua News Agency and posted on popular online portals Sina and Sohu. Another portal, Netease, used a version without the paragraph mentioning communism, but retaining the part about dissent.

The news channel of state broadcaster China Central Television broadcast the speech live early Wednesday local time, but appeared caught off-guard by the statement about facing down communism.

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

And, yes, it is a good morning. We woke up to a whole new world. "The White House" has been an epithet for the past eight years. Now, it's Barack and Michelle's house. I always hated linking to www.whitehouse.gov -- and only did in order to mock the Bush team. Not anymore. I know it won't be perfect, but it already feels better.

How's everyone doing on the first full day of the Obama administration?

Read the rest of this post...

Wall Street sets record decline for Inauguration day

While it's not great news, it's also not unexpected. The excessive exuberance at the end of the year never felt real and it ignored what everyone knew, which is that Q4 would be a disaster and that the banks were no better off despite a fairly period of calm. The two issues - Q4 corporate earnings and bank problems - are deeply connected and the last thing that banks need is even more trouble with outstanding loans. When the corporate world falls, they cut jobs.

When jobs are lost the banks fall deeper. Breaking out of this cycle will be the challenge for Obama and it's unlikely that the cycle can be broken any time soon. As the earnings continue, more cuts will be announced (as has happened again today). Rewind. Repeat.

Wall Street ushered in the Barack Obama presidency with a record Inauguration Day slide Tuesday amid fresh signs the global bank crisis was far from over.

An index of bank stocks lost 19.7 percent on fears of more losses. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 332.13 points, or 4.01 percent, to end unofficially at 7,949.09. The S&P; 500 Index slid 44.90 points, or 5.28 percent, to finish unofficially at 805.22.

The Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 88.47 points, or 5.78 percent, to close unofficially at 1,440.86.

Read the rest of this post...

Obama puts immediate halt to all Bush-era pending regulations

This is the kind of news I like to see. When we have a clear break from the Bush policies (including the economy, which is still debatable) we will all have good reason to fully be on board. Shutting down ongoing regulation reviews is a very good place to start. Regulation and oversight crumbled under the Bush administration or was handed directly over to industry. We all know the end results in the economy, food, pharmaceuticals, energy, conservation, etc. What a difference a day makes.

President Obama has wasted no time handling the Bush administration's unfinished business.

White House officials tell CNN Obama Chief Staff of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo Tuesday to all agencies and departments of the federal government. The memo halts further consideration of pending regulations throughout the government until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

Read the rest of this post...

Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933

Kind of fascinating to hear his speech, talking about "fear" in the middle of an economic crisis.

Read the rest of this post...