A new review of Best Care Anywhere, 2nd Edition appeared on O’Reilly Radar Today.

“There’s a lot more in this pithy and readable book, such as how to encourage providers to report errors and how to expand the VA health care system. I’ll let you get the book for yourself to enjoy the details.”

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/08/the-software-behind-the-va-tra.html

We’ve got another Jeff Farias interview clip for you all. Today, it’s a great piece with Sarah Posner, author of God’s Profits, from April 27, 2009.

For more interviews with Progressive thinkers visit TheJeffFariasShow.com.

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Check out the full review here:

http://bit.ly/a7gOCw

Veteran journalist Reese Erlich, author of The Iran Agenda, Dateline Havana, and the forthcoming Conversations with Terrorists, has a new piece up over at CommonDreams.org today about recently-deceased Lebanese ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah.

Fadlallah’s name, unfamiliar to the general public in the United States, is now making the rounds in the U.S. media in connection with the story of CNN firing its senior Middle Eastern editor, Octavia Nasr, over a Twitter post expressing sympathy for his passing.

Erlich interviewed Fadlallah personally for a chapter in Conversations with Terrorists, and sheds some light on the man for the rest of us:

Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah, often characterized in western media as the “spiritual adviser to Hezbollah,” died of natural causes in Beirut this week at the age of 75. Many western leaders considered him a terrorist.

I’ve met Ayatollah Fadlallah, and he was no terrorist.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies tried to murder Fadlallah several times in the 1980s because they mistakenly thought he was responsible for the bombings of the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. But Fadlallah’s survival only enhanced his reputation.

Apparently his aura continues to haunt the West. On July 7 Octavia Nasr, CNN Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs, sent out a tweet that she had “respect” for him and was “sad” about his passing. That was enough to get her fired.

Fadlallah held views with which I strongly disagreed. But dismissing him and other Middle East leaders as terrorists only makes solving problems more difficult. So far President Obama continues the same wrong-headed policies as his predecessors.

I interviewed Ayatollah Fadlallah in Beirut at the end of 2008. I had traveled to the region with actor/writer Peter Coyote to research an article that appeared in Vanity Fair. Fadlallah welcomed us to his compound in west Beirut.

The entire article is well worth a read for its valuable clarifications of the complexities surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the numerous actors involved.

Over the Cliff co-author John Amato will be speaking in L.A. on July 16 at a fundraiser for the L.A. Media Reform Group, which “focuses on holding news accountable to the public interest and encouraging citizens to create their own media, and to be critical consumers of the mass media.”

The event is free, although the suggested donation of $35 will not only go to help a great cause, but will also snag you a signed copy of Over the Cliff!

We’ve copied the full invitation text below.

John Amato Speaking at LA Media Reform Fundraiser in Beverly Hills on July 16

In Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane, John Amato and coauthor David Neiwert show that the Tea Party “movement” was not the organic uprising it was made to appear, but rather was kick-started by FOX News and follows in a long tradition of movement conservative activism that harkens back to the street theater days of Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist.

John Amato will speak and sign his groudbreaking book at a fundraiser to support the LA Media Reform Group’s annual media summit (to be held February 26, 2011):

John Amato Reading
Friday, July 16, 7:30 p.m., in Beverly Hills
(Address available after RSVP)
RSVP to lamrg@commoncause.org
Suggested donation of $35 includes signed copy of “Over the Cliff”

Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs. A pioneer of video blogging, he was part of CNN’s election-night coverage in 2006 and has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

“If you want to understand the forces behind the extreme demonization of President Obama and the assault on progressive America, look no further than Over the Cliff. With witty analysis and thorough investigative reporting, Amato and Neiwert provide a definitive chronicle of the far-right’s rapid movement from paranoia to outright violence. —Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party.

The LA Media Reform group is sponsoring this event in collaboration with the LA Progressive and Alliance Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Media Reform Group focuses on holding news accountable to the public interest and encouraging citizens to create their own media, and to be critical consumers of the mass media. Its next annual workshop will be Saturday, February 26th, 2011, at Occidental College. Compete the survey to help select speakers, workshops, and topics.

The LA Progressive is a two-year-old electronic magazine that comments daily on issues of political, social, and cultural consequence to progressives in Los Angeles and everywhere.

Alliance Hollywood is a social advocacy group that utilizes the voice, media and financial power of the entertainment industry to fight corporate interest groups on Capitol Hill.  For more information, go to:www.AllianceHollywood.org

Questions? Contact us at lamrg@commoncause.org

A couple of months ago, radio host Jeff Farias sent us audio clips of interviews he has done with some of our authors. We’ll be putting them up periodically here on the pLOG. Today, we’ve got a great discussion with Nomi Prins, author of Jacked, from October 7, 2009.

For more interviews with Progressive thinkers visit TheJeffFariasShow.com.

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That’s the title of a nice little bit Publishers Weekly wrote about our most recent successes, including sending Over the Cliff back to the press for a second run just two weeks after its release. We’re grateful for the mention!

The devastating exposé of right-wing hysteria and hypocrisy that is Over the Cliff is getting more attention from across the blogosphere. First, The Left Coaster’s “paradox” reviewed the book, joining in on John Amato and David Neiwert’s indictment of conservative media figures as fanning the flames of resentment:

All through the course of Over the Cliff this crashing observation keeps hitting home, how utterly stupid Fox News thinks its human being audience is, the absolutely stunning contempt of any intelligence they have for any person they broadcast to.

[...] you [Fox] are extremely dangerous propagandists who think every American has no ability to think, in any form, or to perform the most elemental acts of reason. How incredibly stupid you think little people Americans are, how totally, completely wrong you are. Loyal tribal Republicans cover for you for other reasons, but everyone sees it and knows it.

How we, as Democrats of every persuasion and loyalty, react and deploy policy in the face of this sick opposition is of course the great blogtopia debate of our present time. Leaving that aside, it’s imperative for everyone to know the correct mental foundation for whatever one’s stance ultimately is cannot be reached without the complete comprehension of the truth in this book.

I’m an internet political junkie, I thought I knew what we were truly up against and I did not. The truth of this work must spread, buy it, read it, and finally act. The Gulf spill is but one of many calamities upon us, we must change. Quickly.

Meanwhile, Steve Levingston at the Washington Post includes Over the Cliff in his list of “flame-throwing political books” for the summer. While we (and, we believe, the authors) would respectfully disagree with this characterization, we appreciate the notice nonetheless. As a bonus, Levingston also mentions one of our forthcoming titles, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas’ American Taliban, due out in September.

We’ve got some great news to report about our newest release, Over the Cliff. John Amato and David Neiwert’s extensively-researched and astonishing account of the rise of extreme right-wing rhetoric since Barack Obama’s election as president looks set to join the ranks of PoliPoint’s best-selling titles. Our full press release about its first few weeks is copied here:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“John Amato and David Neiwert have produced a book that should stay on shelves for 50 years…As a record of what is happening to American conservatism in the year 2010, Over the Cliff is unmatched.” –Rick Perlstein

SALES OF POLIPOINT’S NEWEST RELEASE TRACK RISE IN EXTREME RIGHT-WING RHETORIC

Blog Pioneers’ Reporting of Right-Wing Kookery and Violence Lives Up to High Praise

Sausalito, CA—In the first two weeks of Obama’s presidency, more than 200 hate crimes, including assault, arson, and even murder, were committed in the U.S. This rabid reaction continues today, fueled by popular conservative media pundits, politicians, and a seemingly new right wing populist faction, the Tea Party Movement.

Now, in its first two weeks on the market, Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane by Crooks and Liars founder John Amato and award-winning investigative journalist David Neiwert, is steadily selling 350 copies in print and 100 in digital form, and has reached as high as #128 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

A hard-hitting documentary of how right-wing politicians and media figures like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh inflame public sentiment by repeating provably false information and spinning the day’s events in outlandish and hyperbolic fashion, Over the Cliff illustrates the hypocrisy of these prominent right-wingers in attaching great importance to extreme rhetoric while simultaneously disavowing any violent actions taken by members of their audience who hang on their every word.

Even the most cursory examination of Over the Cliff provides enough evidence to explain why the American people’s perception of the Republican Party is at a historic low. Little wonder, then, that the Daily Kos’ Susan Gardner called Over the Cliff “persuasive,” “methodically documented,” and “a wake-up call for those in denial.” Given the sales of this early summer release, Over the Cliff is providing many Americans with a startling account of the rise in right-wing extremism.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs. A pioneer of video blogging, he was part of CNN’s election-night coverage in 2006 and has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

David Neiwert is a journalist and author. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Seattle Magazine, and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report. His online reportage on domestic violence for MSNBC won a National Press Club Award in 2000. He is the author of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (2009) and editor of Ornicus, the award-winning weblog.

# # #

OVER THE CLIFF: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane

By John Amato and David Neiwert

$16.95, PoliPointPress, June 1, 2010, Trade Paper

ISBN: 978-0-9824171-7-1, 296 pages, 5.5” x 8.5”

$9.99 eBook, PDF, ePub, Mobi
ISBN: 978-1-9362273-8-9

For more information, go to www.p3books.com/overthecliff/

For press inquiries, please contact Darcy Cohan: 415-339-4111 or darcycohan@p3books.com

We announced some time ago that we would be bringing some of our most recent titles available in digital format to the Apple iBookstore.

Now, we’re making it official: we’ve self-published six of our most recent and best-selling titles to the iBookstore, including the brand new book from John Amato and David Neiwert, Over the Cliff. The full press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

POLIPOINT TITLES NOW AVAILABLE ON IBOOKSTORE

Sausalito, CA—Effective immediately, PoliPointPress, an independent publisher in Sausalito, CA, will offer six of its most recent titles on Apple’s iBookstore, accessible from the Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. The titles currently available on the iBookstore are Over the Cliff by John Amato and David Neiwert, The Evolution of Everything by Mark Sumner, Best Care Anywhere, Second Edition by Phillip Longman, Sick and Tired by Helene Jorgensen, False Profits by Dean Baker, and Rules of Disengagement by Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd.

The six titles published to the iBookstore represent a cross-section of the major issues facing the country to date. Rules of Disengagement examines, through the eyes of two nationally-recognized experts of law, the long history of dissent by active military service members, as well as efforts by current service members to argue in court against the unlawfulness of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Dean Baker, co-founder and Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), reveals in False Profits the efforts of top economic policymakers to re-write the immediate aftermath of the burst bubble of 2008-2009. Economist Helene Jorgensen sheds light on the deadly shortcomings and flaws of the American healthcare system by recounting her struggle with Lyme disease in Sick and Tired, while Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, provides a model for healthcare reform by calling for a civilian version of VA healthcare in the updated second edition of his best-selling Best Care Anywhere. Long-time DailyKos contributing editor Mark Sumner offers an enlightening look at how Darwin’s ideas about evolution and selection influence a wide variety of phenomena in our daily lives in The Evolution of Everything. Finally, the just-released Over the Cliff by award-winning journalists John Amato and David Neiwert documents the increasingly extreme rhetoric of the American right in the second year of the Obama administration.

Recognizing the importance of digital offerings in the publishing industry and their growth potential, John McAlester, P3’s Digital Content Manager says, “Distributing to the iBookstore makes our books more widely available to consumers who can now take advantage of PoliPoint’s eBook features on an advanced e-reader.”

To purchase P3 titles on the iBookstore, please visit the iBooks app on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. For our full catalog of titles in hardcover, paperback, and eBooks in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats, please visit http://www.p3books.com/catalog.

PoliPointPress publishes books on politics, culture and sustainability. Founded in 2004, the company’s best-sellers include The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by the Politics and Practices, and Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare Is Better Than Yours.

###

For more information, contact:

Darcy Cohan, Director of Marketing and Publicity

p: 415-339-4111

e: darcycohan@p3books.com

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our very own YouTube channel! We’ll be featuring videos about the press and our authors in the future, so make sure to check back often for new content. We’ll leave you with this great interview featuring John Amato and David Neiwert talking about their latest book, Over the Cliff, with the Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur:

And what a review it is. The whole post is worth a close reading, but here are the highlights:

Readability/quality: Concise, persuasive and methodically documented, Over the Cliff is a smooth and sobering read. It feels much shorter than it actually is—there’s a lot of information packed in, both historical and current, and a tremendous job has been done in picking through the right-wing landscape for pertinent, on-the-money examples. Lord knows you could spend a couple thousand pages just on documenting the day-to-day rhetoric (in fact, Media Matters does just that). So thanks, guys, for paring it down and honing it.

Who should read it: Everybody. Seriously. This is a wake-up call for those in denial, a refresher course for the painfully aware. Good reference to have on hand in your permanent home library for quick examples of extremism in Obama’s first year.

And a sobering conclusion:

Beware. There’s even more crazy in front of us than behind, the authors say.

Our current list titles are now available as eBooks on the Apple iBookstore. Including The Evolution of Everything and Over the Cliff. Our eBooks are priced at $9.99. If you have an iPad do a search for PoliPointPress once you are in the store. The iBooks app will be available to iPhones and iPod Touches starting June 21.

Todd Farley, the author of Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry, has gotten mentioned in two separate reports on the failure of testing company NCS Pearson to properly administer and subsequently score the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog has more on the glitches, and a link to an earlier guest post by Todd himself. Alexander Russo at This Week in Education adds his thoughts on the Florida debacle, and mentions other testing problems in New York. Russo reviewed Making the Grades last year.

Long-time Daily Kos contributing editor Mark Sumner’s The Evolution of Everything has received some great reviews from across the Web. The Daily Kos’ DarkSyde got a chance to interview Mark about the book and had this to say about it:

…like everything else Mark writes, it’s just a joy to read. The Evolution of Everything is absolutely written for the layperson and still a delight for the scientifically inclined, stuffed full of great analogies, unexpected anecdotes, and thoughtful comparisons.

And Matt Young over at Panda’s Thumb, a blog dedicated to the defense of evolution and other scientific issues, wrote:

Best Care Anywhere is getting even more attention as the Memorial Day weekend brought renewed attention to the sacrifices of our veterans past and present, and the debts we owe them.

Author Phillip Longman went on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” to discuss health care issues in the military:

And Maggie Mahar at Health Beat posted an excellent piece on the virtues of both the updated edition of Best Care Anywhere and the VA’s open-source patient-management software, VistA, which she says is just one example of how the VA is “on the cutting edge of evidence-based, patient-centered medicine.” Great lessons to take away as we look to the future for the roll-out of comprehensive health reform for all Americans.

P3 author Dean Baker (Plunder and Blunder, False Profits) has an op-ed in USA Today about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His message? Encourage these organizations to return to their roots as boring public agencies.

What’s most amazing about the housing bubble and its aftermath is how unnecessary all of it was. The drive to deregulate Wall Street was, in effect, a stubborn refusal to learn the lessons of the 1930s. Even Alan Greenspan, the grand wizard of deregulation, has said as much. So here we are again, reinventing the wheel.

Kudos to Dean for keeping it as simple as possible–but not simpler.

P3 author Phil Longman–and his book on VA healthcare–got some much-deserved attention this weekend. Maggie Mahar’s blog, Health Beat, applauded Best Care Anywhere–both editions. And MarketWatch, which appears on the Wall Street Journal’s website, quoted Phil on the VA in a post called “For quality, it’s hard to top veteran’s health care.”

Very gratifying to see the book receiving its due. The next step is to let its message inform the larger health care debate–which, in our view, is far from over.

P3 author Nancy Cohen had an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times last week. Drawing on polling data, she shows that the “pro-choice” contingent is still a solid majority in the United States. But she also argues it’s time for a fresh review of the labels applied to that majority.

Radio host Jeff Farias recently sent us some audio clips of interviews he has done with our authors. Here’s a great discussion with David Neiwert, author of The Eliminationists, from July 16, 2009.

For more interviews with Progressive thinkers visit TheJeffFariasShow.com.

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Alternet has a preview up from John Amato and David Neiwert’s forthcoming book, Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the Right Insane. The book is due out on June 1.

Best Care Anywhere is now available on the iBookstore for your iPad! Rules of Disengagement, Sick & Tired, False Profits, and future PoliPoint titles will also be made available on the iBookstore in the days to come. Thanks to our friends over at Lulu for making it possible!

P3 author John Amato sent over this comment by Rep. Alan Grayson from an email exchange they had -

At their hugely popular website ‘Crooks and Liars,’ John Amato and David Neiwert have helped to expose the fact that there is no conservative party in America any more. They show that the right wingers are not conservatives, they are anarchists. The only law the right wing believes in is the Law of the Jungle. No schools, no hospitals, no job programs, no nothing. Their idea of nirvana is Mogadishu. See it there, at ‘Crooks and Liars,’ and read it here.”

Amato exposes more about today’s conservative party in his new book – Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane

Four of PoliPoint’s most recent titles are now available in DRM-free ePub format at eBookPie. See Best Care Anywhere, Sick & Tired, False Profits, and Rules of Disengagement at eBookPie here. Thanks very much to Jill Tomich at eBookPie for making it happen. More titles will follow, so stay tuned!

On June 1, 2010 PoliPoint will publish Over the Cliff: How the Obama Election Drove the American Right Insane, by blogosphere pioneers John Amato and David Neiwert. Today, in a guest blog on Washington Post’s Political Bookworm, Amato and Neiwert list the Top 10 things the American Right believe that are provably untrue. According to the authors, the beliefs are ranked by importance in their increasingly Planet Bizarro-like worldview.

Read their post here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/05/10_fictious_tea_party_beliefs.html

P3 author and National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn has a new article on Huffington Post about Elena Kagan, whom President Obama has nominated for a Supreme Court post.

Like lots of progressives, Marjorie is having a hard time mustering any enthusiasm for the nomination. As Glenn Greenwald has observed, President Bush had no qualms about nominating straight-up conservatives like Alito and Roberts. So why do Democratic presidents favor moderates over true progressives?

P3 author Dean Baker appeared on GRITtv with Laura Flanders to discuss Greece, deficits, Fannie Mae, and other economic issues. As usual, he cut through the nonsense and gave viewers a clear idea of how much work we still have to do. He argued that all the talk about deficits and markets is missing the big point, which starts with housing and jobs.

Dean also appeared on Rachel Maddow’s program and in Gretchen Morgenson’s New York Times blog this week.

Check out Laura Frazin Steele’s nice write up of PoliPoint after she visited our booth at the LA Times Festival of Books!

http://www.examiner.com/x-31737-LA-Books-Examiner~y2010m4d29-PoliPointPress-offers-progressive-books-on-current-affairs-politics-and-sustainability#comments

Ten years ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, and scandal-ridden. Today, they’re producing the highest quality care in the country. Their turnaround points the way toward solving America’s health-care crisis.

Health Care Delivery Reform: As tens of million of Americans gain access to an already broken health care system, what can we learn from the transformation of nation’s veterans hospitals?

Thursday, April 29, 2010
12:15 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

New America Foundation
1899 L St NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20036

Since its original publication three years ago, Phillip Longman’s Best Care Anywhere has become a classic among health care delivery system reformers. Nobel Laureate and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has it applauded its central insight: that a universal, integrated system such as the VA is best equipped to maximize health care quality while lower costs thanks to its long-term relationship with its patients. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has called Best Care Anywhere , “Among the most important social policy books published in the last decade.” Through word of mouth and expert endorsement, it has become one of the nation’s best selling books on fixing the health care delivery system as well as assigned reading for students of health care policy. Now, by popular demand, Longman has produced a new, expanded second edition that relates the book’s paradoxical message to the new and urgent challenges created by passage of comprehensive health insurance reform.

The book chronicles the transformation of the VA health system from one of the worst health care providers in United States into one that outperforms nearly all others on metrics ranging from patient safety to the use of electronic medical records, adoption of evidence medicine, cost-effectiveness and patient satisfaction. Longman uses this story, along with that of his first wife’s death to breast cancer at a prestigious cancer treatment center, to draw out lessons about how much of what we think we know about the working of the health care delivery system is simply wrong.

Please join us for a conversation between Longman and Washington Monthly editor in chief Paul Glastris, who edited and published the original magazine cover story that became the book, and who continues to prod Longman for fuller explanations of how it can possible be true. Glastris is also a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. Longman is a Schwartz Senior fellow at the Washington Monthly and a Program Fellow at New America.

featured speaker
Phillip Longman
Senior Research Fellow, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation
Author, Best Care Anywhere

moderator
Paul Glastris
Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation
Editor-in-Chief, Washington Monthly
To RSVP for the event, click on the red button or go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/best_care_anywhere

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net.

For media inquiries, contact Kate Brown at (202) 596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.

www.NewAmerica.net

On her blog, My Political Side, Susan Gaissert says reading Hope Is a Tattered Flag “will enrich your life.” Check out the full review here:

http://srgaissert.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/hope-is-a-tattered-flag-book-review/

P3 author Curtis White was a finalist for the Orion Book Award, which will go to Charles Bowden for “Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing.” Don Snow, chair of the prize committee, had this to say about Curt and his work:

Familiar to Orion readers, Curtis White’s essays refuse to let us off with
easy blame-placing. White hones in on environmentalists’ tendencies to damn
corporations for every major ill on earth, and instead offers a challenging,
bracing, and radical alternative: to look very carefully at ourselves ­the
assumptions, habits, ideas, and cultural ideals that underpin and inform
every moment of our daily lives in a society of empire. White is telling us
that no matter how much we may loathe the Bush-Cheney-Palin forces in our
society, we are all inheritors and practitioners of the very traditions ­
all of them quite recent, historically ­ which this Troika of Doom
outspokenly espouse. One juror said this: “White strikes at the root of what
ails us, rather than at the manifestations of that ailment. In so doing he
helps us see the water in which we swim, in ways that are provocative and
original. He grounds his thinking in classical history, which is striking
for an environmental writer. He may go deeper than anyone else in the way he
thinks about and explains the roots of modern society’s ailments.” Another
said this: “Our culture, White says, is eating it own flesh. And we need to
stop thinking of corporations as powerful evildoers and start looking hard
in the mirror at our most basic assumptions.”

P3 author David Neiwert appeared on Rachel Maddow’s program to discuss the latest right-wing fringe group and its plan to wage war against the U.S. government. Dave wondered openly about plans to stage a million-man armed march, but he also called the media on a kind of double standard when it comes to terrorism. That is, what do we call Americans who direct political violence at other Americans–and American institutions?

Barry Lynn and p3 author Phil Longman ask a painfully pertinent question: Who broke America’s jobs machine? Speaking at an event co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and Washington Monthly, they point to a historical anomaly–zero job growth between 1999 and 2009, the first such bagel since the 1940s.

As Lynn and Longman acknowledge, a statistic like this is bound to have many factors. But they point to one that so far has received less attention: decades of corporate consolidation that have throttled new job growth, most of which comes from smaller firms.

My publishing industry experience certainly follows the pattern they outline. When I started in the college division at Harper & Row, we competed with Prentice Hall, Macmillan, Addison-Wesley, Scott Foresman, Benjamin Cummings, and Allyn & Bacon. Now all of those firms (and others) are part of Pearson, a London-based conglomerate. You may have heard of their other operations, too, which include Penguin, Viking, and the Financial Times.

I don’t see how any of this consolidation has benefited consumers, much less employees.

P3 author Dean Baker appeared on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” yesterday to discuss the Obama administration’s new plan to prevent foreclosures. Dean’s main point was that the plan seems more favorable to banks than to homeowners, whose home prices may continue to fall. If so, those homeowners will continue to make mortgage payments but will not increase their equity. Dean’s solution is to allow those owners to rent those same homes.

The documentary film based on “War Made Easy” airs twice: Saturday (March 20) at 8 p.m. West Coast time and Sunday (March 21) at Noon. It’ll stream live at http://cmcm.tv/26live … In Marin County, you can watch on TV via Comcast Channel 26 or AT&T Channel 99. The film will be followed by my roundtable discussion with authors Antonia Juhasz and Reese Erlich.

P3 author Reese Erlich has a nifty piece on Truthdig today called “The Difference Between a Terrorist and Someone Who Flies an Airplane Into a Building.” Very instructive.

Reese’s next book, scheduled for fall, is Conversation with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence, and Empire.

The Invisible Hand – The podcast on business, economics and strategy gave an interview with P3 author Dean Baker recently. The audio can be played below.

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Radio host Jeff Farias recently sent us some audio clips of interviews he has done with our authors. Here’s a great discussion with Reese Erlich, author of Dateline Havana, from January 27, 2009.

For more interviews with Progressive thinkers visit TheJeffFariasShow.com.

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I just came across this review of Todd Farley’s Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry. It’s by a retired middle school teacher in Oakland and was posted on The Education Report, Katy Murphy’s blog on Oakland schools.

Of course I was gratified that the reviewer, Steven Weinberg, enjoyed the book and endorsed Todd’s message. Even better that Todd’s humor had him and his wife in stitches. (Me, too.) But Weinberg took it a step further, adding his own experiences with the testing industry in California. Those experiences point to a disturbing lack of accountability and deepen the critique of the current testing regime.

When we acquired this book, we had teachers like Steven Weinberg in mind. Also concerned parents. Here’s the upshot of the review: “Making the Grades reveals some shocking truths about how we are judging schools and students; Farley’s book deserves a wide readership.” Amen!

There’s a fine excerpt of Dean Baker’s False Profits on AlterNet today. As I said in my last post, Dean knows how to break it down, and this excerpt is a perfect example.

Leslie Thatcher reviewed Dean Baker’s False Profits for Truthout yesterday. “False Profits,” she concludes, “combines impeccable scholarship – assembling an array of relevant facts and data totally accessible to non-economists – with Baker’s acerbic, but unforced, wit and verve.”

It’s gratifying to see Dean’s work recognized this way. He does have a rare ability to combine expertise with appropriate moral outrage. Given the suffering Wall Street’s recklessness and DC’s deregulatory mania has wrought, one or the other doesn’t do this topic justice.

Murray Hill Inc. in a recent photo.

This just in from p3 author Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

News Release
Supreme Court Ruling Spurs Corporation Run for Congress

January 27, 2010

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it is filing to run for U.S. Congress. “Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence-peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.” Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office.

“The strength of America,” Murray Hill Inc. said, “is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America’s great corporations. We’re saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?” Murray Hill Inc. added: “It’s our democracy. We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.” Murray Hill Inc., a diversifying corporation in the Washington, D.C. area, has long held an interest in politics and sees corporate candidacy as an “emerging new market.”

The campaign’s “designated human,” Eric Hensal, will help the corporation conform to “antiquated, human only” procedures and sign the necessary voter registration and candidacy paperwork. Hensal is excited by this new opportunity: “We want to get in on the ground floor of the democracy market before the whole store is bought by China.” Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.

Campaign manager William Klein promises an aggressive, historic campaign that “puts people second” or “even third.” “The business of America is business, as we all know,” Klein says. “But now, it’s the business of democracy too.” Klein plans to use automated robo-calls, “Astroturf” lobbying and “computer-generated avatars” to get out the vote. Added Hensal: “This is the next frontier of civil rights.”

P3′s bestseller is The Blue Pages, which (among other things) shows readers how much money corporations contribute to the two major political parties. The idea is simple; money talks, so let’s listen, draw our own judgments about who’s benefiting, and patronize companies that share our values.

But now the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to lift restrictions on corporate giving to politicians. That effectively sets up an open auction for Congress and the White House. It also recalls the old Bob Dylan line: money doesn’t talk, it swears.

What to do? P3 author Dean Baker has an idea. In exchange for granting limited liability to corporations, Congress should impose restrictions on them similar to those for tax-exempt organizations. Dean outlined his idea in this piece on Huffington Post.

I love the simplicity of that idea. The question is, will Congress and the White House push back on their patrons/paymasters?

National Capital Lyme & Tick-Borne Disease Association Announces its February Speaker

Helene Jorgensen

Helene Jorgensen (Ph.D. American University, Economics; M.S., George Mason University, Environmental Science and Policy) studies health care, labor markets, and employment benefits. Her forthcoming book, Sick and Tired: How the U.S. Health Care System Fails Its Patients (Polipoint Press, February 2010), tells the story of her own battle with Lyme disease and examines the institutional failures of the health care system.

BOOKS WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Presentation & Book Signing: 2 – 4 PM
Ernst Auditorium
Sibley Memorial Hospital
5255 Loughboro Rd., N.W., Washington, DC 20016
Click Here for Directions

Helene Jorgensen spent many sleepless nights worrying about her growing pile of medical bills. Since being diagnosed with neurological Lyme disease in 2003, her good-on-paper health insurance repeatedly denied claims. She got stuck with paying thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, because of quantity limits on prescription drugs and out-of-network care. At the same time, she had to fight for continued treatment for her Lyme disease.

Sick, sleep deprived and frustrated, Jorgensen set out to uncover why the health care system was failing her and so many other patients. What she learned surprised her and compelled her to write the book: Sick and Tired: How the U.S. Health Care System Fails Its Patients (Polipoint Press, February 2010).

In Sick and Tired, Jorgensen combines her own experiences as a patient, with her background as an economist, to discuss the role of insurance companies in determining care. She examines the incentive structures of health care providers. She exposes pharmaceutical companies influence over prescription patterns, and the deceptive billing practices by laboratories, such as Quest Diagnostics. Based on the lessons she learned, Jorgensen offers practical advice to help patients reduce their health care costs and demand better care.

A new article in Education Week asks whether or not it’s practical to include better open-ended questions in high-stakes standardized tests.

The answer, in short, is that there are many practical obstacles to doing so. In his article, Stephen Sawchuk mentions p3 author Todd Farley.

For some, the idea of expanding human-scored items raises issues of reliability: Performance-based items are typically less mathematically reliable than those based entirely on multiple choice.

Todd Farley, a 15-year veteran of the test-scoring business who detailed his experiences in a recent book, Making the Grades, is among the skeptics. In the book, Mr. Farley alleges that the scoring guidelines for open-ended items were frequently counterintuitive, and that as a “table leader”—an individual supervising other scorers’ work—he occasionally changed other reviewers’ scores.

Though test publishers interviewed for this story dismissed Mr. Farley’s account, independent sources do point to areas of concern. At least two reports issued by the Education Department’s office of inspector general last year, for instance, found lapses in Florida’s and Tennessee’s oversight of test contractors charged with scoring open-ended items.

If I were angling for a piece of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund, I would dismiss Todd’s account, too.

P3 author Dean Baker appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition” yesterday and added a measure of sanity to the budget discussions playing out in DC.

With double-digit unemployment rates, and after eight years of a two-front war and occupation, some lawmakers think it’s high time we cut entitlements. Recall that Sen. Judd Gregg of the Senate Budget Committee claimed a few years ago that we face a classic guns-and-butter tradeoff, and that we need to cut the butter (i.e., non-military domestic spending, the stuff that actually helps American families).

Dean’s suggestion is that we deal with jobs and health care now and worry about the deficit in 2012. He also suggests we consider a financial transactions tax and cuts to the Pentagon.

Dean’s new book, False Profits, was just released.

P3 author Reese Erlich appeared on KPFK’s “Uprising” with Sonali Kolhatkar. Reese’s recent trip to Afghanistan puts him in a good position to comment on the latest round of violence there, and Sonali is an exceptionally adroit host, especially (but not only) on this topic. Reese talks about corruption, the drug trade, the U.S. support for the current narco-state there, and the dubious effects of the recent U.S. troop escalation. Highly recommended.

P3 author Phil Longman (Best Care Anywhere, The Next Progressive Era) just wrote an article on Agent Orange for Washington Monthly. It highlights how difficult it is to determine whether or not the illnesses that afflict veterans were actually related to their service.

OK, granted. But as Phil sensibly points out, do we really need to figure that out? Wouldn’t it be easier, better, and more productive to simply treat the illnesses of all veterans?

And of course this question goes to the health care system as a whole. Does any other country spend as much time and energy trying to figure out why Organization X shouldn’t treat someone?