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Critics: Daschle's Soft Image Masks Political Machine
WASHINGTON (Talon News) — More than once in the last two years, soft-spoken Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has complained that political opponents have tried to silence him.
The Senate Democrat leader generated waves of negative reaction in 2002 when he criticized President Bush for bungling the war in Afghanistan and again this year when he said, “I’m saddened, saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this President couldn’t create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.”
Following the furor over that remark, Daschle lamented to CBS’s Harry Smith that it’s “sad that as we fight for democracy abroad, there are some in this country who would squelch it.”
Daschle led the Senate chorus against the recent changes in Federal Communications Commission rules that would liberalize regulations governing radio, television, and print media ownership. In a statement issued on June 2, 2003, Daschle said, “I’m worried that the new rules will lead to a growing concentration of control over our news and information to the detriment of our democracy … allowing a handful of companies to dominate the media will make it harder for independent voices to succeed.”
But some in the three-term senator’s home state find his expressions of concern for democracy and independent voices ironic, as they claim the tactics of his political machine in South Dakota stifles both.
Talon News originally investigated accusations of bias at South Dakota’s largest newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Information gained as a result of that investigation uncovered what one public official described as a “Sopranos-style” pattern of systematic political intimidation by some members of Daschle’s staff and campaign.
He explained that under the cover of “hardball politics” the intimidation is accomplished by pursuing those who are most vulnerable. Small business owners and their employees are particularly susceptible to bullying. The official said that threats of the loss of business or employment are usually sufficient to silence open political opposition, but sometimes a newspaper article is necessary to discredit a rival or critic. In a largely rural state of 750,000 people, nearly everyone is “touchable” in some way.
Steve Hildebrand, Daschle’s campaign manager recently defended their tactics in a statement to the Washington Post. “You’ll see us spending a lot of time attacking the attackers,” he said.
Calls to Hildebrand by Talon News for comment were not returned.
When South Dakota Family Council Executive Director Rob Regier mulled formation of the Daschle Accountability Project, the Daschle campaign went public with a warning that it had an audio tape of the conservative Christian’s confession of paying for an abortion for a former girlfriend. But instead of creating embarrassment as the Daschle campaign intended, Regier told Talon News that this “revelation” was part of his oft-repeated Christian testimony and certainly no secret. He said that Hildebrand’s actions brought “the politics of personal destruction to a new low.”
Most individuals interviewed by Talon News will not allow the use of their names for fear of retribution. Others will simply not comment.
An insurance agent got the message to “get out of politics” or face financial ruin due to loss of business. A Republican campaign worker’s employer was pressured to convince him that he had to choose between his job and his political activities. The family of a man whose business was less vulnerable to direct intimidation was subjected to a barrage of harassing telephone calls after he was identified in a newspaper as a member of a political opposition group.
An elected official speaking to Talon News under condition of anonymity said, “People in South Dakota are afraid to talk about the Mafia tactics and intimidation by the Daschle campaign precisely because of their Mafia tactics and intimidation.”
Daschle’s Washington arm-twisting was evident in the 2002 campaign that pitted incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson against Republican Congressman John Thune. Roll Call reported that one Democrat lobbyist recalled Daschle telling her, “We are going to be watching how you and your industry do in the race in our state.”
The lobbyist remarked, “I have never had anyone tell me I could not give to a candidate before.”
One GOP lobbyist was quoted saying, “Daschle is being subtle and heavy-handed at the same time.” He continued, “He walks up, puts his hand on your shoulder, gives that Daschle grin and says, ‘You know I am keeping track of people who give to Tim Johnson.'”
Calls to Daschle Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer for comment were not returned.
Charlene Haar, a former high school teacher, who was Daschle’s 1992 opponent, told Talon News that the Democrat campaign pulled their ads from Madison, SD radio station KJAM after the station aired her political spots.
Media manipulation has been the stated cornerstone of the machine’s success. In a 1997 interview, Daschle’s media consultant Karl Struble revealed a technique effectively used in Sen. Tim Johnson’s campaign against an incumbent Republican. In the article, Struble proudly proclaimed, “Our campaign systematically doled out the information piece by piece to reporters in D.C. and South Dakota. The result was a series of damaging articles. … We used the headlines generated as validators for our ads.”
As a result of a Talon News original investigation, the Argus Leader acknowledged a relationship between its star political reporter, David Kranz, and Sen. Daschle that goes back 35 years. Kranz and Daschle worked together at South Dakota State University to stage a mock Democrat Convention in 1968. Kranz served as Daschle’s publicity chairman for the event. Critics charge his subsequent political reporting has been clearly favorable to Daschle and the Democrats and unusually harsh to Republicans.
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. based newspaper, called Kranz’s bias against Republican Sen. Larry Pressler in the 1990 Senate race “vituperative.” The New York Times noted how Kranz and the Argus Leader have “unfairly reported on Republican office-holders.”
Critics say that one of the most glaring examples of the Argus Leader’s bias is in the reporting on political spouses. Executive Editor Randell Beck explains that his newspaper doesn’t report on the lobbying activities of Daschle spouse Linda because the Argus Leader’s policy is to not report on the “wives of candidates.” Yet the Argus Leader with Kranz as managing editor ran a series of articles about Pressler’s wife Harriet. They implied that Mrs. Pressler, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., profited by insider information from her husband. No charges were ever filed in the matter.
In 1995, the newspaper printed an editorial entitled “Gingrich’s Wife’s Job Raises Ethical Issue” in which it criticized the wife of the Republican Speaker of the House for taking a position with the Israel Export Development Company. The editorial stated, “The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard. Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearance of impropriety. Marianna Gingrich should seek employment elsewhere.”
The Argus Leader has rarely mentioned Linda Daschle at all. Linda Daschle’s lobbying income last year is estimated to be $6 million dollars.
Amidst the furor spawned by Republican senate candidate Neal Tapio’s accusations of bias and the reporting of Talon News, the Argus Leader promoted Kranz in an ad that said, “With almost 30 years covering South Dakota politics, David Kranz is unmatched for expertise. His insights and analysis are a must-read for anyone.”
Further investigation revealed that the link between the newspaper and the Democrat machine became even broader when Kranz’s colleague at the Argus Leader, Steve Erpenbach joined the Daschle team. Erpenbach was assistant city editor of the Argus Leader from 1986 until 1989 while Kranz was the city editor. Erpenbach went to work for Pressler’s opponent in the 1990 contest. It was the coverage of that race that prompted The New York Times and Roll Call to criticize the Argus Leader’s negative reporting on Sen. Pressler. Erpenbach is now Sen. Daschle’s state political director.
Kranz refused to be interviewed for this article when contacted by Talon News, and calls to Erpenbach were not returned.
Other media outlets have been subjected to pressure from the Daschle campaign. Greg Belfrage, an outspoken radio talk show host for Sioux Falls KELO-AM has been called on the carpet several times for his “Daschle bashing.”
On his Web site, Belfrage writes, “Intimidation and embarrassment seem to be SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) for Steve Hildebrand and some others in the Daschle campaign. I’ll be counting the days to see how long it takes for Democrats to deliver a copy of this Web page to my employer. It’s happened before.”
Hildebrand personally visited the station to make the Daschle campaign’s demands clear.
At the height of the Argus Leader controversy, Executive Editor Randell Beck cancelled his weekly appearance on a segment called “Argus on Air” after Neal Tapio appeared on Belfrage’s program. Tapio called for the Argus Leader to acknowledge the Kranz-Daschle relationship. Only after Beck met with the station management did he agree to return for the weekly feature. He now refuses to answer questions on the air about the relationship between their political reporter and the Senator.
During the heat of last year’s senate race, Television station KSFY was working on an investigative series about alleged voter fraud involving a Democratic registration effort focused on Native Americans. Sources told Talon News that Democrat operatives descended on the station to demand the firing of news anchor Mitch Krebs and reporter Shelley Keohane and spiking of the story.
KSFY Vice President and General Manager Jack Hansen told Talon News that he “could not recall such an incident” but confirmed that a station employee was fired after it was discovered he was tipping off Democrats to the news stories being planned. Both Krebs and Keohane remain at the station, but coverage of the story was abruptly discontinued.
Charlene Haar believes that a docile press has proven to be a useful tool in a state where one newspaper is dominant. Press releases are printed as fact and errors need never be corrected. The lack of competition ensures that the printed words are not challenged. As Haar notes, “You have a lot of power when you buy ink by the barrel.”
A former staffer to Sen. Pressler lamented that the abuse of such power, especially when it is used to destroy someone’s reputation. In 1990, Kranz called for Pressler to release his “health records” and raised the issue of his “memory” implying he had Alzheimer’s disease. Pressler’s father died of the disease shortly after the Argus Leader ran the story. Rumors have also circulated about Pressler’s absentmindedness, including a story that Pressler mistakenly walked into a closet after a committee hearing and remained there to avoid embarrassment. Randell Beck repeated the story as fact on a recent radio program. Pressler staffers have consistently denied the story.
In 1996 former Sen. James Abourezk (D-SD) recruited the author of “Washington Babylon” for a South Dakota speech to discuss his book that strongly implied that Pressler was a homosexual. Regarding the claim, Abourezk said, “I told everybody who would listen to me.” Kranz repeated those rumors in an Argus Leader article, despite the candidate’s denials. Pressler was defeated that November. Abourezk was Daschle’s mentor, as the current Senate Minority leader got his start in politics as an aide to the South Dakota Democrat in 1972. Abourezk recently made news when he filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against a Pennsylvania parody Web site operator.
A Republican campaign worker who notarized three affidavits of people who claimed they were paid by Democrat operatives to vote in last year’s election complained that a similar character assassination was waged against her. The Argus Leader reported that she “traveled through the Rosebud reservation … asking people if they had any evidence of wrongdoing on Election Day” with an “unsigned affidavit,” a charge she denied. She was unwilling to discuss the matter further with Talon News for fear of another round of persecution by the Argus Leader.
Byron York, White House Correspondent for the National Review, wrote extensively about the voter fraud in South Dakota. The question of voter fraud remains unanswered as two individuals paid by the Democrat Party still face criminal prosecution for forgery in an alleged registration fraud scheme. A Republican official suggested that Thune decided not to challenge his narrow loss to Johnson in order to avoid negative media backlash.
The Daschle campaign released a $31,000 series of television ads last week that feature the senator claiming credit for the recent passage of a law mandating increased ethanol use, which is thought will be a boon to South Dakota farmers. It will also be a windfall for Mrs. Daschle’s lobbying firm which represents the Sioux Falls-based industry group, American Coalition for Ethanol.
Copyright
Critics: Daschle’s Soft Image Masks Political Machine
WASHINGTON (Talon News) — More than once in the last two years, soft-spoken Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has complained that political opponents have tried to silence him.
The Senate Democrat leader generated waves of negative reaction in 2002 when he criticized President Bush for bungling the war in Afghanistan and again this year when he said, “I’m saddened, saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this President couldn’t create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.”
Following the furor over that remark, Daschle lamented to CBS’s Harry Smith that it’s “sad that as we fight for democracy abroad, there are some in this country who would squelch it.”
Daschle led the Senate chorus against the recent changes in Federal Communications Commission rules that would liberalize regulations governing radio, television, and print media ownership. In a statement issued on June 2, 2003, Daschle said, “I’m worried that the new rules will lead to a growing concentration of control over our news and information to the detriment of our democracy … allowing a handful of companies to dominate the media will make it harder for independent voices to succeed.”
But some in the three-term senator’s home state find his expressions of concern for democracy and independent voices ironic, as they claim the tactics of his political machine in South Dakota stifles both.
Talon News originally investigated accusations of bias at South Dakota’s largest newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Information gained as a result of that investigation uncovered what one public official described as a “Sopranos-style” pattern of systematic political intimidation by some members of Daschle’s staff and campaign.
He explained that under the cover of “hardball politics” the intimidation is accomplished by pursuing those who are most vulnerable. Small business owners and their employees are particularly susceptible to bullying. The official said that threats of the loss of business or employment are usually sufficient to silence open political opposition, but sometimes a newspaper article is necessary to discredit a rival or critic. In a largely rural state of 750,000 people, nearly everyone is “touchable” in some way.
Steve Hildebrand, Daschle’s campaign manager recently defended their tactics in a statement to the Washington Post. “You’ll see us spending a lot of time attacking the attackers,” he said.
Calls to Hildebrand by Talon News for comment were not returned.
When South Dakota Family Council Executive Director Rob Regier mulled formation of the Daschle Accountability Project, the Daschle campaign went public with a warning that it had an audio tape of the conservative Christian’s confession of paying for an abortion for a former girlfriend. But instead of creating embarrassment as the Daschle campaign intended, Regier told Talon News that this “revelation” was part of his oft-repeated Christian testimony and certainly no secret. He said that Hildebrand’s actions brought “the politics of personal destruction to a new low.”
Most individuals interviewed by Talon News will not allow the use of their names for fear of retribution. Others will simply not comment.
An insurance agent got the message to “get out of politics” or face financial ruin due to loss of business. A Republican campaign worker’s employer was pressured to convince him that he had to choose between his job and his political activities. The family of a man whose business was less vulnerable to direct intimidation was subjected to a barrage of harassing telephone calls after he was identified in a newspaper as a member of a political opposition group.
An elected official speaking to Talon News under condition of anonymity said, “People in South Dakota are afraid to talk about the Mafia tactics and intimidation by the Daschle campaign precisely because of their Mafia tactics and intimidation.”
Daschle’s Washington arm-twisting was evident in the 2002 campaign that pitted incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson against Republican Congressman John Thune. Roll Call reported that one Democrat lobbyist recalled Daschle telling her, “We are going to be watching how you and your industry do in the race in our state.”
The lobbyist remarked, “I have never had anyone tell me I could not give to a candidate before.”
One GOP lobbyist was quoted saying, “Daschle is being subtle and heavy-handed at the same time.” He continued, “He walks up, puts his hand on your shoulder, gives that Daschle grin and says, ‘You know I am keeping track of people who give to Tim Johnson.'”
Calls to Daschle Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer for comment were not returned.
Charlene Haar, a former high school teacher, who was Daschle’s 1992 opponent, told Talon News that the Democrat campaign pulled their ads from Madison, SD radio station KJAM after the station aired her political spots.
Media manipulation has been the stated cornerstone of the machine’s success. In a 1997 interview, Daschle’s media consultant Karl Struble revealed a technique effectively used in Sen. Tim Johnson’s campaign against an incumbent Republican. In the article, Struble proudly proclaimed, “Our campaign systematically doled out the information piece by piece to reporters in D.C. and South Dakota. The result was a series of damaging articles. … We used the headlines generated as validators for our ads.”
As a result of a Talon News original investigation, the Argus Leader acknowledged a relationship between its star political reporter, David Kranz, and Sen. Daschle that goes back 35 years. Kranz and Daschle worked together at South Dakota State University to stage a mock Democrat Convention in 1968. Kranz served as Daschle’s publicity chairman for the event. Critics charge his subsequent political reporting has been clearly favorable to Daschle and the Democrats and unusually harsh to Republicans.
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. based newspaper, called Kranz’s bias against Republican Sen. Larry Pressler in the 1990 Senate race “vituperative.” The New York Times noted how Kranz and the Argus Leader have “unfairly reported on Republican office-holders.”
Critics say that one of the most glaring examples of the Argus Leader’s bias is in the reporting on political spouses. Executive Editor Randell Beck explains that his newspaper doesn’t report on the lobbying activities of Daschle spouse Linda because the Argus Leader’s policy is to not report on the “wives of candidates.” Yet the Argus Leader with Kranz as managing editor ran a series of articles about Pressler’s wife Harriet. They implied that Mrs. Pressler, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., profited by insider information from her husband. No charges were ever filed in the matter.
In 1995, the newspaper printed an editorial entitled “Gingrich’s Wife’s Job Raises Ethical Issue” in which it criticized the wife of the Republican Speaker of the House for taking a position with the Israel Export Development Company. The editorial stated, “The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard. Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearance of impropriety. Marianna Gingrich should seek employment elsewhere.”
The Argus Leader has rarely mentioned Linda Daschle at all. Linda Daschle’s lobbying income last year is estimated to be $6 million dollars.
Amidst the furor spawned by Republican senate candidate Neal Tapio’s accusations of bias and the reporting of Talon News, the Argus Leader promoted Kranz in an ad that said, “With almost 30 years covering South Dakota politics, David Kranz is unmatched for expertise. His insights and analysis are a must-read for anyone.”
Further investigation revealed that the link between the newspaper and the Democrat machine became even broader when Kranz’s colleague at the Argus Leader, Steve Erpenbach joined the Daschle team. Erpenbach was assistant city editor of the Argus Leader from 1986 until 1989 while Kranz was the city editor. Erpenbach went to work for Pressler’s opponent in the 1990 contest. It was the coverage of that race that prompted The New York Times and Roll Call to criticize the Argus Leader’s negative reporting on Sen. Pressler. Erpenbach is now Sen. Daschle’s state political director.
Kranz refused to be interviewed for this article when contacted by Talon News, and calls to Erpenbach were not returned.
Other media outlets have been subjected to pressure from the Daschle campaign. Greg Belfrage, an outspoken radio talk show host for Sioux Falls KELO-AM has been called on the carpet several times for his “Daschle bashing.”
On his Web site, Belfrage writes, “Intimidation and embarrassment seem to be SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) for Steve Hildebrand and some others in the Daschle campaign. I’ll be counting the days to see how long it takes for Democrats to deliver a copy of this Web page to my employer. It’s happened before.”
Hildebrand personally visited the station to make the Daschle campaign’s demands clear.
At the height of the Argus Leader controversy, Executive Editor Randell Beck cancelled his weekly appearance on a segment called “Argus on Air” after Neal Tapio appeared on Belfrage’s program. Tapio called for the Argus Leader to acknowledge the Kranz-Daschle relationship. Only after Beck met with the station management did he agree to return for the weekly feature. He now refuses to answer questions on the air about the relationship between their political reporter and the Senator.
During the heat of last year’s senate race, Television station KSFY was working on an investigative series about alleged voter fraud involving a Democratic registration effort focused on Native Americans. Sources told Talon News that Democrat operatives descended on the station to demand the firing of news anchor Mitch Krebs and reporter Shelley Keohane and spiking of the story.
KSFY Vice President and General Manager Jack Hansen told Talon News that he “could not recall such an incident” but confirmed that a station employee was fired after it was discovered he was tipping off Democrats to the news stories being planned. Both Krebs and Keohane remain at the station, but coverage of the story was abruptly discontinued.
Charlene Haar believes that a docile press has proven to be a useful tool in a state where one newspaper is dominant. Press releases are printed as fact and errors need never be corrected. The lack of competition ensures that the printed words are not challenged. As Haar notes, “You have a lot of power when you buy ink by the barrel.”
A former staffer to Sen. Pressler lamented that the abuse of such power, especially when it is used to destroy someone’s reputation. In 1990, Kranz called for Pressler to release his “health records” and raised the issue of his “memory” implying he had Alzheimer’s disease. Pressler’s father died of the disease shortly after the Argus Leader ran the story. Rumors have also circulated about Pressler’s absentmindedness, including a story that Pressler mistakenly walked into a closet after a committee hearing and remained there to avoid embarrassment. Randell Beck repeated the story as fact on a recent radio program. Pressler staffers have consistently denied the story.
In 1996 former Sen. James Abourezk (D-SD) recruited the author of “Washington Babylon” for a South Dakota speech to discuss his book that strongly implied that Pressler was a homosexual. Regarding the claim, Abourezk said, “I told everybody who would listen to me.” Kranz repeated those rumors in an Argus Leader article, despite the candidate’s denials. Pressler was defeated that November. Abourezk was Daschle’s mentor, as the current Senate Minority leader got his start in politics as an aide to the South Dakota Democrat in 1972. Abourezk recently made news when he filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against a Pennsylvania parody Web site operator.
A Republican campaign worker who notarized three affidavits of people who claimed they were paid by Democrat operatives to vote in last year’s election complained that a similar character assassination was waged against her. The Argus Leader reported that she “traveled through the Rosebud reservation … asking people if they had any evidence of wrongdoing on Election Day” with an “unsigned affidavit,” a charge she denied. She was unwilling to discuss the matter further with Talon News for fear of another round of persecution by the Argus Leader.
Byron York, White House Correspondent for the National Review, wrote extensively about the voter fraud in South Dakota. The question of voter fraud remains unanswered as two individuals paid by the Democrat Party still face criminal prosecution for forgery in an alleged registration fraud scheme. A Republican official suggested that Thune decided not to challenge his narrow loss to Johnson in order to avoid negative media backlash.
The Daschle campaign released a $31,000 series of television ads last week that feature the senator claiming credit for the recent passage of a law mandating increased ethanol use, which is thought will be a boon to South Dakota farmers. It will also be a windfall for Mrs. Daschle’s lobbying firm which represents the Sioux Falls-based industry group, American Coalition for Ethanol.
Copyright
Critics: Daschle’s Soft Image Masks Political Machine
WASHINGTON (Talon News) — More than once in the last two years, soft-spoken Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has complained that political opponents have tried to silence him.
The Senate Democrat leader generated waves of negative reaction in 2002 when he criticized President Bush for bungling the war in Afghanistan and again this year when he said, “I’m saddened, saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this President couldn’t create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.”
Following the furor over that remark, Daschle lamented to CBS’s Harry Smith that it’s “sad that as we fight for democracy abroad, there are some in this country who would squelch it.”
Daschle led the Senate chorus against the recent changes in Federal Communications Commission rules that would liberalize regulations governing radio, television, and print media ownership. In a statement issued on June 2, 2003, Daschle said, “I’m worried that the new rules will lead to a growing concentration of control over our news and information to the detriment of our democracy … allowing a handful of companies to dominate the media will make it harder for independent voices to succeed.”
But some in the three-term senator’s home state find his expressions of concern for democracy and independent voices ironic, as they claim the tactics of his political machine in South Dakota stifles both.
Talon News originally investigated accusations of bias at South Dakota’s largest newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Information gained as a result of that investigation uncovered what one public official described as a “Sopranos-style” pattern of systematic political intimidation by some members of Daschle’s staff and campaign.
He explained that under the cover of “hardball politics” the intimidation is accomplished by pursuing those who are most vulnerable. Small business owners and their employees are particularly susceptible to bullying. The official said that threats of the loss of business or employment are usually sufficient to silence open political opposition, but sometimes a newspaper article is necessary to discredit a rival or critic. In a largely rural state of 750,000 people, nearly everyone is “touchable” in some way.
Steve Hildebrand, Daschle’s campaign manager recently defended their tactics in a statement to the Washington Post. “You’ll see us spending a lot of time attacking the attackers,” he said.
Calls to Hildebrand by Talon News for comment were not returned.
When South Dakota Family Council Executive Director Rob Regier mulled formation of the Daschle Accountability Project, the Daschle campaign went public with a warning that it had an audio tape of the conservative Christian’s confession of paying for an abortion for a former girlfriend. But instead of creating embarrassment as the Daschle campaign intended, Regier told Talon News that this “revelation” was part of his oft-repeated Christian testimony and certainly no secret. He said that Hildebrand’s actions brought “the politics of personal destruction to a new low.”
Most individuals interviewed by Talon News will not allow the use of their names for fear of retribution. Others will simply not comment.
An insurance agent got the message to “get out of politics” or face financial ruin due to loss of business. A Republican campaign worker’s employer was pressured to convince him that he had to choose between his job and his political activities. The family of a man whose business was less vulnerable to direct intimidation was subjected to a barrage of harassing telephone calls after he was identified in a newspaper as a member of a political opposition group.
An elected official speaking to Talon News under condition of anonymity said, “People in South Dakota are afraid to talk about the Mafia tactics and intimidation by the Daschle campaign precisely because of their Mafia tactics and intimidation.”
Daschle’s Washington arm-twisting was evident in the 2002 campaign that pitted incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson against Republican Congressman John Thune. Roll Call reported that one Democrat lobbyist recalled Daschle telling her, “We are going to be watching how you and your industry do in the race in our state.”
The lobbyist remarked, “I have never had anyone tell me I could not give to a candidate before.”
One GOP lobbyist was quoted saying, “Daschle is being subtle and heavy-handed at the same time.” He continued, “He walks up, puts his hand on your shoulder, gives that Daschle grin and says, ‘You know I am keeping track of people who give to Tim Johnson.'”
Calls to Daschle Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer for comment were not returned.
Charlene Haar, a former high school teacher, who was Daschle’s 1992 opponent, told Talon News that the Democrat campaign pulled their ads from Madison, SD radio station KJAM after the station aired her political spots.
Media manipulation has been the stated cornerstone of the machine’s success. In a 1997 interview, Daschle’s media consultant Karl Struble revealed a technique effectively used in Sen. Tim Johnson’s campaign against an incumbent Republican. In the article, Struble proudly proclaimed, “Our campaign systematically doled out the information piece by piece to reporters in D.C. and South Dakota. The result was a series of damaging articles. … We used the headlines generated as validators for our ads.”
As a result of a Talon News original investigation, the Argus Leader acknowledged a relationship between its star political reporter, David Kranz, and Sen. Daschle that goes back 35 years. Kranz and Daschle worked together at South Dakota State University to stage a mock Democrat Convention in 1968. Kranz served as Daschle’s publicity chairman for the event. Critics charge his subsequent political reporting has been clearly favorable to Daschle and the Democrats and unusually harsh to Republicans.
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. based newspaper, called Kranz’s bias against Republican Sen. Larry Pressler in the 1990 Senate race “vituperative.” The New York Times noted how Kranz and the Argus Leader have “unfairly reported on Republican office-holders.”
Critics say that one of the most glaring examples of the Argus Leader’s bias is in the reporting on political spouses. Executive Editor Randell Beck explains that his newspaper doesn’t report on the lobbying activities of Daschle spouse Linda because the Argus Leader’s policy is to not report on the “wives of candidates.” Yet the Argus Leader with Kranz as managing editor ran a series of articles about Pressler’s wife Harriet. They implied that Mrs. Pressler, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., profited by insider information from her husband. No charges were ever filed in the matter.
In 1995, the newspaper printed an editorial entitled “Gingrich’s Wife’s Job Raises Ethical Issue” in which it criticized the wife of the Republican Speaker of the House for taking a position with the Israel Export Development Company. The editorial stated, “The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard. Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearance of impropriety. Marianna Gingrich should seek employment elsewhere.”
The Argus Leader has rarely mentioned Linda Daschle at all. Linda Daschle’s lobbying income last year is estimated to be $6 million dollars.
Amidst the furor spawned by Republican senate candidate Neal Tapio’s accusations of bias and the reporting of Talon News, the Argus Leader promoted Kranz in an ad that said, “With almost 30 years covering South Dakota politics, David Kranz is unmatched for expertise. His insights and analysis are a must-read for anyone.”
Further investigation revealed that the link between the newspaper and the Democrat machine became even broader when Kranz’s colleague at the Argus Leader, Steve Erpenbach joined the Daschle team. Erpenbach was assistant city editor of the Argus Leader from 1986 until 1989 while Kranz was the city editor. Erpenbach went to work for Pressler’s opponent in the 1990 contest. It was the coverage of that race that prompted The New York Times and Roll Call to criticize the Argus Leader’s negative reporting on Sen. Pressler. Erpenbach is now Sen. Daschle’s state political director.
Kranz refused to be interviewed for this article when contacted by Talon News, and calls to Erpenbach were not returned.
Other media outlets have been subjected to pressure from the Daschle campaign. Greg Belfrage, an outspoken radio talk show host for Sioux Falls KELO-AM has been called on the carpet several times for his “Daschle bashing.”
On his Web site, Belfrage writes, “Intimidation and embarrassment seem to be SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) for Steve Hildebrand and some others in the Daschle campaign. I’ll be counting the days to see how long it takes for Democrats to deliver a copy of this Web page to my employer. It’s happened before.”
Hildebrand personally visited the station to make the Daschle campaign’s demands clear.
At the height of the Argus Leader controversy, Executive Editor Randell Beck cancelled his weekly appearance on a segment called “Argus on Air” after Neal Tapio appeared on Belfrage’s program. Tapio called for the Argus Leader to acknowledge the Kranz-Daschle relationship. Only after Beck met with the station management did he agree to return for the weekly feature. He now refuses to answer questions on the air about the relationship between their political reporter and the Senator.
During the heat of last year’s senate race, Television station KSFY was working on an investigative series about alleged voter fraud involving a Democratic registration effort focused on Native Americans. Sources told Talon News that Democrat operatives descended on the station to demand the firing of news anchor Mitch Krebs and reporter Shelley Keohane and spiking of the story.
KSFY Vice President and General Manager Jack Hansen told Talon News that he “could not recall such an incident” but confirmed that a station employee was fired after it was discovered he was tipping off Democrats to the news stories being planned. Both Krebs and Keohane remain at the station, but coverage of the story was abruptly discontinued.
Charlene Haar believes that a docile press has proven to be a useful tool in a state where one newspaper is dominant. Press releases are printed as fact and errors need never be corrected. The lack of competition ensures that the printed words are not challenged. As Haar notes, “You have a lot of power when you buy ink by the barrel.”
A former staffer to Sen. Pressler lamented that the abuse of such power, especially when it is used to destroy someone’s reputation. In 1990, Kranz called for Pressler to release his “health records” and raised the issue of his “memory” implying he had Alzheimer’s disease. Pressler’s father died of the disease shortly after the Argus Leader ran the story. Rumors have also circulated about Pressler’s absentmindedness, including a story that Pressler mistakenly walked into a closet after a committee hearing and remained there to avoid embarrassment. Randell Beck repeated the story as fact on a recent radio program. Pressler staffers have consistently denied the story.
In 1996 former Sen. James Abourezk (D-SD) recruited the author of “Washington Babylon” for a South Dakota speech to discuss his book that strongly implied that Pressler was a homosexual. Regarding the claim, Abourezk said, “I told everybody who would listen to me.” Kranz repeated those rumors in an Argus Leader article, despite the candidate’s denials. Pressler was defeated that November. Abourezk was Daschle’s mentor, as the current Senate Minority leader got his start in politics as an aide to the South Dakota Democrat in 1972. Abourezk recently made news when he filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against a Pennsylvania parody Web site operator.
A Republican campaign worker who notarized three affidavits of people who claimed they were paid by Democrat operatives to vote in last year’s election complained that a similar character assassination was waged against her. The Argus Leader reported that she “traveled through the Rosebud reservation … asking people if they had any evidence of wrongdoing on Election Day” with an “unsigned affidavit,” a charge she denied. She was unwilling to discuss the matter further with Talon News for fear of another round of persecution by the Argus Leader.
Byron York, White House Correspondent for the National Review, wrote extensively about the voter fraud in South Dakota. The question of voter fraud remains unanswered as two individuals paid by the Democrat Party still face criminal prosecution for forgery in an alleged registration fraud scheme. A Republican official suggested that Thune decided not to challenge his narrow loss to Johnson in order to avoid negative media backlash.
The Daschle campaign released a $31,000 series of television ads last week that feature the senator claiming credit for the recent passage of a law mandating increased ethanol use, which is thought will be a boon to South Dakota farmers. It will also be a windfall for Mrs. Daschle’s lobbying firm which represents the Sioux Falls-based industry group, American Coalition for Ethanol.
Copyright
Critics: Daschle’s Soft Image Masks Political Machine
WASHINGTON (Talon News) — More than once in the last two years, soft-spoken Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has complained that political opponents have tried to silence him.
The Senate Democrat leader generated waves of negative reaction in 2002 when he criticized President Bush for bungling the war in Afghanistan and again this year when he said, “I’m saddened, saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we’re now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this President couldn’t create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.”
Following the furor over that remark, Daschle lamented to CBS’s Harry Smith that it’s “sad that as we fight for democracy abroad, there are some in this country who would squelch it.”
Daschle led the Senate chorus against the recent changes in Federal Communications Commission rules that would liberalize regulations governing radio, television, and print media ownership. In a statement issued on June 2, 2003, Daschle said, “I’m worried that the new rules will lead to a growing concentration of control over our news and information to the detriment of our democracy … allowing a handful of companies to dominate the media will make it harder for independent voices to succeed.”
But some in the three-term senator’s home state find his expressions of concern for democracy and independent voices ironic, as they claim the tactics of his political machine in South Dakota stifles both.
Talon News originally investigated accusations of bias at South Dakota’s largest newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Information gained as a result of that investigation uncovered what one public official described as a “Sopranos-style” pattern of systematic political intimidation by some members of Daschle’s staff and campaign.
He explained that under the cover of “hardball politics” the intimidation is accomplished by pursuing those who are most vulnerable. Small business owners and their employees are particularly susceptible to bullying. The official said that threats of the loss of business or employment are usually sufficient to silence open political opposition, but sometimes a newspaper article is necessary to discredit a rival or critic. In a largely rural state of 750,000 people, nearly everyone is “touchable” in some way.
Steve Hildebrand, Daschle’s campaign manager recently defended their tactics in a statement to the Washington Post. “You’ll see us spending a lot of time attacking the attackers,” he said.
Calls to Hildebrand by Talon News for comment were not returned.
When South Dakota Family Council Executive Director Rob Regier mulled formation of the Daschle Accountability Project, the Daschle campaign went public with a warning that it had an audio tape of the conservative Christian’s confession of paying for an abortion for a former girlfriend. But instead of creating embarrassment as the Daschle campaign intended, Regier told Talon News that this “revelation” was part of his oft-repeated Christian testimony and certainly no secret. He said that Hildebrand’s actions brought “the politics of personal destruction to a new low.”
Most individuals interviewed by Talon News will not allow the use of their names for fear of retribution. Others will simply not comment.
An insurance agent got the message to “get out of politics” or face financial ruin due to loss of business. A Republican campaign worker’s employer was pressured to convince him that he had to choose between his job and his political activities. The family of a man whose business was less vulnerable to direct intimidation was subjected to a barrage of harassing telephone calls after he was identified in a newspaper as a member of a political opposition group.
An elected official speaking to Talon News under condition of anonymity said, “People in South Dakota are afraid to talk about the Mafia tactics and intimidation by the Daschle campaign precisely because of their Mafia tactics and intimidation.”
Daschle’s Washington arm-twisting was evident in the 2002 campaign that pitted incumbent Sen. Tim Johnson against Republican Congressman John Thune. Roll Call reported that one Democrat lobbyist recalled Daschle telling her, “We are going to be watching how you and your industry do in the race in our state.”
The lobbyist remarked, “I have never had anyone tell me I could not give to a candidate before.”
One GOP lobbyist was quoted saying, “Daschle is being subtle and heavy-handed at the same time.” He continued, “He walks up, puts his hand on your shoulder, gives that Daschle grin and says, ‘You know I am keeping track of people who give to Tim Johnson.'”
Calls to Daschle Press Secretary Dan Pfeiffer for comment were not returned.
Charlene Haar, a former high school teacher, who was Daschle’s 1992 opponent, told Talon News that the Democrat campaign pulled their ads from Madison, SD radio station KJAM after the station aired her political spots.
Media manipulation has been the stated cornerstone of the machine’s success. In a 1997 interview, Daschle’s media consultant Karl Struble revealed a technique effectively used in Sen. Tim Johnson’s campaign against an incumbent Republican. In the article, Struble proudly proclaimed, “Our campaign systematically doled out the information piece by piece to reporters in D.C. and South Dakota. The result was a series of damaging articles. … We used the headlines generated as validators for our ads.”
As a result of a Talon News original investigation, the Argus Leader acknowledged a relationship between its star political reporter, David Kranz, and Sen. Daschle that goes back 35 years. Kranz and Daschle worked together at South Dakota State University to stage a mock Democrat Convention in 1968. Kranz served as Daschle’s publicity chairman for the event. Critics charge his subsequent political reporting has been clearly favorable to Daschle and the Democrats and unusually harsh to Republicans.
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. based newspaper, called Kranz’s bias against Republican Sen. Larry Pressler in the 1990 Senate race “vituperative.” The New York Times noted how Kranz and the Argus Leader have “unfairly reported on Republican office-holders.”
Critics say that one of the most glaring examples of the Argus Leader’s bias is in the reporting on political spouses. Executive Editor Randell Beck explains that his newspaper doesn’t report on the lobbying activities of Daschle spouse Linda because the Argus Leader’s policy is to not report on the “wives of candidates.” Yet the Argus Leader with Kranz as managing editor ran a series of articles about Pressler’s wife Harriet. They implied that Mrs. Pressler, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., profited by insider information from her husband. No charges were ever filed in the matter.
In 1995, the newspaper printed an editorial entitled “Gingrich’s Wife’s Job Raises Ethical Issue” in which it criticized the wife of the Republican Speaker of the House for taking a position with the Israel Export Development Company. The editorial stated, “The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard. Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearance of impropriety. Marianna Gingrich should seek employment elsewhere.”
The Argus Leader has rarely mentioned Linda Daschle at all. Linda Daschle’s lobbying income last year is estimated to be $6 million dollars.
Amidst the furor spawned by Republican senate candidate Neal Tapio’s accusations of bias and the reporting of Talon News, the Argus Leader promoted Kranz in an ad that said, “With almost 30 years covering South Dakota politics, David Kranz is unmatched for expertise. His insights and analysis are a must-read for anyone.”
Further investigation revealed that the link between the newspaper and the Democrat machine became even broader when Kranz’s colleague at the Argus Leader, Steve Erpenbach joined the Daschle team. Erpenbach was assistant city editor of the Argus Leader from 1986 until 1989 while Kranz was the city editor. Erpenbach went to work for Pressler’s opponent in the 1990 contest. It was the coverage of that race that prompted The New York Times and Roll Call to criticize the Argus Leader’s negative reporting on Sen. Pressler. Erpenbach is now Sen. Daschle’s state political director.
Kranz refused to be interviewed for this article when contacted by Talon News, and calls to Erpenbach were not returned.
Other media outlets have been subjected to pressure from the Daschle campaign. Greg Belfrage, an outspoken radio talk show host for Sioux Falls KELO-AM has been called on the carpet several times for his “Daschle bashing.”
On his Web site, Belfrage writes, “Intimidation and embarrassment seem to be SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) for Steve Hildebrand and some others in the Daschle campaign. I’ll be counting the days to see how long it takes for Democrats to deliver a copy of this Web page to my employer. It’s happened before.”
Hildebrand personally visited the station to make the Daschle campaign’s demands clear.
At the height of the Argus Leader controversy, Executive Editor Randell Beck cancelled his weekly appearance on a segment called “Argus on Air” after Neal Tapio appeared on Belfrage’s program. Tapio called for the Argus Leader to acknowledge the Kranz-Daschle relationship. Only after Beck met with the station management did he agree to return for the weekly feature. He now refuses to answer questions on the air about the relationship between their political reporter and the Senator.
During the heat of last year’s senate race, Television station KSFY was working on an investigative series about alleged voter fraud involving a Democratic registration effort focused on Native Americans. Sources told Talon News that Democrat operatives descended on the station to demand the firing of news anchor Mitch Krebs and reporter Shelley Keohane and spiking of the story.
KSFY Vice President and General Manager Jack Hansen told Talon News that he “could not recall such an incident” but confirmed that a station employee was fired after it was discovered he was tipping off Democrats to the news stories being planned. Both Krebs and Keohane remain at the station, but coverage of the story was abruptly discontinued.
Charlene Haar believes that a docile press has proven to be a useful tool in a state where one newspaper is dominant. Press releases are printed as fact and errors need never be corrected. The lack of competition ensures that the printed words are not challenged. As Haar notes, “You have a lot of power when you buy ink by the barrel.”
A former staffer to Sen. Pressler lamented that the abuse of such power, especially when it is used to destroy someone’s reputation. In 1990, Kranz called for Pressler to release his “health records” and raised the issue of his “memory” implying he had Alzheimer’s disease. Pressler’s father died of the disease shortly after the Argus Leader ran the story. Rumors have also circulated about Pressler’s absentmindedness, including a story that Pressler mistakenly walked into a closet after a committee hearing and remained there to avoid embarrassment. Randell Beck repeated the story as fact on a recent radio program. Pressler staffers have consistently denied the story.
In 1996 former Sen. James Abourezk (D-SD) recruited the author of “Washington Babylon” for a South Dakota speech to discuss his book that strongly implied that Pressler was a homosexual. Regarding the claim, Abourezk said, “I told everybody who would listen to me.” Kranz repeated those rumors in an Argus Leader article, despite the candidate’s denials. Pressler was defeated that November. Abourezk was Daschle’s mentor, as the current Senate Minority leader got his start in politics as an aide to the South Dakota Democrat in 1972. Abourezk recently made news when he filed a $5 million libel lawsuit against a Pennsylvania parody Web site operator.
A Republican campaign worker who notarized three affidavits of people who claimed they were paid by Democrat operatives to vote in last year’s election complained that a similar character assassination was waged against her. The Argus Leader reported that she “traveled through the Rosebud reservation … asking people if they had any evidence of wrongdoing on Election Day” with an “unsigned affidavit,” a charge she denied. She was unwilling to discuss the matter further with Talon News for fear of another round of persecution by the Argus Leader.
Byron York, White House Correspondent for the National Review, wrote extensively about the voter fraud in South Dakota. The question of voter fraud remains unanswered as two individuals paid by the Democrat Party still face criminal prosecution for forgery in an alleged registration fraud scheme. A Republican official suggested that Thune decided not to challenge his narrow loss to Johnson in order to avoid negative media backlash.
The Daschle campaign released a $31,000 series of television ads last week that feature the senator claiming credit for the recent passage of a law mandating increased ethanol use, which is thought will be a boon to South Dakota farmers. It will also be a windfall for Mrs. Daschle’s lobbying firm which represents the Sioux Falls-based industry group, American Coalition for Ethanol.
Copyright
Conflicted Science -How to Ensure Integrity in Science
The left-leaning Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) held a fascinating day-long conference last week entitled “Conflicted $cience: Corporate Influence on Scientific Research and Science-Based Policy.” Needless to say, most of the 240 or so participants regarded themselves as selfless, public-spirited guardians of the truth. While I have criticized CSPI in the past (as has my colleague Jacob Sullum), CSPI is on to something about conflicts of interest in scientific research.
CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson, in his introductory remarks, emphasized that “We do not contend that industry-sponsored research is always bad science, or that companies should be prohibited from providing input to government agencies.” Much of the conference nevertheless had a distinctly anti-corporate tone, but setting aside that reflexive hostility to industry, let’s take a look at the conflict-of-interest problem.
As other sources of authority (e.g., aristocrats and religious figures) were eroded away by the Enlightenment, science has become the chief arbiter of truth for our secular society. Consequently, every interest group, government agency, and corporation is desperate to claim the mantle of science for his or her pet project, program or product. What these groups overlook is that policies don’t just derive automatically from a set of scientific facts. For example, even though it is scientifically established that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, you may well oppose banning them because you believe that people have a right to choose to enjoy the pleasures of nicotine at their own risk.
The CSPI conferees also overlooked the public choice problems that come with government funding of research. For example, an Environmental Protection Agency bureaucracy in charge of regulating climate change might have a subtle or not-so-subtle bias when it comes to determining the funding of a climatologist whose project challenges the notion of catastrophic global warming. One must keep in mind that, a surprising amount of the time, research aimed at identifying a problem finds that problem.
Still, it is more difficult to make good choices and good policies if the science is no good, and conflicts of interest can bias results. Scientists, like the rest of us, are people who have financial concerns, political viewpoints, and career goals. Of course, the process of peer review is supposed to sift out the dross of these potential biases and leave behind only the gleaming nugget of truth.
Peer review is one of the great inventions of the Enlightenment. A scientist submits her results to colleagues, who then try to tear them apart. If the results aren’t shot down, they are provisionally added to humanity’s store of scientific knowledge. “Provisionally,” because all scientific results are subject to change in the face of new information. Peer review is not a one-shot deal, either. Scientific controversies can break out when dueling studies both initially appear to be valid, but eventually, as more research is conducted, the results are conformed into a coherent explanation.
So is conflict of interest, specifically the conflict of interest when corporations fund scientific research, a problem? Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University and author of the upcoming Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research?, noted that “Most scientists would deny that funding would compromise their findings.” Nevertheless, Krimsky said, “a number of research papers have discovered a ‘funding effect,’ which biases findings toward industry.” Krimsky specifically pointed to studies funded by the tobacco, lead and pesticide industries that produced results favorable to their interests.
Speaker Lisa Bero, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at contested areas of public health research, such as the effects of tobacco smoke. In these cases, research results are typically subject to review by the lawyers of the companies that paid for the work. Furthermore, the companies often insist on the right to forbid a researcher from publishing the results. That’s all very contractual to be sure, but it should call into severe question the credibility of the research.
To handle conflicts of interest, the CSPI offered several guiding principles in a “Scientists’ Declaration of Independence.” The most important of these is a requirement for researcher transparency; that is, “scientists should voluntarily disclose
Conflicted Science -How to Ensure Integrity in Science
The left-leaning Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) held a fascinating day-long conference last week entitled “Conflicted $cience: Corporate Influence on Scientific Research and Science-Based Policy.” Needless to say, most of the 240 or so participants regarded themselves as selfless, public-spirited guardians of the truth. While I have criticized CSPI in the past (as has my colleague Jacob Sullum), CSPI is on to something about conflicts of interest in scientific research.
CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson, in his introductory remarks, emphasized that “We do not contend that industry-sponsored research is always bad science, or that companies should be prohibited from providing input to government agencies.” Much of the conference nevertheless had a distinctly anti-corporate tone, but setting aside that reflexive hostility to industry, let’s take a look at the conflict-of-interest problem.
As other sources of authority (e.g., aristocrats and religious figures) were eroded away by the Enlightenment, science has become the chief arbiter of truth for our secular society. Consequently, every interest group, government agency, and corporation is desperate to claim the mantle of science for his or her pet project, program or product. What these groups overlook is that policies don’t just derive automatically from a set of scientific facts. For example, even though it is scientifically established that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, you may well oppose banning them because you believe that people have a right to choose to enjoy the pleasures of nicotine at their own risk.
The CSPI conferees also overlooked the public choice problems that come with government funding of research. For example, an Environmental Protection Agency bureaucracy in charge of regulating climate change might have a subtle or not-so-subtle bias when it comes to determining the funding of a climatologist whose project challenges the notion of catastrophic global warming. One must keep in mind that, a surprising amount of the time, research aimed at identifying a problem finds that problem.
Still, it is more difficult to make good choices and good policies if the science is no good, and conflicts of interest can bias results. Scientists, like the rest of us, are people who have financial concerns, political viewpoints, and career goals. Of course, the process of peer review is supposed to sift out the dross of these potential biases and leave behind only the gleaming nugget of truth.
Peer review is one of the great inventions of the Enlightenment. A scientist submits her results to colleagues, who then try to tear them apart. If the results aren’t shot down, they are provisionally added to humanity’s store of scientific knowledge. “Provisionally,” because all scientific results are subject to change in the face of new information. Peer review is not a one-shot deal, either. Scientific controversies can break out when dueling studies both initially appear to be valid, but eventually, as more research is conducted, the results are conformed into a coherent explanation.
So is conflict of interest, specifically the conflict of interest when corporations fund scientific research, a problem? Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University and author of the upcoming Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research?, noted that “Most scientists would deny that funding would compromise their findings.” Nevertheless, Krimsky said, “a number of research papers have discovered a ‘funding effect,’ which biases findings toward industry.” Krimsky specifically pointed to studies funded by the tobacco, lead and pesticide industries that produced results favorable to their interests.
Speaker Lisa Bero, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at contested areas of public health research, such as the effects of tobacco smoke. In these cases, research results are typically subject to review by the lawyers of the companies that paid for the work. Furthermore, the companies often insist on the right to forbid a researcher from publishing the results. That’s all very contractual to be sure, but it should call into severe question the credibility of the research.
To handle conflicts of interest, the CSPI offered several guiding principles in a “Scientists’ Declaration of Independence.” The most important of these is a requirement for researcher transparency; that is, “scientists should voluntarily disclose
Conflicted Science -How to Ensure Integrity in Science
The left-leaning Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) held a fascinating day-long conference last week entitled “Conflicted $cience: Corporate Influence on Scientific Research and Science-Based Policy.” Needless to say, most of the 240 or so participants regarded themselves as selfless, public-spirited guardians of the truth. While I have criticized CSPI in the past (as has my colleague Jacob Sullum), CSPI is on to something about conflicts of interest in scientific research.
CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson, in his introductory remarks, emphasized that “We do not contend that industry-sponsored research is always bad science, or that companies should be prohibited from providing input to government agencies.” Much of the conference nevertheless had a distinctly anti-corporate tone, but setting aside that reflexive hostility to industry, let’s take a look at the conflict-of-interest problem.
As other sources of authority (e.g., aristocrats and religious figures) were eroded away by the Enlightenment, science has become the chief arbiter of truth for our secular society. Consequently, every interest group, government agency, and corporation is desperate to claim the mantle of science for his or her pet project, program or product. What these groups overlook is that policies don’t just derive automatically from a set of scientific facts. For example, even though it is scientifically established that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, you may well oppose banning them because you believe that people have a right to choose to enjoy the pleasures of nicotine at their own risk.
The CSPI conferees also overlooked the public choice problems that come with government funding of research. For example, an Environmental Protection Agency bureaucracy in charge of regulating climate change might have a subtle or not-so-subtle bias when it comes to determining the funding of a climatologist whose project challenges the notion of catastrophic global warming. One must keep in mind that, a surprising amount of the time, research aimed at identifying a problem finds that problem.
Still, it is more difficult to make good choices and good policies if the science is no good, and conflicts of interest can bias results. Scientists, like the rest of us, are people who have financial concerns, political viewpoints, and career goals. Of course, the process of peer review is supposed to sift out the dross of these potential biases and leave behind only the gleaming nugget of truth.
Peer review is one of the great inventions of the Enlightenment. A scientist submits her results to colleagues, who then try to tear them apart. If the results aren’t shot down, they are provisionally added to humanity’s store of scientific knowledge. “Provisionally,” because all scientific results are subject to change in the face of new information. Peer review is not a one-shot deal, either. Scientific controversies can break out when dueling studies both initially appear to be valid, but eventually, as more research is conducted, the results are conformed into a coherent explanation.
So is conflict of interest, specifically the conflict of interest when corporations fund scientific research, a problem? Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University and author of the upcoming Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research?, noted that “Most scientists would deny that funding would compromise their findings.” Nevertheless, Krimsky said, “a number of research papers have discovered a ‘funding effect,’ which biases findings toward industry.” Krimsky specifically pointed to studies funded by the tobacco, lead and pesticide industries that produced results favorable to their interests.
Speaker Lisa Bero, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at contested areas of public health research, such as the effects of tobacco smoke. In these cases, research results are typically subject to review by the lawyers of the companies that paid for the work. Furthermore, the companies often insist on the right to forbid a researcher from publishing the results. That’s all very contractual to be sure, but it should call into severe question the credibility of the research.
To handle conflicts of interest, the CSPI offered several guiding principles in a “Scientists’ Declaration of Independence.” The most important of these is a requirement for researcher transparency; that is, “scientists should voluntarily disclose
Grassroot Perspective – July 18, 2003-Pennsylvania Teachers: A Privileged Class; A Decade of TABOR; Missing the Point of Medicare Reform: Why Drug Reimportation is Bad Policy
“Dick Rowland Image”
”Shoots (News, Views and Quotes)”
– Pennsylvania Teachers: A Privileged Class
By Jake Haulk, Ph.D.
Of late, newspapers have contained a steady diet of reports about school
tax increases in districts all over Southwest Pennsylvania. This news
comes at a particularly bad time for property owners. The economy has
been tough and good jobs are hard to come by. Indeed, the Pittsburgh
metro area lost nearly 15,000 private sector jobs over the last 12
months. Many area residents have lost employment or have had their
compensation reduced and now face huge increases in health insurance
premiums.
But, there is at least one occupation that has been exempt from the
vicissitudes of the economy — namely, public school teachers. While many
taxpayers are struggling with the weak job market, compensation cuts and
higher health insurance costs, school boards are adding to their
problems by hiking property taxes. In the meantime, teachers will get
planned wage increases, most will have the large jump in their health
insurance premiums covered by the school district and they face no
possibility of being laid off. Moreover, thanks to the generosity of
the legislature and Governor Ridge, the teachers have greatly enhanced
pension benefits, the cost of which is now being passed on to local
taxpayers as well. What a great deal!
Of course, the teachers are protected from the vagaries of the
marketplace because of two things — (1) the teacher union contracts, and
(2) the ill-conceived legislation that grants so much power to teacher
unions and so little power to voters and taxpayers.
The current spate of school tax hikes to meet the increased compensation
cost of teachers provides a clear picture of the benefits of being a
powerful interest group with massive influence over the legislature.
But who speaks for the taxpayers? Very few legislators will place the
broad public interest of taxpayers who do not make hefty campaign
contributions ahead of the interests of large political contributors who
can mobilize significant opposition to them at the polls. This is
especially true for school taxes. Since the power to raise school taxes
officially resides with local authorities, legislators can distance
themselves from responsibility for the higher taxes even though they
have written the laws that give the local school boards little choice
but to raise taxes.
There is only one sure way to stop this gross abuse of taxpayers:
require that all tax hikes or imposition of new taxes be approved
through voter referendum. Unless or until that happens, all government
bodies, including school boards, will have a bias toward ever greater
spending. The unfortunate truth is that if governments can get their
hands on money, they will spend it and need more. And while direct
democracy is, for the most part, not a good way to conduct government
affairs, mandatory referenda for tax hikes are probably the only way to
constrain spending by elected officials. People deserve a better choice
than ” if you don’t like the taxes, you can always move.”
Jake Haulk is president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy in
Pennsylvania.
Above article is quoted from Allegheny Institute for Public Policy,
Policy Brief July 14, 2003 https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org
– A Decade of TABOR
By Fred Holden
“Its preferred interpretation shall reasonably restrain most the growth
of government.”
– Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, TABOR Amendment: Colorado Constitution,
Article X-Revenue, Section 20
TABOR (the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights) is a tax-and-spending limitation,
constitutional amendment. TABOR was passed in 1992 by the voters, and is
contained in Article X, Section 20, of the Colorado Constitution.
TABOR’s stated mission is to “reasonably restrain most the growth of
government.” It allows only those tax rate increases approved by voters;
while fees are not directly restricted, state government spending is
limited to growth of Colorado’s population-plus-inflation in the prior
year.
Colorado has in TABOR the strictest tax-and-spending limitation of the
50 states. This Issue Paper analyzes TABOR’s effect on Colorado,
contrasting taxing and spending before and after enactment of TABOR.
Ten fiscal years have passed since 1992; this Issue Paper compares ten
years of TABOR performance to the preceding ten years. Colorado state
documents-Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR) and “Colorado
Economic Perspective” (Office of State Planning and Budgeting)-provide
the data.
In the decade before TABOR, Colorado state revenues and outlays
(spending) grew well over twice the population-plus-inflation growth.
With TABOR, all three were very close, indicating TABOR had
significantly restrained and controlled Colorado government growth.
Though TABOR was part of the “go-go nineties,” its measured effects on
government and non-government employment and distribution were quite
impressive. Pre-TABOR, government jobs grew slightly more than business
or total employment. After TABOR, business job growth nearly doubled
that of government job growth.
The TABOR surplus rebate mechanism returned to taxpayers some $3.25
billion over five years, fiscal 1997 to 2001, amounting to about $800
per capita-$3,200 for an average family of four.
TABOR is a success. It passed its own test to reasonably contain growth
of Colorado government, taxing and spending.
Above article is quoted from The Independence Institute II Weekly E-mail
June 6, 2003 https://www.i2i.org.
”Roots (Food for Thought)”
– Missing the Point of Medicare Reform: Why Drug Reimportation is Bad
Policy
By Nina Owcharenko
Web Memo #304
June 26, 2003
An updated version of Web Memo #128 (June 18, 2002) on reimportation.
As part of the fierce congressional debate on Medicare prescription drug
legislation, some Members of Congress want to establish a policy to
guarantee Americans “cheap” prescription drugs by allowing them to
import drugs subject to the price controls of Canada and other foreign
countries. This is bad health care policy.
Reimportation of drugs from Canada, or any other country, does not
address the real problems of the relatively small population of seniors
who are without drug coverage.[1] It does not provide those seniors with
a reliable source of coverage, and it avoids the fundamental problem
facing all seniors: that Medicare is unable to adjust to the changing
needs of its beneficiaries. Therefore, Congress must reform the Medicare
program and, in the interim, should consider targeting assistance to
seniors who currently do not have prescription drug coverage in a way
that does not jeopardize reform.[2]
Besides the fact that reimportation is a distraction from the real task
before Congress-comprehensive reform of the Medicare program-there are
many other compelling reasons why reimportation is bad health care
policy.
Why Drug Reimportation is Not a Free Trade Issue
Some congressional advocates of drug reimportation argue that it is a
“free trade” issue. They say this because it would allow individuals to
purchase their prescription drugs at the best available price. However,
one of the fundamental tenets of free trade is that there is a level
playing field and a free market upon which suppliers of goods and
services are able to compete. Prescription drugs priced in Canada
clearly are not based on fair market value; they do not reflect an
equilibrium price between supply and demand. Therefore, the proposed
policy does not create a truly competitive and level market for
pharmaceuticals.
When government is the single or major purchaser of pharmaceuticals and
other health care services, as it is in Canada, prices are fundamentally
distorted. The government leverages its bulk purchasing power to
“negotiate” prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers. However, since
there is only one major purchaser of these goods and services and no
real consumer-based market for these products, the government retains
the ability to dictate a fixed price with little or no regard for real
market prices.
Legislating Perverse Incentives
Reimportation is likely to engender some perverse incentives. Consider
the following two scenarios in reference to Canada:
Pharmaceutical manufacturers would limit or cease to sell their products
to Canada. Pharmaceutical manufacturers sometimes choose to sell their
products at less than market value because their loss ratio is minimal
in smaller markets, like Canada. However, under reimportation, if the
U.S. begins to import more drugs from Canada, the existing loss ratio in
Canada would increase and earnings in the U.S. market would decrease. To
protect against this increased loss, pharmaceutical manufacturers would
have a direct economic incentive either to limit any surplus sold to
Canada or to stop selling their products to Canada altogether. As John
Calfee, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, neatly
describes the possible affects:
Suppose Canadian drug prices are two-thirds the level of U.S. prices.
Drug companies would face two choices: They could ship the U.S. supply
of their drugs to Canada, reducing their revenue by one-third. Or they
could tell Canadian authorities they will no longer sell at discounted
Canadian prices, reducing their revenue by less than a tenth-reflecting
the smaller market size and lower Canadian prices.[3]
Many pharmaceutical manufacturers may be more likely to forgo the
smaller Canadian market for the larger market in the U.S. However,
manufacturers would be faced with an additional penalty. If a
pharmaceutical manufacturer were unwilling to sell its products at the
government-determined price, the country could, in some cases, allow a
generic manufacturer to produce and sell a copy without the approval of
the patent holder.[4] This would undermine intellectual property
rights-a serious unintended consequence.
Canada would stop selling to U.S. citizens. If reimportation was
implemented and pharmaceutical manufacturers continued to sell their
products to Canada, the Canadian government might choose to stop
allowing U.S. citizens to “free ride” off their health care system,
especially if supplies were limited by the manufacturers. If fewer drugs
were available to Canadians, and it is possible that none would be
available to American consumers. This would defeat the entire intent of
the policy.
In the end, regardless of the scenario, the effect of reimportation in
all probability would be the opposite of that intended by its
proponents: Prices would be more likely to increase in Canada than they
would be to decrease in the United States.
Government Manipulation of the Pharmaceutical Marketplace
Some congressional champions of drug reimportation no doubt envision
their policy as the first crucial step in adopting similar price control
measures in the U.S. market. Based on roughly 4,000 years of economic
history, the passion for price controls on goods and services routinely
emerges as a short-term economic policy and, at least, in the short run,
a politically attractive proposal. Politicians invariably point to
opinion polls in which a majority of respondents favor government caps
on prices for various goods and services, including drug prices.
The inescapable problem, of course, is that it is no easier to repeal
the economic laws of supply and demand than it is to repeal the physical
laws of gravity and motion. There has never been a system of price
controls enacted that did not lead directly to a shortage of the quality
or quantity of goods and services, including medical goods and services.
Price control strategy is really a supply reduction strategy. The chief
attractiveness of the price control strategy is that it does indeed
achieve less spending on such goods and services simply by ensuring that
there is going to be, as a matter of public policy, fewer of them
available.
In the area of health policy, a price control regime could have a
devastating affect on the quality of health care that U.S. citizens
receive. In the case of drugs, it would guarantee delayed and limited
access to pharmaceuticals. In countries where government market
involvement is high, there is less access to lifesaving drugs and
treatments than in those countries without government interference.[5]
Even in the U.S., several states, through their ever tighter
administration of the Medicaid program, have begun to adopt similar
approaches either through complicated “cost containment” mechanisms
(formularies, pre-authorization, etc.) or by forcing additional
discounts from manufacturers (supplemental rebates).[6] Although these
policies do “control cost,” it is still true that the greater the
government’s control over the financing and delivery of these drugs, the
greater the risk to an individual’s access to life-enhancing, or even
lifesaving, pharmaceuticals.
Government interference, particularly price regulation, in the
pharmaceutical marketplace has further side effects. Like all such
policies, it results in massive cost shifting. In other words, it
imposes additional costs on those countries, like the United States,
that champion free markets nationally and internationally. The U.S., in
effect, is forced to compensate for other countries’ distortions of the
market. In the case of prescription drugs, the United States is on the
receiving end of government-engineered cost shifting. Thus, the U.S. is
almost always paying a greater share of the research and development
costs that go into creating a new pharmaceutical product. A recent study
by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development found that
pharmaceutical manufacturers spend $897 million to develop a new drug
and that only an estimated 21.5 percent of drugs that reach human trials
(Phase 1) will be approved for marketing.[7] It is this crucial
investment in research and development that brings the lifesaving drugs
and treatments to the market, and that is supported by market-oriented
countries.
The Case For Safety First
In the end, there still remain significant safety concerns surrounding
reimportation. In several recent testimonies, officials of the Food and
Drug Administration, as well as representatives of other government
agencies, have noted the potential dangers associated with
reimportation, including individual importation, the purchase of drugs
from foreign sources over the Internet, and counterfeit drugs entering
the United States. In testimony on this subject last year, William
Hubbard, Senior Associate Commissioner for Policy, Planning, and
Legislation at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, stated:
Currently, new drugs marketed in the United States must be approved by
FDA based on demonstrated safety and efficacy.. This “closed” regulatory
system has been very successful in preventing unapproved, adulterated or
misbranded drug products from entering the U.S. stream of commerce.
Legislation that would establish other distribution routes for drug
products, particularly where those routes routinely transverse a U.S.
border, creates a wide inlet for counterfeit drugs and other dangerous
products that can be injurious to the public health and a threat to the
security of our nation’s drug supply.[8]
Similar concerns have been echoed by current Health and Human Services
(HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson and former Clinton Administration HHS
Secretary Donna Shalala.[9] Even the representatives of the Canadian
government have recently clarified their position by stating that they
could not guarantee the safety and effectiveness of drugs exported from
their country.[10] This is especially troublesome as counterfeit drugs
entering the U.S. pose genuine risks.
Conclusion
The problem of prescription drugs for senior citizens is invariably a
problem of access. It is not price. Indeed, through insurance
mechanisms, it is clear that seniors can get significant discounts on
the prices of both brand name and generic drugs.
Furthermore, the problem of access to prescription drugs, as virtually
every major study has shown, is confined to a minority of senior
citizens. Reimportation is not a substitute or fallback for
comprehensive and serious Medicare reform: the kind of Medicare reform
that would fully integrate prescription drug coverage into a normal
system of health insurance in which plans offer a variety of benefit
packages to satisfy the needs of consumers.
Members of Congress should not ask seniors to rely on another country’s
flawed health care system for their health and safety. Members should
resist the temptations of a snappy “quick fix” that does not address the
root problems, but only creates others. The complex Medicare legislation
now being considered by the House and Senate has enough “unintended
consequences” already.
[1]Analysis by the Joint Economic Committee found that 78 percent of
Medicare beneficiaries already have prescription drug coverage.
“Medicare Beneficiaries Links to Drug Coverage,” Joint Economic
Committee, Economic Policy Research, April 10, 2003.
[2]Experts from the Galen Institute and the American Enterprise
Institute developed such a targeted assistance proposal. For more
information, see Joseph Antos and Grace-Marie Turner, “Executive
Summary: Prescription Drug Security Plan,” at
https://www.galen.org/news/plan_description.html.
[3]John E. Calfee, “Legislation to Allow Reimporting Drugs from Canada
Would Raise Prices There Rather Than Lowering Them in the U.S.,” Saint
Paul Pioneer Press, September 22, 2002, at
https://www.aei.org/news/newsID.15570,filter./news_detail.asp.
[4]This is referred to as “compulsory licensing.” For more information,
see Merrill Matthews, Jr., “The Ethical Dilemmas of Prescription Drug
Reimportation,” Institute for Policy Innovation, IPI Ideas No. 19, April
2003, p. 2, at https://www.ipi.org.
[5]”Ensuring Cost-Effective Access to Innovative Pharmaceuticals: Do
Market Interventions Work?” Boston Consulting Group, April 1999, p. 24.
[6]For more information on state activity, see “Medicaid: Fiscal
Challenges to Coverage,” Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the
Uninsured, May 2003, at https://www.kff.org/content/2003/4112/4112.pdf,
and Merrill Matthews, Jr., “Prescription Drug Payola,” Institute for
Policy Innovation, IPI Ideas, March 12, 2002, at https://www.ipi.org.
[7]Press release, “Total Cost to Develop a Prescription Drug, Including
Cost of Post-Approval Research, Is $897 Million,” Tufts Center for the
Study of Drug Development, May 13, 2003, at
https://csdd.tufts.edu/NewsEvents/RecentNews.asp?newsid=29.
[8]Testimony by William K. Hubbard in hearing, Buyer Beware: Public
Health Concerns of Counterfeit Medicine, Special Committee on Aging,
U.S. Senate, July 9, 2001, at https://aging.senate.gov/events/hr86wh.htm.
[9]See letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to
Senator James Jeffords regarding Medicine Equity and Drug Safety Act of
2000, July 9, 2001, at https://www.fda.gov/oc/po/thompson/medsact.html.
[10]Marc Kaufman, “FDA: Canadian Drug Position Misinterpreted,” The
Washington Post, May 26, 2003, Section A
Above article is quoted from The Heritage Foundation
https://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm304.cfm
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That would be a more shadow of freedom. The test of [freedom’s]
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constelletion, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what
shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of
opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith
therein.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
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