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Following a ruling against Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (NY-15) by the House Ethics Committee, Congressman Jim Himes (CT-4) announced that he will donate to charity the contributions Mr. Rangel made to his campaign.

“I admire Mr. Rangel for his decades of leadership on civil rights and his service in the armed forces and in Congress. But as elected officials, we must live up to the highest ethical standards. Given this admonishment by the Ethics Committee and the other allegations pending against him, I have directed my staff to donate to charity the campaign contributions received from Mr. Rangel.”

Here’s some recent footage of Mr. Rangel:

and here’s Jim Himes:

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Connecticut’s congressional delegation responds to U.S. Senator Jim Bunning (R – Kentucky) blocking a request by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to move an extension of the unemployment benefits and an assortment of other programs or laws that expire this weekend:

“The inaction of the Senate is completely unacceptable— Senator Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is holding hostage millions of hard-working Americans who are depending on this extension of unemployment and health care benefits. Families across the country, and here at home in Connecticut, will now face another day of struggle, uncertain if they can afford to pay their mortgage, their heating bills, or for health care, and I think it is a disgrace. Every day that goes by is another affront to our citizens, and represents Republican hypocrisy and obstructionism at its worst,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. “The House passed this legislation already, and I call upon the Senate to do the same. It is simply the right thing to do. Governor Rell should be talking to her Republican colleagues in the Senate about how to move forward on these issues.”

“Connecticut is a small delegation, and we have always prided ourselves on working together across party lines. For the Governor to attempt to lay partisan blame, while her party in Washington has delayed and obstructed more than 290 bills in the Senate is unfortunate. Critical legislation on jobs, financial reform, and help for seniors and veterans is being blocked by unprecedented Republican filibusters,” said Rep. John Larson. “I urge the Governor to call on members of her own party to end their political games. And I further call on her to work to ensure that state agencies maximize their efforts to secure the federal funding our delegation has worked so hard to make available to help Connecticut citizens.”

“Next week, we have to focus on breaking the partisan impasse in the Senate and making sure Connecticut starts submitting complete and sufficient applications for stimulus funds,” said Rep. Chris Murphy.

“Senator Bunning’s outrageous behavior is a new low for the filibuster-mania of Senate Republicans that is blocking consideration of important bills on issues like higher education assistance and job creation, which passed the House with bipartisan support,” said Rep. Joe Courtney. “I hope Governor Rell will use her influence in the Republican party to stop this unprecedented abuse of Senate rules.”

“This is exactly what’s wrong with Washington. As thousands of families and businesses struggle to get by, one senator is holding hostage assistance to keep food on people’s tables and families out of shelters,” said Himes. “No one would question emergency assistance in response to a hurricane or flood. As we continue to take additional steps to create jobs and get America back to work, these short term extensions are critical in the face of our economic recovery. The Senate must take action.”

Thursday night the House passed an emergency 30-day extension with critical benefits for families in the Connecticut and across the nation. This extension passed the House without a single Republican opposing it. However the Senate has yet to pass their version of the extension. Those benefits included in the extension, set to expire THIS WEEKEND, include:

• Unemployment benefits;
• Help with health insurance for the unemployed (COBRA);
• Surface transportation programs including highway and bridge funding and other critical state transportation projects thereby putting hundreds of transportation jobs at risk; ($950 million a week in federal reimbursements to the states will stop)
• Satellite TV access, which puts at risk the ability of people to watch the programs of their choice;
• Delay in the cut to Medicare physician payments, thereby putting seniors access to doctors at risk;
• Flood insurance; and
• Small business loan guarantees.

At this point, the timeline for full restoration of these benefits is unclear. Currently, the House has passed 290 pieces of legislation on which the Senate has yet to act.

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I’m a big fan of major league baseball, and I tend to look favorably on former major league players in Congress, even conservatives, but I can’t believe how awful it is that Jim Bunning has thrown a major league curve ball at the extension of unemployment benefits for millions:

Here’s the (slightly edited) story:

On the very last day to pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits, set for March 1, one senator stands in the way — Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), the former major league baseball player who is retiring from the Senate this year.
Racing against the clock, the House voted Thursday night to approve a package of provisions that would extend a number of programs set to expire.

The Senate tried to pass the same measure by a process known as unanimous consent, but Bunning objected numerous times during a Thursday night Senate session, and he objected again Friday morning.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) chastised the Hall of Fame pitcher for being the lone voice of dissent on the “extenders” package.

“Everyone acknowledges there is only one objection,” Durbin said on the Senate floor Thursday night. “Everyone in this chamber acknowledges we are a caring and compassionate country, and we will, on an emergency basis, extend a helping hand to those who have lost their jobs.”

He even used baseball to try to appeal to Bunning to stop his one-man filibuster against the bill.

“I am very proud of what you have done in your baseball career,” Durbin told him. “But let me tell you, this is a wild pitch you are throwing tonight because this is a pitch that is hitting somebody in the stands, it is hitting an unemployed worker in Illinois. That is a wild pitch that should not have been thrown, Senator.”

Bunning said he objected because the bill is not paid for.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the bill would increase the deficit by $10 billion from fiscal 2010 to 2020. The unemployment provisions would account for $7 billion of that cost.

In addition to extending unemployment benefits, the bill would also deal with COBRA assistance, flood insurance, and highway funding.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called it “irresponsible” and “immoral” not to pass the package.

“The catch here is that these benefits do not need to expire,” he said in a release. “We have the ability right now to extend them for just a short time until we work out a longer-term solution.”

It doesn’t appear that Bunning will yield on his objections.

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How would you feel if your employer decided one day to dramatically increase your healthcare costs? How would you feel if the company did this even while it was making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits?

That’s the situation for 15,000 unionized Stop & Shop employees across Connecticut. Their contract has expired, and Stop & Shop is playing hardball, citing the recession as a reason to cut health and pension benefits. But the company – part of a multinational conglomerate – is actually doing quite well these days.

Stop & Shop workers are lucky to be part of a union that’s been able to negotiate decent benefits. No one wants to go out on strike – but if Stop & Shop won’t negotiate fairly, it’s the only tool workers have to protect their standards and hold off a race to the bottom.

Even with the ailing economy, the company’s profits are healthy. In the third quarter of 2009 (the most recent figures available), the company posted 238 million pounds (around $371 million).

That must be why they can afford to hire “replacement workers” (aka, strike-breakers). And get this – the pay they are advertising to recruit strike-breakers is $3 per hour higher than what they pay their actual employees! They’re doing so well they’re expanding and buying new stores. That’s outrageous!

As for me, I’m standing with the workers. If they have to strike to protect their benefits I’m not crossing a picket line. I do all my shopping at Stop & Shop, by the way.

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Below is a brief summary of new education research reported in February. Click on the brief for a much more complete report:

1. The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has issued a report on Boston Public School policies that have an impact on teacher quality, concluding that while the district has many smart, strategic policies already in place, improving teacher rules could help the district do a better job attracting and retaining effective teachers.

2. Teaching teens about sexually transmitted infections at school boosts factual knowledge, but does not necessarily translate to increased condom use.

3. Music training has profound effects that shape the sensory system and should be a mainstay of K-12 education.

4. A midday nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity.

5. Around 10 percent of all adolescents in grades 7-9 are victims of internet bullying.

6. A huge paradigm shift is underway that recognizes that tenure shouldn’t be automatic, but the discussion is really just starting.

7. Reading to kids is a crucial tool in English language development.

8. States and districts are making significant progress in building educational data systems and are starting to use that valuable data to change classroom practice and improve student achievement.

9. Correlation exists between increased voter turnout at school board elections and higher test scores.

10. Students can learn some science concepts just as well from computers simulations as they do from direct observation.

11. Of the estimated 3 million students who graduated from U.S. public schools in 2009, more than 479,000 (15.9 percent) earned an AP Exam score of at least a 3 on one or more AP Exams during their high school tenure. This is up from 15.2 percent in 2008 and 12.7 percent in 2004.

12. Charter schools continue to stratify students by race, class, and possibly language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country.

13. While NCLB is closing the gap between rich and poor and ethnic groups at the proficient level, the gap at the advanced level is widening.

14. A comprehensive new study looks at what makes middle schools successful.

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Great article about Gerry Garcia ( who is a good friend of my daughter), candidate for Secretary of State. And here is his announcement:

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Failure to Adopt Health Reform Will Lead to 1,700 Premature Deaths in Connecticut in the Next Decade
The failure to enact health reform this year will lead to approximately 1,700 premature deaths of people between 25 and 64 years old in Connecticut in the next decade according to a report released today by the consumer health group Families USA.

At the national level the report, “Lives on the Line: The Deadly Consequences of Delaying Health Reform,” warns that the number of deaths would grow from 68 per day in 2010 to 84 per day in 2019.

Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said the report quantifies these needless deaths as the most tragic and heartbreaking consequence of going without health insurance. While thousands of families across our nation directly feel the pain of this loss, the ongoing tragedy is too often invisible to the general public.

“When the people of this nation witness a tragic event that leads to multiple deaths, we raise our voices in indignation, and the nation rallies in response,” Pollack said. “We cry out for investigations. We seek causes. We call for swift punishment for the guilty and removal of the inept. Yet, unseen, hundreds of thousands will die needlessly and prematurely over the next decade because our terribly flawed health care system excludes these ordinary Americans.”

The Families USA report applies the methodology developed in the groundbreaking report by the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) to estimate national and state-level deaths due to lack of health coverage. The IOM found that approximately 18,000 non-elderly adults died in the year 2000 due a lack of health coverage. The Urban Institute updated this number and found that at least 22,000 non-elderly adults died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage in the year 2006.

The Families USA report states that:
In the 15 years since health reform was last debated (1995-2009), more than 290,000 American adults (25-64 years old) died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage.

The following 12 states experienced the largest number of premature deaths due to a lack of coverage over the 15-year period 1995-2009: California (38,400), Texas (32,200), Florida (24,400), New York (18,800), Georgia (10,900), Illinois (10,800), North Carolina (9,600), Ohio (9,500), Pennsylvania (8,700), Louisiana (8,200), New Jersey (7,800), and Michigan (7,500).

If Congress fails to pass health reform, the number of Americans who will lose their lives will continue to grow. In the next 10 years (2010-2019), more than 275,000 adults across the nation will die prematurely due to a lack of health coverage across the nation.

The following 12 states are projected to have the largest number of premature deaths due to a lack of coverage over the next 10 years: California (34,600), Texas (31,700), Florida (25,400), New York (13,900), Georgia (11,500), North Carolina (9,600), Illinois (9,400), Ohio (8,900), Louisiana (7,700), Michigan (7,600), Pennsylvania (7,500), and Tennessee (7,500).

Every day in 2010, approximately 68 non-elderly adult Americans across the nation will die prematurely due to lack of health coverage. If health reform fails, that number will grow to 84 Americans dying every day by 2019.
The link between a lack of health coverage and premature death occurs for several reasons:

• The uninsured are less likely to have a usual source of care outside the emergency room;

• The uninsured often go without screenings and preventive care; and

The uninsured often delay or forgo needed medical care.

“Failure to pass health care reform—in effect, doing nothing to make health coverage and care affordable—results in a huge and terrible cost,” Pollack said. “We can measure that cost in many important terms, like escalating health care costs and unaffordable increases in premiums, but we should recognize the ultimate, inexcusable consequence—lost lives.

“The grim reality is that the failure of Congress to pass health reform has deadly consequences. If Congress doesn’t move health reform across the finish line, we may continue to pay in tragic, unnecessary deaths for years to come,” he said.

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An independent evaluation of the health reform proposal made this week by President Obama shows that the plan would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 30 million by 2019 — very similar to the results expected under separate legislation passed by the House and Senate.

The analysis by RAND Corporation researchers finds that under the president’s plan the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance would be the same as estimates for the Senate plan and lower than estimates for the House plan.

In addition, the analysis finds that the total number of people receiving Medicaid would be the same as under the Senate plan and slightly higher than under the House plan. The number of people obtaining insurance through newly established insurance exchanges is higher than both the House and Senate plans.

The analysis includes a summary of the key features of the president’s plan that were modeled and tables comparing the president’s plan with the status quo and the bills passed by the House and the Senate.

The RAND study found that the president’s plan would result in about 1 million more people obtaining insurance through the nongroup or newly created exchange market than in the Senate bill.

Total spending on Medicaid under the president’s plan would be lower than the level that the RAND COMPARE model predicted for either the Senate plan or the House plan. Subsidy costs would be lower under the president’s plan than the Senate bill because of small differences in the subsidy and penalty structures of the two plans.