Jonathan Kantrowitz

I have updated my comprehensive listings for each of the above with lots of new listings and links. Well worth bookmarking. Fairfield all in one place for the first time!

Here they are:

Bridgeport Restaurants

Stratford Restaurants

Agape 937 Post Road replaces Coppia Ristorante Menu
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Coromandel 7 Pease Ave. 203-259-1213replaces the Boxcar and the Kicking Horse.
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MacKenzie’s Grill & Tap Room 4180 black rock turnpike 203-256-8686 replaces Black Rock Tavern/Pizzaria Uno
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Serafita 2217 Post Road replaces Chat-N-Chew.

“The recent response of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to the WikiLeaks document dump gives us a peek at the sometimes surreal standards for dealing with classified information and at the fear-mongering in which some government officials are engaging,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Clark teaches and writes about government ethics, national security law, legal ethics and whistleblowing.

According to CNN, on Dec. 3, the OMB instructed executive branch agencies to notify all government employees and contractors that they should not view any documents that are marked as classified using their work computers that access the web via non-classified government systems.

The OMB distinguished “documents that are marked classified” from “news reports . . . that . . . discuss the classified material.” Apparently, employees are permitted to use non-classified government systems to access news reports that include classified information, but must not use those systems to access the classified documents themselves.

“This distinction might seem silly to an outsider, but the government imposes special security measures for its computers that store classified documents, and takes pains to ensure that its computers without these security measures do not have any classified documents,” Clark says. “This system of segregating classified documents is complicated and costly. But so far, so good.”

She notes that the OMB also suggested, somewhat ambiguously, that federal employees and contractors without the proper clearances and the “need to know” the information should not access Wikileaks’ classified information.

Additionally, at least one agency has gone further, asserting that government employees _ and prospective employees _ should not access WikiLeaks classified documents even from their home computers. According to Democracy Now, the State Department instructed employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development as follows: “Accessing the Wikileaks website from any computer may be viewed as a violation of the SF-312 agreement (a non-disclosure agreement)”

Clark says that it is not at all clear how accessing the WikiLeaks documents on a personal home computer would constitute a violation of an agreement not to disclose classified information.

“This does not appear to be a one-off mistake by an overzealous State Department official since at least one government contractor similarly warned its employees against accessing WikiLeaks both on company-issued and on personal equipment,” she says.

“Indeed, Career Services offices at Columbia University and Boston University also reportedly warned students and alumni about the risks of posting links to the documents and/or commenting on them through social media.

“Are these just over-reactions by people who are not familiar with the government’s information security standards?” Clark asks. “Or do these warnings reflect a concerted effort to prevent Americans from accessing and discussing the WikiLeaks documents that are now available on the web?

“I sincerely hope that someone in government will provide some clarification _ and some sanity _ on this issue soon.”

Affordable health insurance, comprehensive benefits and stronger financial protections will be available to 8.6 million currently uninsured adults ages 50 to 64, and 9.7 million who have inadequate health insurance

18.3 million men and women ages 50 to 64 stand to benefit from provisions in the Affordable Care Act that expand access to affordable health insurance, assure that all health insurance provides a standard comprehensive benefit, prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions, and eliminate lifetime and annual limits in health insurance policies, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report released today.

Adults ages 50-64 are currently suffering the highest rates of longtime unemployment among working-age adults, and millions are without health benefits. Of the 8.6 million currently uninsured in this age group—4.3 million men and 4.2 million women—3.3 million with incomes under $29,000 for a family of four will gain Medicaid coverage, 3.5 million with incomes up to $88,000 for a family of four will be able to gain subsidized private coverage through the new health insurance exchanges, and 1.4 million with higher incomes will gain new coverage with consumer protections.

In addition, an estimated 9.7 million older adults who have health insurance but have such high out-of-pocket costs relative to their income that they are effectively underinsured, will gain improved coverage through the implementation of essential benefit standards, limits on out-of-pocket spending, and elimination of lifetime benefit limits.

Uninsured adults in this age group face serious difficulty with access to needed care: three-quarters (75 %) report forgoing needed health care and medications because of costs and nearly half (46%) report not getting recommended preventive care. More than half of uninsured women in this age group had not had a mammogram within the past two years. Nearly 70 percent of uninsured and underinsured baby boomers report that they have problems paying medical bills or are paying off medical debt.

“A loss of employer health benefits can be devastating to men and women in this age group since their older age and higher rates of chronic health problems places them at risk of facing exorbitant premiums, having a condition excluded from their coverage, or being denied insurance altogether if they try to buy it on their own,” said Commonwealth Fund Vice President Sara Collins, lead author of the report. “The Affordable Care Act will change all of that. Once its provisions are in full effect, older adults who lose their employer health insurance will have access to affordable and comprehensive health benefits regardless of their age or health.”

The report, Realizing Health Reform’s Potential: Adults Ages 50-64 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, finds that the biggest gains for older adults will come in 2014 when everyone will have access to comprehensive health insurance through a substantial expansion in Medicaid and subsidized private health insurance through new health insurance exchanges. However, millions of older adults and their families have already benefitted from provisions in the Affordable Care Act that went into effect this year, like the phasing out of lifetime and annual limits on benefits, and insurance plans for people with pre-existing conditions.

“This report paints a picture of a baby boomer generation whose health and financial security are in jeopardy because of rising health care costs and declining health insurance coverage,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “The good news is that the Affordable Care Act is already making a difference for them, as lifetime and annual limits are phased out and pre-existing condition insurance plans get up and running. Things will only continue to improve as states and the federal government move toward fully implementing the law and we enter a new era in American health care, in which everyone has access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance.”

Baby boomers living in the 16 states with uninsured rates for this age group higher than the national average of 14.2 percent—primarily in the south and southwest—stand to benefit the most from the Affordable Care Act. In Florida, New Mexico, and Texas, 20.1 percent to 22.5 percent of adults ages 50 to 64 were uninsured in 2008 and 2009, and in Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Nevada, and Wyoming, 16.5 percent to 18.2 percent of those 50 to 64 were uninsured.

New consumer protections in the health insurance marketplace will provide some of the biggest benefits for baby boomers: 64 percent have at least one chronic condition like heart disease or diabetes, making it difficult or impossible for them to find affordable coverage on the individual market. Seven of 10 adults ages 50 to 64 who looked into buying individual insurance coverage never bought a plan because of high cost or coverage limits, or because they were turned down completely. In addition, changes that limit how much more insurers can charge based on age will benefit adults in this age group, who currently pay much higher premiums than their younger counterparts pay: the new law restricts variation in premiums based on age to no more than three to one.

Additional Benefits for Baby Boomers in the Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act includes many additional features that will improve health insurance coverage for adults ages 50 to 64:

• Beginning in 2010, adults in this age group with chronic health problems who have been uninsured for more than six months can join new plans for people with pre-existing conditions.
• A ban on lifetime limits on insurance benefits beginning in 2010 will help an estimated 102 million people who currently have these limits on their plans; older adults are at greater risk than younger adults of exceeding their limits and being saddled with a crushing debt load as a result.
• Requiring coverage of preventive care and immunizations without cost-sharing will assure access to services such as mammograms and colorectal cancer screenings for baby boomers beginning in 2010.
• Requiring health plans to insure all who apply, preventing health plans from charging higher premiums to sicker people, and limiting how much premiums can rise by age will remove many of the barriers baby boomers face when they have to buy coverage on their own beginning in 2014.

Two lesser-known ACA provisions will also provide significant benefits to baby boomers, the report finds:

• The Early Retiree Health Benefits Reinsurance Program for Employers helps public and private sector employers pay for health benefits for employees who retire before age 65. This $5 billion temporary program has already enrolled 3,600 employers and will run through 2014, when people who retire before age 65 will be eligible to purchase health insurance through the new insurance exchanges.
• The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Program will provide employers and their workers as well as self-employed individuals the option of participating in a national long-term care insurance program aimed at providing better access to affordable long-term care insurance.

This report is part of a series of Fund issue briefs that examines the way the Affordable Care Act of 2010 will benefit different populations and groups, as well as improve insurance coverage and change the delivery of care.

Published briefs include:

Women and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Analyzes how, over the next decade, the ACA is likely to stabilize and reverse women’s growing exposure to health care costs. Up to 15 million women who now are uninsured could gain subsidized coverage under the law. In addition, 14.5 million insured women will benefit from provisions that improve coverage or reduce premiums.

Small Businesses and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Highlights several short- and long-term provisions designed to help small businesses pay for and maintain health insurance for their workers, and to allow workers without employer coverage to gain access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance.

Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans Created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Examines eligibility, benefits, premiums, cost-sharing, and oversight of the state PCIP programs, as well as variation in the plans from state to state.

Young Adults and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Analyzes several short- and long-term provisions that promise to stem the rapidly rising tide of uninsured young adults, one of the largest uninsured segments of the population.

State Trends in Premiums and Deductibles, 2003–2009: How Building on the Affordable Care Act Will Help Stem the Tide of Rising Costs and Eroding Benefits. Analyzes private employer health insurance costs in states for the six years before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, and projects premiums in 2020 if these increases continue.

Adult Ages 50-64 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Examines the provisions in the Affordable Care Act intended to expand access to affordable health insurance for adults ages 50 to 64. 18.3 million men and women ages 50 to 64 stand to benefit from the provisions included in the ACA.

Adults Ages 50–64 and the Affordable Care Act. Reviews the unique problems facing baby boomers and how the Affordable Care Act will help them gain access to affordable health insurance with comprehensive benefits and strong financial protections.

Largest Expression Ever of Business Support for Clean Air Act: 60,000+ Firms in 15 U.S. Business Groups to Signal Backing for Strong EPA

New Concern to be Highlighted: Six-Month Delay in EPA Rules Will Cost Businesses in Terms of Lost Workdays, Lower Productivity From Workers.

More than 60,000 U.S. businesses are represented by 15 leading U.S. organizations that will speak out at noon EST/9 a.m. PST on December 15, 2010 in the most powerful expression to date of U.S. business support for the Clean Air Act and the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its implementation and enforcement. The groups also will express their concern that the EPA’s half-year delay of pending ozone (smog) rules will be costly to U.S. companies.

Among the leading U.S. business groups joining together to support the Clean Air Act are: Small Business Majority; Main Street Alliance; American Businesses for Clean Energy; Businesses for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP); American Wind Energy Association; American Sustainable Business Council; Manhattan Chamber of Commerce; South Carolina Small Business Chamber; Women’s Business Development Center; Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility; Oregon Small Business for Responsible Leadership; The Center for Small Business and the Environment; New Voice of Business; and Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).

Together, the organizations include more than 60,000 firms, ranging from some of the nation’s largest companies to small “mom and pop” Main Street retailers and other firms.

In addition to indicating strong U.S. business support for the Clean Air Act and the EPA, the groups will caution that the Agency’s recent decision to delay by six months moving ahead with an ozone pollution rule will come with a real price tag in terms of sick workers and family members, resulting in lost workdays, lower productivity, and other adverse bottom-line impacts for companies.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told a National Press Club Newsmakers News Conference yesterdaythat the House will pass President Obama’s tax compromise bill but because of “concerns,” Democrats will offer amendments to reduce breaks for estates and the wealthy. Hoyer said that while the middle class tax cuts will have large positive economic impact, the rich tax breaks have minimal value. He was particularly critical of raising the estate tax break to 5 million dollars, which he said exempts “just the 39,000 wealthiest Americans” who “do not need” tax assistance. He called recent tax negotiations “mixed.” He said, “An issue we should all be concerned about is that the wealthiest 1% control a quarter of all income.”

He stated that normal House procedures would be applied — the House could amend the Senate bill. However, he added, after the Senate acts this week—which he said could be as early as Tuesday or Wednesday — “we (the House) will pass a bill.”

Hoyer asserted “the need for American leaders to look beyond two-year election cycles.” He contended, “We won’t get to full employment in two years or out of debt in two years. We have to get beyond emergency measures.”

On the recent elections in which Democrats lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats, Hoyer said, “Anger must be tempered to not send us to zero gain warfare. Voters want real solutions for growth and debt reduction.” He added, “Job creation will be the measure of success in the next Congress.”

In response to a question (by Bob Weiner, former Chief of Staff of the US House Aging Committee) asking how Social Security has become a symbol of the deficit when the program is actually solvent through 2037 with funds seniors paid in and might only be short 25% after that, Hoyer said the point that Social Security is solvent was “good” and Democrats will make sure it stays solvent and that the program “will not be privatized” or weakened. “Generations have had it for their retirement. Social Security is not the way to save the deficit. We need a more secure Social Security and health care,” he stated.

Pretty crazy argument:

A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge has dismissed objections filed by Student Transportation of America (STA), Ledyard Public Schools’ transportation contractor, against the NLRB and CSEA/SEIU Local 2001, the union its local employees voted to join last September,

“STA actually claimed that we were not smart enough to decide for ourselves when we voted to join the union, said Matt Bernier, a bus driver with seven years of experience serving the community. The judge tossed that argument out,” said Bernier, a member of the organizing committee that coordinated the drive to unite his co-workers earlier this year.

Bernier’s comments refer to the nature of the objections presented by STA’s private counsel, Peter A. Janus, at an NLRB hearing in November. Janus claimed that the drivers’ ability to make a reasonable decision on the day of the voting had been affected and sought to have the results overturned. Judge Green concluded the objections had no merit and should be dismissed, further ordering the labor board to certify the bus drivers’ union election.

Provisions Were Upheld as Constitutional by Second Circuit Court of Appeals Based on Holdings in Buckley v. Valeo

On December 9, 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court in Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield, a case challenging the constitutionality of the minor party provisions of Connecticut’s public financing law.

The Connecticut law provides a grant of public funds to any participating statewide or state legislative major party candidate who qualifies for the program by raising a prescribed amount of small contributions of $100 or less. Minor party candidates can qualify for public funding if a candidate for the same minor party received a set percentage of the vote for the same office in the last election, or by gathering a specified number of petition signatures and raising qualified contributions.

Once a candidate qualifies, he or she receives a grant of public funds for the primary election and, if nominated, for the general election as well. The candidate must agree to abide by spending limits in exchange for the public money.

The constitutionality of the minor party provisions in the Connecticut law is being challenged by the Green Party of Connecticut, the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and individual plaintiffs. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation.

A group of supporters of the law, including Common Cause Connecticut and Connecticut Citizens Action Group, and Audrey Blondon and Tom Sevingy of Connecticut, intervened in the Connecticut case when it was filed to defend the constitutionality of the Connecticut public financing law.

On July 13, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the Green Party’s challenge that the minor party qualification provisions of the law unconstitutionally discriminate against minor party candidates.

The cert. petition filed in the Green Party case last week asks the Supreme Court to overturn this decision.

“The stakes are high in this case,” said Bob Edgar, President of Common Cause. “Connecticut’s public financing program is a model for the nation. Candidate participation rates in the Citizens’ Election public financing program have been above 70%, and that means new people with fresh ideas have an opportunity to win office and those who are elected can reject the kind of pay-to-play politics we see in Washington D.C. It also means that the bulk of candidates in Connecticut believed that this voluntary system worked for them and was a valuable alternative approach for financing their elections.”

“Connecticut’s law is constitutional,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, Vice President of Common Cause, who led the successful fight to enact the Connecticut public financing law. “The plaintiffs in this case are making the erroneous claim that the Citizens’ Election program unfairly burdens minor party candidates,” Hobert Flynn said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Under this program, minor party candidates who work hard have been able to participate in this program and have access to never before available financial resources.”

The intervening defendants will be represented in the Supreme Court by the “Project Supreme Court” pro bono legal team established and managed by Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. The legal team in this case will be led by WilmerHale and its partners, Seth Waxman, former U.S. Solicitor General and Randy Moss, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and by Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

“This is the first time that the constitutionality of public financing provisions for minor parties has come before the Supreme Court since 1976 when the Court in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), upheld the minor party provisions in the presidential public financing system,” according to Wertheimer, who also will be a member of the legal team.

“Given the holdings in the Buckley decision, there is no basis for this challenge to the Connecticut law and the cert. petition should be rejected by the Court,” Wertheimer said.

The interveners, along with the state of Connecticut, will urge the Supreme Court to deny the cert. petition and let stand the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision. If review is granted, the interveners will join with the state of Connecticut to defend the law in the Supreme Court.

In its July, 2010 opinion, the Second Circuit rejected the Green Party’s challenge that the minor party provisions of the Connecticut law unconstitutionally discriminate against minor party candidates. The Second Circuit, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley, held that the Connecticut public financing law was enacted “in furtherance of sufficiently important governmental interests,” and that the law’s qualification criteria and distribution formulae do not “unfairly or unnecessarily burden[ ]the political opportunity of any party or candidate.”

As the Second Circuit stated, the Supreme Court held in Buckley that the presidential public financing system it reviewed there was “a congressional effort, not to abridge, restrict, or censor speech, but rather to use public money to facilitate and enlarge public discussion and participation in the electoral process, goals vital to a self-governing people.” 424 U.S.at 92-93. The Connecticut public financing system serves the same goals.

The Second Circuit, citing Buckley, held in the Green Party case that “public financing as a means of eliminating improper influence of large private contributions furthers a significant governmental interest.”

The Second Circuit, again relying on Buckley, also held that the Connecticut law could constitutionally distinguish between major and minor party candidates in setting qualification standards. The Court quoted Buckley, which said that the “Constitution does not require the Government to finance the efforts of every nascent political group,” for “[s]ometimes the grossest discrimination can lie in treating things that are different as though they were exactly alike.”

Further, according to the Second Circuit, “a public financing system may condition public money on a showing of popular support” because limiting an election to a small number of strong candidates “serves the important public interest against providing artificial incentives to splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism…That is, to fund every minor-party candidate would risk a fractured and chaotic election, “artificially foster[ing] the proliferation of splinter parties.”

The Connecticut case has potential important significance for federal and state public financing systems, which commonly distinguish between major and minor party candidates in ways similar to the Connecticut system. Based on Buckley, and for the reasons cited by the Second Circuit, this distinction has been viewed as important in order to ensure that minor party or fringe candidates are not eligible for significant public funds on the same terms as major party candidates.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule next spring on whether to grant cert. in the case. If cert. is granted, the Court is expected to hear the case in the fall of 2011.