Saturday, November 20, 2021

Email to CBS 42

[The below is the text of an email I have sent to CBS 42 News Director Rob Martin on 11/23/21]

To CBS42

The immediate purpose of this email is to urge CBS42 to provide a forum in which Alabamians who are antagonists in the fight over "critical race theory" in Alabama schools may have a conversation on CBS42 that has the effect of tamping down the fight.


Politics in crisis
The driver of this email is my belief that the United States is in a dire crisis of politics. 

If you do not think there is a dire crisis, do not bother reading this email any further. 

Otherwise you should please continue reading.

The dire crisis of politics is the waging of total, existential political warfare between the two political parties, in which each side says the other side is threatening the destruction of democracy in the United States (albeit the destruction being in different ways). 

The Democrats say the Republicans are seeking to fundamentally alter how governance of the United States is determined and to create and perpetuate a minority governance over the majority. Their actions include availing of the current decennial redistricting to favor the Republicans, and nationwide efforts to get state voting laws changed in ways that will favor Republicans, including increasing the ability of Republican controlled state legislatures and officials to disregard the votes of the state's voters in the 2024 Presidential election in how the state casts its votes in the electoral college. This is happening on the Republican side under the domination of Donald Trump and with a view to making him President again in 2024.

The Republicans say the Democrats are threatening to implement socialism and bring about repressive authoritarian control by the central government in Washington DC. A flavor of this is given by the below in Rep. Barry Moore's statement about the reconciliation bill at  https://barrymoore.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-barry-moore-opposes-dangerous-reconciliation-bill

“The most serious threat to our representative democracy is the betrayal of the values that empowered us to become the freest, most prosperous nation in the history of the free world. The dangerous bill advanced by House Democrats today would bring our nation alarmingly closer to the repressive socialist utopia envisioned by power hungry globalists who abhor American exceptionalism and the rights of all individuals. This transformative legislation seeks to elevate government to the all-powerful role of provider of our livelihoods and our liberties, not the protector of our God-given rights that our brilliant Founders created."

In this total political warfare between the Republicans and the Democrats, every significant political disagreement is fought over ferociously and exploited to keep riled up  the political base that is needed to be soldier combatants against the other side.

There are factors that worsen the situation of the total political war between Republicans and Democrats, including particular ones applicable to Alabama. These factors include the following:

1. The extent to which Alabama is a one party state, with Republicans being in control and  unaccountable in a reasonably competitive electoral process in Alabama; 

2. The debilitation of local newspapers and their ability to help in holding elected officials accountable;

3. The ability of Republicans in office, and Republican candidates for office, to avoid answering questions that voters should hear answered;

4. The rise of  social media as voters' main source of information and the huge problem of  misinformation and disinformation on social media;

5. Extreme political polarization, the two sides not having reasonable public conversation with each other, and voters seeking or accepting being walled off from hearing the other side; and

6. The destruction of trust in institutions and authority.

In this dire crisis of politics, the highest motivation of the leaderships in the waging of the total political war is for one's side to have the power and for the other side not to have the power, with the best interests of the United States being secondary, if not disregarded. A large majority of Americans are being victimized in this existential power struggle by the leaderships of the two sides. This majority of Americans can be rightfully very pessimistic about the functioning of our democracy and its capacity to produce a governance of the society that, through  compromise, has a large majority consensus of acceptance.

Instead of  compromise, and a a large majority acceptance of the process by which governance is determined through elections, there is rage and demonizing, and no large majority acceptance of our  governance and our institutions of governance.

Local TV stations; my suggestions
Management, news producers, program anchors and reporters at Alabama TV stations should contemplate the foregoing, decide the extent to which they believe there is a dire crisis of politics in the United States, think about whether the role of their TV stations includes trying to help the United States overcome its dire crisis, and decide whether their TV station can and should undertake additions or modifications in their news programming, particularly looking forward to the 2022 elections. 

Generally I think TV stations should focus on the extent of one sided distortions that the two sides communicate to their base and whether and how the TV station may make their viewers aware of the distortions they receive from their political side, and the viewers perhaps having their minds changed in how they view the particular subject.

I have the following suggestions:

1. Press elected officials and candidates harder to get answers to questions they don't want to answer. If officials and candidate balks, employ the "empty chair" tactic I urged to Ms. Susana Schuler, President & General Manager, WVTM13, as set out at https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2021/01/open-reply-to-susana-schuler.html.

2. Identify issues that, in the national crisis of politics, the TV station thinks are especially worthy of editorializing by the TV station, and do on air editorializing. 

3. Try to get debates between representatives of the two sides. Develop town hall and round table type conversations involving regular Alabamians on both sides.

4. Identify groups in Alabama that are influential and that have concerns about issues  you have identified as worthy of editorialization. Engage with the groups with the view of providing them a TV forum in which to express their views. Particularly address with the groups the extent they have lost the trust of Alabamians and endeavor to work with the groups to rebuild trust through their presentations on TV. Consider how I have endeavored to engage the business community as indicated at https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2019/11/silos-in-al-politics.html, but to little avail. Ask the Alabama Republican Party whether it has a desire for a TV forum via your TV station. If the answer is yes, engage with them about whether the forum can be utilized by the party in a way that positively contributes to the TV station fulfilling the role you have for your TV station, as discussed above. I think most TV stations have done a good job in involving the medical community expertise related to COVID, the vaccines and vaccination. One new thing that might be done is to have direct, side by side engagement between the medical community and Republican elected officials relative to vaccine mandates.

5. Talk to your audience about the problem of social media misinformation and develop program presentations for helping your audience to overcome the problem for themselves personally.

6. Convey to your audience the problem of the debilitation of local newspapers and their ability to contribute to holding elected officials accountable; that your TV station is endeavoring to step into the breach: and what your TV station is undertaking to do in its programming. If your TV station needs funding to undertake new, added programming, tell your audience that. Have a mechanism in place for receiving contributions from individuals, corporations, and nonprofit organizations.

Particular issues and matters
If your TV station undertakes any of the foregoing suggestions or has other ideas for new things to do, I think the focus should be on matters as to which the TV station believes one side or the other, or both sides, communicate gross, one sided messaging to their base. Your TV station should consider the extent to which such messaging enrages their base against the other side and adds to polarization and division in the country. Your TV station should think about whether it can effectively make its viewers conscious of the one sided distortions that the viewers receive from their side and potentially may have their minds changed in how they view the particular subject. Particularly think about how the sidelined majority in the middle will react favorably to reasonable, centrist, unemotional discourse on the subject.

I list four matters below that are loaded with the vituperation of our politics in crisis and deserve attention by your TV station (I think). There are other matters I could list as well, but this email has enough in it  As to the four matters, I have made protracted, unavailing, efforts to ameliorate gross, one sided distortions that are messaged to the base of one side, or the other. For what it is worth, I give links and other information regarding the same that a TV station might consider helpful in trying to decide its own approach.

1. Rigged 2020 election or not; January 6th; rule of law
These subjects are central to the dire crisis of politics in the United States. They are expansive. 

2. Critical race theory.
See tweets and their thread at the beginning of this blog entry.

3. Vaccines and mandates
I have spent weeks trying to get a response to my charging that Gov. Ivey and ALGOP legislators are guilty of nonfeasance, malfeasance or moral depravity in their prohibiting vaccine mandates in Alabama.

4. Guns

Conclusion
This email to you is being done by copying and pasting the text set out at the aforesaid link into an email form and sending the email. Evidence of my emailing will be by copying the heading of the actual email showing email addressee and date and time of emailing and pasting it below the [end of text of email to CBS42] designation below.
One way or another, I will communicate the substance of this email to other TV stations and others in Alabama.
After sending my email to CBS42, I may or may not make changes to the text. If I make changes, I will indicate the changes under the below  [end of text of email to CBS42] designation.

In closing my appeal here, I emphasize how unwilling ALGOP lawmakers in Congress, ALGOP candidates, ALGOP party leaders and ALGOP media cheerleaders are to engage in any reasonable conversation with me about anything. Those persons have the power and are secure in their positions, and they don't have to engage in any conversation with any Alabamian who wants to express reasonable disagreement regarding their positions on the issues. I have tried to appeal to the Alabama business community about this, to no avail. The Alabama Democratic Party gets little or no attention in whatever it might say and has not invited me to have any conversation with them. The academic community does not seem to be in a position to make pronouncements which will be fairly considered by Alabama Republicans. I don't know how much weight print newspapers in Alabama have with readers.
To me the foregoing leaves only Alabama TV stations to appeal to, which I have been trying to do for more than a year. This email is my latest try.
Regardless of what happens in Alabama related to the crisis in politics in Alabama and throughout the United States, that crisis will stay boiling so long as the Republican Party is dominated by Donald Trump, which will be at least through the 2022 elections and likely until the 2024 election. 

Sincerely,

[end of text of email to CBS42]


Email sent to CBS 42 News Director Rob Martin
From: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>
To: rmartin@cbs42.com <rmartin@cbs42.com>
Sent: Tue, Nov 23, 2021 6:28 pm
Subject: Appeal to CBS42 regarding United States dire crisis of politics

11/29/21
The below tweets are part of my communicating to other Alabama TV stations the email I sent to CBS42.
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Sunday, November 14, 2021

Lawsuit to compensate separated immigrant children

The lawsuit seeking compensation for illegal immigrant children who were separated from parents at the border is highly politically charged and is being politically exploited. 

This political exploitation is to be expected in these years of hyper political warfare in the United States in which the interests of the country are detrimentally subordinated to the power interests of one's political party and winning elections to have that power,

Lost in the political exploitation of the immigrant children's lawsuit is the presence of perennial important problems with the mechanisms that society has for protecting its members from the wrongdoings of others in the society and how those victims of wrongdoing should be compensated for losses that the wrongdoing causes them.

Lawmakers are responsible for some of these problems, but they will not or cannot act to ameliorate the problems.

12/7/21
In January 2018 I initiated discussion of the mechanisms that society has for protecting its members from the wrongdoings of others in the society and how those victims of wrongdoing should be compensated for losses that the wrongdoing causes them. I did this in connection with the Alabama Attorney General election. See Larry Nassar and AAG election.

In that discussion, I mentioned Michigan State University's payment of a $500,000,000 settlement in the Larry Nassar case; the USA Gymnastics filing for bankruptcy as a result; the Former President of Michigan State University Lou Anna Simon being charged with two felony and two misdemeanor counts for allegedly lying to police during their investigation of Larry Nassar.

I also mentioned the University of Southern California case of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse by a gynecologist who had worked at the USC student health center; USC reaching  a tentative class action settlement agreement worth $215 million regarding the allegations; and the USC President resigning as a result of the scandal and a second scandal of hard core drug use by a medical dean. 

Further I brought up the past 25 years of numerous settlements and bankruptcies in Catholic Church sex abuse cases in the United States (listed at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlements_and_bankruptcies_in_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases.)
At the time 29 priests and deacons in the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama had been "credibly accused" of sexual misconduct with a child since 1950.

I further mentioned the 90,000 sex abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America.

While the cases I discussed in Larry Nassar and AAG election involved sexual wrongdoings and compensating victims of sexual wrongdoings, all human activities in the society raise the important matters of how to prevent wrongdoing from happening and how victims of wrongdoing should be compensated for harms to them. 

Much national attention continues to be given to mass shootings, and the question of what society can or should do to ;try to prevent mass shootings. Associated with this is whether and how the victims of mass shootings and their families should be compensated. The following are four mass shooting cases and associated lawsuits and settlements, for which I give links to news articles for more information. 

Questions for consideration:
1. How helpful and beneficial are such lawsuits and settlements in society's efforts to prevent mass shootings?
2. Whether or not the lawsuits and settlements help in society's efforts to prevent mass shootings, should victims of mass shootings and their families be compensated in the way afforded by the lawsuits and settlements?


Court approves $800M settlement for MGM Resorts, Vegas shooting victims


Court approves $800M settlement for MGM Resorts, Vegas shooting victims










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Friday, November 12, 2021

Rittenhouse & upcoming SCOTUS decision

The Rittenhouse case shines a powerful, new, national spotlight on the pending New York gun regulation case before the United States Supreme Court and on how the United States shall seek to have law and order for Americans. 

Regardless of how the Rittenhouse case comes out, national passions have been stimulated on both sides of those who favor more gun control and those who want less gun control.

Those who want more gun control are in passionate outrage over the idea that Rittenhouse could buy an AR-15, cross state lines [edit 11/20/21 Since posting this entry it has been called to my attention that Rittenhouse did not carry AR-15 across state lines. Such does not diminish what this entry otherwise says.] to go to Kenosha where protests were taking place, kill two protesters, and possibly escape punishment for his actions.

Those who are opposed to gun control potentially find Rittenhouse a champion of citizens taking action on behalf of law and order and see in him a role model for other citizens to take up guns in similar ways to uphold law and order.

[to be continued]

The two competing visions for  how Americans shall seek to have law and order are starkly clashing.

One side says the police by themselves are inadequate for providing law and order for Americans, and good guy citizens with guns are indispensable to society for stopping bad guys with guns.

The other side feels America is being overwhelmed by daily gun violence and more gun control is desperately needed. They think that citizens like Rittenhouse who purportedly want to be good guy citizens out and about with guns to stop bad guys with guns are a cause of more gun violence and are intolerable, and must be shut down.

The pending United States Supreme Court case will have bearing on whether states and cities have the power to make it unlawful for wannabe good guy citizens to be out and about with guns to stop bad guy citizens with guns. That is not to say whether states or cities will exercise such a power, but only to say whether states and cities have the power if they choose to exercise the power.

Let there be a national debate about whether states and cities should at least have the power to outlaw wannabe good guy citizens such as Rittenhouse being out and about with guns to stop bad guys with guns.

[possibly to be further continued]




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Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Who thinks what about reducing healthcare costs

A November 6th Washington Times article "‘You don’t run from a fight’: GOP policy chairman offers hopeful vision while being in the minority" reports that one of the things Rep. Gary Palmer wants to prioritize for his party is lowering health care costs. Rep. Palmer is Chairman of the House Republican Policy committee. The committee's webpage for health care policy is at  https://republicanpolicy.house.gov/issues/healthcare. In October 2020 the Committee released a policy brief “High Costs of Socialized Medicine”.

I have a longstanding effort for Rep. Palmer to engage with his constituents (including myself) concerning his health care policy ideas. A sense of the substance of this can be found at https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2017/03/al-expertise.html

Earlier this year I contacted Rep. Palmer (as well as Senators Shelby and Tuberville and my Alabama officials and reps) about a class action lawsuit concerning Blue Cross Blue Shield allegedly restricting competition in health care insurance during years 2008 through 2020 and thereby increasing health care premiums and health care costs. See BCBS settlement -reducing health care costs

I solicited Rep. Palmer (and the others I contacted) to submit their views to the Court of whether the class action settlement would help reduce health insurance premiums and health care costs.

Last month I attended the first day of the fairness hearing in the class action settlement, and I sent the email set out below to those persons and others I had contacted.

This is a continuation of effort for Rep. Palmer to engage with his constituents (including myself) concerning his health care policy ideas and further expose his policy ideas for public consideration, including by the Court in the Blue Cross class action litigation.


[My email]
From: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>To: John.McDonald@insurance.alabama.gov <John.McDonald@insurance.alabama.gov>; lindsey.lewis@alsenate.gov <lindsey.lewis@alsenate.gov>; karen.mcguire@shpda.alabama.gov <karen.mcguire@shpda.alabama.gov>; elizabeth.hance@mail.house.gov <elizabeth.hance@mail.house.gov>; dhoward@alaha.org <dhoward@alaha.org>; robins@bcatoday.org <robins@bcatoday.org>; morrisey@uab.edu <morrisey@uab.edu>; nborkows@uab.edu <nborkows@uab.edu>; cratclif@samford.edu <cratclif@samford.edu>; gil_hanahan@tuberville.senate.gov <gil_hanahan@tuberville.senate.gov>; jwcarns@gmail.com <jwcarns@gmail.com>; catherine.sharkey@nyu.edu <catherine.sharkey@nyu.edu>
Cc: egentle@gtandslaw.com <egentle@gtandslaw.com>; BCBS-Settlement@bsfllp.com <BCBS-Settlement@bsfllp.com>; BCBSsettlement@hausfeld.com <BCBSsettlement@hausfeld.com>; BCBSsettlement@kirkland.com <BCBSsettlement@kirkland.com>; lowrey@bmelaw.com <lowrey@bmelaw.com>; kharbison@gtandslaw.com <kharbison@gtandslaw.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 27, 2021 8:21 am
Subject: Status report re Blue Cross Blue Shield class action settlement

For the offices of:
The Honorable Kay Ivey
The Honorable Richard Shelby
The Honorable Tommy Tuberville
The Honorable Gary Palmer
The Honorable Steve Marshall
The Honorable Dan Roberts
The Honorable Jim Carns
(via the above email addressees in some cases and using website contact forms in some cases after sending this email)
AND
To above email addressees to whom I otherwise previously communicated regarding this matter

Last Wednesday I attended the first day of the fairness hearing at the United States courthouse in Birmingham.
The interest I am trying to advance is that of lowering health insurance premiums and health care costs for Alabamians (and other Americans).
I am questioning whether the class action, the settlement agreement, and the Injunctive Relief are beneficial and advisable in advancing the objective of lowering health insurance premiums and health care costs.
As the second email below indicates, the Home Depot lawyer raised in the fairness hearing that the Injunctive Relief would be an experiment going forward, that there is great uncertainty about what will in fact happen in the health insurance industry if the Injunctive Relief is put in place, and that the Injunctive Relief could form the structure of the health insurance industry (and affect the entirety of the health care system) for many years to come, and questioned what is or should be the effect of the Injunctive Relief in light of that.
Further, at the first day of the fairness hearing, Judge Proctor more than once asked about the federal antitrust regulators and why they did nothing for decades even though the Blue Cross Blue Shield practices were well known to them for decades, why weren't the federal regulators commenting to the Court about the settlement agreement, and what should he Judge Proctor make of the non-involvement of the federal regulators.
My information is that none of the federal and state officials who were given the required CAFA notice of the class action settlement responded to the notice, with the exception that the Department of Labor filed something in the nature of an objection. (My recollection is that Judge Proctor said that he was aware that the Washington State Insurance Commissioner viewed the class action settlement favorably.)
The purpose of my prior communications directed to Gov. Ivey, Senators Shelby and Tuberville, Rep. Palmer, AG Marshall, Sen. Roberts, and Rep. Carns, and to other addressees on this email, was to solicit input from them about the settlement agreement from the perspectives of their official governmental positions or other professional or academic interests regarding health insurance premiums and health care costs, and for such input to be provided to the the Court to consider in its review of the settlement agreement.
The opportunity to provide such input to the Court would seem to still exist. Any input to the Court at this time might be provided directly to the Special Master Mr. Ed Gentle (email address is above), or you can provide it to me and I will refer it to Mr. Gentle.
Thank you very much for you attention to this email.
Sincerely,

From: Edgar C. Gentle III <egentle@gtandslaw.com>
To: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>
Cc: BCBS-Settlement@bsfllp.com <BCBS-Settlement@bsfllp.com>; BCBSsettlement@hausfeld.com <BCBSsettlement@hausfeld.com>; BCBSsettlement@kirkland.com <BCBSsettlement@kirkland.com>; lowrey@bmelaw.com <lowrey@bmelaw.com>; Kip Harbison <kharbison@gtandslaw.com>
Sent: Thu, Oct 21, 2021 7:49 am
Subject: Re: BCBS settlement - Withdrawal of request to speak
Thanks Rob, I have passed your email on to the Court.
Stay safe and I hope to see you soon,
Ed
Sent from my iPhone

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>
To: egentle@gtandslaw.com <egentle@gtandslaw.com>
Cc: bcbs-settlement@bsfllp.com <bcbs-settlement@bsfllp.com>; bcbssettlement@hausfeld.com <bcbssettlement@hausfeld.com>; bcbssettlement@kirkland.com <bcbssettlement@kirkland.com>; lowrey@bmelaw.com <lowrey@bmelaw.com>; Kharbison@gtandslaw.com <Kharbison@gtandslaw.com>
Sent: Thu, Oct 21, 2021 7:44 am
Subject: BCBS settlement - Withdrawal of request to speak
Dear Ed,
Taking to heart what Judge Proctor said at the end of the day yesterday, I withdraw my request to speak at the fairness hearing today.
As I indicated to you, I filed with the Clerk of the Court yesterday my Memorandum Regarding Objection of Robert Shattuck (which Memorandum I had emailed on Sunday to Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel, and Counsel for Settling Defendants, as well as to yourself).
I don't know how much more Judge Proctor will ask about the federal antitrust regulators and why have they done nothing for decades, why aren't they commenting to the Court about the settlement agreement, and what should he Judge Proctor make of the non-involvement of the federal antitrust regulators.
Also, I don't know how much more Judge Proctor will mention how large companies as well have for decades taken no legal steps to challenge the BCBS arrangements.
I was very taken by the remarks of Home Depot's counsel about the injunctive relief being an experiment going forward, the great uncertainty concerning what will in fact happen in the health insurance industry if the injunctive relief is put in place, how the injunctive relief could form the structure of the health insurance industry (and affect the entirety of the health care system) for many years to come, and what is or should be the effect of the injunctive relief in light of that.
As my Objection and Memorandum indicate, I initiated trying to get the views of my two U.S. Senators and my Representative in Congress, as well as of my relevant state officials, regarding the settlement agreement from their perspectives as lawmakers and government administrators involved with the health care system and health insurance.
Since approval of the settlement agreement is likely still a couple of weeks off, I may continue with my efforts and file a Supplemental Memorandum if I learn anything further that warrants calling to the attention of the Court.
I have included Home Depot's counsel Mr. Frank Lowrey to receive a copy of this email, having emailed to him last night my Memorandum for what it was worth to Home Depot and him in pursuing Home Depot's objectives relative to the settlement agreement.
I have two concluding comments.
First, the uncertainty that exists regarding what the effect of the injunctive relief will be going forward (if the injunctive relief is put in place at this time) similarly exists in retrospect for the damages period 2008 to 2020. Just as it is unknown how much future competition will keep future insurance premiums lower, it is unknown how much increased competition in the 2008 to 2020 period would have kept insurance premiums lower if the injunctive relief had been put in place in 2008.
Second, it behooves keeping in mind that total annual United States health care spending is about $3.5 trillion, of which about $1.2 trillion comes through private health insurance, and comparing to that Plaintiffs estimate of a potential maximum single damages recovery that ranges from $18.6 billion to $36.1 billion, i.e. Plaintiffs estimate that health insurance premiums and health care costs were excessive by a maximum of $36.1 billion, and said excess $36.1 billion is not an excess amount annually but an excess amount spread over the 2008 to 2012 damages settlement period. That $36.1 billion excess is less than a pimple on annual health insurance premiums (and health care costs from health insurance) of $1.2 trillion. It is submitted that the larger the amount of health insurance premiums and health care costs, which are affected by multiple and changing factors that are contributing to the total premiums and health care costs, the harder it is to model/show/estimate/quantify how much a small factor (Defendants' arrangements) contributed to, or will contribute to total health insurance premiums and total health care costs.
By the same token, the large companies that did nothing for decades about Defendants' known business practices had total health care costs that came from a variety of factors that could be worked on to reduce their health care costs. Defendants' arrangements could have been viewed as a small factor, and such large companies decided other factors were more worthy of their attention for working to reduce their health care costs.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck
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Friday, November 5, 2021

Nonviolent citizens war on ALGOP


See Nonfeasance, malfeasance or moral depravity, October 30, 2021

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