Grassroots Civic Action Is Best Hope To Correct Federal Prosecution Abuses, Says Author Harvey Silverglate In DC Radio Interview Jan. 28

Informed and pro-active citizens are the nation’s best hope to correct increasing abuses of power by federal prosecutors, according to my radio interview today with Harvey Silverglate, author of the pioneering new book Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.   

Silverglate spoke live on the DC Update edition of My Technology Lawyer Radio, archived at www.MyTechnologyLawyer.com/update.

Silverglate, a Boston-based litigator for 42 years, showed how the federal executive branch abuses power via selective prosecution under hard-to-understand statutes.  The book is winning praise from experts across the political spectrum.  His book deserves the attention of anyone in the country worried that loss of constitutional rights affects politics and business.

Silverglate explained the book’s title thus: The average professional is unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes each day.  Why unaware?  Modern federal criminal laws have exploded in number, and become impossibly broad and vague.

In gripping detail, his book shows unfair prosecutions in different fields affecting ordinary people, as well as Martha Stewart-level celebrities.  In congressional testimony last fall on the problem, Silverglate said:

I was readily able, from my own litigation experience as well as from research done on other cases, to pinpoint myriad inappropriate prosecutions of many an unwary innocent citizen in the medical  community, the medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, investment houses, bankers, lawyers, accountants and auditors, academics, artists, newspaper reporters, merchants, as well as public officials.  

Won’t judges and defense attorneys protect defendants from unfair treatment?   Silverglate responded to the question on today’s show from my co-host Scott Draughon by saying that too many judges and prosecutors began their careers in a “culture” that assumes that those who are accused must be guilty.  So, Silverglate said, 95% of defendants then plead guilty, in part because so many defense attorneys are former prosecutors accustomed to “processing” clients through the system rather than fighting for them.

His advice for defendants seeking the right attorney?  He suggests seeking help from attorneys active in civic groups compatible with the defendant’s perspectives, not simply experienced courthouse players.

Three Felonies A Day author Harvey Silverglate is counsel to Boston’s Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan LLP. He is co-founder and board chairman of the Foundation for Individual Rights Education (Fire), a columnist for the Boston Phoenix and a Cato Institute fellow.  His congressional testimony last fall is available here.  In 1999, he co-authored The Shadow University. For details, visit here. Three Felonies a Day is available via Amazon.com here.

Jan. 7: DC Radio Hosts Ken Auletta On His Best-Seller ‘Googled’

New Yorker media columnist Ken Auletta discussed his latest best-seller Googled: The End of the World As We Know It on the Jan. 7 DC Update edition of My Technology Lawyer Radio.  

Listeners can access the show nationwide via the link at www.MyTechnologyLawyer.com/update, which also contains archives of previous shows.

In the show’s first guest segment beginning 18 minutes into the hour, Auletta discussed how, “Google has morphed from a search into a media company…that bestrides the world.”  He further described how Google in the process has become both “beloved” by some and “feared” by others.  

The book lives up to its advance billing:  Using Google as a proxy for the larger digital revolution, Auletta shares the secrets of Google’s success and describes why that success threatens traditional media.  The author enjoyed unprecedented access to Google’s founders and executives, but brings to bear an independent expert outlook. 

The book has hit the bestseller lists, with publishers in 12 nations.  Netscape founder Marc Andreessen describes Googled as, “A uniquely incisive account of the new Internet revolution, powered by Ken Auletta’s unparalleled access.  A great book.”

The radio show is co-hosted by business radio pioneer Scott Draughon and by Washington commentator Andrew Kreig.  The hosts begin with an overview of Washington policy news affecting the nation’s business, politics and quality of life.  As a listener advisory: Mac computer users need the tool “Parallels” to hear Windows Media Player.

About Ken Auletta and Googled

Ken Auletta has written the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of 10 books, including four national bestsellers. These include Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way, Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman, and World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies. In naming him America’s premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review said, “No other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly.”  For details, visit his website here. Googled is available via Amazon.com here, with 32 reader reviews averaging a four-star rating out of a possible five.    

About Scott Draughon and My Technology Lawyer Radio Show

Richard Scott Draughon is host and producer of the My Technology Lawyer Radio Show, which is affiliated with MyTechnologyLawyer.com ─ an on-demand legal service that he leads.  Draughon is author of the pioneering book The Art of the Business Radio Show.  For details, visit the website: http://www.mytechnologylawyer.com. 

About Andrew Kreig

Andrew Kreig is an investigative reporter, author and attorney who reports frequently about official corruption on such new media sites as Huffington Post, Connecticut Watchdog, Nieman Watchdog and OpEd News. Kreig is finishing a year as senior fellow with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and is a research fellow with the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. Earlier, he was president of the Wireless Communications Association International from 1996 to last summer and authored the 1987 book, Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America’s Oldest Newspaper.

 

 

 

Library of Congress Picks ‘Quasi’For Preservation

The 1975 film “Quasi at the Quackadero” helped prompt the American Film Institute years ago to name my friend Sally Cruikshank as one of AFI’s first five lifetime achievement winners for independent filmmaking. 

Now I’m thrilled to learn that that the Library of Congress has just included “Quasi” on its annual list of 25 films so distinctive as to qualify for preservation under the nation’s cultural heritage program.

Details are here on her website Fun on Mars, which includes descriptions of her films and how to find them.  Included also are links to her blog and a tribute to her first boss, who let her experiment with a new style of animation upon graduation from Smith College.  

Hooray for Sally! And thanks for spreading so much “Fun on Earth!!”

Dec. 17: DC Radio Hosts Authors Joan Biskupic On Scalia, Richard Wolffe On Obama

Authors of major new books on the Supreme Court and Obama Presidency are guests at noon Dec. 17 on DC Update. The My Technology Lawyer Radio network show hosted by Scott Draughon and Andrew Kreig can be heard here. The guests and their books are:

• Joan Biskupic, USA Today Supreme Court reporter and author of American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The book published Nov. 10 is the first full-scale biography combining the life-story and public impact of the court’s most provocative justice. Scalia provided exclusive interviews to the author.
• Richard Wolffe, MSNBC analyst and author of Renegade: The Making of a President. The book is the first account of the campaign, based on the author’s work as a Newsweek correspondent covering Obama for 21 months. Wolffe obtained many exclusive interviews with Obama and top aides, providing unparalleled access. Wolffe this month announced a contract for a new book on the administration.

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe describes American Original as a “must-read” for anyone the seeking to understand “the most influential and interesting voice of the most powerful movement in contemporary American law.”

With exceptional clarity and research, the author weaves the story: Scalia, a brilliant Nixon administration official, went on to co-found a powerful conservative movement to reorient the judiciary, and was confirmed to the Supreme Court by a 98-0 vote in 1986. He thus became the first justice of Italian-American background and just the sixth Catholic justice in U.S. history. He is now one of six Catholics among the nine on the court. More generally, Scalia’s jurisprudence helped shape our time in such ways as the court’s 5-4 vote ending the 2000 Bush-Gore recount.

Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee describes Wolffe’s book Renegade as, “The first of the President Obama books – and a good one – insightful, thorough, and straight.” Wolff’s book, published June 2, was suggested by the candidate in March 2008. “The resulting volume,” the New York Times wrote in its review, “showcases the author’s access to the candidate, as well as friends, aides and campaign strategists.”

Wolffe’s title Renegade is partly derived from the candidate’s Secret Service nickname. This provides a near-parallel with John McCain’s theme of “Maverick” and Sarah Palin’s autobiography Going Rogue. The book ends with the start of the new Presidency. But the author is well-positioned to comment on current issues that will be included in the DC Update radio interview.

As a listener advisory: Mac computer users need the tool “Parallels” to hear Windows Media Player.

About Joan Biskupic and American Original

Joan Biskupic has covered the Supreme Court since 1989. Before joining USA Today in 2000, she was the Supreme Court reporter for the Washington Post (1992-2000) and legal affairs writer for Congressional Quarterly (1989-1992). She is the author of the 2005 biography Sandra Day O’Connor and co-author of Congressional Quarterly’s two-volume encyclopedia on the Supreme Court (3rd Ed., 1997). She holds a law degree from Georgetown University, a master’s in English from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s in journalism from Marquette University. Her new book’s descriptive details via Amazon.com include a five-star rating from all four reviewers so far. Details. 

About Richard Wolffe and Renegade

Richard Wolffe is an award-winning journalist and political analyst. He is an MSNBC contributor, finishing an interlude as a senior strategist at Public Strategies before his next book. As a columnist for Daily Beast, he broke the story last month, “Obama’s Secret Climate Pact.”  He covered the length of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine. Earlier, he was U.S. diplomatic correspondent and deputy bureau chief for the Financial Times. His book’s descriptive details and reader reviews via Amazon.com, include a 3 ½-star rating from 125 reviewers so far and a four-star rating from 36 Barnes & Noble reviewers.  Details.

About Scott Draughon 

Scott Draughton is an attorney and business radio pioneer who founded the My Technology Lawyer Radio network. Draughon, author of the 2007 book The Art of the Business Radio Show, has long experience also in guiding entrepreneurial success through close attention to the dynamics of the marketplace, law, government policy and effective marketing. Details: http://www.mytechnologylawyer.com.

About Andrew Kreig

Andrew Kreig is an investigative reporter, author and attorney who reports frequently about official corruption on such new media sites as Huffington Post, Connecticut Watchdog, Nieman Watchdog and OpEd News. Former president of the Wireless Communications Association International from 1996 to last summer, Kreig is a senior fellow with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and a research fellow with the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. His coverage of Supreme Court books includes a 1979 interview with The Brethren co-authors Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong about controversies involving their research methods.

DC Regulators Host Unique Debate On News Industry’s Future

Washington, DC ─ More than 70 communications experts this week debated how consumers can protect their interests despite the decline of traditional newspapers and broadcasters.

Increased government support for news-gathering was the key topic in the path-breaking two-day conference entitled, “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Dec. 1 and 2.  Industry speakers ranged in clout from News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch to web-based start-ups much like Connecticut Watchdog.

“It’s good that we can have an honest discussion” of the relationship between law and business opportunities said Reed Hundt, a 1990s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  The Democrat said that long-standing fears of government meddling with the news media would have made such a conference “unthinkable” previously during his decades in Washington since he left Yale Law School in 1974.

Some tension is inevitable.  “The news media is here in part to make life miserable for public officials,” said Steven Waldman, an FCC official just three days on the job as a senior advisor to its chairman Julius Genachowski after a career as an Internet entrepreneur and reporter for such publications as Newsweek and the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.

The FTC conference speakers and their videos are on the workshop section of the FTC website: www.ftc.gov.

Many speakers noted that traditional media are reacting to declines in their advertising by cutting coverage of vital public affairs. 

“We cannot risk the loss of an informed public and all that means because of this market failure,” said U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-California), who added that any proposed solutions through his committee would require bipartisan support.

Murdoch complained that Internet-based rivals infringe the copyrights of traditional media, hurting the public.  Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post (for which I write also) responded that every news operation uses content from others under longstanding, court-enforced “fair use” standards, and that innovation is helping the public.  

Aneesh Chopra, assistant to President Obama for technology, said the new administration is relying on technology and inputs from the public in unprecedented ways.  He cited as examples communication on such consumer needs as health care options and such public affairs concerns as lobbying for federal contracts.

National Public Radio President and CEO Vivian Schiller said her network’ success provides a model for public/private funding.  Even so, the network’s local coverage should be enhanced by more federal money, she said in arguing that funding doesn’t mean government control. 

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, countered that improper political interference in public broadcasting has been documented in recent years.  Even so, he advocated more federal funding for news organizations and infrastructure, along with more “firewall” protections for journalistic independence. 

Historians noted that federal policies on infrastructure development, copyright, taxation and antitrust have long assisted the news media.

The conference’s final panel included the founders of two web-based start-ups from Connecticut.  Branford Eagle editor Marcia Chambers, who is also journalist-in-residence at Yale, began her news site as a column four years ago.  She plans to work with others to “reinvigorate state coverage.” 

Paul Bass, editor of the New Haven Independent, said he started with $80,000 in funding after leaving his longstanding job at the Advocate, and now has an annual budget of close to a half million dollars.  Bass, also executive director of the Online Journalism Project, said that interactive journalism enables community “conversations” never previously possible.

The 30-year-veteran of the news business concluded, “This is the best time to be a journalist.”

Nov. 12: DC Radio Hosts Spectrum Expert Lazarus On FCC, Alabama Writer Shuler On Scandal

Mitchell Lazarus

Washington attorney and author Mitchell Lazarus proposed on the Nov. 12 DC Update edition of My Technology Lawyer Radio ways that the new Obama FCC can foster economic growth.  The radio show is available via the Listen Live! link here, which includes an archive of past shows.

Also, Alabama legal journalist Roger Shuler provided an update on the state’s reaction to explosive statements by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Johnson that current Gov. Bob Riley received millions of dollars in campaign funds from Mississippi gambling interests in 2002.  The payments were reputedly via lobbyist Jack Abramoff, helping narrowly defeat Democratic incumbent Don Siegelman, who was later convicted on corruption charges in a controversial case.  The new stories are here and here.

Regarding regulatory delays and the economy, Lazarus published an article in the prestigious IEEE Spectrum Magazine and filed comments with the FCC this fall suggesting ways that the Commission’s oversight of new technologies could be quickened to enable new technologies and job growth. 

Lazarus drew from his 25 years of practice before the Commission in making his proposals.  The suggestions were in his regulatory filing here and his Sept. 30 Spectrum article here, entitled, “Radio’s Regulatory Roadblocks: How the FCC Slows New Wireless Technologies – and What To Do About It.”  Also, Lazarus publishes on a wide range of competitive and regulatory topics on his law firm’s CommLawBlog, which is available here.

The FCC, with three of its five members newly confirmed after nomination by President Obama, requested suggestions this fall for improving its regulatory practices.  The filing by Lazarus argued:

Requests to approve a benign technology should be granted quickly.  They are not. Nowadays a rulemaking typically takes 2-5 years, and a waiver, about two years, even for harmless technologies.  These delays are an obstacle to innovation.  Often a radically new technology comes from a small, privately-funded start-up.  Its only product may be the one awaiting Commission approval.  These companies may lack the resources to survive a lengthy FCC proceeding.

Update is co-hosted by the show’s founder and business radio pioneer Scott Draughon and by Washington commentator Andrew Kreig, who co-chairs with Lazarus the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition.  The hosts begin the show with an update on Washington policy news affecting the nation’s business, politics and quality of life.  Update radio listeners can call in questions by email: radio@MyTechnologyLawyer.com.  As listener advisories: Mac computer users need the tool “Parallels” to hear a Windows Media Player.

About Mitchell Lazarus

Mitchell Lazarus, a partner at Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, specializes in the regulation of new telecommunications technologies, and has helped many manufacturers and service providers obtain FCC approval for innovative products and services. Recent work has included extensive regulatory involvement in unlicensed radio technologies, including ultra-wideband and various forms of Wi-Fi, along with radio-based security systems, software-defined and cognitive radios, millimeter-wave technologies, and broadband-over-power-line. Lazarus holds a law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from McGill University and MIT, respectively, and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from MIT. He has published five books and monographs and dozens of shorter works on educational issues, in addition to many articles on telecom. Contact: lazarus@fhhlaw.com.  Founded in 1936, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth provides comprehensive legal services in the field of telecommunications. Details: www.fhh-telcomlaw.com.

About the Roger Shuler and Legal Schnauzer

Roger Shuler is editor and publisher of the law-oriented Alabama website Legal Schnauzer.  Roger Shuler graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism, and joined the Birmingham Post Herald, where he worked for 11 years.  Later, he worked at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in various editorial positions for 19 years until May 2008.  In June 2007 as a personal project, he created the Legal Schnauzer to be an independent web-based publication focusing on Alabama and national news.  Shuler has written extensively about the Don Siegelman case in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi.  Details: http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/.

Jan. 28 Update Hosts ‘Three Felonies A Day’ Author Harvey Silverglate

On radio Jan. 28, I’m interviewing longtime Boston litigator and civil rights expert Harvey Silverglate to discuss his pioneering new book Three Felonies A Day on the DC Update edition of My Technology Lawyer Radio.

Listeners can access the show nationwide beginning at noon via the link at www.MyTechnologyLawyer.com/update, which also provides archives of previous shows I co-host with the show’s founder Scott Draughon.

The book’s subtitle is How the Feds Target the Innocent.  The theme is: The average professional in this country is unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes each day.

Why unaware? Modern federal criminal laws have exploded in number, and have become impossibly broad and vague. National Journal legal columnist Stuart Taylor, Jr. comments, “Abetted by compliant courts and easily gulled media, the feds brand as criminals good people who intended no crime.”

The book shows how the federal executive branch is able to exercise a disturbing form of social control via selective prosecution. The book is winning praise from experts across the political spectrum, and deserves the attention of anyone worried that loss of constitutional rights affects politics and business. 

The show’s founder, business radio pioneer Scott Draughon, will begin the show with an overview of Washington policy news affecting business, politics and quality of life.  Scott’s asked me to join him in an additional a special hour-long discussion at 4 p.m. Jan. 28 because of major recent developments in Washington and around the nation.

Our very accomplished noon guest Harvey Silverglate summarized his book’s themes in testimony last September before a House subcommittee.  

“This book is written from the perspective of a trial lawyer who has seen these statutes wreak havoc with the law and with people’s lives, and threaten the balance between governmental authority and civil society,” he testified.  “The book contains some legal analysis, but primarily it is meant as a description of how vague statutes function, in practice, as a tool of terror and true prosecutorial harassment in the lives of ordinary as well as extraordinary people.” 

Silverglate continued:

I was readily able, from my own litigation experience as well as from research done on other cases, to pinpoint myriad inappropriate prosecutions of many an unwary innocent citizen in the medical  community, the medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, investment houses, bankers, lawyers, accountants and auditors, academics, artists, newspaper reporters, merchants, as well as public officials.  

The time has come, it seems to me, to reduce or eliminate – rather than to enlarge – the number of these affronts to liberty and fair treatment of our citizens.

I hope you can join us for an especially important program.  Your calls or email questions are welcome, of course.  Call-in with questions at 866-685-7469, or send emails to radio@MyTechnologyLawyer.com.  

Three Felonies A Day author Harvey Silverglate is counsel to Boston’s Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan LLP. He is founder and co-chairman of the Foundation for Individual Rights Education, a columnist for the Boston Phoenix and a Cato Institute fellow.  His congressional testify last fall is available here.  In 1999, he co-authored The Shadow University. For details, visit here. Three Felonies a Day is available via Amazon.com here.

Listener advisory: Mac Listeners need the tool “Parallels” to access the Windows Media Player.

Trumka Warms Lawmakers On Economic Agenda

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Washington, DC –The AFL-CIO ‘s new President Richard Trumka urged government officials Jan. 11 to put far greater priority in coming weeks on improving the nation’s economy in such areas as jobs, worker rights and health care.

“This is a moment that cries out for political courage ─ but it is not much in evidence,” he said at a National Press Club luncheon that I covered for the club’s publications, with details at www.press.org.

Trumka led the United Mine Workers of America from 1982 to 1995 before becoming AFL-CIO’s secretary treasurer in 1995.  He succeeded longtime AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in September as the top executive of the country’s largest labor organization. 

Trumka summarized his travels since Jan. 1 to talk to “working Americans” about their concerns.

“Everywhere I went,” Trumka said, “people asked me, ‘Why do so many of the people we elect seem to care only about Wall Street?  Why is helping banks a matter of urgency, but unemployment is something we just have to live with?’”

“I came away shaken by the sense that the very things that make America great are in danger,” he continued.  “What makes us unique among nations is this:  In America, working people are the middle class.…But a generation of destructive, greed-driven economic policies has eroded that progress and now threatens our very identity as a nation.”

The union has announced a five-point program to create more than 4 million jobs with what he called “a crucial alliance of the middle class and the poor” to achieve legislative victories. 

But he singled out health care as an issue that “drives a wedge between the middle class and the poor” by Senate proposals to pay for expanded insurance by taxing employee health care plans.  “Most of the 31 million insured employees who would be hit by the excise tax are not union members,” he said. 

“The tax on benefits in the Senate bill pits working Americans who need health care for their families against working Americans struggling to keep health care for their families,” he said.  “This is a policy designed to benefit elites – in this case, insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and irresponsible employers– at the expense of the broader public.”

In a veiled threat that he didn’t amplify, he said the labor movement is fighting “to win health care reform that is worthy of the support of working men and women.”

Aiming part of his remarks at Democratic lawmakers, Trumka warned against a repeat in 2010 of the disappointment his members felt in 1994 against Democratic incumbents when their party was routed at the polls.

“Politicians who think that working people have it too good – too much health care, too much Social Security and Medicare, too much power on the job – are inviting a repeat of 1994,” he said.

During Q&A, he declined to discuss specifics about his meeting with President Obama later in the afternoon except to say, “We’ll be talking about health care.”  He did say that the discussion would be “among friends.” 

In response to a related question, Trumka said, “We’re not going to accept a bad bill.” Obama and other Democratic leaders hope to eke out a slender victory on their health care insurance legislation in the face of almost united Republican opposition and increasing criticism from Democrats, including progressives and union members.

Trumka’s prepared speech was nearly seven-pages long single-spaced. Club President Donna Leinwand asked him to cut it short at about 1:35 p.m. to stay on the Club’s usual timetable enabling audience questions and a luncheon end by 2 p.m.

Trumka declined, saying, “Working people have been waiting 30 years for this.” 

The last sentences of his prepared speech were a warning to political leaders to choose between working for the general public or “the profits of insurance companies, speculators and outsourcers.”

“There is no middle ground,” Trumka concluded.  “Working America is waiting for an answer.  We are in a ‘show me’ kind of mood, and time is running out.”

Nov. 19: DC Radio Hosts Health Care Rights Advocate, Russia Intrigue Analyst

Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy (1971-1990)

The congressional debate on health care reform and allegations of Russian regime-ordered killings were featured on today’s DC Update edition of My Technology Lawyer Radio.  

This week’s show hosted two courageous participants in events that helped shape our world.  The show is available via the link at www.MyTechnologyLawyer.com/update, which includes an archive of past shows.  Today’s guests were:

• The Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, former Washington, DC Congressman (1971-1990), an advocate of expanded health care as a basic civil right, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama.
• Steve LeVine, the Business Week Washington correspondent who drew on his 11 years work in the former Soviet Union to author the recently published Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia.

Update is co-hosted by the show’s founder and business radio pioneer Scott Draughon and by Washington commentator Andrew Kreig.  The hosts began the show with an update on Washington policy news affecting the nation’s business, politics and quality of life.  Topics included new developments in the health care battle, and the faith-based business success of the Chic-fil-A restaurant chain.

The show’s first guest helped lead a unique town hall-style hearing on Oct. 27 whereby patients whose insurance had expired testified about their limited options under the nation’s health care system.  In view of a Harvard study estimating 45,000 Americans dying each year because of lack of coverage, Fauntroy argued that basic health care should be considered as civil right under reform legislation. 

The Oct. 27 hearing, including a video of Fauntroy’s eloquent remarks surveying the rise and fall of great nations, was summarized on Nov. 5 by Kreig in a Huffington Post article: “Fans Of House Health Option Cite Rights Hopes, But Risk Big Defeat.”

LeVine’s book Putin’s Labyrinth focuses upon the life-and-death struggles by Russian dissenters to the government dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  LeVine described how six suspicious deaths in recent years of dissenters and others illustrate an alarming long-term pattern in Russian government.

Those patterns arguably continue with this week’s suspicious death in a Russian prison of Sergei Magnitsky, 37.   The prisoner was a Russian lawyer for the Hermitage Fund who had uncovered evidence of official involvement in the theft of $230 million from the government.  

LeVine’s book was originally published last year, and has been re-released in paperback with a new Afterword.

 About the Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy

Walter Edward Fauntroy, 76, is the retired pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and a civil rights activist.  He is also a former member of the U.S. Congress.  He describes his life work as to advocate public policy that “declares Good News to the poor, that binds up the broken-hearted and sets at liberty them that are bound.”   A close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fauntroy helped organize the Alabama civil rights marches whose brutal disruption by police in March 1965 shocked the public and federal authorities into introducing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  That law enabled widespread black voting in the Deep South for the first time since Reconstruction. 

About Steve LeVine and Putin’s Labyrinth

Steve LeVine covers foreign affairs for Business Week.  Previously, he was a correspondent for Central Asia and the Caucasus for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for 11 years.  His first book, The Oil and the Glory, a history of the former Soviet Union through the lens of oil, was published in October 2007. Putin’s Labyrinth, his new book, profiles Russia through the lives and deaths of six Russians. Details: www.oilandglory.com.

Chick-fil-A Founder Brings Down-Home Success Story To National Press Club In DC

The 88-year-old founder of Chick-fil-A told a Nov. 13 Washington, DC luncheon audience about his company’s tale of continued growth through recent hard times enabled by low-debt, customer service, family ownership and religious faith.

Truett Cathy, who borrowed money in 1946 to start his first restaurant in suburban Atlanta, remains chairman of the privately held company that announced its 42nd straight year of record sales and an expected record of $3 billion in total revenue by year-end.

“I had the privilege of growing up in poverty,” he told the National Press Club audience.  “The blessing is you have to work for a living.” 

Chick-fil-A President and CEO Dan Cathy, the founder’s son and co-featured speaker, amplified on both the company’s success and why the story can help other companies and employees prosper.

The son said the company is on track for a 9% increase in sales this year through its 1,475 U.S. restaurants in 38 states, and will continue its low-debt tradition by becoming completely debt-free within 36 months.

The company heavily relies on controlled growth, the younger Cathy said, along with hiring top personnel and providing exceptional service, especially by the standards of a fast-food restaurant. With enthusiasm, he described his practice of camping out overnight with customers at shopping center parking lots to get to know each other better and how the chain is introducing a new spicy Chicken sandwich in June. 

He mentioned also the “tremendous opportunities to treat our customers with honor” by such means as placing flowers on customer tables and teaching teenage trainees to “pull out a chair for a lady” about to sit down. 

Such traditions are easier to maintain, he said, by keeping the company committed to family-ownership.  Family ownership is expected to continue despite the vagaries of estate taxes, he said, after he and his sister recently signed legal documents pledging such control.

He said that Chick-fil-A avoids even the current bank loan rates of 2.5% interest because the company seeks self-funding in effect financed by satisfied customers, not outsiders.    

Truett Cathy, left, and son Dan Cathy (Photo by Gregory Tinius of Tinius-Arts Photography at National Press Club)

The elder Cathy is credited with inventing the fast-food industry’s boneless Chicken sandwich and Chicken “nuggets” menu items.  He teaches Sunday school to 13-year-olds in recognition of his religious mentoring when he was that age, and made available to attendees signed copies of his five books, several focused on community and religious service. 

In introducing the speakers, Club President Donna Leinwand said, “The chain’s growing revenues and expanding stores have come without the burden of layoffs.  And without ending its long-questioned policy of closing its doors every Sunday.”

During Q&A, Dan Cathy quoted his father as saying Sunday-closings was “the most important business decision I ever made.”  Shying away from religious connotations on this question, they said the original decision was because they were so tired from working the other six days, but that ultimately a day of refreshment revitalized restaurant quality and enthusiasm overall.

In other remarks, they repeatedly argued the importance of religious faith in their company’s success, while denying bias against any employees who might not share it.   “Biblical principles work,” Dan Cathy said.  “The challenge is to keep up with change, but pay attention to the things that never change.”

As for the future?  Truett Cathy, who in 2006 landed on the Forbes list of the nation’s richest and now leads the company’s foundation arm, said, “Why would I want to retire from something I enjoy doing?”

This article was published originally in The Wire of the National Press Club