Stories I’d like to see

1. What happened with Romney’s audit?

On Sunday, Mitt Romney – while promising ABC he would “go back and check” to see if he had ever paid less than the 13.9 percent in income taxes he reported paying in the only return he has released so far – volunteered that he had been audited in the past by the IRS. So, the next question needs to be, “Governor, when you were audited, did the IRS then require you to pay additional taxes, and, if so, would you specify the discrepancy between what you claimed and what the IRS determined was the appropriate tax? And was more than one year of returns audited? If so, what were the results of those other audits?”

2. Aurora and risk:

When I saw reports in the wake of the Aurora massacre that theater chains are thinking about how they might implement new security measures to restrict who can bring what into a theater, I was reminded of a story I read recently about what happened in the aftermath of a horrific air crash 16 years ago.

Most of us have only a dim memory of TWA Flight 800, the Boeing 747 that exploded over the Atlantic shortly after leaving Kennedy Airport for Paris on the night of July 26, 1996.

An investigation found that the oxygen had ignited in the jet’s fuel tank, and that this was probably caused by excessive heat because the plane had been sitting for hours on a hot summer runway before taking off. But despite all the headlines and speculation in the days immediately following the crash, attention faded, and not much was done until July 16, 2008 – 12 years after the accident. Only then did the Federal Aviation Administration get around to issuing an order that airlines had to retrofit thousands of potentially vulnerable planes with a safety feature designed to prevent the kind of explosion that downed Flight 800.

However, according to this report in the trade e-newsletter Aviationpros.com published two weeks ago on the 12th anniversary of the crash, it turns out that the airlines still haven’t installed the required flammable suppression systems on most of their planes. In fact, they may not meet the FAA’s 2014 deadline for retrofitting just half of their jets and a 2017 deadline to retrofit all of them. That’s right: The FAA set the deadline for 2017, 21 years after the explosion. And the airlines aren’t going to make the changes even by then.

According to the Aviationpros.com report, the airlines blame Boeing, which they say has not “certified the kits and service instructions needed for certain models of its aircraft.” The FAA has fined Boeing $13.57 million. That’s less than two hours of revenue for a company with $68.7 billion in 2011 sales. A Boeing spokesman told Aviationpros.com that the company has now “provided the service instructions to the FAA concerning the … aircraft that are the subject of the proposed penalty,” but offered no explanation for the delay. The rule involves 1,830 Boeing planes and 900 Airbus planes. Airbus met the deadline.

It may be that the lackadaisical approach by the aviation industry and its regulators to fixing the planes is because there’s a quiet consensus that the Flight 800 disaster was a fluke and that the security fix – which costs $92,000 to $311,000 per aircraft, according to the report – is more about cosmetics than a sensible cost-effective investment in actual safety. After all, despite the lag in installing the new system, no other planes are known to have gone down in 16 years in an accident like Flight 800’s.

Or it could be that the airlines have been able to put short-term profit ahead of safety because the industry and its lobbyists succeeded in pushing back the regulators as broader public attention faded. That seems to be how the business lobby succeeded in beating back new regulations recommended by security officials following 9/11 in areas ranging from the storage and shipment of dangerous chemicals to cyber-security.

But imagine the headlines and expressions of outrage from politicians that we’d see in a nanosecond if another plane did go down this way. (And imagine the slam-dunk lawsuits.) Similarly, imagine the handwringing and recriminations the morning after some deadly chemicals went missing or got blown up in transit, or a cyber attack crippled our air traffic control system or our power grids.

What does this have to do with the Aurora killings? Yes, someone ought to dig into the Boeing retrofitting story and see whether it’s a case of regulators asleep at the switch or a matter of everyone tacitly slow-walking what they believe is needless hassle and expense. But beyond that I’d like to see a thoughtful look at how we tend to overreact to the risk of the day but then forget what we were worried about as the memory fades and a new risk takes center stage.

Why, for example, would we now consider posting security guards at theaters but not at shopping malls? And how does the expense and hassle of security checks at either place versus the actual safety benefit compare with the expense and hassle versus the actual safety benefit of limiting the availability of assault weapons and 100-round magazine clips?

To take another example, soon after 9/11, the FAA forced airports to eliminate parking spaces that were too close to a passenger terminal. The fear was that a bomber would park a car filled with explosives near the terminal and kill people at the airport. (Yes, the 9/11 terrorists were suicide bombers on planes, not terrorists hoping to leave a bomb in a car near an airport and set it off without hurting themselves, but in the days after 9/11 everything about air travel was a priority.) But what’s so special about an airport? Anyone can park a car inside most shopping malls and many office towers, and right next to most sports stadiums.

This broader story would look at how we deal with disasters and risks and the ways we can make our reactions to threats more rational. It could start by listing the five most overrated risks – situations where we spend too much time and money – and the five most underrated, and examine in each case how and why we have gotten the balance so out of whack.

3. Let’s go inside the IRS:

Both this report from the New York Times about an outside panel of expert art appraisers that advises the Internal Revenue Service about the value of art left in taxable estates, and this piece in the Washington Post about how the IRS may act to tighten regulations on tax-exempt so-called social welfare groups that are financing millions in political advertising but don’t have to reveal donors, illustrate a major reporting gap: We need a comprehensive story or a series of stories taking us inside the IRS.

Using the social welfare organization loophole as a departure, we’d want to know who signs off when the IRS changes a regulation or its interpretation of a regulation that can, as in this case, have enormous impact. The Post article quotes a Washington tax lawyer as saying that the Treasury Department, of which the IRS is a unit, has to approve. Do political appointees at Treasury have a direct role? What about the White House? And what are some other pending issues related to these kinds of regulatory deliberations that are below the radar but similarly significant? Which corporations or people would be most affected, and what are they doing about it?

As for the high-stakes art appraisals, does the IRS have other expert panels that help the bureaucrats deal with equally esoteric issues – such as the value of complicated financial derivatives, or patents, or foreign real estate – that can determine millions or even billions in tax revenue? How are the panels chosen? What authority do they have? How are conflicts vetted?

More generally, how does the IRS – which faces off against corporate tax departments stocked with dozens or even hundreds of highly paid lawyers and accountants – recruit its own sophisticated talent? And what are the rules governing whether that talent can move through the revolving door to the other side?

Speaking of staffing, opponents of Obamacare argued that enforcing the individual insurance mandate would require the hiring of thousands of new IRS agents. Now that the mandate has been upheld, what are the actual plans for enforcement, including new personnel?

Other question abound. How does the IRS keep up with changing technology? How are returns chosen to be audited? How has the agency’s approach to customer service changed and improved or declined over the years? How does it test the customer-friendliness of its instructions and documents?

This is the one agency that touches every American. We should know a lot more about its people and how they work.

PHOTO: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann wave to people on the street before his meeting with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the Old Town Hall in Gdansk, Poland, July 30, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

The press is missing a trick in continuing to ask Governor Romney only whether he’s going to release more than his most recent tax returns. That allows him to say either yes or no (for now, it’s no), which produces no information. So no news gets made. But there are lots of other ways to get at the Romney tax issue by asking him a variety of different questions, for which even a refusal to comment would be news.

All these questions should begin with something like this: “Governor, we know you feel that releasing additional tax returns will invade your privacy and that of your family and, as you have asserted, allow the Obama campaign to pick through thousands of pages and come up with more distortions and half-truths. So if you are not going to release the returns, could you just tell us this:

Reporters could then choose from among these follow-on questions:

1. In the last 10 years have you ever paid less than 10 percent of your adjusted gross income in federal income taxes? If you don’t know offhand, could you ask your accountant to tell us? (On different days reporters could substitute 7 percent, 5 percent or 2 percent as the benchmark.)

2. Governor, in the last 10 years what is the highest tax rate you have paid? If you don’t know, could you ask your accountant to tell us?

3. Governor, could you ask your accountant simply to release the percent tax of your adjusted gross income you paid in each of the last 10 years? Or could he simply release the two pages of your form 1040 for each year, but to preserve your privacy redact everything on all pages except your signature and line 37 (adjusted gross income) and line 61 (total tax owed); we will calculate the percentages.

4. Governor, what would you guess your average tax rate has been in the last 10 years? If you don’t know, could you ask your accountant to tell us?

5. Governor, have you ever used offshore entities to receive and/or shelter income in a way that has lowered the taxes you have owed the United States?

6. Governor, could you ask your accountant to provide an estimate of how much you and your family will save if all of the Bush tax cuts are extended through 2013?

7. Governor, could you provide us with an estimate of how much the most controversial current tax benefit related to someone in your situation – the treatment as capital gains of carried interest paid to partners in private equity funds for income that was not derived from any capital actually invested – has saved you and your family in the last 10 years?

8. Governor, could you tell us what specific tax benefit or so-called loophole that you have taken advantage of over the last 10 years you would propose to eliminate, and could you ask your accountant to tell us how much you have saved from that benefit?

PHOTO: U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney gives a statement to reporters gathered at Middlesex Truck and Coach after he toured the facility during a campaign event in Roxbury, Massachusetts July 19, 2012. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

I was amazed to see this sentence in the piece the New York Times’s ever-amazing Jo Becker wrote last week about all the goodies outgoing Penn State football coach Joe Paterno negotiated in a new contract even as the Jerry Sandusky scandal was imploding around him: “He would also have the use of the university’s private plane…”

Penn State has a private plane? Sure, the school probably charters a jet when the team travels. But do the university executives have their own jet? How many other universities have perks like this?

As this article from Bloomberg.com documents, the relentless rise in higher education tuition and other costs has trapped students in debt from readily available student loans backed by us taxpayers. It is fast becoming a national scandal akin to the mortgage crisis. Which means we need some tough, fresh reporting finally holding university leaders accountable for spending and management efficiency.

According to news reports Penn State trustees raised tuition on the main campus last week by 2.9 percent. University officials bragged that this was the “lowest percentage tuition boost in 45 years and one of the smallest in the nation.” However, that raise followed a 4.9 percent increase the year before, and it exceeded the pace of inflation in any event. Sure, state aid to the school was cut, but a check of the university’s website reveals that the overall expense budget for the coming school year is still up $131 million, or 3.2 percent, over the year before, again outpacing inflation and despite those cuts in state aid. The overriding reality is that higher education remains a gold mine for reporters looking for waste and lack of accountability.

Air Paterno may be a good hook to get people interested. Which other schools have planes?

2. Scrutinizing the New York Fed:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has now taken center stage in the swirling scandal of who knew what about the manipulation of Libor rates. And I can report from experience that center stage is not where the New York Fed likes to be. In 2010, while writing in the New York Times Magazine about the work of Kenneth Feinberg – the Treasury Department-designated pay czar appointed to curb the compensation of executives at banks bailed out by TARP – I discovered that the New York Fed played a key, behind-the-scenes role in protecting AIG executives from having to accept AIG stock as part of their compensation. New York Fed officials told Feinberg that they agreed with these AIG executives that the stock of their own company was “worthless” and urged him to think of a different way to compensate them.

Because the stock was selling for approximately $40, this seemed a curious position for the New York Fed to take, and it raised questions about why AIG would not be required to disclose that its own executives, not to mention the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were taking the position in negotiations with the Treasury Department that a $40 stock was worthless.

However, when I tried to get comment from the New York Fed, a spokesman told me that officials there “never” speak on the record. He was serious. And his claim seemed borne out when I looked through news clips about the organization and found that quotes of any substance were unattributed or on background.

With its cathedral-like building in the heart of the financial district  and a board made up of elite Wall Street figures such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the New York Fed is the epitome of the financial establishment – yet it’s a government-funded agency, which should seemingly be open to public scrutiny. Its central role in TARP (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was its president at the time) never produced the kind of full portrait of how it works and what its full influence is that it deserved. The new Libor scandal should get the financial press on the case.

The New York Fed may have played a major positive role, or it may have been an enabler or protector. The point is nobody outside the agency really knows, because the press hasn’t gotten inside to tell us how what may be the country’s most secretive non-national security agency actually works.

3. How did FDR do it?

As the 2012 election approaches, it’s clear that the central question (indeed, it’s already a cliché) is whether and how a president can be elected with unemployment exceeding 8 percent. So how come we haven’t seen a good story on how FDR won re-election in 1936, when the unemployment rate was over 16 percent? FDR not only won – he carried 46 of 48 states and got nearly 61 percent of the popular vote.

Sure, it’s repeatedly mentioned in passing that FDR pulled off a victory despite the state of the economy. But I’d like to know more about how he did it and how his campaign compares with the Obama effort. What were his campaign themes that year, and what were they in 1940 – when unemployment was still a miserable 14.6 percent and people had to be looking for an alternative after not four but eight years of a president trying to manage an economy far worse than the one we have today? And how, if at all, did he attack his opponents, Alf Landon in 1936, and Wendell Willkie (a Wall Streeter) in 1940?

4. Savannah profiles?

Where are the profiles of Savannah Guthrie, the new Today Show co-host? She’s a lawyer, whose bio says she scored first on the Arizona state bar exam. She has all kinds of other academic honors, and has had a lightning-fast rise since joining NBC News in 2008. Obviously lots of intriguing stuff here.

PHOTO: A pair of F-18 jets fly over Beaver stadium before the start of the Alabama versus Penn State NCAA football game in State College, Pennsylvania, September 10, 2011. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer

Just because President Obama and his team have been pathetic when it comes to letting Americans know what’s in his healthcare reform law doesn’t mean the press shouldn’t be zeroing in on this huge, multifaceted story. The law is packed with changes – some of which have already taken effect but have barely been written about – whose ramifications range from likely upheavals in the advertising and marketing industries to an apparent lifeline for all Americans who are mystified or even tormented when dealing with their health insurers.

A marketing explosion

Let’s start with the business angles. As this article from Advertising Age points out, once various provisions of Obamacare take effect, key sectors of the healthcare industry, particularly hospitals and insurance companies, are going to have to become heavily engaged in consumer marketing and communications. In the last few years we’ve seen some hospitals use advertising to establish their brand, and, as I mentioned in this column in February, United HealthCare has been aggressively advertising to consumers.

All of these early efforts are about to be taken to a whole new level because of Obamacare – which requires that by 2014 everyone must buy health insurance and every state must have an exchange where consumers can go online and compare insurers’ offerings. This means not only that the market for health insurance is going to expand but also that much of it is likely to be sold directly to individual consumers rather than through an employer. Meantime, hospitals and doctors’ networks will want to advertise to have more leverage in negotiating with insurers to include them in the insurers’ networks.

That there is already a robust community of public relations, marketing, advertising, and market research professionals who specialize in the multitrillion-dollar healthcare industry is itself an interesting story. But getting inside the dynamics of how that business is now going to explode – and which big players, such as the largest ad agencies, are likely to start buying up the specialists – is a much bigger deal.

Healthcare is the largest industry in the world’s largest economy, and, with the exception of the drugmakers, those who provide it have never really had to communicate directly with consumers, let alone compete for them.

However, there’s an even bigger story related to the coming competition in healthcare: How, if at all, is this explosion of new marketing and advertising going to be regulated? What will hospitals be allowed to say about their safety and survival rates? What records, if any, might regulators force them to disclose? And who would those regulators be? The Federal Trade Commission? The Food and Drug Administration? How will the turf be divided and what authority does either agency have?

Insurance in plain English

In that prior column I wondered why health insurance companies aren’t compelled to provide data on claims paid versus claims rejected. I now realize I missed a much more basic issue: Why aren’t insurers required to write and present their policies in plain English? Put simply, there is little chance that you have any idea of exactly what your health insurance policy covers or doesn’t cover, even if the policy is sitting in front of you.

This, it turns out, is one of the key aspects of Obama care that the President and his staff have done such a lousy job of touting. The new law doesn’t appear to require insurers to report their rejection rates, but it does require something far more important: All health insurance companies and group health plans must provide all customers with a plain English summary of benefits, including a glossary that explains any key terms – “network,” or “habilitation services,” for example — in simple English. And this isn’t one of those provisions in the law that doesn’t happen until 2014; it goes into effect this Sept. 23, or about 10 weeks from now.

This provision, calling for a “Summary of Benefits and Coverage and Uniform Glossary,” is hardly buried in the 2,407-page bill; it’s on page 23. But I haven’t seen or read anything about it.

Here are excerpts from its requirements, which I’m including here because they describe, or prescribe, a document that is worlds away from anything any American with health insurance has ever seen:

“(1) APPEARANCE.—The standards shall ensure that the summary of benefits and coverage is presented in a uniform format that does not exceed 4 pages in length and does not include print smaller than 12-point font.

“(2) LANGUAGE.—The standards shall ensure that the summary is presented in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner and utilizes terminology understandable by the average plan enrollee.

“(3) CONTENTS.—The standards shall ensure that the summary of benefits and coverage includes—
“(A) uniform definitions of standard insurance terms and medical terms (consistent with subsection (g)) so that consumers may compare health insurance coverage and understand the terms of coverage (or exception to such coverage);
“(B) a description of the coverage, including cost sharing for—
“(i) each of the categories of the essential health benefits described in subparagraphs (A) through (J) of section 1302(b)(1) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; and
“(ii) other benefits, as identified by the Secretary
“(C) the exceptions, reductions, and limitations on coverage;
“(D) the cost-sharing provisions, including deductible, coinsurance, and co-payment obligations;
“(E) the renewability and continuation of coverage provisions;
‘‘(F) a coverage facts label that includes examples to illustrate common benefits scenarios, including pregnancy and serious or chronic medical conditions and related cost sharing, such scenarios to be based on recognized clinical practice guidelines….
“(I) a contact number for the consumer to call with additional questions and an Internet web address where a copy of the actual individual coverage policy or group certificate of coverage can be reviewed and obtained….

The new law required Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to consult with state insurance commissioners, insurance companies, patient advocates and even “those representing individuals with limited English proficiency” to come up with the template for this revolutionary four-page document—which she did.

Her template, which became six pages including “coverage examples” and frequently asked questions, can be found here, and it’s an extraordinary step forward. (Indeed, a camera shot of one of its pages, with a brief narrative explanation from the president, would make for a better Obama re-election TV ad than anything I’ve seen from his campaign so far.)

It would be great to see a story on how the template was put together, what the potential weaknesses are and, most important, how insurance companies are working to comply with, or find loopholes in, its mandates by September, when they have to fill it in with their own language summarizing their own plans.

The law stipulates a fine of $1,000 per insurance customer for each time someone is not given an adequate document. Editors ought to be assigning stories now on how that’s going to be enforced.

Insurance companies and group health plans must also provide 60 days’ notice whenever any of the provisions in their plans, as summarized in the new document, are about to be changed. That sounds like good protection for patients, but it prompts a final question: I don’t see anything in the statute prohibiting insurance companies from changing their plans midstream – say, by deciding to disallow some drug or not to cover some procedure it had been covering.

I’ve always wondered about that, because if an insurance plan is a contract – I agree to pay the company, and it agrees to provide certain coverage – how can the company change the deal before the contract ends? What are the rules, if any, about that?

Appealing rejected claims

There are all kinds of other provisions in Obamacare that are equally important, some of which have supposedly already been implemented, but that also seem to have eluded the press.

Another example: There’s a provision guaranteeing as of last January that a patient denied coverage by his insurance carrier not only can appeal to the insurance company (which must respond within specific deadlines) but also has the right, as the law puts it, to an “effective external review process that meets minimum standards established by the Secretary.” What does that mean, and how is it being implemented? Our family recently contested a rejected claim and we were not told of any right to appeal to an outside, independent party. If this requirement has not been implemented, that’s a great story, too.

Obamacare will have sweeping effects on a larger sector of our economy and a broader swathe of our population than any law in recent history. It’s time to switch from solely focusing on the political and legal battles surrounding it to how it’s actually working and going to work.

PHOTO: Patient Sharon Dawson Coates has her knee examined by Dr. Narang at University of Chicago Medicine Urgent Care Clinic in Chicago, June 28, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Young

1. Fast and Furious – zeroing in on Fortune’s different take:

Last week Fortune magazine published this surprising story that convincingly debunks the premise of the so-called Fast and Furious “gun walking” scandal that has enveloped the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Attorney General Eric Holder. Last week the controversy resulted in a contempt of Congress citation against Holder for not turning over documents about the case to a congressional committee chaired by Darrell Issa, the California Republican.

According to a ton of reporting done by Fortune’s Katherine Eban, including on-the-record interviews with many of the ATF agents involved and what Fortune says were more than 2,000 pages of explosive internal government emails and other documents, ATF agents did not deliberately allow American gun buyers working for Mexican drug cartels to “walk” assault rifles across the border to the drug gangs. Rather, the agents were carefully tracking the gun buyers and wanted to intercept and arrest them. They were stopped because prosecutors said that loopholes in gun record-keeping laws – loopholes that have long been protected by the gun rights advocates who are now leading the attack against ATF and Holder – and other constraints on ATF pushed by the gun lobby were such that prosecutors said the agents did not have enough probable cause to make the arrests.

In fact, according to Eban’s reporting, the one ATF agent who has been the key whistleblower and protagonist for Representative Issa’s charges that ATF deliberately let the drug cartels get the guns turns out to be the only agent who actually suggested that ATF do so in a separate case.

Of course, last week was buried in coverage of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision, but it’s still surprising that the Fortune story has not received the broad follow-up it deserves.

First, if true, it makes Issa’s attack on ATF and Holder one big “never mind.”

Second, if true, it makes Holder’s concession months ago that ATF did, in fact, intentionally allow Fast and Furious guns into the hands of the cartels either amazingly uninformed or an equally amazing knee buckling and sell-out of his agency in a fruitless effort to avoid a fight with Issa and his Republican allies. Fortune’s Eban explains it this way: The Obama administration “capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election.” Her article also raises questions about why Democrats on Issa’s committee, who have opposed his tactics and his contempt motion, didn’t fight back using the same emails that Eban uncovered. (Despite the contempt citation against Holder for withholding some documents, the committee has already received thousands of other documents.)

The Fortune article is also a strong indictment of CBS’s Sixty Minutes, which made a hero out of the ATF agent whom Fortune portrays as a rogue while making villains out of Fortune’s good-guy agents.

Someone needs to wade through all of this. And until that happens, for my money the Fortune piece is credible enough that the rest of the press needs, despite Holder’s own hapless admission, to stop referring to the charge of Fast and Furious gun walking and the deliberate planting of guns with Mexican drug gangsters as a fact.

2. ICANN’s $350 million bonanza:

Since its formation in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has been the U.S. government’s way of outsourcing to the private sector basic Internet housekeeping questions, such as who gets what domain names and addresses. With a multinational board made up of Internet visionaries (or busybodies, depending on your point of view), ICANN has suffered its share of controversy but has generally been regarded in the press as better than the alternative of having a government bureaucracy – either ours or one set up by the United Nations – play Internet hall monitor.

Well, that may be changing. Earlier this year, ICANN announced that it would accept applications for thousands of new top-level domain names to add to the few, like “.com” or “.org,” that we’re all familiar with. Last month, ICANN released the list of applicants for names such as “.apps,” “.blog,” “.music,” and “.books.” As this report from NPR explains, the organization received 1,930 such applications for which it charged $185,000 each. Thus, it’s no surprise that big corporations like Google, with 101 applications, and Amazon, with 76, dominated the process.

At $185,000 each, 1,930 applications adds up to $357 million. That’s a lot of money for a non-profit to be raking in. In fact, this bonanza looks more like a Pentagon earmark than a can-do, high-tech, do-good venture.

Who are the people behind ICANN? How do they spend these and other funds that they get for being the designated monopoly player controlling the Internet?

Curiously, the otherwise comprehensive NPR report, after citing critics who fear possible abuses of the new domain naming system, says only that “ICANN insists that won’t happen.” But NPR names no one at ICANN, let alone quotes anyone by name.

The list of ICANN’s board and its executives is public on its website, and Internet trade blogs have provided a lot of coverage of ICANN and the proposed expansion of the top-level domain names. Some of it even spilled into the general press last week – such as this Associated Press report about a fiasco surrounding how the $185,000 domain name applications would be reviewed. It seems that to determine the order in which the applications would be considered, the clever folks at ICANN devised what to this reader was an incomprehensible contest called “digital archery.” However, the whole thing crashed, and the contest was canceled because of technical glitches that the spinners at ICANN called “unexpected results.” They offered no further elaboration.

Who knows – maybe a look at how ICANN works and what it’s doing with that $357 million would make our Washington bureaucracies look good.

3. The D.C. power outage – how utilities skimp on maintenance crews:

In the wake of the prolonged power outages following last week’s severe thunderstorms in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, I hope someone will revisit this story idea from last November about local utilities paring down their own maintenance crews and making deals with other utilities to share crews from across North America when there’s an emergency. Yesterday morning I heard the CEO of PEPCO, the D.C.-area electric company, casually explain the delays in an interview on CNN by saying that full power restoration awaited the arrival of borrowed crews from as far away as Canada. It was as if no longer having enough local workers on hand was as much an act of God as the storms.

Editor’s note: The April 3 installment of this column called for a story exploring “How did Research In Motion, which produces the BlackBerry, get away with a lagging product offering and obviously unworkable corporate governance for so long?” On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a story addressing those very questions in detail.

PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivers remarks to the Boys and Girls Club of America in Washington, June 26, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

1. The IRS bureaucrat who could upend the campaign finance money flow:

Here’s an idea for a story about an obscure government bureaucrat whose decisions could have a major impact on the 2012 elections and on the entire issue of campaign finance reform going forward.

As this article in Roll Call, the Washington weekly, reports, there is increasing controversy surrounding super PAC-like groups that fashion themselves as coming under the Internal Revenue Service’s 501(c)(4) classification as a “social welfare organization.” Under IRS rules, 501(c)(4)’s are not only tax-exempt but also don’t have to disclose their donors. This means that they can spend unlimited sums on political advertising – including corporate contributions, following the Citizens United decision – but unlike super PACs, they can do so while keeping the sources of the money completely secret.

That’s why many of the big super PACS, such as Karl Rove’s American Crossroads – which are simply non-profits that engage fully and unabashedly in political activity but must disclose donors – operate companion 501(c)(4)’s that can take undisclosed donations. In the case of Rove’s super PAC,  the companion 501(c)(4) is called Crossroads GPS.

The sole catch is that under the IRS rules, a 501(c)(4) can only spend money on political activities so long as that is not its “primary activity.”

Ads paid for by a 501(c)(4) can advocate political positions. Thus, there have been Crossroads GPS TV ads that declare, “Tell Obama: Stop the spending. Support the New Majority Agenda,” and “Senator Claire McCaskill was a key Obama adviser in passing his failed $1.18 trillion stimulus.” But these ads cannot directly urge that someone be elected or not elected. And, again, even this slightly tailored political advocacy cannot be the group’s “primary activity,” which is supposed to be “social welfare.” In fact, the IRS regulations specifically state that “the promotion of social welfare does not include the direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”

As the New York Times reported last week, Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission disputing Crossroads GPS’s claim to be a “social welfare” organization. “There has never been any doubt,” asserts Bauer’s complaint, “about its true purpose: to elect candidates of its choice to the Presidency and the Congress.”

Bauer told the FEC that under a recent federal court ruling, the commission was now empowered to determine the “true purpose” of the 501(c)(4) on a case-by-case basis. However, Bauer wrote, the Rove group seemed determined to “run out the clock,” hoping that its donors would be shielded well beyond Election Day because the FEC is so notoriously slow in making any decisions. “The Commission should act without delay,” Bauer urged, “to ensure that, before heading to the polls, voters are operating with full information about the political interests behind what they have seen on the airwaves.”

Given the FEC’s perennial paralysis, Bauer’s plea is unlikely to work. However, there’s another agency – the IRS – that could act to investigate whether groups like Crossroads GPS and similar 501(c)(4)’s from both parties are more involved in politics than social welfare. Losing a 501(c)(4) designation would force Crossroads GPS to disclose its donors.

Whatever else you think about the IRS as an impenetrable bureaucracy, when it comes to decisions like these designations for tax-exempt groups, it has proved to be far less political than the perpetually deadlocked FEC, whose six members are split between the two political parties.

Ever heard of Steven T. Miller? He’s the IRS deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, and he supervises the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, run, according to the IRS website, by Acting Commissioner Joseph H. Grant.

I interviewed Miller in 2002 for a book I wrote about the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, because I was interested in the tax-exempt status of some of the charities accused of misusing money donated to help 9/11 victims. I recall Miller saying that he was not accustomed to talking to the press, which was obvious by how uncomfortable he seemed. I also recall him making no bones about his office’s power to revoke various IRS tax-exempt designations.

A Google search turns up some references to speeches Miller has given to audiences of tax professionals or lawyers, as well as rulings he has authored, but it doesn’t show any articles focusing on him, let alone on Grant, the person with presumably direct authority over 501(c)(4) status decisions.

So who are Miller and Grant? Has anyone complained to them about Crossroads GPS or any other super PAC-associated 501(c)(4)’s? Do they need a formal complaint to investigate? How quickly could they act if it’s clear to them that these are not really “social welfare organizations”? Can they conduct audits before the groups’ annual tax returns are due?

Would an appeal to the courts of any IRS decision to revoke 501(c)(4) status and order donor disclosure under FEC rules guarantee the same delay that Bauer claims Rove’s group is playing for at the FEC? Or could the government get a quick injunction ordering the disclosure, on the grounds that it is highly likely to win its case and that a delay of disclosure beyond the election would cause irreparable harm (the usual standard for getting such injunctions)?

What are the likely political implications of Miller and his staff acting, or not acting? The post-Nixon-era IRS has had a clean reputation for not politicizing its work. Could Miller and Grant act one way or the other without interference from Obama political appointees, and would the public accept that they are doing so purely on the merits? Or are people like Rove counting on exactly that kind of backlash?

With that in mind, what are Miller’s and Grant’s political backgrounds and leanings, if any? (When I met Miller he was working in the George W. Bush administration.)

This is anything but a tangential story. A report last week on the OpenSecrets.org website of the Center for Responsive Politics found that in the 2010 election cycle these groups raised more than $100 million for this kind of activity – and that was two years before the current and obviously more critical and expensive election cycle. (Publicly available tax records for these groups are typically a year or two old and must be searched manually.) It’s entirely possible that these groups will actually outspend the super PACS in many of the 2012 contests, with all the money coming from unknown sources.

2. What’s wrong with D.C. baseball fans?

The Washington Nationals are leading the tough National League East, and with Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper they boast two of the most exciting young players in baseball. So how come their attendance in a good-sized market is so relatively meager? They’re averaging just 29,482 fans per game, which is 14th out of 30 Major League teams. In fact, fans across the country seem more interested in the Nationals than the folks at home: The team’s attendance averages 33,463 on the road.

So what’s the matter with D.C. baseball fans or with their team’s promotional efforts?

PHOTO: Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove (L) and former Press Secretary Dana Perino chat after the unveiling of the official White House portraits of former U.S. President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush in the East Room of the White House in Washington May 31, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing

1. Pinning the $ on the politicians:

Much of the press covering the testimony of Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs last week about his bank’s $3 billion trading loss said Dimon got off easy. Some accounts, like this one in Politico cited a money connection: Dimon, Politico reported, “fielded mostly softball questions from a panel of senators who’ve taken thousands of dollars in contributions from his firm.”

Pointing out the money connection makes sense, but I wish the press would take the trouble to give us more. Why not put a parenthetical next to any senator who is mentioned in an article like this, detailing how much money he or she got from Dimon or JPMorgan-associated PACs in the last five years?

As in “said Tennessee Republican Bob Corker ($64,000)”?

Or: “explained Democrat and committee chair Tim Johnson of South Dakota ($38,995).”

There are several sources, such as Open Secrets.org, run by the Center for Responsive Politics, where this information can be gathered quickly, and from which I gathered these real Corker and Johnson JPMorgan-linked dollar tallies in about two minutes.

In fact, at a time when most Americans are appalled at the role money plays in politics, why not take advantage of these databases and post the dollar tallies whenever any politician is written about as taking one position or another on an issue? As a standard form, just have a parenthetical that reports the amount of contributions received from interests on one side or the other of the issue the senator or congressman (or maybe even a state legislator) is depicted in the article as addressing.

There could be a note added if the contribution was from an interest whose side the politician didn’t appear to take, and an additional note if he or she took money from both sides.

And if the newspaper or website lists the actual votes of legislators, why not put the same parenthetical dollar sign next to each vote?

At major news organizations, compiling this information – linking politicians and money from major interest groups, businesses and unions so that reporters covering these stories would have it at the ready – seems like a great job for a summer intern.

Would all these parenthetical dollar signs next to the names of our elected officials look smarmy? You bet. That would be the point.

2. Cancer Treatment Centers of America: Leading the way, or luring the vulnerable?

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) has been running a ubiquitous ad campaign pitching its hospitals as the best answer to the health crisis facing families that have been suddenly confronted with a C-word diagnosis.

Its website – featuring “Care That Never Quits” as a registered trademark and describing a network of “all-digital” hospitals, whatever that means – boasts on its “results” page a slew of impressive cure rates: for example, 88 percent for breast cancer detected within one year, versus a national average cure rate (according to the National Institutes of Health, the website says) of 60 percent. Or 30 percent versus 11 percent for pancreatic cancer.

Is that true? If it’s not true, or if the statistics are spun deceptively to CTCA’s advantage, what are the rules, if any, governing that?

The one relatively recent news clip I found about the company (at least, I think it’s a for-profit company) says that it features flat fees for treatment of major cancer types, such as $10,000 for prostate cancer and $14,500 for lung cancer.

That’s right: flat, manageable fees instead of the usual pile-it-on fee-for-service regime that is bankrupting patients and taxpayers. Plus, high cure rates. And thrilled patients, as evidenced by the testimonials that fill the website. If that’s all real, this could be a great story about a breakthrough in healthcare.

Another thread found in a Google search pointed me to a blog article saying that Cancer Treatment Centers of America founder Richard J. Stephenson is a member of the board of FreedomWorks, the conservative organization that helped propel the Tea Party, and that he is also the president of International Capital and Management, “an organization specializing in making hospitals more efficient and cost-effective.” A subhead in the same blog post says that in 1996 “CTCA Settled With FTC After Allegations Of Making ‘False and Unsubstantiated Claims’ About Treatments.” The blog’s link to an FTC press release appears to substantiate this account.

Again, if CTCA has truly cleaned up its act since then, that’s a story worth telling, especially given the prominence of its ad campaign. However, given the desperate mindset of people who are most likely to respond to those ads or other promotions, or come to this website, if some of its promises and success stories are not true, we need to know that, too. And either way, I’d love to know who the investors are behind this increasingly visible healthcare venture.

3. The European Union: What were they thinking?

Maybe it’s just me, but I remain confused about what political leaders and economic officials in Europe were thinking about their inconsistent economies and approaches to fiscal policy when they introduced the European Union’s common currency in 1999. How, if at all, did they address the possibility that some of the member countries would be so fiscally irresponsible (or economically challenged, depending on your view) that in a broad recession they could drag every other country down unless the strongest – in this case Germany – chipped in billions of its taxpayers’ money to rescue even the most recalcitrant of the weakest?

Can’t some smart newspaper or magazine (or maybe 60 Minutes or CNBC) go back to 1999 and tell us how these potential problems were discussed and who convinced everyone else not to worry.

With the euro crisis in mind and as an offshoot to the stories like this one over the weekend about banks holding “fire drills” to deal with the outcome of the Greek elections, I bet that last weekend there were also a half-dozen or so lawyers scattered at elite firms across the world whose arcane specialty is, or has become, currency provisions in loan documents and similar contracts. It would be fun to see a story of how they worked through the weekend huddling with hundreds of jittery clients, proving once again that even the worst events produce economic winners (usually the lawyers). Who are they? And who came up with the most creative potential solutions for clients worried about being stuck with drachmas?

PHOTO: JP Morgan Chase and Company CEO Jamie Dimon gestures during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “A Breakdown in Risk Management: What Went Wrong at JPMorgan Chase?” on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 13, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing

1. Chen spy-versus-spy game:

I’m guessing there must be a fun, streets-of-New-York story about Chinese spies (maybe people from the Chinese U.N. delegation) following New York University’s most famous student, Chen Guangcheng, as he makes his way around Manhattan – and about how American security personnel are not only guarding Chen but also keeping tabs on those spies. This could, after all, be a good way of flushing out Chinese operatives in the U.S. And I’m wondering what steps and countersteps have been taken having to do with the security of Chen’s computer, cell phone and any other digital devices he uses to communicate with friends and followers.

2. Troop suicide surge: What happens to the families?

AP’s disheartening report that suicides among U.S. troops this year came at the rate of nearly one a day and outpaced combat deaths in Afghanistan raises the question of what benefits the families of these fallen soldiers get. Standard life insurance usually doesn’t cover suicides. What about death benefits for members of the military? What exactly are the benefits given to military families whose loved one dies while on active duty, whether through suicide or in battle?

And while we’re on the subject, if suicides are typically the result of mental illness, what are the policy arguments around whether they should be covered, in or outside the military?

3. The Big Board against Nasdaq:

I’ve been waiting to read a story about how the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE Euronext) is moving to take market share from Nasdaq in the wake of the Facebook IPO fiasco. Beyond attacking Nasdaq’s $40 million plan to make up for traders’ Facebook losses by offering trading discounts to clients – with the claim that it’s inadequate and will give Nasdaq a marketing advantage – is the Big Board sending its sales force out to claim it could never screw things up the way Nasdaq did? Or is it simply laying back, assuming it doesn’t need to dance in Nasdaq’s end zone?

With that in mind, Nasdaq has obviously decided that the best defense is a good offense; last week it announced in a triumphant press release that it had lured Kraft Foods into switching to Nasdaq from the NYSE. I’d love to know what goodies Kraft got for making the switch, let alone for announcing it in the midst of Nasdaq’s troubles. Was this switch in the works before the blowup of the Facebook IPO? If so, what, if anything, did Nasdaq then do to save the deal?

I’ve always wanted to see a story about how these exchanges compete over a service that seems like a commodity; the Facebook aftermath obviously presents a great hook.

4. Jockeying over debate rules:

Although aficionados of presidential politics tend to be mired in speculation over the mini-flap of the day (such as last week’s slip by President Obama that the private sector is “doing fine”), it’s time some reporter checked in on an infinitely more important story: What’s happening with the negotiations over the three scheduled presidential debates? With the first one scheduled for October 3 and the last for October 22 (with a vice-presidential showdown slated for October 11), and with the race likely to be too close to call by then, these debates, run by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, are almost certain to be decisive. So which side is pushing for what kind of rules aimed at favoring their guy, and what’s the likely outcome?

PHOTO: Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident and legal advocate who recently sought asylum in the United States, gives an interview in New York May 24, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

1. Looking in on the old money:

This and other articles last week reporting that the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers are joining together to expand their wealth advisory and asset management enterprises reminds me of a story I’ve wanted to see for a long time: In an age when we’re entranced by the wealth of twentysomething dot-commers, someone should look at some of the old-name American fortunes and see how much wealth remains today for the dozens, or hundreds, of their descendants.

We know from this story and others that the Rockefellers still maintain an office that manages the family’s wealth (and, in fact, has expanded to manage other families’ fortunes). But how are they doing? What’s a teenage or twentysomething Rockefeller worth today? What about the Morgans, the Goulds, the Vanderbilts, the Astors, the Flaglers? Or the Kennedys? Who’s still doing well? Who’s down and out, and why?

2. Why no bunts?

Unless you’re a baseball fan, or maybe unless you’re a Yankee fan, you may not care about this, though you should, because it could be a story about ego overwhelming pragmatism. With baseball teams overshifting their defenses this year more than ever to snag hard grounders and line drives from lefty pull hitters, why aren’t any of the power lefties simply bunting down the third-base line for an almost sure single or maybe even a double? After all, the best hitters only succeed 3 times out of 10, while this is probably a 9-out-of-10 proposition.

In the case of the Yankees, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson are now routinely coming to bat with three infielders on the right side of second base and the third baseman playing shortstop. Yet they’re not bunting, even when, as I’ve seen recently, they come up in a close game with runners on first and second with no outs or one out. A bunt would almost definitely load the bases (plus lessen the chances of an overshift the next time they come to bat).

Sure, they’ve both got powerful bats, especially with Teixeira emerging from a two-month slump. But the next time they ground out or line out with one or two men on base, would some reporter please summon the gumption to stick a microphone in front of them or Joe Girardi, the manager of the lagging Yanks, and ask why they didn’t go for the sure hit? Is it ego? Is it that they can’t do something that most good high school ballplayers can do – lay down a bunt?

3. Veterans’ health insurance sweepstakes:

I’ve recently been seeing a banner ad on Politico headlined: “Congress Needs to Act Now to Protect Military Health Care Management.”

“Get the facts” at “SaveMyMilitaryHealthcare.com,” the ad continues, taking me to a collection of headlines and links to newspaper articles about how a company called TriWest Healthcare Alliance had just lost a renewal of a five-year, $20.5 billion Pentagon contract to administer health insurance benefits to 2 million veterans and service members and their families. The website (which, when you click “About Us,” makes no secret of the fact that it is produced and paid for by TriWest) also linked to several articles reporting on complaints and lawsuits having been filed against United Healthcare, which had won the contract away from TriWest. Among the “fast facts” highlighted on the website was this one:

UnitedHealth Group paid $350 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by the American Medical Association and union health plans alleging that inaccurate data in its Ingenix database resulted in failure to properly reimburse doctors and health plan members.

On the other hand, I’ve also been seeing text ads inserted in Politico’s “Playbook,” the popular daily electronic newsletter written by Mike Allen, from United Healthcare, declaring:

UnitedHealthcare wants the families of TRICARE West to know more about us. UnitedHealthcare is the trusted health care partner of more than 75 million Americans. And we are proud of our track record of quality service, including being ranked #1 in claims processing accuracy according to the American Medical Association’s ranking of the seven leading commercial health insurers in its 2011 Report Card. Our 115,000 people will work every day to put our unmatched provider network, industry leading innovations, and passion for service to work for you. Because helping military families isn’t just a job for us. It’s an honor.

So there’s obviously a big battle shaping up in Washington (Politico’s readership base) over what is now a pending appeal of the contract award, which one of the news articles on the TriWest Healthcare Alliance website says is “hotly contested” because it is “so lucrative.” Which side is right about United Healthcare’s record? How did it win the contract away after TriWest had it for 16 years?

More generally, what are the rules and strategies behind these big-money contract fights? Who’s the go-to lawyer, or lobbyist? Is this more about procurement law or political lobbying, or is it a combination of both? The rules for such contract awards seem to require that appeals go to the U.S. Government Accountability Office or the Pentagon, and that the appeal can only be about the process followed in evaluating the competing contract proposals. Indeed, there are squadrons of lawyers in Washington who specialize in the contract bid process and write reams of articles about the arcana surrounding it. But if both sides are advertising to Politico’s readership of politicians, there must be more to it than that. Twenty billion dollars – or 4 billion dollars a year just to process health insurance claims, not pay them – is more than half of the FBI’s entire annual budget. It would be nice to know how the decision to spend it is made.

Which brings to mind the ultimate question raised by those dueling Politico ad campaigns: What are the economics of this contract? My math indicates that the winner is going to be paid about $175 a year per beneficiary – again, just to administer the claims, not provide any care. That seems pretty high. What do big private-sector companies pay for the same services? This is one of those classic inside-the-Beltway stories that need sunlight.

PHOTO: New York Yankees’ Curtis Granderson successfully bunts to advance the runner against the Kansas City Royals in the fourth inning during their MLB American League baseball game in Kansas City, Missouri August 16, 2011. REUTERS/Dave Kaup

1. The Kennedys’ take on the Caro book:

Robert Caro’s stunning new volume on Lyndon Johnson has received enormous coverage, but one angle I haven’t seen is what the reaction to it is of John F. Kennedy family members and loyalists. Caro’s depiction of how LBJ was treated by JFK and his team (especially Robert Kennedy) during his vice-presidency and how he basically resuscitated the Kennedy administration’s domestic agenda – which seemed doomed in Congress had Kennedy lived, because of how JFK and his aides fumbled the ball on Capitol Hill – presents a pretty damning picture of the Age of Camelot. Are there any Kennedy people out there willing to argue otherwise?

2. Facebook: Race to the courthouse

The three suits claiming class action status that have been filed against Facebook, its underwriters and  Nasdaq charging various misdeeds in the run-up to its IPO would be great material for a fresh look at class action securities suits. More often than not such suits are an exercise in plaintiffs’ lawyers racing to the courthouse to file dubious claims to force defendants into making settlements that typically pay the lawyers handsomely while leaving little for their supposed clients.

The suits – one in Maryland, one in New York and a third in California – were filed within hours of news reports pinpointing Nasdaq’s screwups and the fact that analysts apparently warned some big clients, but not the rest of the buyers, that Facebook’s supplemental filing with the SEC just before the launch of the IPO might be a significant negative development. The filing noted the increasing use of mobile devices to access Facebook and explained that Facebook has so far not done well generating ad revenue from mobile traffic.

Forget the fact that anyone reading the filing would have known about Facebook’s vulnerability as its traffic moved to mobile; that’s the purpose of a public filing. Forget that brokerages and their analysts (as opposed to the company issuing the IPO) are not required to communicate their views with all clients equally. And forget that it’s probably going to be impossible to claim a legitimate “class” out of all Facebook buyers whose trades were delayed by Nasdaq’s snafus, because the facts surrounding each case (such as when they tried to buy and at what price) are, by definition, so different as to make litigating their claims as a group untenable. None of that matters. What usually matters to the lawyers is that they got to the courthouse first, which gives them a great argument for becoming the class’s lead lawyer, or at least part of the lead lawyer team – which can make them the prime recipients when the defendants pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers to go away.

So, how did these lawyers gather their clients? Why did they pick the venues they picked? Who’s likely to be competing with them with new suits in the coming days? What are the likely economics, based on past cases?

Another wrinkle to the story has to be the paparazzi-like profile of everything surrounding Facebook and its IPO. That could make the defendants want to settle to put the publicity behind them, which is what I’d bet Nasdaq will do, as might the bankers. But Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have proved in the past to be tough defendants who don’t cave. (Ask the brothers Winklevoss.) And it’s nearly impossible to figure out what they did wrong, since it was their public filing of the supplement to the IPO that has generated the suit against them.

All in all, a great legal fight story.

3. Figuring out the judge in the Edwards case:

Catherine Eagles, the judge in the John Edwards campaign funds case, has made many seemingly ridiculous rulings that are likely to make any Edwards conviction a slam dunk to be overturned on appeal. So, I’d love to know more about her than can be found in this simple Wikipedia entry. (Here’s a summary of the shakiness of the case that I sketched on the eve of the trial.)

As this Washington Post article tactfully summarizing her miscues last week explained, Judge Eagles refused to allow a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission to testify for the defense about why the commission did not think the money channeled by key Edwards patrons to Edwards’ mistress was a campaign contribution. The judge also refused to allow Edwards’ former campaign treasurer to testify that an FEC audit had concluded that these were not campaign contributions. Nor did she allow testimony that the campaign finance law is confusing, ruling that “it just doesn’t seem complicated to me” – an assessment that the jury, which has now been deadlocked for a week, would probably not agree with.

Beyond that, I’m still hoping for some terrific reporter who covers the Justice Department (Charlie Savage of the New York Times would be my pick) to get the story of how and why Eric Holder’s Justice Department decided to prosecute this case in the first place. Criminalizing political conduct is always dicey, but this case is such an acrobatic stretch that everything about how it came to be begs to be put under the microscope. Someone might as well do it now – before there’s a race to do it if the Edwards jury follows the judge’s lead and convicts him but then the case is overturned with a stinging rebuke of Eagles from the appellate court.

4. Apple and volume discounts:

I recently noticed this article in a trade publication called Government Security News that says the Transportation Security Administration is seeking authority to buy 1,000 Apple laptops and 1,000 iPhones, iPods, or iPads for as much as $3 million. That computes to $1,500 per product, which not only seems high but clearly suggests that the TSA does not expect a volume discount.

The memo seeking that authorization suggests that the government doesn’t have much leverage with Apple no matter how much it spends. Because Apple products only use the iOS operating system, the memo explains, “there is no competition for Apple products.”

Which reminded me of stories like this one I’ve seen lately about school systems buying iPads in bulk, where, again, the math seems to suggest that Apple is bargaining hard. In this case, Education Week reports that San Diego is buying 27,500 iPads for $15 million – which would be $545 each. Assuming the devices don’t come with cellular connections, the middle range (32GB) new iPad lists for $599. Not much of a discount, and that assumes the school isn’t buying the lower capacity (16GB) version, which lists for $499.

So what’s the story with Apple’s volume pricing, especially for non-profits and government agencies?

PHOTO Monitors show the value of the Facebook, Inc. stock during morning trading at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York, May 21, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid