There’s been a lot of talk about the new bankruptcy “reform” bill passed last Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Not much of that talk has included examples of how the new law will affect real people. But it should. Here’s how Rose Shaffer, a nurse from Chicago, described her sudden descent into bankruptcy:

A week [after suffering a heart attack], Shaffer received a bill from [the hospital] for the three days she’d been hospitalized. It was for $18,000. Shortly thereafter, [the hospital] began sending letters to Shaffer demanding payment. Then, a summons to appear in court was tossed on her porch…Under pressure from [the hospital] and now behind on her mortgage payments, Shaffer filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in December 2002…”The hospital saved my life, but now they were trying to kill me,” Shaffer says.

Her story is not unusual. A recent Harvard study found that (1) medical emergencies contribute to almost 50 percent of bankruptcies, and (2) most people who go broke due to illness do so despite having decent jobs and insurance.

The new bill would severely limit debt relief for people like Rose Shaffer. It would also:

• Post detailed information about filers and their bankruptcy on the Internet;

• Require filers to attend mandatory financial management courses, no matter the reasons for their bankruptcy; and

• Implement a complicated “means test” for all filers, which requires itemizing, detailed documentation…and huge attorneys’ fees.

Few people use bankruptcy as a “convenient financial planning tool,” as Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) claims. Most are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, often shattered by events beyond their control.

– Ryan Spears

In a press conference yesterday, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita if the military is flying surveillance drones over Iran:

Q: Just to clean something up, can you definitively say from the podium that the U.S. military is not operating reconnaissance missions over Iran with unmanned Predator drones?

MR. DI RITA: I can. I mean, I don’t know you if you’ve got anything you want to add to that — (laughter) — but it’s not happening.

Seems like case closed. But this particular reporter was smart enough to follow up. The next time, DiRita wasn’t nearly as definitive:

Q: Just to clarify, is the U.S. government flying any aircraft over Iran for any reason?

MR. DI RITA: Not to my knowledge. And let me just be very careful — and I’m not trying to be clever here. I don’t speak for the U.S. government, I speak for the Department of Defense, and the Department of Defense is not. And I would welcome you asking that same question for other agencies of the government that do those kinds of activities, and I think that they would give you the same answer. But it’s not for me to speak for other agencies.

We saw White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan use this same tactic during a press conference when the Armstrong Williams scandal broke:

Q Just to follow up, will you check as far as you can to see if you’re paying any other journalists?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t know of any. Obviously, decisions are made by individual agencies. I’m not aware of any other arrangements of that nature.

It turned out, of course, there were at least two other journalists being paid off by the administration.

For certain members of the Bush family the war in Iraq has been very profitable. Just ask William H.T. Bush, or, as President George W. Bush calls him, Uncle Bucky. Bucky Bush just made a cool $450,000 in war profits from Iraq through the St. Louis-based defense contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc. Bucky, who sits on the company’s board, cashed out a half-million of the company’s stock options last month.

ESSI’s stock prices skyrocketed “to record heights” with Uncle Bucky’s nephew’s decision to invade Iraq. ESSI raked in millions with contracts to refit military vehicles with extra armor, build $19-million worth of its protective shelters for chemical and biological weapons (despite the fact that no biological or chemical weapons have been found in Iraq), and provide communications support services to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Of course, the company hasn’t been without its share of trouble, even with a family member in the White House: some of ESSI’s no-bid contracts (with a value of $158 million) are now under investigation by the Pentagon.