John Lewis, An American Patriot

I am old enough that the word hero is sort of a relative term for me. Until sports came along those that I may have looked at in my youth as being heroic were mostly fictional characters, for example the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and the sergeant played by Vic Morrow on combat. Later as with a lot of other boys I became fixated on sports. In a time that seems simpler only through the lens of misty memory, I followed Ernie Banks and Billy Williams and Ron Santo, Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers. Later in life, sports figures as heroes became somewhat oxymoronic.

Michael Jordan had the sweetest shot and a will to win that was not to be denied. Those games at the garden were legend, but by the time they occurred the concept of hero had become tangled in my mind. Jordan could create magic but there were elements to him that do not strike me as particularly heroic in the same way for example one might consider Roberto Clemente who went down in a plane in 1972 delivering earthquake relief to Nicaragua. Still, in sports, on the field and off, there are lives to look at that are nothing less than inspiring if not wholly heroic. It cannot be denied that Magic Johnson brought some of the heroic to his life, simply by surviving his battle with AIDS for so long, showing others that they could do it too, all the while with that brilliant, charismatic smile.  His game it should not be forgotten was something of a joy to behold.

But when it comes heroes who I am to judge anyway? No life is pure, certainly not mine, and why do we need heroes anyway? What is it in us (What is it in me?) that makes us yearn for pure acts of selflessness as something aspire to, something even to hunger for? Why now even in the firm grip of middle age does the concept of heroism still cause me to tally those I have had, knowing so well now how I have been misled but also how I have misjudged. I sometimes think that we grasp for heroes only because there is something in us that is not all it should be. I think I should be more. I think I should do more. Is that desire for the heroic all just as simple as a salve to my conscience to know that others carry a bright banner even as endeavor to complete the simple but sometimes distressing tasks of making house payments and getting the car fixed?

I bring all this up because I was catching up on some TIVO recordings from the last few weeks on Friday and my wife and I watched a segment of the truly amazing Henry Louis Gates PBS show, “Finding Your Roots”.   Every week Gates profiles two people of some notoriety, sometimes, celebrities, sometimes not, and with seemingly unlimited genealogical, archeological, and genetic resources helps them to follow their family tree. Race is often a factor, but the element that catches my interest most often on that subject is the incredible polyglot of American ancestry. It is well known that there are deep and abiding strains of white DNA in the ancestral bloodlines of many African Americans, but less well known is the complex racial makeup of many of those who consider themselves simply “white”. Gates follows each family tree in minute detail and in doing so he inevitably tells us something about who we are and the nature of the American family tree. With wonder and affection Gates sometimes exposes misunderstandings about complex family history. When he asks a guest to “turn the page”, I often find myself longing for a family history of my own which I might open with similar anticipation.  The show I viewed on Friday included Corey Booker, the young and dynamic Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and John Lewis.

John Lewis is a Congressman serving the 5^th Congressional District, which covers Atlanta and much of its surrounding communities. As a Congressman he is a member of the Progressive Caucus, and so by definition he would be one of the 78 to 81 members of Congress that Allen West identified as communists. John Lewis has been in Congress since 1986.

In 1958, at the age of eighteen, Lewis wrote a letter to Dr. King, was summoned to Montgomery, and soon thereafter became a central actor in the civil rights movement. West’s claim was not the first time Lewis would be accused of being a communist. In 1961 Lewis joined the Freedom Rides, along with other young, idealistic patriotic. Lewis was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders. In the spirit of the declaration of independence “All men are created equal” the goal was to break the grip of Jim Crow and integrate interstate bus transportation. As FBI and other federal observers watched and took notes, the 13 were beaten mercilessly. Yet many Americans believed or claimed the Civil Rights movement was a front for the Communist party. That would include the then Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

Later, Lewis would sit in at lunch counters with contemporaries such as James Bevel, James Forman, Diane Nash, and others. In city after city after city they challenged Jim Crow laws, winning small victories in service and hiring. American history records well the names of great leaders whether they be Lincoln or Roosevelt or Kennedy. They are central to the American story. But Lewis and Bevel and Forman and Nash represent something greater in my view. Their stories are those of average citizens exercising their constitutional rights bearing moral witness to the cruelty in the American soul, until the average citizen  could look away no longer and change had to come. Their victories are in ways more profound even than military battles such as Okinawa or D-Day. While it can be argued that America may not exist without those critical military victories, one has to wonder what we would be without the essential  moral victories in Montgomery and Nashville and Birmingham and Selma. Lewis, Bevel, Forman, and Nash were not born to greatness but there was greatness in them. We Americans are who we are because of them.  

In 1963, Lewis was elected Chairmen of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. By that time he had already been arrested 24 times for leading or participating in non-violent protest. He helped plan the March on Washington, made a fiery speech which caused some controversy due to its militancy—far more than Dr. King—and continued on from there to Selma where he along with hundreds of others was beaten on the Edmond Pettus bridge.

John Lewis is a giant of the Civil Rights movement. He would later leave SNCC, which headed in an a more militant direction under the leadership of H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael both of whom would later join the Black Panther Party. The slow pace of change in race relations and especially effective legislation combined with the death of many leaders, most notably Dr. King, caused rifts in the Civil Rights movement that severely tested the commitment to Non-Violence for which Lewis always stood. When Lewis left on 1966 calls for self-defense against the racist treatment protestors were receiving were growing by the day. Escalation in Vietnam was also taking place and Non-Violence as a tactic was under assault.

Lewis became a community organizer (a term Sarah Palin bandied about with ignorant vitriol). He was elected to the Atlanta City Council, and the US House Of Representatives. When others flamed out in bitterness, Lewis who had more reason than any to do so, stood strong, committed to the principle of democratic constitutional government. While it is easy from the perch of today to criticize Stokely Carmichael, one can also picture him walking side by side with Dr. King in Mississippi and dozens of other places in favor of civil and voting rights. The mystery is not that some would leave the non-violent movement, especially in the aftershocks of the Vietnam War which claimed to be in the name of Freedom for the South Vietnamese all the while taking a disproportionate share of black lives. The miracle really is that John Lewis and others chose to stay committed to the path, even and especially after the assassination of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in 1968.

John Lewis is a hero to me. Towards the end of Gates adventure through Lewis’ family tree, he asks him to “turn the page” one last time. We have already been informed that Lewis the son of sharecroppers in Pike County Alabama. Movingly Gates and his team have pieced together the story that Lewis’ ancestors were slaves there in Pike County, and once freed were married almost immediately. We are told that this was not uncommon in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, as asserting familial rights was a common first step for freed slaves previously prevented from forming such attachments. Watching, I recall thinking how extraordinary that Lewis would spring up in the same community where his ancestors were slaves. I guess it would not be that extraordinary that he and his large family would still be there in Pike County, so much as somehow he found something in him to break free of it. Then Gates drops the hammer. The last document, the one Lewis has just “tuned the page” to see is a voter registration sheet. Lewis’s ancestors in addition to getting married as soon as humanly policy in the aftermath of Emancipation also registered to vote at the earliest practical date, in 1867. That “right” to vote, the most deeply held and critical American right was held by blacks in the South until the 1880’s when Jim Crow slowly took hold. Lewis’s family in the greatest American tradition exercised their rights as soon as long as they could, and then it was taken away. Lewis, God bless him, along with tens of thousands of people of good will got it back.

The America we live in today is a direct result of the bravery and commitment of John Robert Lewis. His is now 72 years old. Let it be that he lives to be 100.

Industrial Disease

A little more than two years ago, on April 20, 2010 the Oil Rig BP Horizon blew, killing 11  workers and injuring 17 others. Five million barrels of oil were released, approximately 50,000 per day. Initial BP estimates were 5,000 per day. I happened to stumble across this great Dire Straits song today and it got me thinking.  With all praise and apologies to Mark Knopfler… (MH)

Now warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control

Somebody threw a spanner, they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down (Knopfler)

In Houston, TX yesterday, BP engineer Kurt Mix was arrested on charges that he obstructed justice by deleting text messages associated with work he was doing in trying to cap the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.  The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010 killed eleven (11) people, injured dozens more and spilled hundreds of millions of gallons into the blue waters of the Gulf. 

Mix was told by BP that he was to preserve all of his emails, notes, and text messages as part of his work on a solution… Mix is accused of deleting two (2) text message strings, one stated that the flow rate on the evening of May 26, 2010 was over 15,000 barrels per day.  At the time, the company “BP” was saying that the estimate of the rate was 5,000 barrels per day.  The reason that the U.S. is so interested in the flow rate is because the fine that will eventually be levied on BP is dependent on the number of barrels of oil spilled.  (Forbes.com)

There's a meeting in the boardroom, they're trying to trace the smell

There's a leakin' in the washroom, there's a sneakin' personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
Goodness me, could this be industrial disease ?'(Knopfler)

What did BP know?

Mix and other engineers had determined that the top kill wouldn't work if oil was flowing out of the broken well at a rate of more than 15,000 barrels a day, according to the indictment. At the time, BP was publicly stating that the well was flowing at a rate of just 5,000 barrels a day, a third of what Mix's message indicates. A second string of texts that Mix allegedly deleted also involved discussions of flow rates, these with a BP contractor. In other words, if the government's claims are correct, Mix's text messages show that BP insiders knew the company's public statements about the size of the spill were inaccurate. (Houston Chronicle)

Caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post

Refusing to be pacified, it's him they blame the most
Watchdog's got rabies, the foreman got the fleas
Everyone's concerned about industrial disease (Knopfler)

A former employee of BP America is suing the oil company for wrongful termination, alleging that he was canned for refusing to alter data about the progress of the clean-up of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Louisiana, August Walter asks for damages over his termination from BP… According to the suit, Walter’s job involved creating plans for the clean-up, known as Shoreline Treatment Recommendations (STR), which were prepared and approved with the oversight of the U.S. Coast Guard Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) “to be in compliance with federal and state environmental rules and regulations.” BP would then be responsible for implementing the plans. (Talking Points Memo)

There's panic on the switchboard, tongue is in knots

Some come out in sympathy, some come out in spots
Some blame the management, some the employees
Everybody knows it's the industrial disease (Knopfler)

Scientists have found zooplankton with toxic compounds from contact with Deepwater Horizon oil; "black scum" on a deep-sea coral colony 7 miles from the ill-fated, BP well; deformed killifish, a forage species in Louisiana's marshes; and an abnormally high number of dead or seriously ill bottlenose dolphins in the northern Gulf. The scientific findings are isolated and not fully understood, but there is consensus that the long-term health of the Gulf will not be fully known for years. (Houston Chroncle)

Yeah, now the work force is disgusted down tools and walks

Innocence is injured, experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze (Knopfler)

"Did anyone else know about this? Was this gentleman (the indicted BP engineer Mix), shall we say encouraged or pushed to do this? Did he do it under orders? Did he do it under duress?" said Anthony Michael Sabino, a professor at St. John's University School of Law in New York and an expert in white-collar crimes. "When you're a prosecutor you start with the little fish and you hope the little fish helps you catch a medium-sized fish; then you go after the big fish until you get the biggest fish of all," Sabino added. "It's going up the food chain ... If you jump the gun, and you don't have the pieces in place, you ruin the case." (Houston Chronicle)

On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse

Philosophy is useless, theology is worse
History boils over, there's an Economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean industrial disease (Knopfler)

Houston has a serious air quality problem. Since 1999, the Texas city has exchanged titles with Los Angeles as having the most polluted air in the United States defined by the number of days each city violates federal smog standards defined by the number of days each city violates federal smog standards. (Nasa.Gov)

Doctor Parkinson declared, "I'm not surprised to see you here

You've got smokers cough from smoking
Brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis wheeze
But worst of all young man you've got industrial disease"
He wrote me a prescription he said, "You are depressed
I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later, next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease”
And I go down to speaker's corner, I'm a thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer, he's singing a protest song, he says (Knopfler)

Ever since the fleet-footed runners and chariot races of ancient Greece, ethics have been at the root of the Olympic games. There's an Olympic oath, creed, and hymn. And then there's the torch, which has come to represent purity or goodwill, depending on who you ask. 

So, in the spirit of Olympic integrity, London—which will host the summer Olympics this July—has promised to prepare for its games with an eye towards environmentalism, making London 2012 "the greenest Games ever." Just one problem: Three of the Olympics' official sponsors—BP, Dow Chemical, and Rio Tinto—are all currently embroiled in lawsuits over alleged commission of large-scale environmental harms. (Mother Jones)

They wanna have a war to keep their factories

They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease

They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind

They wanna sap your energy, incarcerate your mind
Give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espania and Sunday striptease

Will The Media Let Congress Forget About The Gulf Oil Disaster?

Following a lengthy investigation, the national Oil Spill Commission concluded in January 2011 that "the root causes" of the BP disaster were "systematic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur." This week the same panel of experts found that Congress "has yet to enact any legislation responding to the explosion and spill." Rather than implement the panel's recommendations, the House has actually "passed several bills" with provisions that "run contrary to what the Commission concluded was essential for safe, prudent, responsible development of offshore oil resources," said the commissioners. (Media Matters)
 
Meanwhile the first Jesus says, "I'll cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons"
The other one's out on hunger strike, he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets industrial disease? (Knopfler)

Obama, Ryan and Healthcare

I heard Bill Maher say last week that Paul Ryan’s budget plan, being praised as brave and bold by those on the right, proposes no cuts to the military. That sounds neither brave nor bold. Actually it seems sort of ridiculous. There are other issues. Ryan proposes deep cuts to tax rates, made up for reduction or elimination of deductions, but then does not detail any of these cuts. Ryan proposes deep cuts to Healthcare spending, but it has been suggested that Medicare—critical to seniors, a potent Republican voting block- is largely unscathed. So I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about.  

The “Draconian” cuts Ryan proposes for Medicare aren’t all that much different than Obama’s plan. Medicaid takes the real hit with the Ryan plan and that is where seniors and the poor will be hurt. Over the next ten years Ryan’s Medicare costs estimates are very close to the President’s, albeit with radically different structural approaches to the critical program which provides healthcare to the elderly. I have to be honest Medicare is something I am starting to be concerned with. Ryan’s plan for Medicare overhaul would affect those 55 and younger, leaving me out of the reach of the Ryan plan if it was to come to be. Nonetheless, I wondered why if Obama and Ryan propose near the same rate of growth in Medicare is the Ryan plan considered “Social Darwinism” as the Democrats claim, while the President’s proposals are referred to in the preamble to Ryan’s Plan, Path to Prosperity, as “[Doubling] down on [the] health care law, allowing government bureaucrats to interfere with patient care.”

It got me to thinking how easily the liberals and conservatives are swayed by the rhetoric of the political parties and how little ultimately we know about the competing proposals.

The control of government spending on healthcare will and MUST be an essential element towards any long term plan to control government spending and get control of long term deficit. Considering the results America gets for its out of control healthcare spending it should also be a goal to improve healthcare.  In dozens of measurable categories that US ranks at or near the bottom of all industrialized nations in the health care standards. Perhaps most critically, while 17% of all Americans are uninsured—the highest of any industrialized nation-- the US spends a greater percentage of its GDP—16%. The US spends more and covers less people than another industrialized nation leaving tens of millions out of preventive care. While much is made of the waiting times in some countries with Government run Healthcare programs, the real issue is the urgency of the medical conditions when visits are made. The uninsured do not get nor generally seek preventative stabilizing healthcare.  

In four short years The US is estimated to spend nearly 20% of GDP on healthcare. This is not sustainable. In 1984 the US spent about 10% of GDP on healthcare, about the same as most other industrialized nations spend now. The astronomical increases are a result of expensive technological advances in many cases spurred on by the large profits available with life-saving innovation. The aging of the American population is another major factor. Old people consume far more healthcare than the young and spend far more doing it. In addition America is the worldwide leader in waste and inefficiency in its healthcare system with some estimates running as high as 30% of all expenditures being needless.  Waste runs the gamut from corruption to the end ordering of unnecessary tests. Profit incentives takers at every step in the process are also a major contributing factor to the cost of care, something single payer government run programs available in other industrialized nations do not have.

The core of Ryan’s Medicare proposal is to replace the program with a voucher system by which the seniors would purchase their own insurance with government support, the thinking being that people will be more cautious of dollars spent when they are paying directly for their healthcare. He would also slowly raise the eligibility to age to 67, an inevitable step which will eventually HAVE to be taken.  Ryan’s proposal caps the growth rate on government spending for medical care for seniors at gross domestic product plus 0.5 percentage points. Unless the government steps in the Ryan plan would mean de-facto government rationing of healthcare for the simple reason that if a limited pool of money is available, and if the demands are greater than the pool, ipso facto there will be limits on what health care can be provided. Obama suggests a 0.5% plus GDP target and built his budget accordingly, Ryan proposes a 0.5% plus GDP cap.

The Obama administration through its analysis believes that better long term preventative care will allow him to hit that 0.5% plus GDP target. The Ryan plan pushes seniors into the open market for coverage. He argues that insurance companies, competing against each other will find ways to reduce costs.  In addition to the supposedly hard cap on healthcare expenditures, the Ryan plan places a heavy premium, a theoretical bet if you will, on the free market to control costs. This aspect of the plan might make sense in theory, but in practice results are far from guaranteed. Ryan argues seniors-- much more familiar with the actual costs of their healthcare-- will chose to spend less, essentially self-rationing their own care. Reliance on self-rationing seems like a plausible, though somewhat Darwinian way to save money. With the system in place now, elderly Americans with limited means are already making decisions about what they can afford. The decision on whether to pay the rent or utility bill or getting all the required prescriptions filled is not an abstract for far too many Americans and this is where the multiple layers of profit incentive already cost lives. Ryan’s plan, depending on a method for cost savings with no practical record of success, seems to me at least to be overly hopeful at best, pure folly at worst. Based on what empirical evidence might Americans believe that insurance companies with even greater power and less regulation will find the motivation to save costs?

Our healthcare is largely driven by the free market now, and that has not controlled costs, or even provided very much more healthcare. Well, let me rephrase that: For those with means America has the best healthcare in the world.  So in that sense we do have “the best” healthcare, for some at least, but in addition to the uninsured the system has institutionalized a deeply troubling statistic: 25% of all healthcare dollars goes to care for 1% of all Americans. Disproportionately these costs fall to the elderly. The miracle of our science is that we can keep people alive for very much longer than in the past. The budgetary curse is that it costs a fortune to do that. That being said America for all it’s expense does not lead industrialized nations in life expectancy, not even close. Again and again we have to ask as a nation what are we getting or all we are paying?

As noted Obama’s Medicare plan is by measure of expense not that much different than Ryan’s. Obama’s spending goal of GDP growth, plus 0.5%, starts only in 2018, later than Ryan. But even so most of the real difference at least on the surface is philosophy and NOT actual expense. Right at the top, Obama would ensure that the healthcare available to seniors does not fall below its current level by committing the government to pick up the tab for growth beyond GDP plus 0.50%. Republicans have jumped on this fact to suggest that Obama does not really plan for healthcare cost containment at all. Although both plans have the GDP plus 0.50% cap, I doubt that either party really expects that to hold. 

While last year’s Ryan proposals suggested a complete elimination of Medicare to be replaced with a voucher system, bowing to political reality this year’s plan keep Medicare as an option for those seniors who want to do that, but only emphasizes the push for privatization. Ryan does not mandate it. Little reported is the fact that the "premium support" proposal is based on a model developed by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) This proposal has both merits and challenges. Stripped of demagoguery the fact of the matter is that private plans in some areas of the country are able to supply medical care for seniors at cost at or in some cases below that of the government run program. Though Democrats are constitutionally opposed to privatization of health care coverage, if costs savings can be had with private care, it seems to me at least those ought to be explored. This is where the size and the scope of the challenge become so hard to address, especially in a polarized demagogic political environment.

Based on the two competing Medicare proposals America’s real choice is between the competing views for how to contain costs. Obama’s primary goal is to spread the costs of healthcare over a far wider pool of people, insuring a far greater number of people earlier and longer in life. For all the talk about government run healthcare this is a huge bonanza for the insurance companies. As a price for that he demanded better more humane coverage including no caps for catastrophic illness, portability and so forth. Obama placed a far greater emphasis on preventive care, regular checkups, childhood vaccinations, birth control and so forth. All of these methods are well known to be far more cost effective and far more beneficial to the overall health than visits to the emergency room, heart valve replacement surgery and so forth.

In response to Ryan, Romney, and the Republicans, Obama argues that given the free market insurance companies will cherry pick the healthiest of clients, leaving the poor to whatever Government health program for the poor still exists—Medicaid. This is where the Ryan plan, endorsed by Romney, really requires scrutiny.

The Ryan plan has aggressive cost containment proposals for Medicaid, capping expenses at the general rate of inflation. According to the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities Ryan proposed cutting Medicaid by 34% through 2022. In addition his proposal would turn the entire Medicaid program back to the states through a block grant approach. While this would allow for greater experimentation, it almost certainly would mean a drop in the quality of care in some states with already poor track records in their commitment to the poor in general and the healthcare of the poor specifically. Does anyone really question that the states at the bottom in terms of investing in education, so willing to sentence their young people especially their poor young people to lives far removed from the American dream, would somehow miraculously decide to do the right thing with a block grant Medicaid program? What happens if the costs for private, public or some hybrid approach are eclipsed?

Every American knows Healthcare has far outpaced the regular rate of inflation. Medicaid is where the politics for Ryan and the Republicans get a bit sneaky, bordering on cynical. They propose a more market based Medicare for the future. However, the poor, the clients of the Medicaid program, are not constituents of the Republican Party. Since Ryan proposes a hard cap on government healthcare spending, his proposal would have the effect of either passing additional expense onto seniors, or forcing them into a Medicaid system in line for deep cuts. By definition a program with limited resources and expenses in excess of those resources will need to resort to rationing. This is where the Social Darwinism, layered with political cynicism, comes in to the picture. Ryan, expecting far more resistance to Medicare (senior’s healthcare) cuts than Medicaid (healthcare for the poor) crafted his proposal accordingly.  

But I still do not believe that Ryan’s healthcare plan mean that he wants to throw women and children into the streets.

I believe the plan that emphasizes low or no cost preventive care, including contraception, and a larger pool of insured with low cost access to basic preventative care, would provide the best opportunity to both improve care and the general health of the population, while at the same time controlling costs. The Ryan plan is heavy on free market cost containment, but it does little to address the catastrophic numbers of uninsured Americans or the quality of care in general.

In the event of a Supreme Court decision overturning the entire Healthcare Affordability Act, or even critical parts of it, I do not think any anyone wants to allow the Insurance companies to once again run roughshod over the patients. The mandate to allow children to be carried on their parent’s plan has meant that millions of kids have been added to the roles of the insured. Obamacare, as crafted, still leaves much to be done, especially in my view in the area of cost containment. A single payer system which many Democrats now seem to be hoping for in the wake of a negative Supreme Court decision is still a long way away. The question is in the interim can Americans agree on any way forward. The challenges are so great, and the two sides so ideologically divided, the chances for any sort of compromise seem remote. Ultimately the only road to compromise or resolution seems to be some sort of hybrid plan that encourages free market experimentation while at the same time guaranteeing coverage and emphasizing preventative care. Somehow, every American needs to be brought into the plan. No matter the decision of the Court, this dilemma will continue for many years to come.

Mitt Romney and His Etch a Sketch Calculator

In an article at Forbes.com addressing Romney’s seemingly preposterous claim that “92.3% of all the jobs lost since Obama took office were lost by women” we are given a preview of how sharply we’ll need to watch and listen if we want to glean some truth from Team Romney.

 Forbes says, “Though that assertion is technically true, it fails to reflect the fact that more men than women have lost their jobs since the recession began, a fact that has led economists to dub it a ‘man-cession.’”

Romney's claim sounded ridiculous on its surface and of course it is. The fuzzy math here is that Romney counts the # of women who have lost their jobs since Obama took office and ignores the staggering job losses in the last months of the Bush Administration which i...s where the most good paying jobs traditionally associated with male employment such as manufacturing and construction were lost.

Boston.com reports that “…3.4 million men and 1.8 million women have lost jobs since the recession started, according to the government.” Romney squeezes the truth by starting his count on Jan-20 2009 as if nothing was much of consequence was in place before Obama took office which would have had any effect on employment. America should not be surprised at this tactic. Republicans have been talking about both deficits and unemployment as if the economy was not shrinking at an annualized pace of 9.3% in the last quarter of 2009.

TheForbes.com article continues:

“This is common in recessions, because male-dominated businesses like construction and manufacturing tend to be the first to be hit by job cuts during an economic downturn. The recession began in December 2007, 13 months before George W. Bush left office. From that point until Obama became president, men lost 3,264,000 jobs, while women lost 1,157,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 “Since Obama took office in January 2009, women have lost an additional 683,000 jobs. During the same period, men lost 57,000 jobs, according to the BLS. Hence Romney’s numbers.
“But other BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) data show that the unemployment rate for men, at 8.3%, is still higher than that for women, at 8.1%.”

Then to really put it in perspective, one more piece of the Boston.com piece: “Women were more heavily represented in jobs that suffered in the recession's later months and beyond, as revenue-strapped state and local governments laid off teachers and cut other public-sector workers.”

Now that has the ring of truth to it.

Allen West Sounds Off, Romney? Not So Much

In an article dated April 10 in the Washington Post, Aaron Blake begins, “Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) has quietly emerged as a — if not the — favorite of the tea party element for the GOP’s vice presidential nomination.”

According to Allan West he’s heard there are between 78 and 81 communists in the US House of Representatives.  West office in an attempt to spin the coverage, sent the following clarifying text to the Huffington Post:

Moderator: What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialist?

 West: It's a good question. I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It's called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

West arrives at this conclusion because the 2000 strong CP of America claims the Progressive Caucus as an ally, although of course the Progressive Caucus does not claim the CP as such.

Appearing on Hannity’s show on Fox talking about potential VP picks Sarah Palin said this about West: “Top of my list is Allen West. I love that he has that military experience. He is a public servant willing to serve for the right reasons. He understands the Constitution. He understands our national foreign policy issues that must be addressed. He has served. I really like him. There are so many, Sean, that are out there. And when I talk about going rogue, what I want to do is encourage the GOP nominee to not think that they have to go with somebody necessarily safe that conventional wisdom perhaps would lead somebody to believe that, if it’s somebody, quote-unquote, safe, that they’re not going to get beat up by the media, because no matter who it is.” I love that Palin mentioned Foreign Policy, but that;s for another day.

To emphasize the point, speaking at a Florida GOP Dinner, I guess in an attempt to express his respect for Constitutional principles West said the following: “We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America." To clarify his statements West later appeared on Hannity’s show. On the show, the clip was played without the introductory remarks for The President, Reid, Pelosi and the chairmen of the DLC, which allowed West to claim that he was suggesting the export of the ideas the dems stood for, not their expulsion from the country.  

Appearing on Fox and Friends Herman Cain also endorsed the West Pick for VP. When asked his choice for Romney’s VP pick, Cain responded, “Colonel Allen West out of Florida. Here's why. He is well-spoken, he is direct, people in Florida love him. He has a huge following. He is from Florida. Florida is going to be one of those key states. But more importantly, Colonel Allen West is a dedicated patriot. He served in the military, and he is willing to serve his country some more….

“Now I know that there might be some push back on his part, because he's just in his first term as a United States congressman, But my advice to him, if he were to ask me, is, you've served your country well and now you have a higher calling. And I would strongly recommend that he consider it, depending on any personal considerations he might have."

Alright, let’s be honest there’s no friggin’ chance Romney will nominate West as VP. The suggestions that are out here are just red meat for the yahoo right wing of a wildly right wing Republican electorate. In a previous press conference on Capitol Hill West told reporters that, “If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine. I think that you have, and let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit in this, in enabling them to get that type of message out.”

Commies or Nazis?  There is an increasing and vocal element of conservative theorists and commentators who are apoplectic over the election and potential reelection of an African American president. Some have just become completely unhinged.  West, a former military man, and an African American himself, is just part of the chorus. To a great extent he is just a clown, neither a serious politician nor a serious thinker. But he serves a useful purpose.


Claims that Obama is a Muslim continue to be banged about, so much so that a sizable chunk of Republican voters believe them to be true. Ignorance is impossible to eradicate—I get that—but the larger issue here is that people that know better do not stand up to dispute the obvious. McCain to his credit did call Obama a “good family man” at a point in his campaign when he may have known it was all but over and also realized what had been unleashed. Romney, a political chameleon, and an un principled coward, has not and apparently will not. So desperate is he to win that he has allowed the entire chorus to go at full throat. Limbaugh used words Romney had the “courage” to say “he would not have used”. Wow, forceful. Debate crowd boos for gay soldiers can’t quite be heard, the same for cheers for 200 executions, and calls for the leaving the uninsured sick to just die. In the movie, Game Change” McCain is heard talking about the “ugly side of American populism”. He claimed not to want to run a campaign that exploited it. We can only imagine how the country would be different and perhaps better if he had done that.

Now the conservative establishment is enraged with the comments that Hillary Rosen made. She couldn’t just continue to pound the obvious point that the Romneys are disconnected from the lives of average Americans in almost every way imaginable. Rosen went further making the obviously stupid claim that Romney’s wife, a mother of five, who has had both breast cancer and suffers with MS “has never worked a day in her life”. The comment was stupid, really stupid. The democratic attempts to spin it to claim that Rosen was not part of the campaign sound foolish, and Jay Cairney,the White House Press Secretary’s “I know three personally, women named Hillary Rosen,” when trying to dodge questions about the number of times Rosen visited the White House sounded like a “Who’s on First” comedy bit. Rosen clearly is part of the Democratic establishment and whatever her connections she made the comments on CNN in a purely partisan political context. Obama and Biden were right to refute them.

But at what stage as any of the really ugly rhetoric of the conservative right been refuted this year by the mainstream establishment of the party and it’s now current standard bearer, Mitt Romney? Allen West is a useful idiot with a sideshow act for the pure enjoyment of the ill-informed. His rhetoric is so inflammatory that he will no doubt draw rather large contributions from around the country to ensure that his “brave” voice is not silenced by the vast left wing conspiracy (Chorus of angels…). The money may help West hold onto a seat in the House in a district which encompasses Palm Beach, and so a lot of Jews not particularly happy with the Nazi references. But it will not matter either way.


According to Allan West he’s heard there are between 78 and 81 communists in the US House of Representatives. He is easy enough to ignore. The silence of those who should know better, those who allow and even condone poisonous political language cannot be ignored. Somehow, on Jan-20, 2012 America needs to find a way to come together and to move forward. After this political season it is hard to see how that happens.

How the Other 1% Lives.

I was first alerted to this By B Sanders Tweet.

Obama pushing hard for Buffet rule for taxpayers. Here we see 26 Fortune 500 Companies with no accumulated taxes paid for 2008-2009-2010 & 2011 combined!

I think we can see why lobbying expense, according to OpenSecrets.org, has gone from $1.4 Billion with a B in 1998 to $3.31 Billion on 2011, and political donations have gone from $1.8 billion in 98 to $3.6 billion in 2010. 

The tax burden of these Fortune 500 companies are directly linked to the business investments these and other firms make on lobbyists and political campaign contributions. These companies were refunded monies from the US Treasury and had net negative tax bills for the combined four years since 2008.

For those that suggest that much of the Occupy movement is just sour grapes over losses in the political arena here is exhibit A as to the total fallacy of that argument. For those that argue that civil disobedience is a unlawful act and suggest that all that energy ought to be pushed into the political arena, here is the gaping hole in that posture.

The arguments for fairer taxes, or better environmental laws, affordable and decent health care were not lost in the political arena they were swamped over like a wave across the bow of a small sailing dingy, by a flood of excessive and increasingly deregulated and opaque campaign contributions. Most of this giving was before Citizen’s United which we will see in full flower this fall. There can be no doubt that this elections this fall will be the most costly in American history, with very few of the donors of the actual money raised known to the public, and individual billionaires contributing tens of millions to a totally skewed and hopelessly corrupt game.  

It is incredibly important to keep in mind that again according to Open Secrets, the dems have outraised the Repubs since 2004. 

The American political system is awash with the corrupt influence of deep pocketed donors. As Rachel Maddow said on Bill Maher's show some weeks ago, the reason nothing gets done in Washington is not exclusively or even primarily because the dems and repubs can’t get along. The reason nothing gets done is that wherever and whenever something is proposed there is always an entrenched interest with substantial and available cash there to oppose it.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/04/09/new-report-shows-26-fortune-500-businesses-paid-negative-tax-rate-from-2008-2011/

A Quick Note on Trayon

It is so important to keep stressing this simple point: Zimmerman had a gun. Trayvon did not.

In the minutes before the confrontation Trayvon was alarmed that he was being followed and actually picked up his pace to escape. Zimmerman was told by the Police that they “did not need” him to follow Trayvon. Zimmerman chose to ignore those Police directions, and at some point exited his vehicle to continue the pursuit.

I find it deeply alarming that so many seem willing to accept that if Trayvon got into some sort of physical confrontation with Zimmerman, an armed man following him for no good reason, then the burden of proof sort of shifts back to Trayvon’s family to prove that anything he did was justified, rather than to remain on Zimmerman to prove why the whole episode was anyone’s responsibility beyond that of a man, unknown to the victim, carrying a concealed weapon, and ready to use it.

Obama’s Issues with the Supreme Court

Notwithstanding the National Women’s Issues Conference held at the White House last week politically, President Obama did not have a good week. While Obama worked to develop and expand the yawning gap in approval with women voters between Romney and himself, Friday’s job’s numbers were dismal. Earlier in the week Obama made unfortunate remarks about the Supreme Court’s role in reviewing legislation that suggested the former Constitutional law professor did not understand the basic role of the Court as the equalizing branch of Government.

Though I support this President both of these events were disquieting.  On the court we can be sure the President knows better than to project the ill-informed position that he did.  

The Supreme Court is the third party referee, which when called on reviews the Constitutionality of the actions of both the Executive and the Legislative branches of government. Any suggestion to the contrary is poppycock. As a result of Obama’s statement last week which seemed to suggest a decision to overturn the mandate would be unprecedented, conservatives have, rightfully so, bludgeoned Obama with a week’s worth of Marbury vs. Madison. Those who support the Health Care Legislation can support the political effort Obama is making, but ought to acknowledge the unfortunate choice of words is a poor way of making the case and casts the President in uncomfortable territory with some very unsavory friends.  

To be fair the right has made judicial activism a trumpet’s call for their originalist view of the Constitution, but in application they have been far from consistent in application. According to the Originalists the Constitution is not a living breathing document and the court’s role is to merely define the specific intent of the founders in defining the role of the three branches of government . According to this cramped view, the court’s primary role is to interpret precisely the intent of the founders.  On this course, expansive rulings such as Brown V. Board of Education which outlawed segregation in public schools may have fallen outside the Court’s jurisdiction. However, when given the opportunity the Court’s two most fervent Originalists, Scalia and Thomas, have themselves not always taken up the argument that the Federal Government does not have compelling interests that goes beyond the original language of the founders. In United States v. Fordice, neither claimed a limit to the government’s effort to promote affirmative action in Mississippi schools. The fact is even with the Originalists there is quite a bit of room for interpretation.

As we hear the hysterical right now rail against Obama’s blunder, it worth noting the complete inconsistency in their argument.  Most recently—and this has been pointed out ad nauseam so apologies in advance—anti-gay ideologues have repeatedly gone to the courts to overturn either legislatively or ballot approved initiatives in favor of gay marriage. The religiously based view that the state has a compelling interest in defining the traditional view that marriage can only be between a man and a woman seems to me to be unconstitutional. But that has not prevented case after case from being brought before the courts. Moreover, in attempting to overturn initiatives enacted through democratic means, those on the right who seek relief from the courts—albeit usually at the state level--  make a mushy argument even more limp in the context of any sort of Originalist view. Where, one might ask, does the Constitution hold for the Government the role of defining what marriage is, especially if that would be defined through a pseudo-religious prism.

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, a case which Obama has blasted at nearly every opportunity, resulted in the court holding that “the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting political expenditures by corporations and unions”. Obama addressed this ruling specifically and publically also, but at least in this case he chose the well-worn path of disputing the decision without attacking the legitimacy of the court, or trying to suggest limits to the Court’s authority. Since the Citizens United ruling held that portions of the recently enacted McCain Feingold bill were unconstitutional, it’s a bit of a reach to believe that our President did not understand the role of the courts in reviewing legislation.

History is replete with examples of the Court’s ground breaking and wholly necessary intervention on behalf of expanded Constitutional rights of Americans. Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade are but two examples. It is precisely these sorts of unlegislated rights which drive conservatives into a frenzy of slander which at its core attempts to delegitimize the courts.

So my point here is that the Supreme Court has a long record of decisions which inflame those on the right and/ or those on the left. Some of the decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson which upheld laws of segregation or Korematsu v. United States which upheld the government’s right to send Japanese Americans to internment camps in World War II were clearly wrong and are now roundly criticized both those in both parties. Even as we criticize, it seems to me that neither side of the political spectrum is well served by arguments that obfuscate or delegitimize the role of the court.

Much of this posturing is solely political in nature. I believe that most observers on the right and the left understand that the court as an institution with broad powers is not only a part of our constitutional system of government it is also part of the American tradition as a  government of laws. But it is critical  to recall that Supreme Court decisions are a constant reminder that elections have consequences. Whether in Bush v. Gore (Gore lost and we got a misguided war with Iraq), or New York Times v. United States (NY Times won and we got the Pentagon papers) it is always worth noting that when it comes to the Supreme Court elections have consequences. Those who want to change the direction of the court would do well to spend less time attacking it, and more time changing the political circumstances which framed the court in its current configuration.  

Who is James Brisette?

Last week Juan Williams wrote an editorial for the WSJ that read in part, “Black America needs to get out of the rut of replaying racial injustices of the past.” The post of that statement set off a string of sometimes harsh reaction in a FB site I frequent. After reading the entire editorial which is in large part a plea for America to show the same outrage for young African Americans killed by other African Americans, and for the high dropout and incarceration rates of the black community, I understand the larger and legitimate point Mr. Williams is trying to make. That does not prevent me however, from feeling that Mr. Williams in his tone and language, still makes the case that both white racists and perhaps some white liberals have been trying to make to mitigate the urgency of the emotion generated by the murder of Trayvon Martin.

There can be little doubt that some on both sides of the political spectrum are seeking converts to their cause through the prism of the hyperbolic Trayvon Martin Case. BUT, any suggestion that all that lies at the root of the deep hurt we see on the streets for Trayvon is political maneuvering it seems to me misses the point, in some cases willfully and purposefully so. Barrack Obama, notwithstanding, America is still a society of deep pockets of racial animosity and misunderstanding. With apologies to Bill Maher where I heard this first, “Denial of racism is the new racism.” Speakers on the right have called the emotional, and in some cases inaccurate, statements from Civil rights leaders racist. From there the right goes onto directly or indirectly disqualify racism as an issue in America. The suggestion that what we hear from the Civil Rights community is in any way on par with the systematic racism still practiced in many parts of America—a racism they ironically claim no longer exists—is the boldest of lies.   Just ask the Family of TrayvonMartin. Or James Brisette.

Four Police New Orleans Police officers, two of them black, were sentenced yesterday to lengthy prison sentences after being convicted of killing James Brisette in the aftermath of Katrina without cause. In addition they were also convicted of lying to cover up the crime. Those lies included attempts to pin the blame on Brisette family members. If the lies generated by the police to cover up their heinous crime had been believed and adjudicated Brisette family members would have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for assault and attempted murder. In addition to the sentences handed down, the Judge in the case, Kurt Engelhardt, harshly criticized previous plea bargains which both prevented equal justice to half a dozen additional police officers clearly guilty in some cases of the same crimes the other officers were convicted of, but also tainted the local prosecution of the officers sentenced on Federal charges.

This of course is not the first incident in New Orleans, nor the last. Earlier this week a NOPD officer resigned after posting the following in response to the Trayvon Martin Killing on his Facebook page: "Act like a thug, die like one."

The US Department of Justice wrapped up an extensive review of the policies and practices of the New Orleans Police Department just last year.

Below is an excerpt from US DOJ Executive Summary of Civil Rights Division investigation into the New Orleans Police Department:

"Following its comprehensive investigation, the Justice Department on March 17, 2011, announced its findings that the NOPD has engaged in patterns of misconduct that violate the Constitution and federal law.

"The (NOP) Department has failed to take meaningful steps to counteract and eradicate bias based on race, ethnicity, and LGBT status in its policing practices, and has failed to provide critical policing services to language minority communities.”


The US DOJ report went on to document clear patterns of the use of excessive and often deadly force and affirmed the widely held view in the community that Police Supervisors were indifferent to the patterns of violence by officers. Moreover, they documented abuse of NOPD Policies and Procedures as well as Constitutional rights that went beyond the use of lethal force and included purposeful cover up of illegal Police activity which often tainted or completely covered up illegal NOPD activity.  

In another section of the report DOJ states: “Our review of 145 randomly-sampled arrest and investigative reports confirmed a pattern of unlawful conduct. Of the arrests that NOPD initiated, we found that a significant portion reflected on their face apparent constitutional violations, in that officers failed to articulate sufficient facts to justify stops, searches, and arrests”. In other words Racial profiling led to illegal stops and arrests.

Again from the DOJ Report: “We find reasonable cause to believe that NOPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing in violation of constitutional and statutory law. Discriminatory policing occurs when police officers and departments unfairly enforce the law—or fail to enforce the law—based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, religion, or LGBT status.”

Then the DOJ report provides these stunning statistics: “…Arrest data provided by NOPD indicates that in 2009, the Department arrested 500 African-American males and eight white males under the age of 17 for serious offenses, which range from homicide to larceny over fifty dollars. During this same period the Department arrested 65 African-American females and one white female in this same age group.”

In 2009 the rate of arrests of black teenage men to white teenage men in New Orleans was almost 30 to 1. For back women is the same age group the record was 65 to 1. Does anyone really doubt that a racist power structure in the NOPD is at the root of these clearly discriminatory policies?  Moreover, while it is easy to lay blame racism for these heinous statistics, what does it say for the rest of America to acknowledge the statistics that Williams himself quotes:

“Almost one half of the nation's murder victims that year (2005) were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation's murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report.

“Less than half of black students graduate from high school. The education system's failure is often a jail sentence or even a death sentence. The Orlando Sentinel has reported that 17-year-old Martin was recently suspended from his high school. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Office, in the 2006-07 school year, 22% of all black and Hispanic K-12 students were suspended at least once (as compared to 5% of whites).

“This year 22% of blacks live below the poverty line and a shocking 72% of black babies are born to unwed mothers. The national unemployment rate for black people increased last month to over 13%, nearly five points above the average for all Americans.”

I share Mr. Williams’s outrage over the atrocious amount of young black lives taken by other blacks, often barely more than kids themselves. But I reject completely any suggestion that black America or any part of America that stands in outrage for the shoddy Police work and preferential treatment shown George Zimmerman is stuck in a “rut of the past”. Too often these cases go unreported, and generally there is too little concern, including I think even from those on the liberal left, as to the dire consequences of the poor and especially minorities in the United States. As I’m sure Mr. Williams knows there is ample outrage in these communities for the sickness of nihilism that so infects many young minority kids today. Last night on the Daily show Larry Wilmore took note of dozens of protests against violence held in just the past few months, so this begs the question as to whether the issue is apathy in the community or on the part of the largely white media structure or Mr. Williams is a prominent member.

Neither political party talks much about the chronic problems of the poor anymore. It has become unfashionable. Issues of race are papered over until they explode as they did in Sanford, Florida, a city with a history of racial animus, particularly by the Police, toward the minorities in their midst.  Politicians rant about the failure of American schools. The results, especially in poor and minority districts speak for themselves, but the causality of poverty on education is barely mentioned. Great Society programs which had dramatic and positive effects on Poverty rates for Americans of all races are now either pilloried as wasteful giving to those who do not pay their share, or conversely judged to be more costly than America can afford. Poverty rates, falling incredibly heavily on single mothers and children are now the highest they have been in a generation. America has condemned the lives of far too many children to isolation and loss. .

To suggest that historically imbedded racism, and its cruel sibling poverty, is not a major and direct cause of that loss shows a disregard for the truth to the extreme. Liberals who take cause with Mr. Williams’s statement show only their intolerance for the truth of American society. If Mr.Williams means to suggest that we cannot move forward so long as we only look back, I can concur. But to suggest that we can only move forward once we stop looking back even if this means neither looking to our right or our left at the pain and suffering which rises up all around us, is perhaps a purer form of moral failure. Too many Americans  it seems to me are all too willing to move forward leaving the sick, the hungry, the poor and the abused behind. Mr. Williams presents facts, but for those that believe he speaks the truth, I respectfully disagree.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-orleans-police-officers-face-decades-in-jail-for-shootings-cover-up-after-katrina/2012/04/04/gIQARGhkuS_story.html?hpid=z2