Oct 31^st

True story! On Oct. 20^th Bill Simons, a 56 year old unemployed college graduate, is sitting with his wife in their very low rent apartment in Denver listening to the radio. He turns to his wife and babbles something. The right side of his face sags and Ann, his wife, suspects a stroke. She calls 911 and an ambulance arrives within two minutes.

 They take Bill to Denver General Hospital but Ann is not allowed to go with him in the ambulance. Ann does not drive so she calls a cab but it is sometime before she can get to the hospital. Meanwhile the hospital physicians cannot treat Bill because they don’t know his medical history or what medications he might be taking; consequently, the clot busting drug, Actephase, is delayed in its administration. The longer the delay the les effective the clot busting drug.

Within the next 24 hours it is determined that Activase is not busting the clot which has been located “deep in the brain.” Cat scans have determined its location and surgery has been performed to successfully remove the clot. Unfortunately the brain is now beginning to swell probably due to bleeding into the brain. When the clot was surgically removed the tissue behind the clot, not having received a blood supply, had died so the blood could not take its usual route and had begun to pool. More surgery was required; it was successful and a shunt was installed to drain off any accumulating blood.

By the next day after many CAT scans surgeons determine that the brain is swelling again. Ann has gone home to their apartment for some sleep and does not hear the phone requesting permission to do the necessary surgery to reduce the pressure; the neurological team does it anyway because the increasing pressure, if not reduced, will kill the patient. The surgery, called a craniectomy, involves the removal of a section of skull above the part of the brain which is the locus of the swelling. The removed potion of the skull is stored with the hope that it can be replaced before it deteriorates too much for replacement, in which case a plate will be put in place to protect the brain. This remedy for swelling is rarely used but in this case it is successful. The swelling stops. Bill has various tubes entering his body and he responds to little but he is alive. He is said to have “global aphasia” in which the patient can respond to very little stimulation.

Bill has been in the hospital’s ICU for a week, been through several complicated and dangerous surgeries and is at last beginning to recover some function. He can squeeze Ann’s hand and obviously recognizes her. The hospital personnel have gotten Bill up and in a chair so he can look out the window of his room. He wears a helmet to protect his head.

Now, at eleven days post stroke, Bill has improved enough to be moved to a step down unit and out of intensive care; speech therapists and other therapists have begun treating him. He is drinking small sips of thickened orange juice from a cup and responding well to verbal commands. Much of stroke recovery occurs in the few months immediately following the event so Bill seems off to a good start.

Why post this story on a political blog? We have mechanism in this country to provide excellent care for indigent people like Bill. From the time the ambulance was called to now Bill has not been refused care or received the least inferior care because he had no money…and believe me he had no money and no insurance. If that other party wins what do you suppose will happen to this wonderful example of caritas in the meaning the Greeks gave the word?

 

 

Death Oct 30^th

Cal Thomas’ column today is titled, “California: State of death.” His opening sentence refers to the state’s new assisted suicide law so, naturally, I assumed that assisted suicide was the focus of his angst. It wasn’t. As it happens, assisted suicide is already legal in a number of states and is being considered in many others. Mr. Thomas, as usual, is on a rant about abortion, better known among his peers as baby killing.

 The focus of his column is a law in California that requires “pregnancy crisis centers to offer information about affordable contraception, abortion and pre-natal care.” What an outrage! What will these liberals think of next? Thomas seems uninterested, or at least he completely ignores, the part about the clinics’ requirement to offer information about affordable contraception. This is typical and it is logically absurd. It should be obvious, and I am sure it is, that the use of contraceptives reduces unwanted pregnancies and hence reduces abortions. Every adolescent knows that and those who are forgetful pay dearly. So the rationale for not using contraceptives is exactly what?

Thomas goes on to tell us that this law “is deceptively labeled the reproductive FACT Act. The law requires women seeking help with an unplanned pregnancy to be informed of alternatives, including abortions, which the pregnancy crisis centers do not perform.” And this is deceptive because? The L.A. Times claims “the law will counter the deceptive practices of some…crisis centers to deter women from considering abortion. The real ‘deceivers’ (according to Thomas) are the ones who promote abortion as a woman’s right.” Apparently Thomas believes abortion is not a woman’s right, never mind the decision of SCOTUS; Mr. Thomas is quite prepared to decide these things for himself. Now there is more arrogance in this comment than even those on the right are accustomed to showing.

Thomas then goes on to describe individual cases where women regret having had abortions or claim to have been pressured to have abortions. There is no doubt that this happens. I lived in a small town where the physician who provide abortions was well known. His office was just off the main street and I walked by it every morning on my way to work. There were always placard carrying activists, both male and female, imploring the women entering the office not to have an abortion. In point of fact the great majority of this man’s patients were there for routine medical procedures, not abortions. No matter; they were screamed at as baby killers anyway. Then there are the activists who simply murder physicians who provide abortions and then claim that they are “doing the Lord’s work.”

Once again Thomas seems only concerned with the unborn child; once he/she is “post-born” its welfare is of no concern to these “pro-life” enthusiasts.

Debate Oct 20^th

No, I didn’t watch the debate; I thought I’d hear about the relevant high and low points from the commentariate today, and I was right.

The primary loser was CNBC the “moderator” who didn’t manage to moderate anything. They found themselves the target of these conservatives who thrive on media bashing and in this case the consensus was that this particular branch of the media deserved it. Rubio was asked “Why don’t you resign.” Trump was asked, “Are you a comic book villain.” Then Carson, the current poll leader, got very little time. Of course the candidates immediately began ranting about these inept (and they were inept) moderators.

We’ll look at Ben Carson, the current popular leader. Dr. Carson was asked about his association with Mannatech, a company marketing a nutritional supplement. It seems that Carson has endorsed this product and has been doing promotional material for the company for about ten years. The problem is that the company has had some serious legal issues involving deceptive advertising and a variety of other no-no’s. Beginning about the time Carson decided to run for the nomination he cut ties with Mannatech and now claims that he was just a very occasional paid spokesperson for them. This was reminiscent of Carly Fiorina settling most of her outstanding 2010 Senatorial campaign debt years after incurring them when she decided on a Presidential run. Amazing how a run for the Presidency can clean up the ethically challenged!

There was Governor Christie pushing public paranoia about Social Security running out of money. He claims that SS will run out of money in seven years and have to depend on a pile of IOU’s. These “IOU’s” that Christie dismisses so quickly are, in fact, United States Treasury Bonds in the sum of 2.8 trillion dollars, enough to bay SS obligations until 2034. But hay, what do we expect from Christie?

Cruz claimed that women’s wages declined under Obama but the fact is they increased from an average of 647 dollars a week to 728 dollars a week; that’s an increase of 81 dollars a week.

Then here is Fiorina: She tells us that 92 percent of job losses in Obama’s first term were by women. These were the identical discredited figures used by Romney in his campaign. If this miss-lead was good enough for Romney it is surely good enough for Fiorina. Actually both men and women gained jobs during President Obama’s first term Then Fiorina talks about firms closing because of the burdens placed on them by the Affordable Care Act. But more firms closed in 2009 before the ACA ever came into being.

So who won? Of all the hoodwinkers I believe Governor Kasich did best. He pointed out that these tax scams advocated by Trump, Carson and others would cost the treasury billions in lost revenue. Of course Trump jumped right in to claim that Kasich had been a managing partner at Lehman Brothers before it went belly up costing him and some of his friend much money. The trouble with that is that that Kasich at the time was in Ohio, a very minor player in Lehman Brother’s structure. Since when did Trump have any regard for the truth if a lie served him better?

 

Thugs? Oct 28^th

Thomas Sowell has an interesting column today; it’s interesting in its use of language and in what it leaves out. Its title is uncontroversial, if we have laws they must be enforced and so we must have police to enforce the law. Who could disagree with that? But then Sowell goes on to describe what he considers cases “reported in the media where some teenage thug has been stopped for some routine violation of the law…chooses to defy the policeman and finally winds up physically assaulting the cop.” In Sowell’s world the teenagers defying police are “thugs.” The word is used several times in his column and the police are always justified in whatever force they use.

Sowell is certainly right about some events. The kid who waved a toy pistol about, pointing it at a police officer was shot dead in seconds. The red indicator that this was a toy gun had been removed so how was the officer to know that he was in no danger? That was a horrible error but the cop was hardly to blame for it. But then we have the man who runs away after a traffic stop for a defective taillight. The policeman claims the man tried to take his Taser so as the man is running away the officer shoots him many times in the back and after he falls to the ground handcuffs him and drops something beside him. If he was dead why cuff him; if he wasn’t dead why not call an ambulance?

What about the man put in a police van handcuffed and given a “rough ride“  to the police station where he arrives with a severed spine. Rough rides are provided by police in metal sided vans so that unrestrained, handcuffed, passengers can be tossed about and injured thus teaching them respect for the law. Sowell seems ignorant of such things…or perhaps he isn’t.

Then there were the thugs who crashed a pool party. The police were called because some uninvited teenagers, black and white, showed up at a suburban pool party and declined an invitation to leave. We have a picture of a white police sergeant putting a fourteen year old, bikini clad, black girl in a wrist lock forcing her face into the dirt. After he releases her he pulls out his side arm and waves it about at the other teens until his subordinates, now possibly worried about being shot by their sergeant, finally get him under control. A white pool crasher standing with his black pool crasher friends was asked to comment and said that the cops just ignored him and focused on his black friends.

The police are often unfairly targeted by the press but with the emergence of camera ready cell phones we now have clearer evidence of the events leading to complaints about police. The latest outrage is a very large cop literally picking up a teenaged black girl who wouldn’t leave her class and throwing her across the room. His superior said the video of that event made him want to throw up. He fired the cop.

Sowell fails to recognize, in his desire to be conservatively correct, that some of the thugs he complains about are in the police force!

 

Oct 27^th

Patrick J. Buchanan seems to believe we desperately need another war, preferably non-shooting, to bring unity to the country. His column today cites the cold war and the fights against communism as having brought the country together. He writes, “We accepted the conscription of our young men. We accepted wars in Asia, and if need be in Europe to check the Soviet Empire. Vietnam sundered that unity.” It sure did, remember the pictures of the dead students on the ground at Kent State shot by nervous and poorly trained guardsmen.

Then we have this, “For what end other than defending our citizens, vital interests and crucial allies would we be willing to send a great army to fight as we did in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan?” Buchanan is talking about some very different wars. Korea and Vietnam were fought on the mistaken belief in the domino theory that if one Asian country fell to communism they all would eventually fall. Therefore any communist advance had to be stopped. Mac Arthur in Korea very nearly got us into a nuclear war with his talk of using atomic weapons on China. Harry Truman yanked him before he could ignite the world. That was the last war that might have been thought to give the country a purpose.

 The Vietnam War was not about bringing the country together. It was the last war to use draftees and many men eligible for the draft simply went to Canada to avoid it. There was also a problem with officials lying to the public about successes, there was the My Lai debacle; other similar embarrassments were kept well hidden from the public. The notion that the Vietnam War was a unifying force is simply laughable. Returning Vietnam veterans were routinely spit upon, called baby killers and worse.

The draft ended in January 1973. Ever since then we’ve had a volunteer army. This army is populated by people given huge financial incentives to enlist, huge at least by the incentives available to WW 2 volunteers. The current volunteers consist of youngsters, recent high school graduates who have little prospect for employment otherwise.  If you serve for three years you qualify for 36 months of college with all expenses paid. If you don’t want to use that benefit you can pass it along to a family member. That’s quite an incentive.

Buchanan writes, “Other than supporting Israel, maintaining access to Gulf oil and resisting ISIS and al-Qaida upon what do Americans agree?” That’s easy: they generally agree that we should stop sending our troops into the Middle-East to fight battles that are not winnable with guns. The Iraq invasion was initially supported on the basis of faulty intelligence. The Taliban was initially driven out of Afghanistan but the Afghans allowed them to return. WW 2 was the only war in recent history that could be called “unifying” and Buchanan has written a book calling it “An Unnecessary War.”

There is apparently no end of old white men running around waving swords and hoping someone will follow them.

 

Oct 26^th

Yesterday I watched Chuck Todd interview Ben Carson. Todd covered a lot of ground in that interview; we heard Carson speak about gun control, he opposes it (sort of) and abortion, he opposes that in all situations except imminent risk of death to the mother which he claims is very rare. Dr. Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist, a group that believes the Biblically appointed day of rest is Saturday not Sunday, that the Bible is literally true on every point and that Jesus’ return is imminent. They also believe that the dead are just asleep and will remain in that state until Jesus returns.

Carson’s demeanor though out this interview was the soul of calm attentiveness. His eyes were half closed and I thought it might be caused by the glare of television lights but Chuck Todd sat in the same lights and his eyes were wide open. Maybe Dr. Carson has found a tranquilizer that keeps him calm but alert. Several beta blockers are known to do that. In any event Dr. Carson and Mr. Trump present an interesting contrast.

Trump is clearly concerned about his loss of first place in Iowa polling.  He was commenting on this while hunched over his lectern telling his audience that he was a Presbyterian and that was “mainstream folks, that’s right down the middle; Seventh Day Adventist, I don’t know what that is.” Then he got around to those poll results about which he had recently been so proud. Not anymore, he isn’t.  It seems that one is from a newspaper, The De Moines Register/ Bloomberg News poll has him trailing Ben Carson as does the Quinnipiac poll. These polls have him trailing Carson by more than just a couple of points and oh is he upset. He is quick to assure one and all that he still has the lead nationally and he has the lead in New Hampshire; that’s all true but there is now a tear in his cloak of invincibility and he isn’t able to respond to that realistically. If he hadn’t crowed so loudly when the polls had him ahead he could acknowledge the fact that poll results fluctuate; now he’s trapped by his own ego.

Jeb Bush showed more than a little frustration. He said, "I've got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that," Oh dear, temper, temper, temper! Trump set out determined to provoke Bush and Bush let him do just that. Then the other Bush family members showed up to provide aid and comfort and Trump hit him again with something like, “Now he runs back to Mummy and Daddy.”

Skipping to Marco Rubio who is very discontented with being a junior Senator; he can’t stand the Senate. His problem there was that he tried to offer some legislation and some of it was defeated by Democrats and some defeated by his own party. The result of this frustration is that he won’t run again for the Senate; it’s the Presidency or nothing. Old poker players, and I am one, have a saying, “Bet ‘em high and sleep in the street.” Good luck Marco.

Oct 25^th

Not that there isn’t detritus today because there is. I’ll try to deal with it tomorrow.

Oct 24th

It was an interesting morning of channel surfing; CNN and CNBC, predictably, were chortling about Hillary Clinton’s remarkable performance yesterday, At the same hour Fox News had a therapist and a commentator discussing, with the anchor, whether or not the facial photos of advertising models should be altered. One of the women maintained that these photos should not be retouched because that gave young women a false sense of what constituted beauty. It was a good point but hardly competitive with news of a 200 MPH hurricane coming ashore in Mexico, Trump dropping well below Ben Carson in Iowa (I guess his “little cracker” comment was hard for some evangelicals to digest.), Hillary moving ahead of Bernie in Iowa and a variety of other concerns. Each network has its own interesting priorities.

We have seen a number of candidates drop out of the Presidential race. Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb are gone from the Democratic contest; many would unkindly claim that they were never in it in the first place. On the Republican side we have a number of “dead men walking.” Jeb Bush is reducing staff salaries and otherwise cutting back. There are other competitors who are facing troubles; Governor Christie of New Jersey is facing a lawsuit from Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox whom Christie had arbitrarily held for three days in a deluxe tent fearing she would contaminate people; this was in spite of her testing negative for Ebola and also against the advice of the medical community which declared that she was not a risk. When she threatened to sue him for his high-handed behavior Christie told her to “get in line.” Now she has.

There are more “also rans” in the Republican stable. There is Bobby Jindal who is not very popular even in his home state of Louisiana. His poll numbers are still visible but it must be very difficult for him to raise money to continue his campaign. Governor Kasich of Ohio is so unpopular with the Republicans that he can’t even get invited to major Republican events in his home state. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio are positioning themselves to grab the leavings if/when Trump or Carson falter. Regarding Carson, it is clear that he is the favorite of the Iowa evangelicals, but how can anyone take seriously a man who claims that if the Jews just had guns there would have been no holocaust. Of course he is also persuaded that evolution is an invention of the devil designed to discredit God…and some people want him to be President of the United States.

Carly Fiorina deserves a few remarks too; you know that she did not pay off all of the folks who worked on her Senate campaign against Senator Boxer until it was clear that she was going to run for the Republican nomination. When one of her advisors was asked about that little oversight he said, “We didn’t win that campaign so why should those people expect to get paid.” Spoken like a true Republican!

 Oct 23^rd

The right wing columnists haven’t yet responded to the eleven hour inquisition of Secretary Clinton; they will soon. Republicans on the committee took full advantage of their few minutes of fame. I saw some of the theatrics and for amateurs they were impressive. Not all performances required props but here are two that did: Congressman Peter Roskam of Illinois held up several sheets of paper which, once he got the camera’s attention, he very carefully tore in half. This, he claimed, was what Secretary Clinton did to the requests for assistance from her ambassador. Hillary then told him that she never received any such requests; oh pshaw!

Then there was another budding thespian, Congresswoman Susan Brooks of Indiana. This woman, once the camera was on her, put on the desk in front of her two stacks of what appeared to be letters, one about ten times as high as the other. Then she claimed that the higher stack represented the Clinton emails from 2011 and the smaller stack represented the emails from 2012. This, she claimed, showed Secretary Clinton’s dwindling interest in the Benghazi affair. Clinton then, very calmly, informed the Congresswoman that she did not conduct the majority of the State Department’s business by email; again oh pshaw!

Those were the primary theatrical performances requiring props; there were other bits of curtain chewing as well, although describing them without visual aids would be a waste of time. Once the eleven hour marathon was over and Chairman Gowdy had apparently given up trying to make the Secretary grovel and beg for mercy, I watched as her admirers gathered round to congratulate her on her performance. She was smiling and apparently still as full of energy as she had been in the beginning at ten o’clock, the beginning of the eleven hour ordeal

Of course these were Hilary supporters; what about the Hilary detractors? I just turned to Fox News and there was Megyn Kelly and Megyn was one furious woman! She was squirming around in her chair and yelling “liar” in a great imitation of Bouncy Bouncy Limbaugh. Other Fox News employees subsequently joined the chorus. They had even recruited a relative of one of those killed in the Benghazi attack who blamed Clinton and added to the credibility of their opinions.

Judge Napolitano, a regular senior contributor at Fox News and a fervent libertarian (except for the fact that he is also fervently pro-life) tells us that as a result of her testimony the Department of Justice now has all the evidence it needs to indict Hillary Clinton. But wait! Congressman Mo Brooks form Alabama claims that if Hillary is elected she will be impeached “on day one.” Everyone seems to be in a hurry these days; don’t these politicians want to leave anything for day two or day three?  Maybe if they can do it all on day one that will mean more time for golf.

Oct 22^nd

I caught just a bit of the hearings this morning. Trey Gowdy was in his element, loud, controlling and full of himself. Naturally he had help; the Republicans outnumber the Democrats on the committee seven to five. The primary Clinton defenders were Elijah Cummings and Adam B. Schiff. They did an admirable job of challenging the Republicans’ assertion that the evil Sydney Blumenthal was influencing the naïve Secretary Clinton. The committee has adjourned for a vote in the house and will reconvene later. Unless Hillary Clinton loses her temper I believe she will have won the day. It’s obvious that she presents a presence of bemused disgust at the antics of her Republican challengers.

The inquisition has resumed; it is now 6:45 PM and the Secretary has maintained her cool. Eventually, probably tomorrow, the right wing commentariate will hold forth and provide me with some material but until then I think I’ll let it rest.

Pregnancy week! Oct 21^st

This title means that a lot is happening this week; some of it has happened in the few hours just before I began writing this. It begins with the announcement by Joe Biden that he won’t be running for President.  The Vice President made it clear that while he wouldn’t be running he wouldn’t be silent. Anyone who knows Joe Biden will not be at all surprised by that. Eventually I’ll bet he’ll support Hillary Clinton.

Tomorrow we have the next Benghazi Committee hearing: Trey Gowdy, the Chairperson will need a durable scraper to get the accumulated egg off his face. We have two Republican committee members coming forward of their own free will and telling the press that the committee’s purpose was primarily to tarnish Hillary Clinton’s reputation. Then there was the staffer who claims he was fired because he wasn’t digging up enough dirt on Clinton. Now we have Gowdy castigating Clinton for revealing a CIA source, Moussa Koussa, a Libyan. His name appeared in an email to Clinton from Sydney Blumenthal; then Trey Gowdy said that his name was among, “Some of the most protected information in the intelligence community.” Well, not really, because when the emails were released the name wasn’t redacted. Then Gowdy’s committee released the name themselves before recognizing their error and quickly removing it. This is the parade of clowns which govern our country!

Of Course there is the problem the Republicans have with selecting a Speaker of the House:  Paul Ryan former Republican Vice Presidential candidate on the Romney ticket said he would take the job, but only under certain conditions. He has made it clear that he doesn’t want the job, so if the conditions aren’t met he’s outta there! His conditions are straightforward: there will no longer be a “motion to vacate.” This is a procedure to bring the Speakership to a vote essentially holding the office captive if ever the speaker should temporarily displease enough members of his party. One of the tea party forty has already claimed that this is a “non-starter.” What other members think about that is not on the record. Ryan also wants approval from all of the Republican caucuses.  The Freedom Caucus consists of 40 staunch tea party members many of whom don’t trust Paul Ryan and they had their own candidate, Daniel Webster. Late this afternoon Ryan got a super-majority of that caucus to approve him but that’s not the 80 percent he requires. Maybe the Freedom Caucus will come to the 80 percent by the deadline of October 28^th. It turns out that according to the rules, the Speaker of the House need not be an elected member of Congress. (Although electing a non-member might be a problem.) There is just no end of fascinating complications in American politics.

Geo. Will; Income inequality Oct 20^th

The title of George Will’s column today is, “Is economic inequality really a moral imperative?” Rather predictably George claims that it isn’t; but then I’m not sure anyone ever said it was! (Moral imperative is a term derived from Kants’ categorical imperatives; ideas that are intrinsic to human consciousness and must be acted upon.) Kant’s philosophy aside, there has always been economic inequality, there will always be economic inequality; the issue is not “if there should be,” but how much should there be.

Will begins by taking a swipe at Roosevelt’s New Deal which he claims addressed “unequal social conditions.” Will was born in 1941 so his personal experience with the New Deal would have been well after the fact…and it shows. The depression was not so much about unequal economic opportunity as it was about many people having no economic opportunity at all; in 1933 the country’s unemployment rate was 25 percent; in 1940 when Will was a year old it was still at 15 percent.

Will rightly points out that, “Not even free universal public education can equalize the ability of people to add value to the economy.” Of course it can’t! People are not equally endowed with health, intellect or ambition. The government, however, should not involve itself in erecting barriers which increase the handicaps inherent in biological differences. Indeed the government in a civilized society should work to minimize the effect of its citizens’ biological inadequacies. Mr. Will and his friends on the right seem to want no part in that sort of equalization.

While differences in wealth accumulation are inevitable, as Will points out, it does not follow that extreme differences are a good thing. Forbes has estimated that in 2015 there were 5 thousand American households worth more than 100 million dollars, many of them much more. The leading Republican candidate for the Presidency has advanced a tax plan which allows the transfer of this wealth to survivors tax free. He is wildly popular of course and would be a major beneficiary of his own tax plan.

Will points to a Princeton philosophy professor’s claim that people should find satisfaction with economic sufficiency and not be envious of “the quantity of money that other people happen to have.” A portion of the money that other people “happen to have” would help improve our infrastructure and our employment picture. The philosopher says ignore that and just “cultivate your garden.”

Will claims that Sanders “focuses less on empathy for the poor than on stoking the discontent of those who are comfortable but envious.” The discontent that Will talks about is discontent for the plight of the poor not the envy that he and his philosopher friend discuses. As J wrote earlier, concern for others is the centerpiece of civilized society. Mr. Will and his philosopher friend might eventually get there.

Anti-abortion demonstration. Oct 19^th

On Sunday, Oct. 11 the Parkway along the bay in Traverse City was lined shoulder to shoulder with people holding signs. These were anti-abortion activists being active. The signs variously claimed that abortion was murder and other similar phrases we’ve come to expect from activists. To their credit I saw no colorful pictures of partially dismembered fetuses among the signs. Doing what these folks did was certainly their right and as far as I know no driver who disagreed with their position tried to interfere with their protest.

I really don’t know the political position of these people but I doubt if many of them are Democrats. It is fairly typical of conservatives to “oppose” and that’s just what was happening here. If a woman does not want a child she can either take action to prevent a pregnancy or take action to end one. Not one sign along that parkway, and there must have been hundreds of sign carriers, suggested the regular use of contraceptives as an alternative to abortion. Of course some forms of contraception are believed to produce abortions because they prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, but other contraceptive methods have no such action. Better to rail against abortion than to even suggest the use of condoms What a curious position. (Thanks to the Comstock Laws American troops in WW 1 were the only troops not issued condoms.)

There are other curiosities here as well: Why was there not a single sign advocating for prenatal health care for the prospective mother. These folks care deeply that the fetus not be aborted but its health and the health of the mother seem to have a very low priority. Of course prenatal health care could be expensive, perhaps leading to an increase in taxes, and we all know that is not acceptable in conservative circles.

If the child is born with severe health problems and the family qualifies for Medicaid they will get government help with their medical bills. If they aren’t eligible for Medicaid their savings will be exhausted very quickly. The treatment and care of a baby with severe spina bifida can bankrupt a middle class family in a few months. The expenses will, of course, continue even if the family has filed for bankruptcy. Why not a push for government provided child healthcare until age five? No freeway placards recommend that.

Are these placard holders opposed to all abortions? What about tubal pregnancies? Here the ovum travels partway down a fallopian tube and implants there instead of continuing to the uterus. Surgery is required to save the mother’s life; is that a prohibited abortion?  There are a number of other situations where knee jerk responses to this issue are simply irresponsible.

Mona Charen Oct 18^th

Mona Charen has a column today which instructs us that capitalism is the savior of the poor. The poor, thus far, aren’t impressed. Many ardent capitalist politicians are eager to cut programs designed to help the poor, programs which these capitalists fervently believe are actually hurting them. Given this attitude, which is widespread, it will be difficult to convince poor people that they are better off without Medicaid, food stamps and rent assistance. Of course not all of the right wing politicians push against these programs: Governor Kasich of Ohio, who was roundly abused for extending Medicaid in his state, commented that, “When I get to the pearly gates I am going to have to answer for what I’ve done for the poor.”  The result of Kasich’s benevolence was that the Americans for Prosperity which had their convention in Ohio, Kasich’s home state refused to invite him to attend, all  on account of his episode of Christian charity. Mona doesn’t understand what a tough job she has to get poor people to believe that capitalists have their best interests at heart.

Mona is in attack mode against Bernie Sanders. Then she writes two consecutive sentences that contradict each other: First she writes that, “Bernie Sanders thunders that the U.S. can become a good Scandinavian style socialist paradise—but without the huge taxes on the middle class that supports those systems. (Denmark has the highest taxes in the world.) Sanders may be disillusioned to discover that Scandinavians have thriving private sectors and are in many respects  more business friendly than the United States.”

Wow! So the highest taxes in the world go with thriving private sectors that are in many respects more business friendly than the United States. Mona, what are you saying here? It seems you are telling us that very high taxes needed to pay for good social programs are not a hindrance to thriving private sectors. Glad you agree with Bernie about this!

Then Mona uses some clever gimmicks to show that individual incomes, even if heavily taxed, cannot pay the cost of all of Bernie’s programs. Notice that she doesn’t include business and corporate taxes, just an oversight I’m sure. Nor is there any mention of a wealth tax on the enormous private fortunes some folks have squirreled away.

She points out that some companies previously doing well are now bankrupt and that some people previously rich are not as rich ten years later. “Of those in the lowest quintile in 1996 more than half had moved up ten years later.” Good Heavens! Mona has rediscovered regression to the mean first described by Sir Francis Galton over a hundred years ago. There is more operating here than simple regression: Pick any group of high earners and ten years later many will have retired or partially retired and, as a group, will certainly be earning less money. Income increases with age up to a point and then declines, so low earners questioned ten years later will surely be further along in their earning/income cycle. Only an attorney with no background in statistics or in sociology could find this surprising. Or conclude as Mona seems to, that poor people should just be patient; eventually they’ll be rich!

Factcheck and football, Oct 17^th

The opinion page in the paper today was occupied by a picky Factcheck column pointing out some trivial errors of fact and some equally trivial misrepresentations by the Democratic Presidential candidates in last week’s debates. Hey, well placed exaggerations are just part of the political landscape. We shall ignore these trivia.

 Of greater moment by far is the football game today between Michigan and Michigan State. Both of which, in my very biased estimation, have wildly over-paid coaches. I am no fan of either team and on this day I am faced with the fact that they both can’t lose! Even so at 3:30 I will be watching to see if my tax dollars have been totally wasted.

In honor of the occasion I have prepared a brief lexicon of football terms for those unfamiliar with the game but forced by circumstances to watch it:

Negative yardage: When yards are lost the runner is said to have gained negative yardage. This means that the running back really did run back. Running backs are supposed to run forward. No one knows why they are called running backs instead of running forwards.

Skill player: This term is very irritating to the three-hundred-and-thirty pound linemen who are not considered skill players. Sometimes they then become offensive players.

Pass interference: Your team is not supposed to let a player on the other team catch a pass. The defender is supposed to interfere with the opposing player’s early progress down the field or try to knock the ball away at just the last minute; however, if he knocks his opponent to the ground or trips him, that is against the rules and is not allowed. Certain kinds of pass interference are just fine, other kinds are not; it all depends on which team gives the biggest tips to the referees.

Roughing the quarterback: Defenders are supposed to be rough on their opponent’s quarterback. The whole idea is to scare him so badly that that he never wants to throw the ball, or if he does throw it he will throw it to somebody on your team. However, a three hundred-and-thirty-pound lineman is not allowed to grab the quarterback’s face mask, nor is he allowed to knock the quarterback down after he has thrown the ball. If this happens a major penalty is incurred. The lineman must be sure the referee is ogling the cheerleaders when he commits these offenses. If he can do this and avoid getting caught his value to the team and his scholarship money go up substantially.

Roughing the kicker: If your team member runs into an opponent’s kicker after he punts the ball, that is roughing the kicker and it is a major no-no. Sometimes a player just comes close to the kicker who then falls to the ground grabbing his knee and writhing in pain. This convinces the referee, who has been ogling the cheerleaders again, that a roughing penalty should be called. The better punters, in addition to being former soccer players, were also undergraduate drama majors.

Two point conversion: This is not a religious experience although it’s close. Once a touchdown has been scored the scoring team can elect to take the ball on the other team’s two yard line; if they can get it over the goal in one play they get two points.

Tight end: This is a guy who can either block or run down the field to catch a pass. If he should catch the pass he usually gets hit by several opponents who hope that will make him drop the ball. Tight ends aren’t usually tight although a belt or two before the game greatly helps their outlook.

Pooch kick: Relax SPCA members; no one is kicking a dog. A pooch kick is a low flat trajectory kick that bounces along the ground and is difficult to field

Run out the clock: This doesn’t mean that someone runs onto the field with a clock; it means that a team which is ahead makes only very safe and time consuming plays thus leaving little time left for their opponents to get the ball back and score.

Bootleg: A bootleg occurs when the quarterback pretends to hand the ball off to a running back but instead keeps it himself to deceive the defense. It has nothing to do with the repeal of prohibition.

And finally-- understand that backs are not scalable; a full back cannot be exchanged for four quarter backs…although many coaches hope that rule will change!

No matter who wins, enjoy the game and if you live in AA or East Lansing stay inside this evening, and stay safe!

 

 

 

 

Buchanan once more, Oct 16^th

Pat Buchanan doesn’t want Paul Ryan to become Speaker of the House; this isn’t because he doesn’t like Paul Ryan, but because Ryan can’t reduce the infighting in the Republican controlled house. In addition, Ryan doesn’t appeal to the rebellious house members who want to send home all the illegal immigrants, scuttle the TPP and, in general, change the direction of the country. These far right tea party types do not want to compromise on any of their issues; particularly on immigration where they see Ryan as likely to compromise on a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens.

Buchanan sees a resurgent nationalism world-wide and obviously thinks this is a good thing. Amazing!  Nationalism has been the root of most of the wars over the last several centuries; these wars were either about nationalism or religion. Now Buchanan welcomes a nationalism that pushes to close borders to all immigration, reduce trade and wave jingoistic hatchets at everyone’s nearest neighbor.

He seems to believe that there is some enthusiasm for this point of view. If there is it is hard to find. In the election of 2012 the Republicans took the House of Representatives by 233 to 201, then in 2014 they increased their lead in the House to 247 to 188. That’s a commanding lead and everybody in the country should rejoice, all our problems can now be solved because the Freedom Party is now clearly in charge.

But wait! (As the advertisements say.) If the country is now united behind good old jingoistic tea party isolationist Patrick J. Buchanan, as these Republican House victories seem to indicate, then why do we find the approval rating of Congress still in the cellar,unchanged and continuing to fluctuate at between 75 and 83 percent unfavorable? Surely you would expect some joy in the country about these remarkable conservative victories. You don’t find that of course. We also find no one willing to assume the leadership of these Republicans; most politicians agree it would be a career-ending job.

The tea party favorites aren’t distinguishing themselves in the polls. Senator Cruz comes up with just 10 percent, Senator Rubio doesn’t do quite that well and poor Senator Paul is wandering around with just 3 percent approval. The top spots are held by people who have never been elected to anything; that might be their appeal, but Trump’s appeal might be his showmanship. After all you get to watch a member of the rich and famous and speculate about what wonderful things he will do for you if you will just “sign here.” What could go wrong?

 

Kathleen Parker on “Socialism” Oct 15^th

Kathleen Parker (KP) is not your ordinary far right wing, constantly outraged, commentator of the Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter variety. When she appears on CNN and other talk shows as a commentator she impresses one as an imminently sensible person. Her column today is different. She goes after Bernie Sanders, an “admitted socialist.” She is amazed “because no one running for President today would dare to admit wanting to change the nation’s economic system.” But Bernie Sanders hasn’t said that he wants this country to have a classically socialist economic system. A check of any dictionary will tell you that socialism means the government owns the means of production and distribution. Sanders is pushing for an economic system that no longer concentrates the country’s wealth in fewer and fewer hands. That might sound like socialism to people in whose hands the wealth is concentrated, but it isn’t.

 Parker thinks of this as a capitalistic country but it is not altogether capitalistic. Individuals do not assume all the risks in the production of food. The huge farms and other means of food production are owned by individuals but the government is very helpful when things begin to go sour. There are various price supports, and many other Department of Agriculture assists, that are paid for primarily by the government, and which mitigate the risk of failure. This is also true at the State level; there is advice on everything from forest management to growing tomatoes available from the local state agricultural agent. Many on the right would call any of this socialism.

The distribution system is similar; in this capitalist country the highways are mostly publicly owned and so are the airports. The right would like all roads to be toll roads but that would be a stretch. In addition to the highway system that is publicly owned, so are the National Parks and millions of acres of other public land. What we have in this country is far from pure capitalism much to the dismay of many on the right who would prefer to strangle all these   socialistic leanings. In addition to private ownership of just everything in the country they would like to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Ms. Parker is quite dismissive of Bernie Sanders. She says that Sander’s model, “…is vaguely reminiscent of a 1960s-style commune where everybody was One and nobody was rich or poor and it was, like, far out. If somewhat odiferous.” This personal attack has nothing to do with Sanders position and betrays the fact that Ms. Parker would have been just fourteen years old at the height of the hippy movement in 1965 and knows little about it except what she has read. Her “odiferous” remark is  surprising and beneath her.

 

Charen on prisons. Oct 14^th

Mona Charen has decided that releasing all these drug offenders is a very bad idea. She claims that many of them are repeat offenders who have previously committed violent crimes and are surely a menace to society if they get loose. She provides a generous flow of statistics to bolster her positions. The bottom line is that we lead the world in the percentage of our population we keep in prison.

We have about 700 people per hundred thousand of our population in prison compared to Germany, France and England with less than 150 per hundred thousand of population. Moreover, the sentences here are often very long ones. A second offense marijuana possession can get you life in prison with no prospects for parole. The result of this drive to incarcerate is that here in Michigan we have about 44 thousand prisoners housed, fed, clothed and provided with health care at the taxpayer’s expense. The cost of all that comes to about 2 billion dollars a year. The state spends only about 1.5 billion a year on higher education. (Of course that includes 8 million a year for the new U. of M. football coach. Priorities, priorities!)

What’s happened here? Has the incarceration rate always been this high in Michigan? No, it hasn’t. In 1984 we had a prison population of just 14.6 thousand; then by 2002 it had jumped to 30 thousand. This change was, in large part, due to the efforts of John Engler, a very conservative Michigan governor and his conservative administration. Governor Engler closed three quarters of Michigan’s psychiatric hospitals. This resulted in a considerable saving of state money. His view was that the psychotic patients had been adequately controlled by the variety of new anti-psychotic medications then available. He decided that there was no reason, given the effectiveness of these medications, to have the State of Michigan pay to maintain these patients. So the patients were released and, I presume, told to keep taking their medications.

I doubt that the Governor had much knowledge about the care and feeding of severely psychotic people. The problem in many psychiatric hospitals is to be sure that the patient has, indeed, swallowed his, or her, pills. The aide provides the pill and a glass of water. The patient puts the pill in his mouth and swallows the water but the pill is hidden under his tongue to be spit out as soon as the aide is gone. This is because anti-psychotic medications often have unpleasant side effects which make the patient prefer the psychotic symptoms to the medication’s side effects. So when the patients are released into the community and told to be “sure to take their meds,” they don’t! The final result is that they may become aggressive, succumb to drugs or otherwise run afoul of what we view as civilized society. The outcome is a very predictable increase in the prison population. Most authorities estimate that about 20 percent of our prison population is incarcerated because of mental illness.

Engler wasn’t through; the state parole board managed to release a man who had previously committed four horrendous murders. The result was that Engler abolished the parole board and replaced it with a board populated by reliable conservative politicians. Then he introduced a “Truth in Sentencing Law.” This law required a prisoner to serve the full length of his minimum sentence. If the felon was sentenced to four to six years in prison the prisoner had to serve four years no matter what good behavior he might have shown in prison; no early parole was possible. Guess what that did for the prison population. In addition to swelling their ranks it made prisoners harder to control; early parole could no longer be offered for good behavior.

On balance it seems that the conservatives have done everything they could do to keep a large population under lock and key. And now they scream if someone wants to change the rules and let some of the pot smokers out before they die. Horrors!

 

Eighth Street, Oct 13^th

Most of the time the right wing pundits provide a windmill to charge against but today I’ll look at the city commission of Traverse City and their reaction to feedback on the new Eighth Street look. Eighth Street had been two lanes each way; that was reduced by yellow striping to one lane each way with a middle turn lane and bicycle lanes on each side. This was to be a provisional proposition to see how it would work out and how the public would like it. If it worked then the lanes would be permanently altered by grinding out the asphalt surface to receive the paint.

A survey was required but this wasn’t a scientific survey, there was no random selection of respondents. Even so, 24 hundred people responded to the survey and about 15 hundred of them were unhappy with the new look. For Traverse City that’s a lot of unhappy people. (In most surveys like this unhappy people are much more likely to make their concerns known; just look at the current political situation.) In the last election of the city commission it took only about 2000 votes to assure a win for the candidate. A candidate promising to return Eighth Street to its old look might be a shoe-in in the next election. The current commissioners might keep that in mind.

Then we have an interesting bit of data on the accident rate with the new look. There were 44 percent more accidents and double the number of personal injury accidents. What fun for those drivers’ insurance rates! There goes your accident free insurance discount; thank you commissioners. (I wonder if any commissioners sell automobile insurance.)

Commissioner Gary Howe claimed that these accidents were the result of distracted driving and driving too fast for conditions. How many total automobile accidents don’t involve driving too fast for conditions or the driver distracted by something? The commissioner added that “once the drivers get used to the new conditions the accident rates will go down.” (It’s only been a year; it can take a while.) Then he claimed that “all the literature suggests this would be a safer street.” Would he rather believe the “literature” or his own lying eyes?

In the commissioner’s meeting some changes were suggested but Commissioner Werner asked. “What are we trying to accomplish other than that we are appeasing some people?” If you don’t want to “appease” the people who elected you commissioner, why did you run for office? If it was to impose your views on the citizens you work for you won’t be working for them much longer!

Inconsistent Patrick, Oct 12^th

Patrick Buchanan’s column today reports that the mass murderer at the Umpqua community college was motivated by the lure of publicity. He cites ample evidence that this was, in fact, the killer’s motivation. This is hardly news. Some commentators when describing the event refused to use the killer’s name. They talked about his background and his obvious craving for notoriety but never mentioned his name. Buchanan has no such qualms; he gives us this man’s name about a dozen times in his column. That comes to a mention in a nationally syndicated column about every 65 words. Well, thanks to Buchanan everybody now knows who he was even if they didn’t know, or care, before today.

The Umpqua college shooting was eleven days ago on Oct 1. If some other deranged gun hugger had been following this event looking for publicity he (or she) might well have decided that while the shootings were horrific and got lots of publicity most of the public couldn’t name the shooter himself so why bother. In fact the names of these killers rarely survive for very long after the event. The worst massacre of this sort was at Virginia Tech University where 32 people were killed in 2007. We are eight years past that event but can anyone name who did it? The towns where these killings occur get the publicity, the Boston Bomber, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Sandy Hook shooting and others. We remember the events and identify them by their locations but not by the names of the killers.

Buchanan complains about the killer’s desperation for publicity and then, eleven days after the event, he proceeds to revive the incident, keeping it before the public and giving lots of publicity to the shooter. Didn’t he claim in his column that this same publicity was a driving force in these killings?

He tells us that none of “the innocent dead were carrying a concealed weapon.” He doesn’t tell us that other students nearby were carrying concealed weapons and were told to stay where they were because a SWAT team  was on the way and if they were seen with weapons they would be shot immediately. They listened to that advice. Buchanan never mentions that,  possibly because it doesn’t fit well with his agenda.

The killer grew up in a “…broken family, he was taught in schools from which the Ten Commandments had been ruthlessly expunged.” He also had a gun hugger for a mother. She claimed that she wanted to buy all the guns she could before the government confiscated them. She and her son would go shooting together. My guess is that her influence was a lot more important that the absence of the Ten Commandments from the school system Again, no mention of this curious mother by Buchanan; he’d much rather blame it all on the absence of religious instruction in the public schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has to take a swipe at the gun laws too. He points out that no gun law now in effect could have prevented this killing and he’s right about that.

Investigate-gate, George Will, Oct 11^th

George Will tells us that in his opinion the head of the IRS should be impeached. The IRS has, in the past, been accused of unfairly targeting right wing groups over their tax status. Now it seems that additional sins have been discovered. The problem is one of long standing and George Will believes it now merits outrage because of the recently unearthed email accounts attributable to Ms. Lerner. According to Mr. Will and other likeminded defenders of conservative fundraising organizations, these emails show the IRS director was guilty of malfeasance in office and should be expelled forthwith. Democrats are not so sure. “So, Ms. Lerner’s husband voted for a socialist, she is a Democrat, she supports same-sex marriage, and she apparently doesn’t have a lot of Republican supporters among her family or friends,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “What is all of this supposed to prove?” It proves that the Republicans would much rather investigate than even try to legislate. Investigation requires only a simple majority on a Congressional Committee, legislation requires compromise, and compromise is impossible for Republicans even among themselves let alone between themselves and Democrats.

 The Republicans aren’t having much luck with their investigating committees lately. Kevin McCarthy, was a likely successful candidate for Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency, until he suggested that the incessant hammering by the Benghazi investigating committee began to sabotage Secretary Clinton’s popularity. He was implying that the Benghazi Committee had just that outcome as one of its goals. Imagine a Republican investigating committee trying to sabotage a Democratic Presidential candidate’s chances. That gaffe was a splendid gift to the Clinton campaign. But there’s more! One of the committee investigators was fired and he claims his firing was because he was not sufficiently negative about Secretary Clintons Benghazi activities. The committee has denied the charge and claims the firing was because the investigator was just too hard on the Secretary Clinton. Imagine that, no I can’t either!

Now the Republicans are having trouble finding someone to be Speaker of the House. To get some idea of just how bizarre this has become one pundit suggested, that because you needn’t be elected to the house to be Speaker of the House the Republicans should invite Donald Trump to take the job. It would never work because Trump is too smart to accept it. The embarrassment for the Republicans is that neither Republican faction can do anything at all without Democratic votes. Imagine the Republicans not being to elect a Speaker without the help of the Democrats.

Gun free? Oct 10^th

There has been a fair amount of misinformation about the Oregon College campus as a gun free zone. This misinformation is provided by The National Review and by various leading Republican candidates for the Presidency of the United States: specifically, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and the retired former candidate, Newt Gingrich.

Donald Trump, ever on the lookout for free publicity and always finding it available on Fox News, called in to “Fox and Friends Weekend’ morning program where he gave the audience his opinion, “Everybody was sitting there and there was nothing they could do, not a thing they could do …Wouldn’t they have been better off if somebody in the room, anybody, anybody, had a gun to at least help them out. It was a terrible thing. And these gun free zones are a disaster. Everybody’s just a sitting duck.” He’s half right, no one in the room had a firearm but the school is not “gun free.” The law in Oregon cannot prevent a person with a concealed gun permit from carrying a gun on the campus of any college or university. There are no gun free zones for concealed weapon permit holders in Oregon.

Each of these Republican Presidential hopefuls is trying to be the fiercest gun hugger of them all. The result is all of them are following Donald Trump down the path asserting the improbable and following that by asserting the unbelievable. It happens that there were concealed weapon permit holders on that campus at the time of the shooting. They were in a building nearby and heard the shots, and they were about to go out after the shooter. A college official in the building with them counseled against doing that. He told them that the police had been called and a SWAT team was probably on its way. He reminded them if the SWAT team saw armed civilians running on the campus they would probably be killed before they could identify themselves as “good guys.” The result was that they stayed where they were and later claimed that they got good advice. A similar event happened when Gabby Gifford was shot in Arizona. A permit holder drew his weapon and ran up to the carnage but the man holding the gun had just taken it from the murderer and came within an instant of being shot by the permit holder.

There is no doubt that if several students in that classroom had been armed the carnage might have been reduced. There is also no doubt that if you advertise that an area is a gun free zone you might invite carnage from some psychotic with a grudge. But that is not the issue here. The issue is why these candidates for the Presidency are willing to speak out about a situation they simply don’t understand? That college was not a gun free zone in the usual meaning of the term, yet every one of these prominent politicians was willing to make comments about the situation there that was simply false to fact, comments that fit with their agenda. How can these people be trusted to be truthful about anything? They can’t!

Booking Thomas Sowell Oct 9^th

Thomas Sowell is just a fount of misinformation today. We are told that there are bitter disputes between those who blame genetic differences and those who blame discrimination for the economic and other disparities among our groups. Ah, but Sowell has the answer; “that the groups themselves may differ in their orientations, their priorities and in what they are prepared to sacrifice for the sake of other things.” Of course they do, Dr. Sowell; at issue here is why do they differ? Is it because of genetic differences or because of discrimination? There is always the possibility that this is not an “either or” cause but perhaps both make a contribution and perhaps there are other causes as well. The model here is probably not a simple binomial where the cause must be either “A” or “B.”

Dr. Sowell’s column then wanders off in pursuit of issues involving free libraries and the availability of books. He tells us that even in 18^th century Scotland people of modest means had books or they could rent them. He claims that there is no economic determinism; “People chose what to spend their money on, and what to spend their time on. Cultures differ.”

That’s amazing! Unlike most of the poor of that period these fine Scottish folk had sufficient disposable income to consider where they might spend it. In this country during the depression poor people typically spent all they had for necessities; books could not compete with food and warmth. I guess 18^th century Scotland was different. Good for them.

Sowell tells us about two families who took young relatives into their homes to provide them with a good education. One had an IQ of about 130 but the transfer didn’t work. The kids returned to the ghetto. Sowell tells us nothing about the ages of these youngsters; how much contact they continued to have with their former friends or other relevant information. No human resources professional would find this result at all surprising. Sowell apparently does find it surprising.

 Then Sowell claims that. “The youngster with an IQ two standard deviations above the mean will probably never achieve what a Jewish or Asian youngster with an IQ one standard deviation above the mean achieves.” His evidence for this claim isn’t given. Then, just two sentences later he talks about, “…those celebrating the ghetto culture and the cost of being raised in that culture. And they might reconsider what they are hearing from charlatans parading statistical disparities.” 

 Which charlatan are you talking about here Dr. Sowell?

 

 

Cal Thomas Oct 8^th

Thomas has written two columns in one today; the first part of his column focuses on gun control and why any effort there is worthless, then he segues to the horrors of government waste, fraud and abuse. At least he hasn’t attacked Hillary Clinton for Benghazi or for her email server. Be patient he’ll get to the server eventually but after Kevin McCarthy’s admission of the Benghazi Committee politicizing its investigation I doubt the conservatives want to talk about that.

Thomas says, “Someone intent on killing other human beings will not be deterred by more gun laws. Law breaking is what criminals do; otherwise they would be law abiders…” That statement is absurd. How does Thomas know that more, or more rigorously enforced gun laws, will not slow the killing? He obviously does not. Then he claims that, “…criminals are law breakers otherwise they would be law abiders.” The man who murdered nine students at the Oregon college was “a law abiding citizen” until he wasn’t. This is true of everyone who kills someone; they are all law abiding citizens until they aren’t.

Then Thomas comments on the mentally ill: “The Oregon shooter’s neighbors recognized that there was something a little off about him but no one said anything to authorities.” Well, that should have raised a huge red flag! Imagine the reception at the police station if you tell the desk sergeant that, in your opinion, one of your neighbors seems a “little off.” Who do you think they’ll send for a psychiatric screening?

Thomas wonders if “another law or two or three would have made a significant difference.” Gee Cal, how many additional survivors would it take to make a “significant difference?” If it’s only two or three it probably isn’t worth the effort.

In the next paragraph Thomas suddenly switches to the budget and the economy…I guess he’s finished with all this gun nonsense. He reports that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has found 124 billion dollars in improper payments. Thomas would like us to believe that those erroneous payments are all President Obama’s fault. Then he rails at the president for ignoring, ‘…a record 94.6 million Americans not in the labor force…”  Of course he ignores the fact that these Americans “not in the labor force” includes a very considerable number of retirees, a number of college and university students, a number of mothers whose husbands now earn enough so that they can stay home with their children. If all 94.6 million Americans were in fact out of work and looking for employment our unemployment rate would be about 30 percent! What is his point in siting this curious statistic; it was probably to make the President look bad but instead it makes Cal Thomas look like a fool.

Sowell Oct 7^th

Dr. Thomas Sowell gives us a lesson in very elementary economics. He tells us that if housing demand increases and supply is constrained (by nasty government rules) then the price of housing will go up. He has apparently been traveling through southern California and it is from this region that he draws his examples.

He has noted, as he travels, that there are vast open spaces on which housing could have been constructed except for government restrictions.  He writes that, “More than half the land in San Mateo County is off limits to building…” which means that nearly half the land isn’t off limits to building. He complains that a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco costs $3,500 a month but ignores the fact that a one bedroom apartment in Manhattan costs $5,000 a month. Perhaps if it weren’t for the “self-righteous activists” in Manhattan trying to preserve Central Park, housing prices in Manhattan would come down too. Why not a Levittown where Central Park is now? Why Dr. Sowell is so upset about California housing prices while ignoring the prices in New York City is not clear; perhaps it’s the right wing hostility toward all things Californian.

Building restrictions make available housing more expensive; they also make the housing more desirable, surely Sowell knows this. Most communities have a minimum lot size, there are restrictions on how close you can build to your lot line, there are restrictions on the animals you can house on your property, in most towns you are required to have indoor plumbing. For Sowell these regulations are apparently just the result of “self-righteous activists.” For the rest of us these regulations add to civilized living.

You will note that there is obviously something else that would help people to afford a wider circle of housing prices: an increase in their take home pay! Why are we not surprised that this alternative doesn’t occur to Dr. Sowell?

Mona again Oct 6^th

Mona Charen is very unhappy today; today is consequently not distinguishable from most other days for the poor woman. The cause of Mona’s angst today is the ineptitude of the Republican investigating committees. OK, so far we can agree with her. Their questioning of witnesses seems to be focused primarily on providing air time for the Congressperson doing the questioning. The questioner must be accusatory and belligerent. It is assumed that the person summoned to be questioned is guilty of some grievous sin and without the committee’s probing would surely escape unscathed.

She says that “Putin’s Russia is rushing to fill the power void left by American abdication in the Middle East.” This “abdication” which Charen would like you to think was due to President Obama’s withdrawal of troops was, in fact , agreed to by President Bush in 2003 before he left office. The agreement specified our withdrawal by the end of 2011, and that is just what we did. So we can welcome Russia to this quagmire.

Charen is upset because the Planned Parenthood abortion videos cannot be shown at the “much heralded hearings this week.” The hearings are not much good without those great fake incendiary videos so Charen believes that the committee should have waited to have the hearings until the videos could be shown…and when might that be? Probably not until after the budget Brouhaha, which hinges on defunding PP is all over. Charen has some very pointed criticism for her Republican friend on the committee, “,,,determined to use their five minutes to get five seconds on the evening news…behaved like talk-radio hosts interrupting the witness, shouting and demanding yes-or-no answers…you look like bullies.” These interrogators look like bullies because that’s exactly what they are.

The revelation that Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards makes “nearly” 600 thousand dollars a year Charen counts as a victory. I’m not sure why, the salaries of most non-profit CEOs are readily available on line.  Maybe Ms. Richard’s splendid performance jousting with Congressional bullies (bullies according to Charen) will get her a raise. A second rate university football coach will make more than 600 thousand dollars a year. The top salary paid in most states goes either to the basketball coach (Indiana) or to the football coach (Michigan). Ms. Richards 600 thousand dollar salary is dwarfed by Michigan’s Coach Harbaugh’s 8 million dollars a year.

Ms. Charen asks what happens “…if PP is asked for an abortion because the baby is the wrong race, or the wrong sex, or has a cleft palate?” Those cases will not likely wind up at PP’s doorstep; they’ll be handled by the family doctor’s referral to a good obstetrician. Let me tell you who PPs client is likely to be: She is 37 years old and has seven children already. Her husband works sporadically gets drunk and beats her regularly. She cannot call the police because if he is in jail then what little income he provides would stop.  His religion insists that birth control not be used so she has become pregnant again. Planned Parenthood is her only hope. That, Ms. Charen, is the likely Planned Parenthood client. She comes from a world you know nothing about…and that’s a pity!

Kevin McCarthy Oct 5^th

Today we’ll take a look at the most likely new Speaker of the House. This is the job that Congressman Boehner now holds and plans to resign, with his Congressional membership, at the end of this month. The Speaker of the House is a very important position, partially because the holder of that office becomes President of the United States if some catastrophe kills both the President, and the Vice President. Of course the Speaker’s day job is to get his party’s votes in a row so that appropriate legislation can be passed. He is the leader of the majority party.

Herein lies the problem that John Boehner decided wasn’t solvable: This was what is appropriate legislation? The far right wing of his party thought it was one thing and the somewhat larger middle of the party thought it was something else. The result was that absolutely nothing got passed until the Democrats were willing to vote and pull the Republican chestnuts out of the fire. This embarrassment was more that Boehner was willing to endure so he decided to leave. Who can blame him?

This brings us to Representative Kevin McCarthy; Kevin is next in line for the Speakership, he is the Majority Leader and heir apparent to Speaker Boehner. Some problems have emerged as McCarthy has vaulted into the spotlight. Kevin has a way with words and his way is not pleasing to many of his party members; however it is very pleasing to Democrats as his gaffes have made him a laughing stock; they are bad enough to gain him membership in the clown car of Republican Presidential hopefuls.

His downfall began with an interview by Fox News; perhaps he felt safe there. McCarthy talked about Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers and how quickly they had plummeted once the special Benghazi investigation had gotten underway. It seemed to many listeners that the investigatory committee considered deflating Clinton’s popularity as its primary purpose. McCarthy tried to “walk that back” but he couldn’t. Trey Gowdy, the unsmiling chair of the investigating committee, was quite unhappy. An additional problem for his committee, leading credence to McCarthy’s suggestion of a political witch hunt, is that this group has been investigating Benghazi longer than the committees which investigated Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination or 9/11. But surely they just want the truth.

McCarthy has had some other gaffes as well: he declared that the VA was not providing help to service men “who had fought to the last man.” You get the picture; McCarthy’s larynx seems unconnected to his cortex. Sometimes it is helpful to look at the educational background that produces these problems. McCarthy graduated from California State College at Bakersfield; this is not a distinguished institution, 54 percent of the faculty are part time, the student faculty ratio is 21 to I, the entrance exam scores place 42 percent of entering students about in the bottom quarter of all those taking the test. McCarthy also has an MBA from this same school. Of course even if you attend a lousy school you can still learn a lot; there isn’t much evidence that McCarthy did that. Now there is another challenger for the Speakership; he is Jason Chaffetz and whether he wins or loses he probably loses.

Guns again Oct 4^th

The discussion of what to do about gun deaths in this country has taken a curious turn; the right wing has decided that that laws don’t matter, gun laws that is; certainly private property laws and most other laws matter very much to them. Their logic, with which all of the right wing Presidential candidates agree, is that the current laws don’t seem to be helping so why bother adding to them.

But these aren’t the facts; the facts are that the current laws don’t stop all gun deaths, or even school massacres. Would the death rate from guns be even worse if we had fewer restrictions? We don’t know. That question doesn’t occur to these Presidential candidates. They are quick to point out that the last massacre happened in a gun free school; it wasn’t a gun free school. There are no gun free schools in Oregon because the holder of a concealed permit in that state can take his gun into any school if he wants to, In fact there were several permit holders in that little college when the shootings occurred. They claimed that they were afraid that if they drew their weapons and the SWAT teams arrived they would be taken for the shooter and immediately killed. They were probably right; so much for “the good guy with a gun.”

Most of the public are in favor of background checks although these are routinely bypassed. They will always be bypassed by people who know they can’t pass them and want a weapon anyway. This hardly means that a more rigorous application of the background check concept won’t help. We have laws against drunk driving and we have laws against speeding. We still have both drunk drivers and we have speeders. Many of these lawbreakers are guilty of multiple offenses. If we want to reduce these offenses we need more rigorous enforcement and stiffer penalties. There isn’t much argument about that.

Just because the murderer in Oregon could buy his guns legally is presented by some gun huggers as evidence that background checks aren’t the answer. The obviously won’t stop all such murders; but if we insist on background checks and a waiting period for all gun sales, how many lives will that action need to save before the right wing will believe it was worthwhile? The insanity is that whatever number you pick it won’t be large enough.