I. Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Iran
In a recent campaign stop, Hillary Clinton said that if Iran cheats on the nuclear development agreement, she will not hesitate to take military action on it. A computer simulation estimates three million deaths if the U.S. uses nuclear warheads on Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities. Even if the destruction can be done with the Pentagon's largest conventional weapon, the Daisy Cutter, many will die due to blast effects and radioactive debris thrown into the atmosphere.
Iran has the ability to cause tremendous harm to U.S. interests and would likely launch a crash program to get nuclear weapons if bombed. Iran is also positioned geographically to severely disrupt oil shipments. Overall, another war in the Middle East is not something that the United States needs.
The reason that Iran might want to develop a nuclear weapon is almost certainly the case that it sees it as a deterrent to an attack by the U.S. or Israel. Iran's leaders must know that if Iran were to launch a nuclear warhead against the U.S. or Israel, it would cease to exist as a functioning nation due to the massive retaliatory response.
Finally, it is incongruous that nations with over 16,000 nuclear warheads should have been involved in an agreement to prevent Iran from getting even one.
II. Tom Brady Slips His Penalty
A federal judge has rescinded the four-game suspension imposed on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The judge based his legal ruling on the failure of the National Football League to follow proper procedures in imposing the penalty. The first investigation was headed by attorney Ted Wells, who found that Brady impeded the investigation and probably lied. Commissioner Roger Goodall did the follow-up investigation and sustained a four-game suspension. One of Goodall's major findings was that Brady had his assistant destroy his cellphone a day before he, Brady,was to hand it over. There were an estimated 10,000 messages on the cellphone and some of these messages may have been between Brady and two ball boys who were presumably the ones who deflated footballs below NFL air pressure specifications, but in line with Brady's desires.
The federal judge could have followed a different tact: he could have compared what Brady did to what happens in criminal court trials. Impeding an investigation relates to obstruction of justice, convictions for which usually result in prison time. Lying while under oath is perjury, considered to be a serious offense. Lying to a law enforcement officer while not under oath is considered to be a crime in some legal jurisdictions, such as lying to an FBI agent.
The federal judge was reported to be much impressed by Brady having a poor first half in the championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, when he played with an under-inflated ball, and then having a good second half when playing with a properly inflated ball. Quarterbacks often have very different performances in the two halves of a football game.
That Tom Brady may have played with under-inflated footballs for years is supported by a Wall Street Journal investigation in which its researchers found that the New England Patriots had a far lower fumble rate that other NFL teams. It is easier to retain a grip on an under-inflated football when a running back or a receiver is tackled.
ADDENDUMS:
*Biker Bloodshed - In regard to a shootout among motorcycle gangs in Waco, Texas, which caused many deaths and injuries, Dan Solomon wrote in Texasmonthly.com: "Why isn't anyone calling on white community leaders to denounce the bikers? Where are the condemnations of the biker's parents for raising them to be 'thugs'?" "If black gangs had caused a bloodbath and shot at cops, it wouldn't be perceived as an isolated incident involving only the people who drew their guns?"
The Justice Department estimates that there are more than 300 "outlaw motorcycle gangs" in the country, with the Bandidos among the largest and fiercest. (Source: "Biker bloodshed in Texas," The Week, May 29, 2015.)
*Unused Death Penalty - Austin Sarat in Politico.com (The Week, May 29, 2015) says that eight death penalty states haven't executed anyone in a decade. In the "Noted" section of the same The Week source, it is reported that juries have handed down seventy-four death sentences since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, but only three of those convicted killers have been executed.
*Most Dangerous Jobs - In the same "Noted" section as above, the most dangerous job in the U.S. is identified as commercial fishing, with an average of 132 deaths on the job per 1,00 workers between 2006 and 2013, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Although policing is a dangerous job, it doesn't make the top ten of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Some Takes on Obama's Middle East Policy
"A Major Setback in Iraq," The Week, May 29, 2015 - The Washington Post - "The war-averse commander in chief refuses to allow U.S. troops training Iraqi forces to join them in battle, and will not send special forces behind enemy lines to mark our targets for airstrikes. His reluctance to be 'dragged into another prolonged ground war' is understandable, but Obama's 'universalist policy' is actually prolonging the conflict.'"
BloombergView.com - "But if Shiite troops and militias do the bulk of the fighting -- and commit the atrocities they inflicted on Sunni residents when liberating Tikrit last month -- it could mark the end of any hope for a unified Iraq. That'd leave Iran in a defacto control of Baghdad and the Shiite south; U.S. ally Kurdistan isolated and vulnerable; and the Sunni region a 'potential safe haven for al Qaida."
George Packer, "Dark ;Hour," The New Yorker, July 260, 2015 - "Bush never wanted it (the war on terror) to end and his successor couldn't find the way or the hour." Quantanamo remains open, drone strikes have increased, mass casualty suicide bombings are routine in half a dozen countries, the fighting in Iraq ad Syria has brutally escalated, video-taped beheadings are normal. Much as we want it to be over, the era won't end. The era has generated more shallow certitude than lasting insight, with most commentators too intent on justification or condemnation to explore the harder questions that the conflict raises." "Intervention in Libya created a failed state, a base for jihadists and massive killing." Non-intervention in Syria created much the same conditions as in Libya. "The war on terror turned a crime into a war. It risked eroding institutions put in place after the catastrophe of the Second World War, thereby making it easier for those horrors to happen again."
Surrogate Troop Training to End - The Pentagon announced yesterday that U.S. training of men in the Middle East to fight ISIS in discontinued. Despite a $500 million budget, those trained numbered only in the double digits and in the first encounter the small force broke and ran, leaving their weapons behind.
U.S. experience in training foreign troops to fight in the interest of the U.S. has been an almost unmitigated failure. It didn't work in Lebanon, where President Reagan hoped U.S. Marines would leave behind a friendly militia to help the U.S. cause in Lebanon's chaotic political scene. It didn't work when the U.S. trained Central American fighters at the School for the Americas -- since renamed. The fighters went home and committed many human rights atrocities. It didn't work in South Vietnam when the U.S.-trained South Vietnamese army quickly collapsed before the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regular forces. It didn't work in Iraq, where Iraqi military forces abandoned their military hardware, threw away their uniforms and many were captured by a much smaller ISIS force.
BloombergView.com - "But if Shiite troops and militias do the bulk of the fighting -- and commit the atrocities they inflicted on Sunni residents when liberating Tikrit last month -- it could mark the end of any hope for a unified Iraq. That'd leave Iran in a defacto control of Baghdad and the Shiite south; U.S. ally Kurdistan isolated and vulnerable; and the Sunni region a 'potential safe haven for al Qaida."
George Packer, "Dark ;Hour," The New Yorker, July 260, 2015 - "Bush never wanted it (the war on terror) to end and his successor couldn't find the way or the hour." Quantanamo remains open, drone strikes have increased, mass casualty suicide bombings are routine in half a dozen countries, the fighting in Iraq ad Syria has brutally escalated, video-taped beheadings are normal. Much as we want it to be over, the era won't end. The era has generated more shallow certitude than lasting insight, with most commentators too intent on justification or condemnation to explore the harder questions that the conflict raises." "Intervention in Libya created a failed state, a base for jihadists and massive killing." Non-intervention in Syria created much the same conditions as in Libya. "The war on terror turned a crime into a war. It risked eroding institutions put in place after the catastrophe of the Second World War, thereby making it easier for those horrors to happen again."
Surrogate Troop Training to End - The Pentagon announced yesterday that U.S. training of men in the Middle East to fight ISIS in discontinued. Despite a $500 million budget, those trained numbered only in the double digits and in the first encounter the small force broke and ran, leaving their weapons behind.
U.S. experience in training foreign troops to fight in the interest of the U.S. has been an almost unmitigated failure. It didn't work in Lebanon, where President Reagan hoped U.S. Marines would leave behind a friendly militia to help the U.S. cause in Lebanon's chaotic political scene. It didn't work when the U.S. trained Central American fighters at the School for the Americas -- since renamed. The fighters went home and committed many human rights atrocities. It didn't work in South Vietnam when the U.S.-trained South Vietnamese army quickly collapsed before the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regular forces. It didn't work in Iraq, where Iraqi military forces abandoned their military hardware, threw away their uniforms and many were captured by a much smaller ISIS force.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Euthanasia Hotspots
Wim Distelmans, an oncologist and a professor of palliative medicine at the Free University of Brussels, is known as one of the leading proponents of a 2002 law in Belgium that permits euthanasia for patients who have an incurable illness that causes them unbearable physical or mental suffering. He has put to death more than a hundred patients.
In Belgium, euthanasia is embraced as an emblem of enlightenment and progress, a sign that the country has extricated itself from the Catholic, patriarchal roots. In Oregon and Switzerland, studies have shown that people who request death are less motivated by physical pain than by the desire to remain autonomous. Lawmakers in twenty-three U.S. states have introduced bills that would make it legal for doctors to help people die. Opponents have warned for years that legislation will lead to a "slippery slope," but in Oregon fewer than nine hundred people have used lethal prescriptions since the law was passed and they represent the demographic that is least likely to be coerced: they are overwhelmingly white, educated and well-off. In terminal cases, the two doctors need to confirm that the patient's suffering stems from an incurable illness. For non-terminal cases, three doctors must agree.
Last year, thirteen percent of the Belgiums who were euthanized did not have a terminal illness and roughly three percent suffered from psychiatric disorders. In Belgium, it is not unusual for patients to live in psychiatric institutions for years. Outpatient care is minimal, poorly funded and fragmented, as it is in most countries. [1]
*Battling Health and Hunger - In New Mexico, one in six residents struggle with hunger and New Mexico has one to the highest childhood hunger rates in the nation, according to Feeding America. In Bernilillo County, about sixteen percent of residents do not have access to adequate food to ensure good nutrition. U.S.health care costs resulting from hunger total more than $130.5 billion per year, according to the Center for American Progress.
*Value of Older Workers - "Nearly a quarter-century ago, in 1991, only about 1 worker in 10 planned to stay in the workforce beyond age 65. Today, that number has risen to almost 4 in 10. In 1991, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 30 percent of Americans age 55 or older were working. By 2013, the workforce participation rate for those 58-plus had passed 40 percent, and it's rising steadily." [2]
*Painkiller ODs -- Between 1993 and 2012, the rate of hospitalizations for prescription painkiller overdoses increased five-fold among people 45 to 85 -- much faster than for younger adults, according to data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Chronic pain afflicts an estimated 100 million Americans. [3]
Footnotes
[1] Rachel Aviv, "The Death Treatment," The New Yorker, June 22, 2015.
[2] T.R Reid, "The Value of Older Workers," AARP Bulletin, September 2015.
[3] Peter Jaret, "46 Americans Die Each Day from Painkiller ODs," AARP Bulletin, September 2015.
In Belgium, euthanasia is embraced as an emblem of enlightenment and progress, a sign that the country has extricated itself from the Catholic, patriarchal roots. In Oregon and Switzerland, studies have shown that people who request death are less motivated by physical pain than by the desire to remain autonomous. Lawmakers in twenty-three U.S. states have introduced bills that would make it legal for doctors to help people die. Opponents have warned for years that legislation will lead to a "slippery slope," but in Oregon fewer than nine hundred people have used lethal prescriptions since the law was passed and they represent the demographic that is least likely to be coerced: they are overwhelmingly white, educated and well-off. In terminal cases, the two doctors need to confirm that the patient's suffering stems from an incurable illness. For non-terminal cases, three doctors must agree.
Last year, thirteen percent of the Belgiums who were euthanized did not have a terminal illness and roughly three percent suffered from psychiatric disorders. In Belgium, it is not unusual for patients to live in psychiatric institutions for years. Outpatient care is minimal, poorly funded and fragmented, as it is in most countries. [1]
*Battling Health and Hunger - In New Mexico, one in six residents struggle with hunger and New Mexico has one to the highest childhood hunger rates in the nation, according to Feeding America. In Bernilillo County, about sixteen percent of residents do not have access to adequate food to ensure good nutrition. U.S.health care costs resulting from hunger total more than $130.5 billion per year, according to the Center for American Progress.
*Value of Older Workers - "Nearly a quarter-century ago, in 1991, only about 1 worker in 10 planned to stay in the workforce beyond age 65. Today, that number has risen to almost 4 in 10. In 1991, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 30 percent of Americans age 55 or older were working. By 2013, the workforce participation rate for those 58-plus had passed 40 percent, and it's rising steadily." [2]
*Painkiller ODs -- Between 1993 and 2012, the rate of hospitalizations for prescription painkiller overdoses increased five-fold among people 45 to 85 -- much faster than for younger adults, according to data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Chronic pain afflicts an estimated 100 million Americans. [3]
Footnotes
[1] Rachel Aviv, "The Death Treatment," The New Yorker, June 22, 2015.
[2] T.R Reid, "The Value of Older Workers," AARP Bulletin, September 2015.
[3] Peter Jaret, "46 Americans Die Each Day from Painkiller ODs," AARP Bulletin, September 2015.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Operation Protective Edge and Its Non-Protective Effect
Operation Protective Edge, launched on July 8, 2014, involved 6,000 airstrikes, the firing of almost 50,000 military and tank shells, the killing of over 2,200 Palestinians --- of whom some seventy percent were civilians and over 500 were children -- and the partial or complete demolition of many thousands of Palestinian homes or housing units. Hamas forces in Gaza executed at least twenty-three alleged collaborators. Seventy-one Israelis (including sixty-six soldiers) were killed during the period. [1]
In a February 2015 report, UNICEF estimated that nearly 300,000 children -- approximately one-third of Gaza's youth -- were still in need of psychological and social support six months after the war. The Israeli military demolished twenty schools in Gaza during the war, including eleven kindergartens and 450 other educational facilities damaged. Dr. Elena Arerepanov, a mental-health specialist, described the typical play of Gaza's children: "The children built structures themselves and then destroyed them, and were [playacting] funerals. In most cases, it's a normal way for children who have been exposed to severe trauma to process their experiences." "Without exceptions, everyone surveyed for the CPRA [the Child Protection Rapid Assessment Report], [exhibited] significant changes in behavior. Boys were more likely to demonstrate aggression, while girls were more likely to exhibit general sadness, crying, nightmares, and bed-wetting." The CPRA found that traveling far from home to attend school creates significant post-hostility stress in children. [2]
According to the World Bank, Gaza's unemployment rate -- forty-three percent overall and more than sixty percent for youth -- is one of the highest in the world.
ADDENDUMS:
*Dying Young - "The mortality rate for Americans between fifteen and nineteen years old is nearly twice what it is for those between the ages of one and four, and it's more than three times as high for those ages five to fourteen. The leading cause of death among adolescents today is accidents; this is known as the 'accident bump.' " [3]
"A teen driving driving with other teens in the car, for example, is four times as likely to cause a crash as a teen driving alone." Sixteen-year-olds rate of fatal crashes is three times as high as the rate for drivers eighteen and nineteen. [4]
*U.S. Overseas Military Bases - The United States has about ninety-five percent of the world's foreign military bases. These bases are located in about 160 countries and added to these bases are eleven aircraft carriers, which are, in effect, floating military bases. About 250,000 U.S. troops are based in foreign installations. In 2014, the nation's taxpayers spent about $85 billion on foreign bases.
Rather than maintain these costly bases, the U.S. could preposition supplies or share the use of bases with our allies. The U.S. also has a major airlift capacity to ferry troops and equipment to areas of conflict.
Footnotes
[1] Jen Marlowe, "The Children of Gaza," The Nation, July 20/27, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Elizabeth Kolbert, "The Terrible Teens," The New Yorker, August 31, 2015.
[4] Ibid.
In a February 2015 report, UNICEF estimated that nearly 300,000 children -- approximately one-third of Gaza's youth -- were still in need of psychological and social support six months after the war. The Israeli military demolished twenty schools in Gaza during the war, including eleven kindergartens and 450 other educational facilities damaged. Dr. Elena Arerepanov, a mental-health specialist, described the typical play of Gaza's children: "The children built structures themselves and then destroyed them, and were [playacting] funerals. In most cases, it's a normal way for children who have been exposed to severe trauma to process their experiences." "Without exceptions, everyone surveyed for the CPRA [the Child Protection Rapid Assessment Report], [exhibited] significant changes in behavior. Boys were more likely to demonstrate aggression, while girls were more likely to exhibit general sadness, crying, nightmares, and bed-wetting." The CPRA found that traveling far from home to attend school creates significant post-hostility stress in children. [2]
According to the World Bank, Gaza's unemployment rate -- forty-three percent overall and more than sixty percent for youth -- is one of the highest in the world.
ADDENDUMS:
*Dying Young - "The mortality rate for Americans between fifteen and nineteen years old is nearly twice what it is for those between the ages of one and four, and it's more than three times as high for those ages five to fourteen. The leading cause of death among adolescents today is accidents; this is known as the 'accident bump.' " [3]
"A teen driving driving with other teens in the car, for example, is four times as likely to cause a crash as a teen driving alone." Sixteen-year-olds rate of fatal crashes is three times as high as the rate for drivers eighteen and nineteen. [4]
*U.S. Overseas Military Bases - The United States has about ninety-five percent of the world's foreign military bases. These bases are located in about 160 countries and added to these bases are eleven aircraft carriers, which are, in effect, floating military bases. About 250,000 U.S. troops are based in foreign installations. In 2014, the nation's taxpayers spent about $85 billion on foreign bases.
Rather than maintain these costly bases, the U.S. could preposition supplies or share the use of bases with our allies. The U.S. also has a major airlift capacity to ferry troops and equipment to areas of conflict.
Footnotes
[1] Jen Marlowe, "The Children of Gaza," The Nation, July 20/27, 2015.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Elizabeth Kolbert, "The Terrible Teens," The New Yorker, August 31, 2015.
[4] Ibid.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Overkill in U.S. Medical Facilities and Prisons
Atul Gawande, a doctor who frequently writes for the The New Yorker magazine, said that was got him thinking about medical over-treatment was the study of a million Medicare patients, which suggested that a huge proportion had received care that was simply a waste. "In just a single year, the researchers reported, twenty-five to forty-two percent of Medicare patients received at least one of the twenty-six useless tests and treatment." [1] In 2010, the Institute of Medicine issued a report stating that waste accounted for thirty percent of healthcare spending, or some $750 billion a year, which was more than the entire U.S. budget for K-12 education. [2] The study made the astounding claim that virtually every family in the United States has been subject to over-testing and excessive payment in one form or another.
Dr. Gawande writes that U.S. citizens annually undergo fifteen million nuclear medicine scans, a hundred million CT and MRI scans, and almost ten billion laboratory tests. He cites the CT scans and other forms of imaging that rely on radiation that they are believed to be increasing the population's cancer rates. "Over the past two decades, we've tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven't reduced the death rate at all."
Treatment of back pain is a particular concern of Dr. Gawande: "Nationwide, we spend more money on spinal fusion, for instance, than on any other operation -- thirteen billion in 2011. One study found that between 1997 and 2005 national health-care expenditures for back-pain patients increased by nearly two-thirds, yet population surveys revealed no improvement in the level of back pain reported by patients."
Dr. Gawande cites our piecework payment system, which rewards doctors for the quantity of care provided, regardless of the results, as a key factor. "The system gives ample reward for over-treatment and no reward for eliminating it."
Dr. Gawande's conclusion is that "Waste is not just consuming a third of health-care spending; it's costing people's lives."
The United States, with between four and five percent of the world's population, houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. About 2.3 million U.S. citizens are now incarcerated,. with African-Americans being nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated and Latinos being more than two times as likely to be in prison than whites. Studies have shown that as many as one inmate in five was the victim of sexual assault, by another inmate or by prison staff. [3]
Liberal Democrats have helped .push through harsh prison sentencing: House Speaker Thomas (Tip) O'Neill helped push through the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which imposed mandatory sentences, asset forfeiture and the severe sanctions on crack cocaine. The 1994 crime bill, which among other harsh features, imposed the death sentence on a greater variety of crimes, was introduced by a liberal Delaware, Joe Biden, and championed by Bill Clinton.
There are some hopeful signs that the severity of prison sentencing and its aftermath may be lessened. The idea of restoring voting rights to ex-felons has the support of Senator Rand Paul and Patrick J. Nolan, a conservative who is leading the movement among conservatives to lessen or eliminate mandatory sentencing for victim-less crimes, such as possession of small quantities of prohibited drugs. Knowing that without rehabilitative services in prison, just releasing prisoners or diverting them from prison, would just increase crime, Nolan has insisted that money saved through sentencing reforms must be plowed back into providing services in prison or alternatives to prison.
Nolan would like to see abusive prosecutors lose their licenses; also, he would require the police to videotape interrogations from beginning to end, not just a confession that may have been improperly extracted.
ADDENDUMS:
*Pope Francis on Prison Sentencing - While on a visit to Paraquay earlier this year, Pope Francis heard from an inmate told him how he ended up at the severely over-crowded Palmasola prison -- built for 800 but housing 5,000, with more than four in five still awaiting trial -- and of the " 'judicial terrorism' that lets the wealthy bribe their way to freedom, while the poor languish in squalor." [4]
Pope Francis denounced the widespread abuse of pre-trial detention and called life sentences "hidden death penalties."
*Albuquerque Police Lawsuits - The city of Albuquerque, NM has settled officer lawsuits for $28 million since 2010. The shootings of Ken Ellis III and Christopher Torres resulted in respective settlements of $8 million and $6 million. The fatal shooting of the homeless James Boyd has resulted in a settlement of $5 million. The two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Boyd are now on trial.
*Religion Declines - Pew Research polling .published in May 2015 showed that the number of self-reported Christians dropped by almost eight percent in seven years to 71%. The trend held across various population segments. Those not affiliated with a religion increased from 16 to 23% in seven years. Millennials led the increase, going from 25 to 34% since 2007.
#Cleveland police File Lawsuit - In 2012, thirteen Cleveland police officers were disciplined for their role in the shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams during a pursuit that involved about a third of the Cleveland police on duty. In November 2014, nine of the thirteen filed a federal lawsuit against the city for reverse discrimination, because they were treated more harshly for shooting black people than were black officers who have shot black people -- eight of the officers are white and one is Hispanic. Some of these officers refused to testify in the trial of Michael Brelo, who was acquitted of firing the fatal shots.
Footnotes
[1] Atul Gawende, "Overkill," The New Yorker, May 11, 2015
[2] Ibid.
[3] Bill Keller, "Prison Revolt," The New Yorker, June 29, 2015.
[4] Nicole Winfield and Frank Bajak, "Pope arrives in Paraquay, praises progress," The Albuquerque Journal, July 11, 2015.
Dr. Gawande writes that U.S. citizens annually undergo fifteen million nuclear medicine scans, a hundred million CT and MRI scans, and almost ten billion laboratory tests. He cites the CT scans and other forms of imaging that rely on radiation that they are believed to be increasing the population's cancer rates. "Over the past two decades, we've tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven't reduced the death rate at all."
Treatment of back pain is a particular concern of Dr. Gawande: "Nationwide, we spend more money on spinal fusion, for instance, than on any other operation -- thirteen billion in 2011. One study found that between 1997 and 2005 national health-care expenditures for back-pain patients increased by nearly two-thirds, yet population surveys revealed no improvement in the level of back pain reported by patients."
Dr. Gawande cites our piecework payment system, which rewards doctors for the quantity of care provided, regardless of the results, as a key factor. "The system gives ample reward for over-treatment and no reward for eliminating it."
Dr. Gawande's conclusion is that "Waste is not just consuming a third of health-care spending; it's costing people's lives."
The United States, with between four and five percent of the world's population, houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. About 2.3 million U.S. citizens are now incarcerated,. with African-Americans being nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated and Latinos being more than two times as likely to be in prison than whites. Studies have shown that as many as one inmate in five was the victim of sexual assault, by another inmate or by prison staff. [3]
Liberal Democrats have helped .push through harsh prison sentencing: House Speaker Thomas (Tip) O'Neill helped push through the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which imposed mandatory sentences, asset forfeiture and the severe sanctions on crack cocaine. The 1994 crime bill, which among other harsh features, imposed the death sentence on a greater variety of crimes, was introduced by a liberal Delaware, Joe Biden, and championed by Bill Clinton.
There are some hopeful signs that the severity of prison sentencing and its aftermath may be lessened. The idea of restoring voting rights to ex-felons has the support of Senator Rand Paul and Patrick J. Nolan, a conservative who is leading the movement among conservatives to lessen or eliminate mandatory sentencing for victim-less crimes, such as possession of small quantities of prohibited drugs. Knowing that without rehabilitative services in prison, just releasing prisoners or diverting them from prison, would just increase crime, Nolan has insisted that money saved through sentencing reforms must be plowed back into providing services in prison or alternatives to prison.
Nolan would like to see abusive prosecutors lose their licenses; also, he would require the police to videotape interrogations from beginning to end, not just a confession that may have been improperly extracted.
ADDENDUMS:
*Pope Francis on Prison Sentencing - While on a visit to Paraquay earlier this year, Pope Francis heard from an inmate told him how he ended up at the severely over-crowded Palmasola prison -- built for 800 but housing 5,000, with more than four in five still awaiting trial -- and of the " 'judicial terrorism' that lets the wealthy bribe their way to freedom, while the poor languish in squalor." [4]
Pope Francis denounced the widespread abuse of pre-trial detention and called life sentences "hidden death penalties."
*Albuquerque Police Lawsuits - The city of Albuquerque, NM has settled officer lawsuits for $28 million since 2010. The shootings of Ken Ellis III and Christopher Torres resulted in respective settlements of $8 million and $6 million. The fatal shooting of the homeless James Boyd has resulted in a settlement of $5 million. The two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Boyd are now on trial.
*Religion Declines - Pew Research polling .published in May 2015 showed that the number of self-reported Christians dropped by almost eight percent in seven years to 71%. The trend held across various population segments. Those not affiliated with a religion increased from 16 to 23% in seven years. Millennials led the increase, going from 25 to 34% since 2007.
#Cleveland police File Lawsuit - In 2012, thirteen Cleveland police officers were disciplined for their role in the shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams during a pursuit that involved about a third of the Cleveland police on duty. In November 2014, nine of the thirteen filed a federal lawsuit against the city for reverse discrimination, because they were treated more harshly for shooting black people than were black officers who have shot black people -- eight of the officers are white and one is Hispanic. Some of these officers refused to testify in the trial of Michael Brelo, who was acquitted of firing the fatal shots.
Footnotes
[1] Atul Gawende, "Overkill," The New Yorker, May 11, 2015
[2] Ibid.
[3] Bill Keller, "Prison Revolt," The New Yorker, June 29, 2015.
[4] Nicole Winfield and Frank Bajak, "Pope arrives in Paraquay, praises progress," The Albuquerque Journal, July 11, 2015.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
A Miscellany of Subject Mstter
*The FBI's Take on A-A Literature
The literary historian William Maxwell writes that J.Edgar Hoover was " 'perhaps the most dedicated and influential forgotten critic of African-American literature. The longtime bureau director had a paranoid vision of literature that was simultaneously reverential and disdainful.' " "Hoover had no doubt that blacks were dumber than whites, and so were particularly susceptible to brain-washing by wily Communists promising them racial equality." "Of the 51 writers whose bureau's files Maxwell obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, 27 were on the bureau's Custodial Detention index or one of its offspring." (Source: Peter C. Baker, "Critical Agents," The Nation, May 25, 2015.)
*Four Reasons Jeb Bush May Lose the Hispanic Vote
1;) He opposes President Obama's executive order on immigration. 2.) He supports the position of securing the border first. 3.) He doesn't support a path to citizenship. 4.) He opposes an increase in the minimum wage, which most Hispanics support.
*Cutting Down Texas's Abortion Clinics
In the case of Whole Women's Health v. Lahey, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit appeals court ruled that the state's interest in safeguarding patient safety outweighs the inconvenience to women who must travel long distances to gain access to the procedure. The state law imposes strict building codes for outpatient surgical centers and requires doctors to have local hospital-admitting privileges. It is estimated that the law will shutter all but eight abortion clinics, most clustered in the central and eastern parts of the state.
"Not since Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. The appeals court was also naive in buying into the safety argument, because restricting access to abortion facilities helps bring back the bloody era of back alley and coat hanger abortions.
*NASA Priorities
"We should not supplant the real environmental imperative to preserve the earth with the fantasy of colonizing other planets." It's unlikely that it [Mars] will ever be worth the trip. NASA should turn over its attention to saving the earth rather than leaving it." (Source: Letter to the editor by John Huxhold, The New Yorker, July 20, 2015.)
*Peace Action on Israeli Nukes
Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace and justice organization, has said that the Obama Administration made a choice at the NPT Review Conference: "It chose to put Israel's desire to preserve its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East ahead of the stated goal of strengthening and extending nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation measures." Instead, Peace Action urged the U.S. to: 1.) Work to convene a conference to make the Middle East free of all nuclear weapons of mass destruction; 2.) Initiate negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention to eliminate all nukes worldwide, as required by the NPT's Article VI.; 3.) Cancel funding for the $1 trillion nuclear modernization program.
*Dehorned Cows
Most of the roughly nine million dairy cows in the United States have been dehorned -- to protect handlers and other cows. Scott Fahrenkrug, a professor of animal science, who specializes in precision gene editing, realized it wold be a solution to dehorning to rewrite the corresponding DNA in an embryo of a dairy breed. "Presto! Hornless cows that give a lot of milk." (Source: Kat McGovern, "Good Breeding," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.)
*Digital Media Campaign Ads
Online spots cost a fraction of traditional TV or print ads. Larry Gisdano, who oversaw paid advertising efforts for the 2008 and 2912 Obama campaigns, predicts that the 2016 presidential nominees will likely devote nearly a quarter of their ad-buy budgets to digital media. The Federal Elections Commission's last major overhaul of political advertising rules was in 2012. Currently, the commission does not have the ability to scrutinize how a campaign or any other group spends its money online. (Source: Russ Aroma, "Other Ads Attack," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.)
*Katrina Polling
"Sixty per cent of blacks felt that the response [to Katrina] was slow because of the race of the storm's primary victims, only twelve percent of whites concurred." "Sixty-three of blacks felt that the response was slow because the victims were poor, a sentiment shared by just twenty-one per cent of whites."
"Katrina was a tragedy compounded by ineptitude, for another, it was a casting of a drama that stretched back at least eight decades and suggested that, if the past is prologue, the disaster was not just predictable but possibly inevitable." "The population of New Orleans went from being sixty-seven per cent black, in 2005, to fifty-nine per cent in 2013, which literally changed the color of the electoral politics in the city." (Source: Jelani Cobb, "Race and the Storm," The New Yorker, August 24, 2015.)
The literary historian William Maxwell writes that J.Edgar Hoover was " 'perhaps the most dedicated and influential forgotten critic of African-American literature. The longtime bureau director had a paranoid vision of literature that was simultaneously reverential and disdainful.' " "Hoover had no doubt that blacks were dumber than whites, and so were particularly susceptible to brain-washing by wily Communists promising them racial equality." "Of the 51 writers whose bureau's files Maxwell obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, 27 were on the bureau's Custodial Detention index or one of its offspring." (Source: Peter C. Baker, "Critical Agents," The Nation, May 25, 2015.)
*Four Reasons Jeb Bush May Lose the Hispanic Vote
1;) He opposes President Obama's executive order on immigration. 2.) He supports the position of securing the border first. 3.) He doesn't support a path to citizenship. 4.) He opposes an increase in the minimum wage, which most Hispanics support.
*Cutting Down Texas's Abortion Clinics
In the case of Whole Women's Health v. Lahey, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit appeals court ruled that the state's interest in safeguarding patient safety outweighs the inconvenience to women who must travel long distances to gain access to the procedure. The state law imposes strict building codes for outpatient surgical centers and requires doctors to have local hospital-admitting privileges. It is estimated that the law will shutter all but eight abortion clinics, most clustered in the central and eastern parts of the state.
"Not since Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. The appeals court was also naive in buying into the safety argument, because restricting access to abortion facilities helps bring back the bloody era of back alley and coat hanger abortions.
*NASA Priorities
"We should not supplant the real environmental imperative to preserve the earth with the fantasy of colonizing other planets." It's unlikely that it [Mars] will ever be worth the trip. NASA should turn over its attention to saving the earth rather than leaving it." (Source: Letter to the editor by John Huxhold, The New Yorker, July 20, 2015.)
*Peace Action on Israeli Nukes
Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace and justice organization, has said that the Obama Administration made a choice at the NPT Review Conference: "It chose to put Israel's desire to preserve its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East ahead of the stated goal of strengthening and extending nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation measures." Instead, Peace Action urged the U.S. to: 1.) Work to convene a conference to make the Middle East free of all nuclear weapons of mass destruction; 2.) Initiate negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention to eliminate all nukes worldwide, as required by the NPT's Article VI.; 3.) Cancel funding for the $1 trillion nuclear modernization program.
*Dehorned Cows
Most of the roughly nine million dairy cows in the United States have been dehorned -- to protect handlers and other cows. Scott Fahrenkrug, a professor of animal science, who specializes in precision gene editing, realized it wold be a solution to dehorning to rewrite the corresponding DNA in an embryo of a dairy breed. "Presto! Hornless cows that give a lot of milk." (Source: Kat McGovern, "Good Breeding," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.)
*Digital Media Campaign Ads
Online spots cost a fraction of traditional TV or print ads. Larry Gisdano, who oversaw paid advertising efforts for the 2008 and 2912 Obama campaigns, predicts that the 2016 presidential nominees will likely devote nearly a quarter of their ad-buy budgets to digital media. The Federal Elections Commission's last major overhaul of political advertising rules was in 2012. Currently, the commission does not have the ability to scrutinize how a campaign or any other group spends its money online. (Source: Russ Aroma, "Other Ads Attack," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.)
*Katrina Polling
"Sixty per cent of blacks felt that the response [to Katrina] was slow because of the race of the storm's primary victims, only twelve percent of whites concurred." "Sixty-three of blacks felt that the response was slow because the victims were poor, a sentiment shared by just twenty-one per cent of whites."
"Katrina was a tragedy compounded by ineptitude, for another, it was a casting of a drama that stretched back at least eight decades and suggested that, if the past is prologue, the disaster was not just predictable but possibly inevitable." "The population of New Orleans went from being sixty-seven per cent black, in 2005, to fifty-nine per cent in 2013, which literally changed the color of the electoral politics in the city." (Source: Jelani Cobb, "Race and the Storm," The New Yorker, August 24, 2015.)
Monday, September 21, 2015
The Connection Between Religion and Guns
There is a connection between strength of religious belief and support for gun control laws, the reason for which is hard to fathom. Fifty-seven percent of white evangelical Protestants live in houses with one or more persons owning guns, compared to fifty-five percent for white mainline Protestants and thirty-one percent for Catholics. Jewish persons rank even lower on this gun ownership measure. According to a 2012 survey done by Public Religion Research Institute, only thirty-five percent of white evangelical Protestants and forty-two percent of white mainline Protestants favored the passage of stricter gun control laws, versus sixty-two percent of Catholics and sixty percent of those who professed no religious affiliation. In a 2013 poll by the same organization, seventy-six percent of African-American Protestants; sixty-seven of Catholics; sixty percent of the religiously unaffiliated; and thirty-eight percent of white evangelical Protestants favored stricter gun controls. White mainline Protestant support for stricter gun control jumped to fifty-seven percent, perhaps reflecting the reality that there had been several gun massacres between the two surveys. [1]
Eighty percent of white evangelical Protestants described themselves as pro-life in one of the surveys described above, and there is a belief among some evangelicals that depriving people of "self-defense" guns is the denial of a God-given right. Another reason why white evangelical Protestants may be most opposed to stricter gun control laws among the groups surveyed, is a belief that corrupt, non-Christian values are the problem, not the easy availability of guns. Whatever the reason for white Protestants displaying the lowest levels of support for stricter gun control laws, FBI statistics done on an annual basis show that the South -- where the white Protestant Bible belt is located -- has the highest homicide rate among the regions of the United States.
'
ADDENDUM:
*Armed police in England and Wales fired their weapons only twice during 14,864 operations in 2013-14. Only one person has been killed by armed police in England and Wales in the last four years. In the last twenty-four days of 2014, American police killed more people than police in England and Wales have killed in the last twenty-four years. Contrary to the U.S. practice of arming virtually every police officer, just 209 of the 6,700 officers in the Greater Manchester Police are armed. [2]
Taking population differences into account, people in the United States are 100 times more likely to be shot by the police than British people are. [3]
Footnotes
[1] Lawrence Wittmer, :Guns and the Godly," The Blog, Huffpost, July 12, 2015.
[2] Clancy Sigal, "Bang Bang! You're Not Dead," peaceworker.org, July 23, 2015. (Derived from Washington Post and United Kingdom factoids.)
[3] Ibid.
Eighty percent of white evangelical Protestants described themselves as pro-life in one of the surveys described above, and there is a belief among some evangelicals that depriving people of "self-defense" guns is the denial of a God-given right. Another reason why white evangelical Protestants may be most opposed to stricter gun control laws among the groups surveyed, is a belief that corrupt, non-Christian values are the problem, not the easy availability of guns. Whatever the reason for white Protestants displaying the lowest levels of support for stricter gun control laws, FBI statistics done on an annual basis show that the South -- where the white Protestant Bible belt is located -- has the highest homicide rate among the regions of the United States.
'
ADDENDUM:
*Armed police in England and Wales fired their weapons only twice during 14,864 operations in 2013-14. Only one person has been killed by armed police in England and Wales in the last four years. In the last twenty-four days of 2014, American police killed more people than police in England and Wales have killed in the last twenty-four years. Contrary to the U.S. practice of arming virtually every police officer, just 209 of the 6,700 officers in the Greater Manchester Police are armed. [2]
Taking population differences into account, people in the United States are 100 times more likely to be shot by the police than British people are. [3]
Footnotes
[1] Lawrence Wittmer, :Guns and the Godly," The Blog, Huffpost, July 12, 2015.
[2] Clancy Sigal, "Bang Bang! You're Not Dead," peaceworker.org, July 23, 2015. (Derived from Washington Post and United Kingdom factoids.)
[3] Ibid.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Collecting Taking Prededence Over Serving
Lurking beneath the violence too often found in the interaction between law enforcement and minorities is the fiscal menace of police departments forced to assist city officials in raising revenue. In many cities the police are funding their own salaries -- redirecting the very concept of keeping the peace into underwriting budgets. In the most recent year of full reporting, the Ferguson [MO] Police Department collected $3.1 million in fines and fees, providing almost a quarter of the city's $13 million budget, almost all of it extracted from the poorest African American citizens. In 2014, the Ferguson police force issued 16,000 arrest warrants to three-fourths of the town's total population of 21,000. [1] According to ABC News, in 2013 Ferguson police filed more than 12,000 cases charging ordinance violations -- everything from loitering to petty larceny. Between 2011 and 2013, the U.S. Justice Department reported that ninety-four percent of the people arrested in Ferguson were African American. The Justice Department also reported that the Ferguson police routinely performed "pedestrian checks" in which residents were stopped on the street, often without proper legal justification. [2] (Notably, police logs show that Darren Wilson performed a "pedestrian check" right after the initial confrontation with Michael Brown, furthering my belief that Wilson's story of discovering two possible robbers is a made-up story, which unfortunately, was widely believed.) As hard as it is to believe, when the Justice Department conducted its in investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, seventy-five percent of Ferguson's residents had active outstanding arrest warrants.
In Pagedale, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jennifer Nunn recently calculated a 500 percent increase in petty fines over the last five years. "Pagedale handed out 2,255 citations for these types of offenses last year," Nunn wrote, "or nearly two per household." "Having taxpayers foot a bill of $4,000 to incarcerate a man who owes the state $745 or a woman who owes a predatory lender $425 and removing them from the job force makes no sense in no rational world." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*Police Training - A recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum revealed that cadets usually receive fifty-eight hours of training in firearms, forty-nine in defensive tactics, ten in communication skills and eight in de-escalation tactics. In 2014, Ferguson spent four times as much money on police uniforms as it did on police training. [4]
*Black Rage - "At the very least, the public expression of black rage has allowed communities and people who have felt isolated in their own anger to know that they are not alone." "but the particular brand of black rage that Obama represented was one that united black rage, and its possibilities, altogether." "But even when he's risen to the task, Obama has done so by making the perceived moral failings of black Americans as much a part of that story as racism itself. His rhetoric provides further ammunition for those who believe that black people's anger at racism is unjustified." "Black anger is back, cutting to the core of white supremacy, and demanding that America change." "But a decade later, the resurgence of black rage in the political sphere is finally ready to make America face its racist past and present." [5]
Footnotes
[1] Jack Hitt, "To Collect and Serve," Mother Jones, September/October, 2015.
[2] Jake Halpen, "The Cop," The New Yorker, August 10/17, 2015.
[3] Hitt.
[4] Halpen.
[5] Mychal Denzel Smith, "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People," The Nation, August 31/September 7, 2015.
In Pagedale, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jennifer Nunn recently calculated a 500 percent increase in petty fines over the last five years. "Pagedale handed out 2,255 citations for these types of offenses last year," Nunn wrote, "or nearly two per household." "Having taxpayers foot a bill of $4,000 to incarcerate a man who owes the state $745 or a woman who owes a predatory lender $425 and removing them from the job force makes no sense in no rational world." [3]
ADDENDUMS:
*Police Training - A recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum revealed that cadets usually receive fifty-eight hours of training in firearms, forty-nine in defensive tactics, ten in communication skills and eight in de-escalation tactics. In 2014, Ferguson spent four times as much money on police uniforms as it did on police training. [4]
*Black Rage - "At the very least, the public expression of black rage has allowed communities and people who have felt isolated in their own anger to know that they are not alone." "but the particular brand of black rage that Obama represented was one that united black rage, and its possibilities, altogether." "But even when he's risen to the task, Obama has done so by making the perceived moral failings of black Americans as much a part of that story as racism itself. His rhetoric provides further ammunition for those who believe that black people's anger at racism is unjustified." "Black anger is back, cutting to the core of white supremacy, and demanding that America change." "But a decade later, the resurgence of black rage in the political sphere is finally ready to make America face its racist past and present." [5]
Footnotes
[1] Jack Hitt, "To Collect and Serve," Mother Jones, September/October, 2015.
[2] Jake Halpen, "The Cop," The New Yorker, August 10/17, 2015.
[3] Hitt.
[4] Halpen.
[5] Mychal Denzel Smith, "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People," The Nation, August 31/September 7, 2015.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Uncritical Defense of Police Is Toxic Brew
Defenders of law enforcement officers and agencies who do not propose any changes from the current situation are creating a toxic brew for the nation. The situation they are upholding is the continued use of excessive force by police officers and the support of those abusive officers by other officers. The unwillingness to object to or even lie about abusive behavior by fellow officers goes by such terms as: "The Blue Code," "The Blue Shield," "The Wall of Silence," or "The Thin Blue Line." When officers lie to protect an officer in a criminal court trial, the word for that is "testilying." Those officers who would conceal or willfully lie about improper behavior by fellow officers are not good officers.
When South Charleston, S.C. police officer Michael Slager picked up part of a Taser and carried it back to the fleeing man he had fatally shot to plant it near his body, there was another officer present. Officer Slager was probably very confident that the other officer would not report his planting of evidence. When a Cincinatti, Ohio campus officer shot a motorist to death and claimed he was being dragged by the car, another officer on the scene backed up his story. Although briefly placed on administrative leave, the observing officer has not been charged with obstruction of justice or lying about a material fact in a fatal shooting. A video clearly shows that the shooting officer was not being dragged.
Another attempt to deflect critical examination of law enforcement misbehavior -- toward African-Americans in this instance -- was the attempt by a police official who tried to counter the "Black Lives Matter" movement by replacing it with the slogan of "All lives matter." The trouble with this substitute slogan is that it doesn't have a focus, as does "Black Lives Matter," which has a focus on bringing attention to and changing police behavior toward African-Americans A further problem with this substitute slogan is that it is not indicative of U.S. practice. If we as a nation really believed that ":All lives matter," we wouldn't have caused about two million excess Vietnamese deaths in the long war in Vietnam. If we believed in the new slogan we wouldn't have tortured terrorism suspects, causing the deaths of some of them. If we really believed that "All lives matter," we wouldn't have ended the lives of a million or more Iraqi dead, attributable to the war we started.* If U.S. citizens really believed that "All lives matter," this nation, with between four to five percent of the world's population, wouldn't possess over forty percent of the world's firearms.
*Estimates of Iraqi dead attributable to the U.S. war in Iraq have usually been low balled -- claimed to be 150,000 or less. In my estimation the most reliable estimates are those done by the John Hopkins-Bloomberg survey teams and the recent estimate done by Physicians for Social Responsibility. The second JHB survey, done well before the major fighting in Iraq had ended, arrived at a median figure of +600,000. The JHB survey teams used standard social survey methodology in their work; also, survey members did not go into areas where their lives would have been in the most peril, such as Ambar Province. Thus, this median figure may be an under-estimate.
The estimate of over one million excess deaths in the Iraq War, done by Physicians for Social Responsibility, came out relatively recently, and it represents the work of trained professionals, done over a long period of time.
ADDENDUMS:
*Confidence in Police Polling
A survey of 17,000 New York City residents, ordered by the police commissioner and conducted in May and ;June of 2014, found that 49% of Hispanics held a "somewhat" or "very" negative view of the police, compared with just 17% of whites. A second survey involving a third of New York City's 35,000 officers, revealed that 75% of white officers said they expected fair treatment from their supervisors, compared with half of Latino officers and a third of African-American officers. (Source: Ken Auletta, "Fixing Broken Windows," The New Yorker, September 7, 2015.)
*Broken Windows and Stop-And-Frisk Theory
Former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly defended stop-and-frisk as an essential crime-fighting tool, noting that the police department had twenty-three million citizen contacts and answered twelve million calls per year. He emphasized that there was perhaps "one frisk every two weeks per patrol officer." Josmer Trufillo, a co-founder of New Yorkers Against Bratton -- NYC police commissioner -- contends that broken-windows theory and stop-and-frisk :"have the same ideology." He says: "Broken-windows invites the N.Y.P.D. to go on a fishing expedition." Other critics identify both approaches as racial profiling. (Source: Same as above.)
.
When South Charleston, S.C. police officer Michael Slager picked up part of a Taser and carried it back to the fleeing man he had fatally shot to plant it near his body, there was another officer present. Officer Slager was probably very confident that the other officer would not report his planting of evidence. When a Cincinatti, Ohio campus officer shot a motorist to death and claimed he was being dragged by the car, another officer on the scene backed up his story. Although briefly placed on administrative leave, the observing officer has not been charged with obstruction of justice or lying about a material fact in a fatal shooting. A video clearly shows that the shooting officer was not being dragged.
Another attempt to deflect critical examination of law enforcement misbehavior -- toward African-Americans in this instance -- was the attempt by a police official who tried to counter the "Black Lives Matter" movement by replacing it with the slogan of "All lives matter." The trouble with this substitute slogan is that it doesn't have a focus, as does "Black Lives Matter," which has a focus on bringing attention to and changing police behavior toward African-Americans A further problem with this substitute slogan is that it is not indicative of U.S. practice. If we as a nation really believed that ":All lives matter," we wouldn't have caused about two million excess Vietnamese deaths in the long war in Vietnam. If we believed in the new slogan we wouldn't have tortured terrorism suspects, causing the deaths of some of them. If we really believed that "All lives matter," we wouldn't have ended the lives of a million or more Iraqi dead, attributable to the war we started.* If U.S. citizens really believed that "All lives matter," this nation, with between four to five percent of the world's population, wouldn't possess over forty percent of the world's firearms.
*Estimates of Iraqi dead attributable to the U.S. war in Iraq have usually been low balled -- claimed to be 150,000 or less. In my estimation the most reliable estimates are those done by the John Hopkins-Bloomberg survey teams and the recent estimate done by Physicians for Social Responsibility. The second JHB survey, done well before the major fighting in Iraq had ended, arrived at a median figure of +600,000. The JHB survey teams used standard social survey methodology in their work; also, survey members did not go into areas where their lives would have been in the most peril, such as Ambar Province. Thus, this median figure may be an under-estimate.
The estimate of over one million excess deaths in the Iraq War, done by Physicians for Social Responsibility, came out relatively recently, and it represents the work of trained professionals, done over a long period of time.
ADDENDUMS:
*Confidence in Police Polling
A survey of 17,000 New York City residents, ordered by the police commissioner and conducted in May and ;June of 2014, found that 49% of Hispanics held a "somewhat" or "very" negative view of the police, compared with just 17% of whites. A second survey involving a third of New York City's 35,000 officers, revealed that 75% of white officers said they expected fair treatment from their supervisors, compared with half of Latino officers and a third of African-American officers. (Source: Ken Auletta, "Fixing Broken Windows," The New Yorker, September 7, 2015.)
*Broken Windows and Stop-And-Frisk Theory
Former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly defended stop-and-frisk as an essential crime-fighting tool, noting that the police department had twenty-three million citizen contacts and answered twelve million calls per year. He emphasized that there was perhaps "one frisk every two weeks per patrol officer." Josmer Trufillo, a co-founder of New Yorkers Against Bratton -- NYC police commissioner -- contends that broken-windows theory and stop-and-frisk :"have the same ideology." He says: "Broken-windows invites the N.Y.P.D. to go on a fishing expedition." Other critics identify both approaches as racial profiling. (Source: Same as above.)
.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Kim Davis's "Special Accommodation"
Kim Davis is the county clerk in Kentucky who has refused to approve marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis is one of the three or four county clerks among the 120 Kentucky counties who are refusing to issue marriage licenses on the basis of religious belief. Davis became notable when a video of her refusing to issue a license to a gay couple became, as they say, viral.
Kim Davis was put in jail for failing to follow the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. She was shortly released, after assuring the judge that she would not try to block the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. GOP presidential contenders Mike Huckabee and Sen. Ted Cruz were at the press conference -- arranged by Huckabee -- to allow Davis to celebrate her release from jail.
Kim Davis's attorney said that Davis would not violate her religious convictions but would do her job "good." She would be violating her religious convictions if she issued the marriage licenses and if she has her deputies do the job, she, Davis, would not be performing the full duties of the office to which she was elected. The suggestion made by Mike Huckabee and, perhaps, others, that Davis should be offered another government job raises the question of why someone who has not performed the full duties of her current job should be offered another government job.
Kim Davis is now asking for a "special accommodation" whereby her name and title would not appear on the license application. Davis's office has six deputies, at least one of whom has indicated a willingness to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Nonetheless, Davis continues to insist that such licenses would not be valid.
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas contends that Kim Davis chose the wrong issue for her "martyrdom.." "Amazingbible.org lists more than 600 sins mentioned in the Bible, including adultery, fornication, divorce and lying. If Davis wants to be consistent she would refuse a marriage license for anyone who has sinned, which would limit the number of applications to zero since 'all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' (Romans 3:23)."
Since Kim Davis has had four marriages, one of them a remarriage, her own conduct may be in violation of Biblical strictures. Matthew 5:31 reads as follows: "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 'But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Kim Davis is illustrative of a larger problem, which is to carve out exemptions from laws of general applicability due to religious or even moral beliefs. The state of Indiana created a firestorm when its legislature passed a bill to allow business owners to refuse to provide services to gays and lesbians. Governor Mile Pence had to back down from his adamant vow to sign the bill and the state legislature effectively killed the bill. Other states had passed or were considering bills with similarities in language to the Indiana bill. Besides legislation permitting discrimination to gays and lesbians, pharmacy employees have refused to dispense anything that would facilitate an abortion.
Laws of general applicability should remain laws of general applicability. Carving out exemptions based on religious belief creates a slippery slope and also causes dissension and division in the nation.
Kim Davis was put in jail for failing to follow the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. She was shortly released, after assuring the judge that she would not try to block the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. GOP presidential contenders Mike Huckabee and Sen. Ted Cruz were at the press conference -- arranged by Huckabee -- to allow Davis to celebrate her release from jail.
Kim Davis's attorney said that Davis would not violate her religious convictions but would do her job "good." She would be violating her religious convictions if she issued the marriage licenses and if she has her deputies do the job, she, Davis, would not be performing the full duties of the office to which she was elected. The suggestion made by Mike Huckabee and, perhaps, others, that Davis should be offered another government job raises the question of why someone who has not performed the full duties of her current job should be offered another government job.
Kim Davis is now asking for a "special accommodation" whereby her name and title would not appear on the license application. Davis's office has six deputies, at least one of whom has indicated a willingness to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Nonetheless, Davis continues to insist that such licenses would not be valid.
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas contends that Kim Davis chose the wrong issue for her "martyrdom.." "Amazingbible.org lists more than 600 sins mentioned in the Bible, including adultery, fornication, divorce and lying. If Davis wants to be consistent she would refuse a marriage license for anyone who has sinned, which would limit the number of applications to zero since 'all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' (Romans 3:23)."
Since Kim Davis has had four marriages, one of them a remarriage, her own conduct may be in violation of Biblical strictures. Matthew 5:31 reads as follows: "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 'But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Kim Davis is illustrative of a larger problem, which is to carve out exemptions from laws of general applicability due to religious or even moral beliefs. The state of Indiana created a firestorm when its legislature passed a bill to allow business owners to refuse to provide services to gays and lesbians. Governor Mile Pence had to back down from his adamant vow to sign the bill and the state legislature effectively killed the bill. Other states had passed or were considering bills with similarities in language to the Indiana bill. Besides legislation permitting discrimination to gays and lesbians, pharmacy employees have refused to dispense anything that would facilitate an abortion.
Laws of general applicability should remain laws of general applicability. Carving out exemptions based on religious belief creates a slippery slope and also causes dissension and division in the nation.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Scott Walker Changes Positions More Often Than a Chameleon Changes Colors (continued)
34.) The Walker Health Care Plan
Governor Scott Walker's health care plan seems to have landed with a giant thud, as virtually no positive commentary has been heard about it. Even the Walker camp is not pushing it as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The plan has a number of serious flaws, many of which will be addressed in this blog.
*The plan would eliminate many federal ;mandates and it provides tax credits for the uninsured based on age -- not income nor family status. A tax credit of $900 would be provided for those 17-years-of-age and younger, and $3,000 for people between the ages of 50 though 64. Bill Gates would get a tax credit of $3,000 and a young person in a fast-food place might get a credit of $1,200. Walker's tax credit is too small and is not indexed for inflation -- over a decade, close to a third of its value could be eroded away by inflation. The average deductible for an average plan is now about $2,500.
*Governor :Walker says that no individual need fear being denied coverage, but the catch is that an individual must have maintained continuous, creditable coverage. There is no definition of "maintained," "continuous," "creditable," or even "coverage." If there had been a lapse in coverage, a person could be denied coverage for life.
*Contrary to the ACA, which guarantees that a child may stay on a parent's insurance plan until age 26, the Walker plan is subject to state approval.
*Insurers could impose lifetime caps on payment and annual limits on benefits; also, gender differences in premium payments could reappear.
*Walker hasn't explained how he would pay for the hundreds of billions dollars in increased Medicare spending that wold be triggered by the repeal of the ACA. Since, except for the so-called "Cadillac" tax on high-premium health care insurance plans, all of the ACA taxes would go away with its repeal. Besides the loss of revenue from the loss of ACA taxes, Walker's tax credits would mean a further reduction in income tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the repeal of the ACA would increase the deficit by at least $137 billion over the next decade. Overall, since Walker would shift more of the responsibility for health care to the states, some states may decide not to assume that extra cost burden.
*The Walker health care insurance plan would block-grant Medicaid to the states, meaning that the states could cancel coverage and ration benefits.
*Governor Scott Walker has said that the Affordable Care Act has has made "an already broken system worse." One of the major goals of the ACA was to significantly reduce the number of the uninsured. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the uninsured have been reduced from 14 to 9.2 percent of the U.S. population.
35.) A Miscellany of Scott Walker Items
a.) In 2006, Walker signed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a bill that was denounced at the time by conservatives as amnesty."
b.) Walker also signed a 2002 resolution that called for allowing undocumented working immigrants to obtain legal residency in the U.S.
c.) While being interviewed at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom, Governor Walker refused to answer a question soliciting his position on evolution. It is possible that Walker feared that if he came out in support of evolution, he may have lost the support of Creationists.
Governor Scott Walker's health care plan seems to have landed with a giant thud, as virtually no positive commentary has been heard about it. Even the Walker camp is not pushing it as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The plan has a number of serious flaws, many of which will be addressed in this blog.
*The plan would eliminate many federal ;mandates and it provides tax credits for the uninsured based on age -- not income nor family status. A tax credit of $900 would be provided for those 17-years-of-age and younger, and $3,000 for people between the ages of 50 though 64. Bill Gates would get a tax credit of $3,000 and a young person in a fast-food place might get a credit of $1,200. Walker's tax credit is too small and is not indexed for inflation -- over a decade, close to a third of its value could be eroded away by inflation. The average deductible for an average plan is now about $2,500.
*Governor :Walker says that no individual need fear being denied coverage, but the catch is that an individual must have maintained continuous, creditable coverage. There is no definition of "maintained," "continuous," "creditable," or even "coverage." If there had been a lapse in coverage, a person could be denied coverage for life.
*Contrary to the ACA, which guarantees that a child may stay on a parent's insurance plan until age 26, the Walker plan is subject to state approval.
*Insurers could impose lifetime caps on payment and annual limits on benefits; also, gender differences in premium payments could reappear.
*Walker hasn't explained how he would pay for the hundreds of billions dollars in increased Medicare spending that wold be triggered by the repeal of the ACA. Since, except for the so-called "Cadillac" tax on high-premium health care insurance plans, all of the ACA taxes would go away with its repeal. Besides the loss of revenue from the loss of ACA taxes, Walker's tax credits would mean a further reduction in income tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the repeal of the ACA would increase the deficit by at least $137 billion over the next decade. Overall, since Walker would shift more of the responsibility for health care to the states, some states may decide not to assume that extra cost burden.
*The Walker health care insurance plan would block-grant Medicaid to the states, meaning that the states could cancel coverage and ration benefits.
*Governor Scott Walker has said that the Affordable Care Act has has made "an already broken system worse." One of the major goals of the ACA was to significantly reduce the number of the uninsured. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the uninsured have been reduced from 14 to 9.2 percent of the U.S. population.
35.) A Miscellany of Scott Walker Items
a.) In 2006, Walker signed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a bill that was denounced at the time by conservatives as amnesty."
b.) Walker also signed a 2002 resolution that called for allowing undocumented working immigrants to obtain legal residency in the U.S.
c.) While being interviewed at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom, Governor Walker refused to answer a question soliciting his position on evolution. It is possible that Walker feared that if he came out in support of evolution, he may have lost the support of Creationists.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Scott Walker Changes Positions More Often Than a Chameleon Changes Colors (continued)
28.) Emasculating Open Records Law
Governor Scott Walker created a firestorm when he and GOP legislators proposed to gut Wisconsin's open records law. More than 400 emails opposed to the proposal arrived from both Walker opponents and supporters. The proposal was approved on July 2, 2015 by the legislature's Joint Finance Committee. The changes would have exempted from public scrutiny, government materials considered part of a "deliberative process.' The public would have been blocked from from reviewing nearly all records created by state and local lawmakers and their aides, including electronic communications and the drafting files of legislation.
Governor Walker responded to the angry public reaction by initially telling reporters that he would review the changes; later he said he would work with legislators on unspecified changes; and on July 4, 2015, proposed changes to the open records law were announced as dead.
Walker's complicity in the scheme was confirmed by an email with the subject line of "Governor's Request," written by Michael Gallagher of the Legislative Reference Bureau; Gallagher wrote: "In the interest of expediency, I am going to enter this as a Speaker Vos request and copy David Rabe from the Governor's office on it. I just talked to David. He is fine with proceeding that way. let me know if you want to do it differently. It should go out tomorrow morning." That email was dated June 15, seventeen days before the legislative committee voted on it.
29.) Rewriting the Wisconsin Idea
The Wisconsin State Journal has dissected the effort of Governor Walker and his staff to rewrite the Mission Statement of the University of Wisconsin System. In Walker's 2015-2017 executive budget, the phrase ":the search for truth" and the Wisconsin Idea were removed from the Mission Statement. Walker attributed the language to "a drafting error," "a big mistake," and "no big deal."
Contrary to Governor Walkers evasion of responsibility, his staff provided line-by-line instructions and specific talking points to University of Wisconsin administrators, with whom they were in detailed talks.
The Wisconsin Idea had been the guiding principle for the state's universities for more than a century.
In a report published on May 9, 2015, PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Walker's explanations as "Pants on Fire," their highest rating for a lie.
30.) Mental Health Care Funding
Recently, Hillary Clinton said that if guns were not so readily available, carnage like the shootings of TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward may not have happened. Scott Walker responded that the proper stance is to increase mental health treatment. Since 2001, Walker was one of the Milwaukee County elected officials who cut 200 mental health complex jobs, one in five. The county board blocked Walker's effort to cut fifty additional jobs. These Walker-supported cuts were reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on August 22, 2010.
As reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on November 16, 2009, while Milwaukee County Executive, Walker used his veto power to cut $593,000 for mental health care managers and cut $367,000 and nine jobs for the mental health complex's day treatment program. The county board overrode his veto.In an article on September 19, 2003, the same newspaper as above said of Walker's 2004 budget that it: "trimmed or privatized staffing in mental health and disability programs."
Although county executive Scott Walker once prepared a wish list for stimulus spending from the federal government, he opposed a request from three members of the county board to accept $92.25 million in federal stimulus money to construct a new mental health complex in Milwaukee, as reported in the January 17, 2009 Daily Reporter.
31.) Update on Education Cuts and Tuition Costs
The Greater Wisconsin Committee stated that: "Scott Walker cut school funding more per student than any governor in America." PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the claim as "mostly true." On September 7, 2014, PolitiFact reported that: "Based on the latest census figures for 2011-'12, the Wisconsin cuts were the largest based on two measures -- state revenue provided to local schools and overall spending by schools of state, federal and local money." The reason for the rating of ":mostly true" is based on the finding that Wisconsin was no longer number one in school funding cuts, yet it ranked among the fifteen states that reduced state per-pupil spending from 2013-'14.
Governor Walker's proposed 2015-'17 budget had a cut of $300 million for the University of Wisconsin System and a lesser cut for K-12. Walker has said he thinks he can find a way to restore all of the proposed K-12 funding and reduce the higher education funding cuts. Walker is thus trying to throw the onus of education cuts on the state legislature for cuts that he originally proposed.
The Wisconsin Budget Project says Wisconsin is spending $1,014 less per public school student than it did in 2008.
32.) An Expanded School Voucher Program
In his 2015-'17 budget, Governor Walker raised the cap on the Milwaukee school voucher (or "parental choice") program and proposed the eventual elimination of the cap. Under the raised cap, a married couple with two children can receive a public voucher for private schools if they earn $78,637, well above the median U.S. household income of $52,250. Wisconsin's voucher program, started in 1990, was originally intended as a social mobility ticket for minority students. The Wisconsin legislature wants to eliminate the cap but it proposes to eliminate it over a ten-year period. Of course, eliminating the cap would allow very wealthy families to receive voucher payments for costs that they can easily absorb.
The current voucher program enrolls 26,000 students at an annual cost to the state of $191 million (an average of $7,300 per pupil).It takes $61 million from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Walker has launched new voucher programs for Racine and statewide that will enroll about 3,000 students and cost another $20 million.
Studies have shown that voucher students perform worse than public school students in reading and math. The Wisconsin State Journal recently calculated that $139 million had been lost through failed voucher schools. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has called for more transparency and accountability in voucher schools and an end to for-profit schools participating, but Governor Walker has turned a deaf ear. The U.S. Department of Justice has been looking into numerous complaints that voucher schools were not serving children with disabilities.
Looking at the additional money for voucher schools and the fact that the 2015-'17 calls for at a cut of $127 million in public K-12 education, coupled with another $140 million cut proposed for the next biennial budget, Tony Evers, head of DPI, has said: "The budget sets Wisconsin on the path to delivering a legacy of less for hundreds of thousands of public school kids." (The source for much of the above is: Jonas Persson, "Unprecedented School Voucher Expansion Planned," The Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch, June 22, 2015.)
33.) A Canadian Fence
At a New Hampshire town hall meeting, Governor Scott Walker said; "They have raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up [a fence between the U.S. and Canada] to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that's a legitimate issue for us to look at." He added that "if we're spending millions of dollars on TSA at our airports, if we're spending all sorts of money on port security," then he said that the fence would be another way of protecting ourselves. Walker has doubled down on the idea in tweets.
Governor Walker told Fox News on September 1 that he never said he would consider building a wall. He narrowed it down to one person previously in local law enforcement who raised the idea. He claimed that all he said was that he wanted to "make sure that there's enough staff working with those local law enforcement professionals." The discrepancies in these two accounts are: 1.) he initially said several people raised the issue of a fence; and 2.) he never told Chuck Todd that all he wanted to do was add more staff at the border.
Walker spokeswoman AshLee Strong said: "Despite the attempts of some to put words in his mouth, Gov. Walker wasn't advocating for a wall along our northern border." Note that the Walker team insisted he had a consistent position on the 14th Amendment when he first said he wanted to repeal it; then said he wouldn't touch it; then said there were other provisions for fixing the birthright problem without a repeal, and then at the end of a week or more of changing positions, Walker said he had no position on the 14th Amendment.
Governor Scott Walker created a firestorm when he and GOP legislators proposed to gut Wisconsin's open records law. More than 400 emails opposed to the proposal arrived from both Walker opponents and supporters. The proposal was approved on July 2, 2015 by the legislature's Joint Finance Committee. The changes would have exempted from public scrutiny, government materials considered part of a "deliberative process.' The public would have been blocked from from reviewing nearly all records created by state and local lawmakers and their aides, including electronic communications and the drafting files of legislation.
Governor Walker responded to the angry public reaction by initially telling reporters that he would review the changes; later he said he would work with legislators on unspecified changes; and on July 4, 2015, proposed changes to the open records law were announced as dead.
Walker's complicity in the scheme was confirmed by an email with the subject line of "Governor's Request," written by Michael Gallagher of the Legislative Reference Bureau; Gallagher wrote: "In the interest of expediency, I am going to enter this as a Speaker Vos request and copy David Rabe from the Governor's office on it. I just talked to David. He is fine with proceeding that way. let me know if you want to do it differently. It should go out tomorrow morning." That email was dated June 15, seventeen days before the legislative committee voted on it.
29.) Rewriting the Wisconsin Idea
The Wisconsin State Journal has dissected the effort of Governor Walker and his staff to rewrite the Mission Statement of the University of Wisconsin System. In Walker's 2015-2017 executive budget, the phrase ":the search for truth" and the Wisconsin Idea were removed from the Mission Statement. Walker attributed the language to "a drafting error," "a big mistake," and "no big deal."
Contrary to Governor Walkers evasion of responsibility, his staff provided line-by-line instructions and specific talking points to University of Wisconsin administrators, with whom they were in detailed talks.
The Wisconsin Idea had been the guiding principle for the state's universities for more than a century.
In a report published on May 9, 2015, PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Walker's explanations as "Pants on Fire," their highest rating for a lie.
30.) Mental Health Care Funding
Recently, Hillary Clinton said that if guns were not so readily available, carnage like the shootings of TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward may not have happened. Scott Walker responded that the proper stance is to increase mental health treatment. Since 2001, Walker was one of the Milwaukee County elected officials who cut 200 mental health complex jobs, one in five. The county board blocked Walker's effort to cut fifty additional jobs. These Walker-supported cuts were reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on August 22, 2010.
As reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on November 16, 2009, while Milwaukee County Executive, Walker used his veto power to cut $593,000 for mental health care managers and cut $367,000 and nine jobs for the mental health complex's day treatment program. The county board overrode his veto.In an article on September 19, 2003, the same newspaper as above said of Walker's 2004 budget that it: "trimmed or privatized staffing in mental health and disability programs."
Although county executive Scott Walker once prepared a wish list for stimulus spending from the federal government, he opposed a request from three members of the county board to accept $92.25 million in federal stimulus money to construct a new mental health complex in Milwaukee, as reported in the January 17, 2009 Daily Reporter.
31.) Update on Education Cuts and Tuition Costs
The Greater Wisconsin Committee stated that: "Scott Walker cut school funding more per student than any governor in America." PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the claim as "mostly true." On September 7, 2014, PolitiFact reported that: "Based on the latest census figures for 2011-'12, the Wisconsin cuts were the largest based on two measures -- state revenue provided to local schools and overall spending by schools of state, federal and local money." The reason for the rating of ":mostly true" is based on the finding that Wisconsin was no longer number one in school funding cuts, yet it ranked among the fifteen states that reduced state per-pupil spending from 2013-'14.
Governor Walker's proposed 2015-'17 budget had a cut of $300 million for the University of Wisconsin System and a lesser cut for K-12. Walker has said he thinks he can find a way to restore all of the proposed K-12 funding and reduce the higher education funding cuts. Walker is thus trying to throw the onus of education cuts on the state legislature for cuts that he originally proposed.
The Wisconsin Budget Project says Wisconsin is spending $1,014 less per public school student than it did in 2008.
32.) An Expanded School Voucher Program
In his 2015-'17 budget, Governor Walker raised the cap on the Milwaukee school voucher (or "parental choice") program and proposed the eventual elimination of the cap. Under the raised cap, a married couple with two children can receive a public voucher for private schools if they earn $78,637, well above the median U.S. household income of $52,250. Wisconsin's voucher program, started in 1990, was originally intended as a social mobility ticket for minority students. The Wisconsin legislature wants to eliminate the cap but it proposes to eliminate it over a ten-year period. Of course, eliminating the cap would allow very wealthy families to receive voucher payments for costs that they can easily absorb.
The current voucher program enrolls 26,000 students at an annual cost to the state of $191 million (an average of $7,300 per pupil).It takes $61 million from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Walker has launched new voucher programs for Racine and statewide that will enroll about 3,000 students and cost another $20 million.
Studies have shown that voucher students perform worse than public school students in reading and math. The Wisconsin State Journal recently calculated that $139 million had been lost through failed voucher schools. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has called for more transparency and accountability in voucher schools and an end to for-profit schools participating, but Governor Walker has turned a deaf ear. The U.S. Department of Justice has been looking into numerous complaints that voucher schools were not serving children with disabilities.
Looking at the additional money for voucher schools and the fact that the 2015-'17 calls for at a cut of $127 million in public K-12 education, coupled with another $140 million cut proposed for the next biennial budget, Tony Evers, head of DPI, has said: "The budget sets Wisconsin on the path to delivering a legacy of less for hundreds of thousands of public school kids." (The source for much of the above is: Jonas Persson, "Unprecedented School Voucher Expansion Planned," The Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch, June 22, 2015.)
33.) A Canadian Fence
At a New Hampshire town hall meeting, Governor Scott Walker said; "They have raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up [a fence between the U.S. and Canada] to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that's a legitimate issue for us to look at." He added that "if we're spending millions of dollars on TSA at our airports, if we're spending all sorts of money on port security," then he said that the fence would be another way of protecting ourselves. Walker has doubled down on the idea in tweets.
Governor Walker told Fox News on September 1 that he never said he would consider building a wall. He narrowed it down to one person previously in local law enforcement who raised the idea. He claimed that all he said was that he wanted to "make sure that there's enough staff working with those local law enforcement professionals." The discrepancies in these two accounts are: 1.) he initially said several people raised the issue of a fence; and 2.) he never told Chuck Todd that all he wanted to do was add more staff at the border.
Walker spokeswoman AshLee Strong said: "Despite the attempts of some to put words in his mouth, Gov. Walker wasn't advocating for a wall along our northern border." Note that the Walker team insisted he had a consistent position on the 14th Amendment when he first said he wanted to repeal it; then said he wouldn't touch it; then said there were other provisions for fixing the birthright problem without a repeal, and then at the end of a week or more of changing positions, Walker said he had no position on the 14th Amendment.
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