Selections from Tony Judt, When the Facts Change (New York: Penguin Press, 2015).
"Why the Cold War Worked"
p. 81 "By bringing America into Europe to provide security against further change, the West Europeans assured themselves of the stability and protection required for the reconstruction of their half of the continent." --- "The Soviet Union meanwhile was left to get on with the dictatorial governance of the half of the continent, with the promise of noninterference in return for its abstention from further adventures.--"
"Freedom and Freedonia"
p. 104 "The truly brutal European wars of our century (20th) have been confined to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Nothing in modern American, British, French, Italian, or even Spanish experience can match the traumatic dislocation , the murderous violence, and the sheer sustained sadism of the civil wars in and between Balkan states before 1914, between 1941 and 1948, or since 1991."
"The Road to Nowhere"
p. 111 "We are mesmerized by the raw rhetoric of this 'war on terror': any politician who can convincingly label his domestic or foreign critics as 'terrorists' is guaranteed at least the ear of the American government, and usually something more."
"Israel: The Alternatives"
p. 117 "In this way Israel could remain both Jewish and at least formally democratic: but at the cost of becoming the first modern democracy to conduct full-scale ethnic cleansing as a state project, something which would condemn Israel to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah.: "Washington's unconditional support fro Israel even in spite of (silent) misgivings is the main reason why most of the rest of the world no longer credits our good faith," "With American support, Jerusalem has consistently and blatantly flouted UN resolutions requiring it to withdraw from land seized and occupied in war. Israel is the only Middle Eastern state known to possess genuine and lethal weapons of mass destruction."
"A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy"
p. 127 "We shall see the Iraq war and its catastrophic consequences as not the end of an era that began in the wake of the 1967 war, a period during which American alignment with Israel was shaped by two imperatives: cold-war strategic calculation and a newfound domestic sensitivity to the memory of the Holocaust and the debt owed to its victims and survivors."
"The 'Problem of Evil' in Postwar Europe"
p. 135 "President George W. Bush's 'axis of evil,' a self-serving abuse of the term which has contributed greatly to the cynicism it now elicits." "We are losing the capacity to distinguish between the worst sins and follies of mankind: stupidity, prejudice, opportunism, demagogy, and fanaticism -- and genuine evil." --- p. 136 "The question is what other evils we shall neglect -- or create -- by focusing exclusively upon a single enemy and using it to justify a hundred lesser crimes of our own." --- p. 137 "Today, when Israel is exposed to international criticism for its mistreatment of Palestinians and its occupation of territory conquered in 1967, its defenders prefer to emphasize the memory of the Holocaust."
"Fictions on the Ground"
p. 146 "President Obama faces a choice. He can play along with the Israelis, pretending to believe their promises of good intentions and the significance of the distinctions they offer him. Such a pretense would buy him time and favor with Congress. But the Israelis would be playing him a fool, and he would be seen as one in the Mideast and beyond." --- p. 149 "Israel's exclusive claims upon Jewish identity... reduces all non-Jewish citizens and residents to second-class status." --- p. 152 "Israel finds it difficult to conceive of other ways to respond, other than its habitual resort to force." --- p. 153 "Israel has missed many chances: a 40-year occupation; 3 catastrophic invasions of Lebanon; an invasion of and blockage of Gaza; and a botched attack in international waters."
"What Is to Be Done?"
p. 159 "Why would anyone suppose that the Israel of Mr. Netanyahu will find it in its heart the political will or prudential generosity to leave the Palestinians anything worth having in the far more contentious territories of 'Judea and Samaria?' " --- p. 167 "Thanks to the 'Jewish State's abusive treatment of the Palestinians, the Israel/Palestine imbroglio is the chief proximate cause of he resurgence of anti-semitism worldwide."
"Its Own Worst Enemy"
p. 184 "The United States is often a delinquent international citizen. It is reluctant to join international initiatives or agreements, whether on climate warming, biological warfare, criminal justice, or women's rights; the United States is one of the only two states (the other being Somalia) that have failed to ratify the 1989 Convention on Children's Rights. The present U.S. administration has unsigned the Rome Treaty establishing an International Criminal Court ad has declared itself no longer bound by the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties, which sets up the obligations of states to abide by treaties they have yet to ratify. The American attitude toward the United Nations and agencies is cool, to say the least." --- p. 186 "Bush's account of America's global struggle against the forces of darkness didn't even mention America's allies." --- p. 190 "Fifty-five percent of the world's development aid and two-thirds of all grants-in-aid to the poor and vulnerable nations of the globe come from the European Union. Asa share of GNP, U.S. foreign aid is barely one-third the European average." --- 'Soft power is about influence, example, credibility and reputation." --- p. 192 "There are only 700 Americans currently serving overseas in UN peacekeeping missions (out of a total of 45,000 personnel." --- p. 195 "More than one in five Americans is poor, whereas the figures for continental Western Europe hover around 8 percent." :Fewer than one American in three supports significant redistribution of wealth -- 63 percent of Britons favor it and the figures are higher still on the European continent."
This treatment of of Tony Judt will be continued in a subsequent blog.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
Sam Brownback's Devastated Kansas
Former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback ran for governor of Kansas in 2010 on a radical platform of eliminating the state income tax, reducing funding for public schools, creating judicial elections, and dismantling welfare. Brownback was successful in sharply reducing income tax rates and reducing public education funding. He drove Kansas into such a deep financial hole and angered so many people with his public education cuts, that at an early point in his campaign for re-election in 2014, he trailed his moderate Democratic opponent by ten percentage points in the polls. The dispatch of major Republican surrogates to Kansas and a large infusion of campaign money saved Brownback's bacon but has provided a lot less bacon for Kansas residents.
Early this year there was a report that Kansas was still in a deep financial hole and Kansas faced further reductions in the state income tax based on the original legislation. The share of children who qualify for subsidized school lunches has grown to more than fifty percent for the first time in Kansas's history. [1]
RaDonna Kuekelhan lives in Montgomery County, Kansas, where one in five people live in poverty; also, twenty-two percent of people in Montgomery County are uninsured. RaDonna is in a Catch-22 situation, because as a childless adult she can't quality for state assistance no matter how little she earns. In Kansas, there are an estimated 78,000 people like RaDonna who are caught in a coverage gap: they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid -- fully privatized in Kansas -- under the old rules, but not enough to qualify for private-insurance tax credits. [2]
It is a Brownback bragging point that he has cut the number of people receiving state assistance by more than half. He doesn't, of course, dwell on on how much the quality of life has been reduced for those who have lost state assistance.
ADDENDUMS:
*More on Ben Carson's Views on Firearms - I have previously blogged on how Ben Carson has claimed that if he was in a group of people confronted by a gunman, he would urge everyone to join him in a charge toward the gunman. More recently, Carson has revealed that he once had a man stick a gun against his neck in a convenience store. Carson said he told the gunman that: "I think you want to talk to the man behind the counter." When questioned about this seemingly non-heroic reaction by Wolf Blitzer on his "Situation Room" program, Carson tried to distinguish between the two situations by saying that the convenience store encounter didn't involve a mass shooting, although he couldn't be sure that the man with the gun might be intent on shooting everyone in the store.
Ben Carson has a preventive remedy for mass school shootings: he would arm school teachers -- for some reason he has focused on kindergarten teachers. I believe it was on "The View" that he was asked if all teachers would be given a firearm. He answered that only teachers trained to properly use a firearm would be armed and the firearm would not be left on the desk. Given that these mass shootings in schools have become very frequent and they can occur in any classroom in K-12 schools or in any college or university, it would seem that every teacher and maybe every administrator would need to be armed. Who would foot the bill for this enormous expenditure?
In order to prevent an inquisitive student from finding the firearm and doing harm with it, the weapon would need to be locked in a desk drawer or behind a closet door. While the teacher was fumbling for the key when a gunman burst into the classroom, she/he would likely be the first person shot. The possibility that a teacher might engage in a mass shooting can't be entirely ruled out.
*Jews on Abortion - Ninety-three percent of American Jews believe that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, including ninety-five percent of Jewish Democrats and seventy-seven percent of Jewish Republicans. The Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee prevented Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee from holding a fundraiser there. The Center was apparently pressured by Catholic members from nearby major Catholic institutions.
Footnotes
[1] Kai Wright, "Life and Death in Red America," The Nation, June 22/29, 2015. [2] Ibid.
Early this year there was a report that Kansas was still in a deep financial hole and Kansas faced further reductions in the state income tax based on the original legislation. The share of children who qualify for subsidized school lunches has grown to more than fifty percent for the first time in Kansas's history. [1]
RaDonna Kuekelhan lives in Montgomery County, Kansas, where one in five people live in poverty; also, twenty-two percent of people in Montgomery County are uninsured. RaDonna is in a Catch-22 situation, because as a childless adult she can't quality for state assistance no matter how little she earns. In Kansas, there are an estimated 78,000 people like RaDonna who are caught in a coverage gap: they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid -- fully privatized in Kansas -- under the old rules, but not enough to qualify for private-insurance tax credits. [2]
It is a Brownback bragging point that he has cut the number of people receiving state assistance by more than half. He doesn't, of course, dwell on on how much the quality of life has been reduced for those who have lost state assistance.
ADDENDUMS:
*More on Ben Carson's Views on Firearms - I have previously blogged on how Ben Carson has claimed that if he was in a group of people confronted by a gunman, he would urge everyone to join him in a charge toward the gunman. More recently, Carson has revealed that he once had a man stick a gun against his neck in a convenience store. Carson said he told the gunman that: "I think you want to talk to the man behind the counter." When questioned about this seemingly non-heroic reaction by Wolf Blitzer on his "Situation Room" program, Carson tried to distinguish between the two situations by saying that the convenience store encounter didn't involve a mass shooting, although he couldn't be sure that the man with the gun might be intent on shooting everyone in the store.
Ben Carson has a preventive remedy for mass school shootings: he would arm school teachers -- for some reason he has focused on kindergarten teachers. I believe it was on "The View" that he was asked if all teachers would be given a firearm. He answered that only teachers trained to properly use a firearm would be armed and the firearm would not be left on the desk. Given that these mass shootings in schools have become very frequent and they can occur in any classroom in K-12 schools or in any college or university, it would seem that every teacher and maybe every administrator would need to be armed. Who would foot the bill for this enormous expenditure?
In order to prevent an inquisitive student from finding the firearm and doing harm with it, the weapon would need to be locked in a desk drawer or behind a closet door. While the teacher was fumbling for the key when a gunman burst into the classroom, she/he would likely be the first person shot. The possibility that a teacher might engage in a mass shooting can't be entirely ruled out.
*Jews on Abortion - Ninety-three percent of American Jews believe that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, including ninety-five percent of Jewish Democrats and seventy-seven percent of Jewish Republicans. The Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee prevented Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee from holding a fundraiser there. The Center was apparently pressured by Catholic members from nearby major Catholic institutions.
Footnotes
[1] Kai Wright, "Life and Death in Red America," The Nation, June 22/29, 2015. [2] Ibid.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Reforms That Might Actually Save Police Officer's Lives
Thee have been a number of reforms proposed to bridge the deep and dangerous chasm between law enforcement and the nation's minonties, especially African-Americans. These suggested changes in current practice include: a much wider use of lapel cameras; a greater emphasis on sensitivity and deescalation training; and an expanded use of community policing. Lapel cameras involve a high storage cost for the videos and raise privacy concerns; sensitivity training is often treated as a joke; and community policing has long been advocated but only sporadically employed. What then would I recommend that would help bridge the divide between the police and the citizens they serve, and in the process, save many lives? My recommendations follow:
1.) Institutionalize the Mentally Ill
It was a great mistake when the decision was made to close mental care institutions and let the mentally ill try to survive on the streets or depend on the care of their families. Thus, institutionalizing the mentally ill and providing the resources to properly care for and treat them should be a priority for the U.S. nation. Many of those fatally shot by the police were found to have a mental illness -- a study in Maine found that fifty-nine percent of those fatally shot by police had a mental illness.
2.) Use a Trained Professional on Domestic Dispute Calls
It is either Milwaukee or Madison, Wisconsin that has a ride-along program in which a trained professional rides along on domestic violence police calls. The major drawback in that program is that it doesn't occur during the hours that domestic disputes are most likely to occur. A trained professional is better equipped than are the police to deescalate the dispute before it erupts into fatal violence.
3.) Do a Better Job of Evaluating Recruits
When the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) did its investigation of the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), sparked mostly by the many instances of use of excessive force by the Albuquerque police, the DoJ said a much better job was needed to be done in evaluating the psychological fitness of recruits. In an effort to beef up the numbers of police officers, the APD was hiring officers from other police departments without adequate evaluation of their fitness.
4.) Hire More Women as Police Officers
It is a phenomenon noted in Albuquerque and generally across the nation, that use of excessive force is limited almost solely to males, especially younger officers. Criminologists have noted that if a male hasn't committed a violent act before the age of 35, that person will probably never commit an act of violence; therefore, along with hiring many more female officers, hiring male officers who have experienced more of life might reduce the level of use of excessive force by police
5.) Follow the Constitution
The 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Tennessee v. Garner prohibits shooting in the back a fleeing suspect if the lives of others are not in jeopardy. The Missouri attorney general has admitted that Missouri state law does not follow constitutional law. New York state law makes it a crime to resist a police officer. Thus, Eric Garner would have been committing a crime if he had resisted being choked to death.
6.) Enact Meaningful Gun Control
When gun control is discussed today, it is done in the context of "common-sense" control, including, mostly, background checks and, at the outside, bans on assault rifles and large-size ammunition clips. What is needed, instead, is a ban on the manufacture and importation of handguns and handgun parts. This same ban should be extended to military-style assault rifles and semi-automatic long guns. In order to reduce the inventory of the most dangerous firearms, as described above, there would be a five-year period in which these described weapons could be turned in. A premium of twenty-five percent over the retail price of the firearm would be paid by the national government in the first year and the premium would decrease by five percent each year, resulting in a five percent premium in the fifth year. After the five-year period is over, anyone discovered to possess one of the prohibited firearms should be subject to a stiff fine, say $3,000.
As for ammunition clips, I see no good reason why they should not be limited to a maximum of three bullets.
7.) All Police Officers Don't Routinely Need Firearms
Only 200+ of the 6,000+ officers in the Manchester [England] Police Department are issued firearms. U.S. police officers who have clerical, administrative or communications positions don't routinely need to be issued firearms.
8.) Drastically Change Training Hours Allocations
Generally speaking, police departments assign a lot more training hours to use of firearms than they do to the training on how to deescalate a tense situation. One police department that I have read about but don't remember the name, provided over fifty hours to firearms training and eight to deescalation training. This disparity does not occur only in the training of recruits, but firearms proficiency must be maintained throughout the career of a police officer.
1.) Institutionalize the Mentally Ill
It was a great mistake when the decision was made to close mental care institutions and let the mentally ill try to survive on the streets or depend on the care of their families. Thus, institutionalizing the mentally ill and providing the resources to properly care for and treat them should be a priority for the U.S. nation. Many of those fatally shot by the police were found to have a mental illness -- a study in Maine found that fifty-nine percent of those fatally shot by police had a mental illness.
2.) Use a Trained Professional on Domestic Dispute Calls
It is either Milwaukee or Madison, Wisconsin that has a ride-along program in which a trained professional rides along on domestic violence police calls. The major drawback in that program is that it doesn't occur during the hours that domestic disputes are most likely to occur. A trained professional is better equipped than are the police to deescalate the dispute before it erupts into fatal violence.
3.) Do a Better Job of Evaluating Recruits
When the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) did its investigation of the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), sparked mostly by the many instances of use of excessive force by the Albuquerque police, the DoJ said a much better job was needed to be done in evaluating the psychological fitness of recruits. In an effort to beef up the numbers of police officers, the APD was hiring officers from other police departments without adequate evaluation of their fitness.
4.) Hire More Women as Police Officers
It is a phenomenon noted in Albuquerque and generally across the nation, that use of excessive force is limited almost solely to males, especially younger officers. Criminologists have noted that if a male hasn't committed a violent act before the age of 35, that person will probably never commit an act of violence; therefore, along with hiring many more female officers, hiring male officers who have experienced more of life might reduce the level of use of excessive force by police
5.) Follow the Constitution
The 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Tennessee v. Garner prohibits shooting in the back a fleeing suspect if the lives of others are not in jeopardy. The Missouri attorney general has admitted that Missouri state law does not follow constitutional law. New York state law makes it a crime to resist a police officer. Thus, Eric Garner would have been committing a crime if he had resisted being choked to death.
6.) Enact Meaningful Gun Control
When gun control is discussed today, it is done in the context of "common-sense" control, including, mostly, background checks and, at the outside, bans on assault rifles and large-size ammunition clips. What is needed, instead, is a ban on the manufacture and importation of handguns and handgun parts. This same ban should be extended to military-style assault rifles and semi-automatic long guns. In order to reduce the inventory of the most dangerous firearms, as described above, there would be a five-year period in which these described weapons could be turned in. A premium of twenty-five percent over the retail price of the firearm would be paid by the national government in the first year and the premium would decrease by five percent each year, resulting in a five percent premium in the fifth year. After the five-year period is over, anyone discovered to possess one of the prohibited firearms should be subject to a stiff fine, say $3,000.
As for ammunition clips, I see no good reason why they should not be limited to a maximum of three bullets.
7.) All Police Officers Don't Routinely Need Firearms
Only 200+ of the 6,000+ officers in the Manchester [England] Police Department are issued firearms. U.S. police officers who have clerical, administrative or communications positions don't routinely need to be issued firearms.
8.) Drastically Change Training Hours Allocations
Generally speaking, police departments assign a lot more training hours to use of firearms than they do to the training on how to deescalate a tense situation. One police department that I have read about but don't remember the name, provided over fifty hours to firearms training and eight to deescalation training. This disparity does not occur only in the training of recruits, but firearms proficiency must be maintained throughout the career of a police officer.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Ben Carson Unhinged and a Diminished Scott Walker
I. Ben Carson With His Whole Leg in His Mouth
In his most recent book, "Ave America," Ben Carson writes that agents working against this country's greatness include the political correct police, who use "faux hypersensitivity" to take power away from the majority of Americans. In the book, he writes: "Obama is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." He also writes: "We live in a Gestapo age." Carson has also publicly wondered if Obama might cancel the the election for his second term. Famously or infamously, Ben Carson has unequivocally said he would not vote for a Muslim for president, although, in political parlance, Carson and his staff have tried to "walk back" the statement.
In the wake of the mass killing in an Oregon community college this past week, Carson has said that had he been there he wouldn't have just stood there: he would have told those among him to charge toward the shooter. It is unlikely that those around him and maybe Carson, himself, would have charged toward a gunman's fire, as it would have made them primary targets and increased the chance that they would be killed or seriously injured. An unarmed former U.S. serviceman did charge a shooter and was shot five times.
Carson has used the inane slogan that: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." Without the trigger being pulled, guns, themselves, would not kill anyone. Carson has also criticized President Obama for politicizing gun massacres and made the curious statement that he wouldn't go to the site of the Oregon community college shooting, because he is too busy, but might go to the site of a future firearms massacre. Carson entered the realm of the bizarre when he referred to treating a bullet-mangled body as the body itself not being as important as the defense of the Second Amendment.
II. The Diminished Scott Walker
The Marquette University Law School has periodically polled the favorability rating of Governor Scott Walker. About the same time that Walker declared himself as a candidate for President of the United States, Walker had a favorability rating in Wisconsin of 41 percent. Walker is now rated favorably by just 37 percent of polled Wisconsin residents. Given that a Republican governor in Wisconsin would likely have the support of 20 percent from a hard-core Republican base no matter what he/she did as governor, Walker would now have an approval rating from only 17 percent of the remaining 80 percent.
Some of Governor Walker's main achievements are not viewed favorably by polled Wisconsin residents. His cuts in traditional public education and his expansion of voucher schools were opposed by over 70 percent of those polled in the early spring of 2015. Walker not only expanded the number of voucher students in Racine and other parts of the state, but he raised the cap on income to a little over $78,000 to be eligible for a voucher to a private school. The voucher program was originally intended to be a social mobility ladder for low-income minorities. Even Walker's success in making Wisconsin a right-to-work state was supported by only 46 percent of those respondents in the poll cited above. This right-to-work result is somewhat surprising, because when people are polled on whether a person beginning work at a unionized workplace should be required to pay union dues, a majority of respondents customarily oppose such a requirement.
Media commentary on why Walker ended his presidential bid has usually focused on Walker running out of money -- he has been described as burning through a million dollars a month; however, given that Walker entered the campaign with a huge war chest and he could count on the Koch brothers to lavishly fund him if he remained viable, it seems to me to be more accurate that it was his frequent changes of positions on policy issues and/or his refusal to provide a position when questioned about a controversial issue were much more instrumental in forcing him to abandon the race. Although Walker apparently bamboozled a sufficient number of Wisconsin residents to survive three elections for governor, his national performance may have exposed Walker's glaring deficiencies to a significant number of Wisconsin residents.
ADDENDUM:
*Jews on Abortion - According to a recent poll, 93 percent of American Jews believe that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, including 95 percent of Jewish Democrats and 77 percent of Jewish Republicans.
The Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee prevented Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee from holding a fundraiser there. The Center was apparently pressured by Catholic members from nearby major Catholic institutions to block Planned Parenthood.
In his most recent book, "Ave America," Ben Carson writes that agents working against this country's greatness include the political correct police, who use "faux hypersensitivity" to take power away from the majority of Americans. In the book, he writes: "Obama is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." He also writes: "We live in a Gestapo age." Carson has also publicly wondered if Obama might cancel the the election for his second term. Famously or infamously, Ben Carson has unequivocally said he would not vote for a Muslim for president, although, in political parlance, Carson and his staff have tried to "walk back" the statement.
In the wake of the mass killing in an Oregon community college this past week, Carson has said that had he been there he wouldn't have just stood there: he would have told those among him to charge toward the shooter. It is unlikely that those around him and maybe Carson, himself, would have charged toward a gunman's fire, as it would have made them primary targets and increased the chance that they would be killed or seriously injured. An unarmed former U.S. serviceman did charge a shooter and was shot five times.
Carson has used the inane slogan that: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." Without the trigger being pulled, guns, themselves, would not kill anyone. Carson has also criticized President Obama for politicizing gun massacres and made the curious statement that he wouldn't go to the site of the Oregon community college shooting, because he is too busy, but might go to the site of a future firearms massacre. Carson entered the realm of the bizarre when he referred to treating a bullet-mangled body as the body itself not being as important as the defense of the Second Amendment.
II. The Diminished Scott Walker
The Marquette University Law School has periodically polled the favorability rating of Governor Scott Walker. About the same time that Walker declared himself as a candidate for President of the United States, Walker had a favorability rating in Wisconsin of 41 percent. Walker is now rated favorably by just 37 percent of polled Wisconsin residents. Given that a Republican governor in Wisconsin would likely have the support of 20 percent from a hard-core Republican base no matter what he/she did as governor, Walker would now have an approval rating from only 17 percent of the remaining 80 percent.
Some of Governor Walker's main achievements are not viewed favorably by polled Wisconsin residents. His cuts in traditional public education and his expansion of voucher schools were opposed by over 70 percent of those polled in the early spring of 2015. Walker not only expanded the number of voucher students in Racine and other parts of the state, but he raised the cap on income to a little over $78,000 to be eligible for a voucher to a private school. The voucher program was originally intended to be a social mobility ladder for low-income minorities. Even Walker's success in making Wisconsin a right-to-work state was supported by only 46 percent of those respondents in the poll cited above. This right-to-work result is somewhat surprising, because when people are polled on whether a person beginning work at a unionized workplace should be required to pay union dues, a majority of respondents customarily oppose such a requirement.
Media commentary on why Walker ended his presidential bid has usually focused on Walker running out of money -- he has been described as burning through a million dollars a month; however, given that Walker entered the campaign with a huge war chest and he could count on the Koch brothers to lavishly fund him if he remained viable, it seems to me to be more accurate that it was his frequent changes of positions on policy issues and/or his refusal to provide a position when questioned about a controversial issue were much more instrumental in forcing him to abandon the race. Although Walker apparently bamboozled a sufficient number of Wisconsin residents to survive three elections for governor, his national performance may have exposed Walker's glaring deficiencies to a significant number of Wisconsin residents.
ADDENDUM:
*Jews on Abortion - According to a recent poll, 93 percent of American Jews believe that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, including 95 percent of Jewish Democrats and 77 percent of Jewish Republicans.
The Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee prevented Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee from holding a fundraiser there. The Center was apparently pressured by Catholic members from nearby major Catholic institutions to block Planned Parenthood.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Donald Trump's Tax Plan
I. Basics of the Trump Tax Plan
*Tax rates would be 0, 10, 20 and 25 percent.
*The alternative minimum tax eliminated.
*Th marriage penalty eliminated.
*"Carried interest loophole" eliminated.
*40 percent tax on an inheritance over $5.4 million eliminated.
*Businesses and corporations would get a tax rate of 15 percent.
*20 percent tax rate for dividends and capital gains held over a year retained.
*Individuals with incomes of $25,000 or less and families with incomes of $50,000 or less would pay no federal income tax.
*Home mortgage interest and charitable giving deductions are retained but what other deductions and loopholes Trump plans to eliminate are not specified.
II. Revenue Loss
The pro-business Tax Foundation has concluded that the Trump plan would cut taxes by nearly $12 trillion over a decade on a so-called "static" basis, meaning not taking into effect how the tax cuts would increase incentives to work and invest. Conservatively, the Tax Foundation estimates that the Trump plan would cut tax revenue by $10 trillion over ten years. Steve Gill, a tax and accounting professor at San Diego University, says that those earning more than $200,000 a year would pay $400 to $500 billion less in taxes annually.
Donald Trump contends that robust economic growth will make up for the revenue lost through his tax cuts. Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform answers that even the most optimistic estimates of economic growth won't make up the revenue loss from the tax cuts.
When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2010, he also contended that economic growth and elimination of tax breaks would make up for the revenue loss from his proposed tax cuts. The Tax Policy Center (TPC) then responded that even if Romney eliminated all tax breaks for the wealthy, it would not eliminate the revenue loss from his tax cuts. The TPC said the alternative would necessitate the imposition of much higher taxes on the middle class.
III. Other Effects of the Trump Tax Cuts
Nearly 75 million tax filers would pay no federal income tax under the Trump plan, compared to the 67.3 million tax filers (41.4 percent of all tax filers) that the TPC found paid no federal income tax in 2014. The problem with this approach is that it negates the "we're all in this together" spirit and builds resentment in those who do pay federal income tax. Those who would have otherwise paid income taxes would gain an average income increase of $!,000, hardly sufficient to make a significant difference in the standard of living.
The Tax Foundation has illustrated how the Trump tax cuts would increase after-tax income based on economic deciles: a 3% increase for those in the 30 to 40% decile; 8.9% for those in the 80 to 90 % decile; and 14.6% increase for those in the top decile.
As far as the estate inheritance is concerned, easing of the inheritance tax beginning with the two major tax George W. Bush tax cuts resulted in fewer than 5,000 estate tax returns being filed in 2013, compared to 177,000 such filings in 1977. I remember when I was part of a group opposed to a proposal to raise the threshold monetary level of those subject to the estate tax. We couldn't find a single Illinois family farm that would be subject to the tax if the proposal was enacted.
What should be kept firmly in mind in evaluating the Trump tax cut proposal is that, at best, he is only talking in terms of no decrease in revenue to the national government. Given that there is a strong consensus among economists that unless there are huge cuts in national government spending, which are highly unlikely to occur, there will a major run-up in the deficit in the next decade and beyond. Economic growth and further elimination of tax breaks to the wealthy will not be sufficient to balance out the revenue loss already measured in Trump's taxation plan. The retention of the home mortgage and charitable giving deductions, alone, will mean an annual loss of $120 billion in revenue.
*Tax rates would be 0, 10, 20 and 25 percent.
*The alternative minimum tax eliminated.
*Th marriage penalty eliminated.
*"Carried interest loophole" eliminated.
*40 percent tax on an inheritance over $5.4 million eliminated.
*Businesses and corporations would get a tax rate of 15 percent.
*20 percent tax rate for dividends and capital gains held over a year retained.
*Individuals with incomes of $25,000 or less and families with incomes of $50,000 or less would pay no federal income tax.
*Home mortgage interest and charitable giving deductions are retained but what other deductions and loopholes Trump plans to eliminate are not specified.
II. Revenue Loss
The pro-business Tax Foundation has concluded that the Trump plan would cut taxes by nearly $12 trillion over a decade on a so-called "static" basis, meaning not taking into effect how the tax cuts would increase incentives to work and invest. Conservatively, the Tax Foundation estimates that the Trump plan would cut tax revenue by $10 trillion over ten years. Steve Gill, a tax and accounting professor at San Diego University, says that those earning more than $200,000 a year would pay $400 to $500 billion less in taxes annually.
Donald Trump contends that robust economic growth will make up for the revenue lost through his tax cuts. Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform answers that even the most optimistic estimates of economic growth won't make up the revenue loss from the tax cuts.
When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2010, he also contended that economic growth and elimination of tax breaks would make up for the revenue loss from his proposed tax cuts. The Tax Policy Center (TPC) then responded that even if Romney eliminated all tax breaks for the wealthy, it would not eliminate the revenue loss from his tax cuts. The TPC said the alternative would necessitate the imposition of much higher taxes on the middle class.
III. Other Effects of the Trump Tax Cuts
Nearly 75 million tax filers would pay no federal income tax under the Trump plan, compared to the 67.3 million tax filers (41.4 percent of all tax filers) that the TPC found paid no federal income tax in 2014. The problem with this approach is that it negates the "we're all in this together" spirit and builds resentment in those who do pay federal income tax. Those who would have otherwise paid income taxes would gain an average income increase of $!,000, hardly sufficient to make a significant difference in the standard of living.
The Tax Foundation has illustrated how the Trump tax cuts would increase after-tax income based on economic deciles: a 3% increase for those in the 30 to 40% decile; 8.9% for those in the 80 to 90 % decile; and 14.6% increase for those in the top decile.
As far as the estate inheritance is concerned, easing of the inheritance tax beginning with the two major tax George W. Bush tax cuts resulted in fewer than 5,000 estate tax returns being filed in 2013, compared to 177,000 such filings in 1977. I remember when I was part of a group opposed to a proposal to raise the threshold monetary level of those subject to the estate tax. We couldn't find a single Illinois family farm that would be subject to the tax if the proposal was enacted.
What should be kept firmly in mind in evaluating the Trump tax cut proposal is that, at best, he is only talking in terms of no decrease in revenue to the national government. Given that there is a strong consensus among economists that unless there are huge cuts in national government spending, which are highly unlikely to occur, there will a major run-up in the deficit in the next decade and beyond. Economic growth and further elimination of tax breaks to the wealthy will not be sufficient to balance out the revenue loss already measured in Trump's taxation plan. The retention of the home mortgage and charitable giving deductions, alone, will mean an annual loss of $120 billion in revenue.
Friday, October 2, 2015
African-Americans' Changing Attitudes Toward Crime
Kelefa Sauneh's article entitled "Body Count," in the September 14, 2015 issue of The New Yorker is based mostly on a review of what Nelrisi Coates, a writer for The Atlantic magazine, had to say about the changing attitudes of African-Americans toward crime and the response to it. Coates's article, in turn, is focused largely on what Michael Javen Fortner, a professor of urban studies and the author of "Back Select Majority," has to say about African-Americans and crime. Fortner's focus is on New York City in the nineteen-sixties and the early seventies, when crime rates shot up, creating a demand in African-American communities for more police officers, more arrests, more convictions and longer prison sentences.
In 1962, a coalition of civic leaders asked President Kennedy to "mobilize all law-enforcement officers to unleash their collective fangs on dope pushers and smugglers." A 1973 New York Times poll found that about three-quarters of New York City blacks and Puerto Ricans "thought that life without parole was the proper sentence for convicted drug dealers."
The drug laws proposed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and passed by the New York state legislature sharply increased the penalties for various drug crimes: Possession of four ounces of heroin, for instance, would result in a minimum sentence of fifteen years to life. Contrary to what was happening in various African-American communities, where the call was for tougher sentences for convicted criminals, most, if not all African-American legislators did not cast an affirmative vote for the Rockefeller drug laws. As of recent times, the push has been on to significantly lessen the penalties for drug use and possession, because long prison sentences are creating a severe financial strain on New York financial resources.
Professor Fortner wants us to see African-Americans not merely as victims of politics but as active participants in it, too. Although Fortner makes a strong case that African-Americans were once in favor of tough enforcement of laws and stiffer punishment of offenders, the Atlantic writer Nehrisi Coates supplies a corrective. Coates says the term "black-on-black crime" ignores the fact that most violent crime in intraracial, and also obscures the government policies that gave rise to segregated African-American neighborhoods and their higher crime rates.
Coming down to current reality, the Web site calledbypolice.net has been tracking media reports of police shootings since 2013; it finds that blacks are three and a half times as likely as whites to be killed by police.
ADDENDUM: Capital Punishment Errors - The administration of capital punishment is notoriously prone to error. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a hundred and fifty-five death row inmates have been exonerated and it stands to reason that innocent people still face executions.
In 1962, a coalition of civic leaders asked President Kennedy to "mobilize all law-enforcement officers to unleash their collective fangs on dope pushers and smugglers." A 1973 New York Times poll found that about three-quarters of New York City blacks and Puerto Ricans "thought that life without parole was the proper sentence for convicted drug dealers."
The drug laws proposed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and passed by the New York state legislature sharply increased the penalties for various drug crimes: Possession of four ounces of heroin, for instance, would result in a minimum sentence of fifteen years to life. Contrary to what was happening in various African-American communities, where the call was for tougher sentences for convicted criminals, most, if not all African-American legislators did not cast an affirmative vote for the Rockefeller drug laws. As of recent times, the push has been on to significantly lessen the penalties for drug use and possession, because long prison sentences are creating a severe financial strain on New York financial resources.
Professor Fortner wants us to see African-Americans not merely as victims of politics but as active participants in it, too. Although Fortner makes a strong case that African-Americans were once in favor of tough enforcement of laws and stiffer punishment of offenders, the Atlantic writer Nehrisi Coates supplies a corrective. Coates says the term "black-on-black crime" ignores the fact that most violent crime in intraracial, and also obscures the government policies that gave rise to segregated African-American neighborhoods and their higher crime rates.
Coming down to current reality, the Web site calledbypolice.net has been tracking media reports of police shootings since 2013; it finds that blacks are three and a half times as likely as whites to be killed by police.
ADDENDUM: Capital Punishment Errors - The administration of capital punishment is notoriously prone to error. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a hundred and fifty-five death row inmates have been exonerated and it stands to reason that innocent people still face executions.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
High-Stakes Testing Has Gotten Out of Hand
In New Mexico, the state in which I now live, during the end of the school year this past spring, student walkouts were a common thing, because many students did not want to take the state's standardized test. In New Jersey, fifteen percent of high school students chose not to take state tests in the 2014-15 school year; also, in New York state only a few districts reported meeting the ninety-five percent participation rate, the minimum required by federal rules, according to the New York Times. [1]
"Students in American public schools today take more standardized tests than their peers in any other industrialized country. American student performance compared to other nations -- on tests that measure skills and knowledge more broadly defined -- remained flat or declined between 2000 and 2012." Once more, the gap between students from poor and affluent families has widened into a chasm, growing by 40 percent between 1985 and 2001. "Some 40 percent of black and Latino students now are in schools in which 90 to 100 percent of the student body are kids of color." [2] Surveys have consistently shown that the family situation is a better predictor of how well a child will do in school than is any other factor.
The per student funding gap between rich and poor schools doesn't help matters, as it grew forty-four percent in the last decade -- even as the number of needy students has grown. [3]
Cheating by teachers and administrators has become a big problem. Cheating emerged as an explosive national problem with the revelations that both teachers and administrators in the Atlanta .public schools were accused of changing answers on standardized tests and earlier this year, a number of them were given prison time. For the 2011-12 school year, the Government Accountability Office reported that officials in thirty-three states confirmed at least one instance of school staff flat-out cheating. .
Math teacher Joshua Katz told reporter Kristina Rizga that every nine weeks he has to stop whatever his students are doing and make time for the district's benchmark tests measuring student progress toward the big Common Core exam in the spring. A teacher interviewed by Rizga said that collaboration with fellow professionals and mutual accountability is more effective than even test scores and financial bonuses in helping students to grow. Yet today, thirty-five states require teacher evaluations to include test scores as a factor -- and many others have introduced new tests just for that purpose. "By 2009, President Barack Obama used his Race to the Top initiative to .promote using test scores to hire, fire and compensate teachers.
No country has ever turned around its educational achievement by increasing standardized testing, according to research conducted by the Center for Global Development.
Footnotes
;
[1] Kristina Rizga, "Sorry, I'm Not Taking This Test," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.
[2] Ibid.; [3] Ibid.
"Students in American public schools today take more standardized tests than their peers in any other industrialized country. American student performance compared to other nations -- on tests that measure skills and knowledge more broadly defined -- remained flat or declined between 2000 and 2012." Once more, the gap between students from poor and affluent families has widened into a chasm, growing by 40 percent between 1985 and 2001. "Some 40 percent of black and Latino students now are in schools in which 90 to 100 percent of the student body are kids of color." [2] Surveys have consistently shown that the family situation is a better predictor of how well a child will do in school than is any other factor.
The per student funding gap between rich and poor schools doesn't help matters, as it grew forty-four percent in the last decade -- even as the number of needy students has grown. [3]
Cheating by teachers and administrators has become a big problem. Cheating emerged as an explosive national problem with the revelations that both teachers and administrators in the Atlanta .public schools were accused of changing answers on standardized tests and earlier this year, a number of them were given prison time. For the 2011-12 school year, the Government Accountability Office reported that officials in thirty-three states confirmed at least one instance of school staff flat-out cheating. .
Math teacher Joshua Katz told reporter Kristina Rizga that every nine weeks he has to stop whatever his students are doing and make time for the district's benchmark tests measuring student progress toward the big Common Core exam in the spring. A teacher interviewed by Rizga said that collaboration with fellow professionals and mutual accountability is more effective than even test scores and financial bonuses in helping students to grow. Yet today, thirty-five states require teacher evaluations to include test scores as a factor -- and many others have introduced new tests just for that purpose. "By 2009, President Barack Obama used his Race to the Top initiative to .promote using test scores to hire, fire and compensate teachers.
No country has ever turned around its educational achievement by increasing standardized testing, according to research conducted by the Center for Global Development.
Footnotes
;
[1] Kristina Rizga, "Sorry, I'm Not Taking This Test," Mother Jones, September/October 2015.
[2] Ibid.; [3] Ibid.
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