The Bullock Pulpit: Calculated musings of a pragmatic idealist

What's so bad about NATO, anyway?

 I'm writing this while hunkered down in an undisclosed location in downtown Chicago, stockpile of food and gas mask by my side.  Well, maybe not a gas mask.  But seriously, here in Chicago we are bracing for the upcoming NATO summit, which takes place May 20 and 21 at McCormick Place.  The visiting diplomats and dignitaries will bring traffic jams and parking bans, but the greater concern among city officials seems to be protests and protesters.  The topics of these protests are almost as numerous as the number of protesters themselves, but a few of them are actually protesting  against NATO.  But what is their outcry about?

NATO, short for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 as a collective defense system, whereby its member states agreed to mutual defense in response to outside military attack. There are 28 member countries, and an additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, which is a program designed to create trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the former Soviet Union.  The first secretary of NATO stated that its purpose was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".  The member nations first became galvanized during the Korean War, responding to the threat of all Communist countries working together, and they built an integrated military structure under the direction of U.S. supreme commanders.  In 1955, West Germany joined NATO.  In response, the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries signed the Warsaw Pact, and thus the opposing sides of the Cold War.

The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed NATO's main adversary and forced a redefinition of its role.  In 1993, NATO became involved in the Bosnian War, first by enforcing a no-fly zone, then by carrying out air strikes. Its actions helped bring the war to an end, and then NATO deployed a UN-ordered peacekeeping mission in the region to prevent flare-ups of violence. In 1999, NATO led a messier bombing attack on Kosovo, which resulted in heavy civilian casualties, but also caused Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown on Albanians in Kosovo.  The 9/11 attacks caused NATO to invoke for the first time the article in its charter that an attack on one member country is an attack on all. NATO thus became involved in both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in a training role in Iraq and a security role in Afghanistan.  In 2011, NATO intervened in the Libyan civil war by enforcing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone.  In these Middle Eastern conflicts, NATO strikes killed civilians, raising strong opposition and increased distrust in the NATO motives. 

So what's the beef with NATO? Many people opposed to NATO claim that it brings war and misery to everything it touches, and that there isn't even a need for the organization, now that the Cold War has ended.  At the time it was formed, the USSR was a "common enemy" to the member nations, and a collective defense seemed not only a good idea, but a necessary one.  Now that world conflicts no longer focus on the US vs. USSR, and international relationships have become more complex, NATO detractors claim that the conflicts in which it gets involved serve only to endanger soldiers and drain government coffers. European countries have expressed reluctance to continue the mission in Afghanistan, and many have pulled out or will do so soon.  If all 28 countries can't agree to act as one during a time of conflict, what's the point of continuing NATO? Additionally, NATO has been accused of war profiteering, particularly in Libya, where many companies stand to benefit from the "rebuilding" of the ravaged country.

NATO proponents, on the other hand, claim that there are still many ways in which the organization can be relevant in preserving international peace and security.  Some have suggested that NATO work closer to home and focus on threats to security in the trans-Atlantic arena in a more diverse way - cyber, energy, terrorism and infrastructure protection.  However, President Obama has said that the United States, which is the core member of NATO, is shifting its defense policy toward advancing strategic interests in Asia and the Pacific as a "top priority".  That would make NATO at best less relevant, at worst completely pointless.

I don't know which side is right.  What I've read about NATO's evolution on the internet is not enough for me to form an educated opinion. But it is obvious that global relations have changed dramatically since 1949, and it would seem that at the very least, an adjustment in NATO's objectives is in order.  That is part of what will be discussed at the summit.  Will the protesters have any effect on NATO policy?  That remains to be seen, but if nothing else, they will have made my commute a breeze today and on Monday, as local media have scared a good number of workers away from downtown.  It's a small victory, but I'll take it.  I'll use those extra minutes to read up on NATO.  Because if it's this important, we should know what we're dealing with, right? That was a hint, protesters...

 

J.P. Morgan's loss and future regulation

Last Thursday, J.P. Morgan Chase disclosed a $2 billion trading loss, incurred since the beginning of April. The loss came from a trading portfolio designed, ironically, to hedge against the risks the company takes with its own money. London-based employees are largely responsible for the loss, in particular a trader named Bruno Iksil, nicknamed the "London Whale" for a trading position so big that it affected the entire market. In a nutshell, here's what happened.  London is home to J.P. Morgan's "chief investment office", whose duty it is to hedge against the firm's risks.  It effectively acts as an insurance policy on the bank's investments.  Over the past few months, the CIO unit has staked out a very large position in credit default swaps, the same type of instrument that caused so much havoc in 2008.  Iksil essentially bet that corporate debt was becoming less risky as corporations were getting stronger. But he did so in a way that even a tiny hiccup in the index he was trading could be exploited by rival traders, and that is precisely what happened.  Iksil, however, was not a "rogue trader" taking crazy risks on his own, but  acted with the full knowledge and support of the bank and its executives...until after the damage was done.

To add some perspective, the Wall Street Journal says the quarterly loss for the CIO unit as a whole will be more like $800 million, meaning that the unit’s other trades have generated profits greater than $1 billion.  Also, J.P. Morgan as a whole will earn $4 billion this quarter.  Clearly, this loss will not sink J.P. Morgan Chase, but that's not really the point.  A $2 billion loss is a bad day no matter how big one is.  The point is: should a bank that takes commercial loans and gets federal insurance to protect those loans -- banks that you might open a checking account with, like J.P. Morgan Chase -- be allowed to make speculative bets on its own behalf?  If a smaller bank made a similar mistake and lost $2 billion, the Feds would likely have to step in to make sure customers' deposits are available.  Is this an appropriate gamble for a bank be making, or have  bank executives simply not learned any lessons from the 2008 crash?

Some say that this staggering loss is further evidence of the need for the yet-to-be implemented Volcker Rule.  The rule,  named for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law as a way to keep banks from putting federally insured deposits at risk by prohibiting proprietary trading.  Proprietary trading is the part of an investment bank that makes money for its own account, as opposed to making money for its investors.  Investment banks differ from commercial banks in that deposits made to commercial banks are insured by the FDIC.   But now that investment banks have in several cases merged with commercial banks, the line where consumers are put at risk becomes blurred.  But the Volcker law is just a proposal now, so any SEC investigation would focus instead on when bank executives learned about the losses, and what they said to investors.  Federal securities laws prohibit a company from making false or misleading statements that involve material information.  Silence, without a duty to disclose, is not misleading.  But J.P. Morgan was not silent.  In April, CEO Jamie Dimon and CFO Douglas L. Braunstein both commented that they were comfortable with J.P. Morgan's position.  Did those statements give a sense of false security to investors? After the losses came to light, Dimon adjusted his story, claimed that he "didn't have great information" regarding the trades, and that there were "many errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment". So at best, he had no idea what was going on in the CIO office, and no one who could stop the bleeding before it hit $2 billion was aware of it either.  Is this a sign that J.P. Morgan has gotten too big...not too big to fail, but too big for its executives to control?  But breaking up the big banks is a topic for another blog.

Since the financial crash of September 2008, Dimon has fought against any new federal regulations of Wall Street. As recently as last Wednesday, he spoke against them, saying that they would curtail economic growth.  But this incredible loss, which involved the same credit default swaps that caused the 2008 crash, should probably lead him - or at least lead Congress - to rethink the need for regulation.  Indeed, much of J.P. Morgan's recent success has relied on government intervention.  The Federal Reserve helped to facilitate its 2008 takeover of Bear Stearns by taking on $30 billion of Bear's assets.  In 2008, the FDIC started a program allowing banks to issue debt guaranteed by the FDIC.  J.P. Morgan took part in the program and had $40 billion outstanding in late 2009.  And of course, the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac kept their assets from being completely written down.  This is hardly the time for bank executives to declare that they don't need government intervention.  Many of them owe their jobs to the steps taken by the federal government to keep more banks from collapsing.  And to quote Barney Frank, responding last week to the J.P. Morgan loss, “The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today.”

 

 

What a President believes, and why it matters

 Yesterday, in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, President Obama stated that after some thought and discussions with his family, he now supports same-sex marriage.  His statement comes less than a week after both Vice-President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan voiced their endorsement of same-sex marriage, and after the President has said that his position was evolving, so it doesn't come as a huge surprise to many.  The directness of his declaration did come as a bit of a shock; a pleasant one to some, and not so pleasant to others.  Starting at around 2pm Chicago time, Twitter and Facebook began to explode with comments of gratitude, pride, and sheer happiness that the President would take the political risk to express his own view on this issue.  Only a few hours later, the detractors started coming out, as we all knew they would. But why did he say this now, and what will be the ramifications?

First of all, the President in no way indicated that same-sex marriage would become part of his national agenda.  He did say that the issue should be left up to the states to decide, and that he did not support any federal actions on the issue.  Which is as it should be.  Marriage is not - and should not be - a part of  the U.S. Constitution.   Unfortunately, the fact remains that 31 states have banned same-sex marriage.  President Obama's endorsement does not negate any existing laws. Will it make people stop and think, possibly reconsider the fairness of those bans, and start the ball rolling towards repeal?  Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think, and the same holds true for people.  But the short answer is yes, it might do just that.  But for those who fear that Obama is now going to foist same-sex marriage upon the entire United States, relax.  He has no intention of doing so.

Some people are suspicious when President Obama says he has changed his view on same-sex marriage.  Have they never, upon reflection, changed their minds on an issue?  Perhaps the problem is that they have never reflected.  It's perfectly legitimate for a person's opinion to "evolve" on an issue.  It's not flip-flopping; it's called growth, and given how the President said that talking with his family and seeing his gay staffers struggle helped to change his mind, I'm going to take him at his word that he went through that reflection and indeed honestly changed his mind.  Even heads of state are allowed to do that, you know.  

Others are claiming that, sincere or not, the President timed his statement for campaign purposes, in the hopes of gaining support in an election year.  It seems to me that Obama has at least as much to lose as he does to gain by sharing his opinion on such a controversial issue.  If this is really about election year pandering, it's certainly the riskiest kind.  The easy thing to do would have been to keep his mouth shut on this particular explosive topic until after the election, and use another issue for "pandering".   Biden's comments may or may not have forced his hand, but regardless,  this was likely not timed to get votes. 

But let's put politics aside for a moment.  No, really. Here is what it boils down to.  The President of the United States, one of the most powerful people in the world, and definitely one of the people who has the most to lose by speaking out on a controversial issue, has put aside what is politically expedient and spoken from the heart to publicly support same-sex marriage.  That, in the infamous words of  Vice-President Biden, is a big f-ing deal.  And it's pretty cool.  Same-sex marriage advocates should not waste energy worrying about his timing or his motives.  Take this energy and run with it.  Use it to open minds and change laws.  Trickle-down economics may not work, but trickle-down fairness actually stands a chance.

 

Paul Ryan's Medicare plan...could it work?

One of the "highlights" of the Paul Ryan budget plan is his reformation of Medicare.  It's been difficult to get the facts on his plan through all the partisan noise on both sides, so I sat down with Google and decided to figure out exactly how Ryan's Medicare plan would actually work.  Keep in mind that Ryan's budget includes the repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act, aka Obamacare.  This becomes important later on.

The changes to Medicare would apply only to people who are now 54 years old or younger; current beneficiaries and those approaching retirement age would not be affected, meaning that changes wouldn't begin until 2022, when those currently 54 begin to turn 65.  For these new beneficiaries, Medicare would be transformed into an annual "premium support payment" to be used to purchase insurance.  The amount of the payment would be higher for those with greater health needs, and would be adjusted for geographical differences in the cost of health care. Seniors could choose either traditional Medicare or a private health insurance provider. The providers would be part of a health insurance exchange (much like that in the Affordable Care Act, ironically enough) and would theoretically compete for seniors' business, thus keeping costs lower. The premium support payments would go directly from the government to the insurance plan chosen by each individual (so seniors can't cash the check and spend it on riotous living instead of health insurance).

The amount of the annual payment would be based on the second-cheapest plan in each market.  Seniors who wanted a more expensive plan would have to pay the difference out of pocket.  Every year, Medicare and the private insurers would submit bids, and the annual payment would be adjusted based on those bids. Every year, the payment amount would also rise to reflect inflation, and to reflect the fact that most seniors need more health care as they age.  Currently, the payment amount for the average 65-year old under the Ryan plan is projected to be $8000 in 2022, which is the same amount as projected federal per-capita spending under traditional Medicare in 2022.  The program will also be means-tested, so that the richest seniors get a smaller benefit.  The wealthiest  2% of enrollees will receive 30% of the premium support amount. The next wealthiest 6% would receive 50% of the premium support amount, and the remaining 92% of Medicare enrollees will receive the full premium support payment amount.  Also beginning in 2022, the age of eligibility would rise by 2 months every year until it reached 67 by 2033.

Few will dispute that Medicare needs reform. It is clear that, with the growing number of seniors becoming eligible for Medicare, payment of benefits at current levels will become unsustainable.  And I give Paul Ryan grudging kudos for sitting down and coming up with a plan.  But will it work?   The death knell for his plan is that absolutely nothing happens until 2022.  Current projections by Medicare trustees show that Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) will become insolvent in 2024; should nothing else change, after 2024, the Medicare Trust Fund would recieve enough income to pay 87% of anticipated Part A expenses in 2024.  However, this projection relies on the Affordable Healthcare Act remaining law.  Without it, Medicare could run dry as early as 2016.  So Paul Ryan's plan effectively shoots itself in the foot by eliminating the very health care reforms that would keep Medicare solvent until its new iteration would take effect.  So no, by definition, it wouldn't work.  I won't even get into the question of whether the concept of competing health insurers will actually drive down costs for the demographic that uses the most health resources. But I will say that if it gets people thinking about how we will handle Medicare for baby boomers and beyond, then it has served a beneficial purpose.  In other words, it's greatest use is in theory, not in practice.

 

Austerity: coming to the United States?

 Although he would never dare label it as such, Paul Ryan's 2012 budget plan, unveiled last month, is an austerity budget, of the sort passed in several Eurozone countries in the past few years to help reduce their huge deficits.  There are two problems with the United States adopting Ryan's plan.  First, an austerity budget generally includes tax HIKES, which add to revenue and enhance the effect of spending cuts by chipping away at the deficit.  Ryan's budget instead includes tax CUTS, which reduce revenue, and cancel out spending cuts, bringing us to a net deficit reduction of zero.  Second, the steep spending cuts often simply do not work as planned.  Austerity budgets in general tend to depress economic growth, which slows consumer spending and costs jobs, and ultimately causes governments to lose even more money in tax revenues.  Additionally, the cuts disproportionately affect the poorest segments of the population.  The combination results in the unfortunate situation where the country is driven back into recession, and more citizens are in need of social services that are no longer being funded.  The experiences of the United Kingdom and Italy are cases in point.

In the United Kingdom, although deficit reduction is on target since austerity measures were passed a year ago, the economy shrank .2% in the final quarter of 2011, and again in the first quarter of 2012, meaning that Britain is officially in recession, which is one of the greatest dangers of austerity measures.  Despite the shrinking economy new measures were announced by  last week, which will reduce police forces, lower welfare payments, and cut up to half a million public sector jobs.  Prime Minister David Cameron still insists that Britain will continue on the austerity path, and that the country's ability to borrow is more important than anything else.  He also claims - arguably - that spending in the private sector is key to growth, and government must make it easier for the wealthy to unlock their capital.  Time will tell if he is correct, or if the British economy will continue to contract.

In Italy, prime minister Mario Monti took the other path, and decided last week that economic growth was more important than the austerity measures that threatened to plunge the country deeper into recession.  A 30 billion Euro ($39.6 billion) austerity plan rushed through at the end of last year is largely to blame for Italy's recession.  The goal of the shift from austerity to stimulus is to break the austerity-recession-austerity cycle faced by many Eurozone countries. 

After these cautionary tales, now back to the Ryan budget proposal. Under his plan, domestic discretionary spending - essentially everything but entitlement spending and defense - would be cut from 4% of GDP to 2.1%; the lowest level in over 50 years.  However, Ryan has failed to specifically state where those cuts would take place. It is safe to assume that safety net programs like housing vouchers and nutrition assistance for women and infants; most of the funding for the enforcement of consumer protection, environmental protection, and financial regulation; and practically all of the federal government’s civilian public investments, such as infrastructure, education, training, and research and development would need to be slashed.  Oh, and all these cuts will be basically cancelled out by lowering the top individual income tax rate to 25% and reducing the corporate income tax rate to 25% from its current 35%, while providing little or no tax relief for the middle or lower classes.  The proposal claims that many tax deductions and credits would be eliminated, but completely fails to state which ones.  I'd bet my mortgage deduction that, well, the mortgage deduction will be one of the first to go. That's a deduction, coincidentally or not, that helps the middle class at least as much, and probably more, as it does the wealthy.

Anyone who says that the Paul Ryan budget doesn't disproportionately burden lower-income Americans is simply wrong.  The cuts affect either job creation or direct assistance to lower-income Americans.  I haven't even touched on Ryan's proposed Medicare reform, which merits its own blog (coming soon).  Cutting social spending and giving tax breaks to big business does two things:  it stops the poor and middle classes from buying anything; and instead of encouraging businesses to re-invest in the economy, it encourages them to hold onto their wealth.  Which is sort of where we are right now.  Which is a good reason to go in another direction, the direction of stimulus.  Yes, we need to reduce our debt.  But why do we have to do it on the backs of average Americans?  That's actually not a rhetorical question; I'd love to hear an answer....

 

(You've gotta) fight for your right (to vote!)

For most Americans, being asked to show ID is not a big deal.  If I were asked to show my driver's license at my polling place, it wouldn't be a problem. It can be difficult to even imagine living without government-issued identification.  But according to a study by the Brennan Center of the NYU School of Law , as many as 10% of Americans do not have such IDs, and in a growing number of states they run the very real risk of not being able to cast a ballot.  Some say the solution is simply for these people to obtain an ID prior to Election Day.  But IDs are generally not free; therefore a person who otherwise has lived without government-issued identification must now essentially pay for the right to vote...otherwise known as a poll tax, illegal in all federal elections.  But the voter ID laws keep coming.  The number of states with laws requiring voters to show identification quadrupled in 2011.  Perhaps not surprisingly, only one of those states (Rhode Island) passed such a law with a Democratic legislature.  Random fact: in Texas, a conceal-carry gun license would be considered a suitable ID for voting, while a college ID is not.   

At least 15 states have introduced legislation that requires proof of citizenship (birth certificate or passport) in order to register to vote.  Having a passport, or having a birth certificate handy, is even more rare than having an ID among some segments of the population, and trying to track down a copy of one's birth certificate can be an onerous task, and again, can cost money.  Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement was just struck down on April 17 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that the requirement was in violation of the National Voting Rights Act.  The court upheld, however, the requirement to show ID at the polls.  The plaintiffs can appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court, which, if they take the case, would be a pivotal moment for the future of voting rights.

There are other changes being made to the voting process that could potentially affect people's ability to register or to get to the polls.  Lawmakers in half a dozen states made changes to the voter registration process in 2011.  These include laws restricting community voter registration drives.  Why?  Again, the claim is that these changes will reduce voter fraud, but there is no evidence of registration drives leading to increased fraud. Applications for voter registration are checked for accuracy before being entered into the registration system, and most fake applications are caught easily (i.e. applications from Jimmy John and Ben Dover will likely not be accepted).  What these laws most certainly do, however, is make it difficult for community organizations to help low-income and minority citizens register to vote.  In fact,  African Americans and Hispanics are twice as likely to register to vote through drives than are white voters. If these people do not have or intend to get a driver's license, the "Motor Voter" laws are of no help. Even the non-partisan groups League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote have suspended their voter registration drives in Florida for fear of violating the law and being subject to stiff fines.

Fortunately, many of these laws are coming under extra scrutiny, thanks to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 states that the Department of Justice must  "preclear" any attempt to change “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting..." in any "covered jurisdiction".  Covered jurisdictions are states, towns, or counties with an egregious history of discrimination against minority voters.  Newly enacted voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas were blocked by the Justice Department under Section 5.  The law in Florida limiting registration drives, although not blocked, was challenged in court, and the Justice Department has stated in a court filing that the law may have a discriminatory intent, because it disproportionately affects the registration of minorities.

The fact is, most election fraud does not take place at the ballot box.  It happens at the ballot processing or counting stage.  Voter impersonation is very uncommon, yet it is the reason bandied about by all of the legislatures that have passed these voter laws.  It might or might not be a coincidence that every one of these new laws disproportionately affect the ability of minorities and low-income people to vote, but that will be up to the courts to decide.  The point is that the National Voting Rights Act prohibits any voting practice or procedure that has any discriminatory result. The 1982 amendment to the Act provides that proof of intentional discrimination is not required.  If it limits  access to the electoral process to any minority group, it can be prohibited.

Voting is a right granted to all citizens, not all citizens who have a driver's license, or all citizens who happen to have a copy of their birth certificate, or all citizens who can find a place to register.  We should be encouraging more people to vote, not making it more difficult.  The repressed voters just might vote out all of the officials who tried to keep them silent on Election Day.

 

Is there really a Republican war on women?

Democrats claim that the GOP has been attacking women's health and rights all year. Republicans retort that Democrats themselves are creating a false war on women...simply by calling it that.  So which is it? Well, this "war" did not begin with Democrats pointing fingers or mainstream media shrieking; it began with the sheer number of proposed and enacted laws that would limit women's reproductive freedoms.  It began with attempts to limit women's access to contraception, in the name of "religous freedom".  It began with the shrill calls to end all government funding of Planned Parenthood.  The rest of us are just calling these lawmakers out on their irrational urge to send womens rights and freedoms straight back into the 1950s.

In 2011, 135 provisions related to reproductive health and rights had been enacted in 36 states, compared with 89 such provisions in 2010 and 77 in 2009.  92 of those provisions - in 24 states - restricted access to abortion services.  In 2010, only 24 provisions restricted abortion.  Of this year's provisions, many require counseling prior to abortion (including telling the woman that a fetus is a person who can feel pain), limit insurance coverage of abortions, or require ultrasounds prior to abortions.  All of these may have a chilling effect on abortions, but they ignore the reasonable approach, that is, to prevent pregnancy in the first place through education and access to contraception. These laws instead intimidate women into carrying their baby to term by putting up obstacles to abortion.  Even worse are the proposed personhood amendments, which would essentially criminalize all abortions, forcing women to give birth against their will.  Like it or not, abortion is legal.  No one should be prevented from obtaining one if that is their choice. Those who say that requiring a waiting period, being forced to look at an ultrasound, and requiring counseling about how a fetus feels pain are merely steps to make sure a woman is fully informed are lying.  These are steps to dissuade women from having a legal medical procedure. I did mention that abortion is legal, didn't I?  If you don't believe in it, don't have one.  It's really that simple.  Your freedom to oppose abortion stops at my uterus.

Attacks on contraception, namely birth control pills, are even more egregious, considering the number of women who rely on the pill throughout their reproductive years - and the simple fact that the pill can lessen the need for the aforementioned abortions. In Arizona, where the weather is beautiful but the laws get ever more cray cray, legislators advanced a bill last month that would allow employers to fire women who use contraception to prevent pregnancy, if the employer has a moral objection to it.  Further, a female employee can be forced to prove that she uses birth control pills to treat a medical condition in order that they be covered by insurance. Say what?  Don't even try to give me the religious freedom argument for this one.  This bill would allow employers to force their own morals and beliefs onto their female employees. Not to mention that sharing one's medical history with one's employer is a huge invasion of privacy.  Fortunately, since not all Arizona lawmakers are insane, the bill was voted down earlier this month, but it was resurrected last week on a smaller scale, giving the freedom to deny contraceptive coverage to church-run affiliates, like universities and hospitals.  I'm not a fan of this compromise, either, since Catholic hospitals and universities have many non-Catholic employees (in fact, they are often so large that they must hire non-Catholic employees to have enough staff), and they provide secular services to people of all religions.  Given those facts, these organizations should also not be able to force their employees to conform to their beliefs.

 

Why are states even discussing bills like this right now?  I thought that following the 2010 elections, Republicans were going to be all about job creation, not procreation.  Yet between arguing over contraceptive coverage at the federal level, and limiting abortions at the state level, it seems that an inordinate amount of time has been spent on women's bodies in the past year.

I know that there are Republican women - and men - who are aghast at the extreme stance taken by some Congressmen, Presidential candidates, and state legislatures against women's rights to choice and privacy. Some of them are my friends...and some of them are elected officials. Even Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said as much.  "It makes no sense to make this attack on women," she said at a local Chamber of Commerce luncheon. "If you don't feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters."  She was joined by fellow Republicans Olympia Snowe and Kay Bailey Hutchison in criticizing the recent deluge of anti-choice legislation.  John McCain, when asked by Meet the Press' David Gregory last month if the war on women was real, was slightly less articulate, but seemed to understand the reason for the outrage.  "I think we have to fix that. I think that there is a perception out there because of how this whole contraception issue played out — ah, we need to get off of that issue, in my view."  So even some Republicans are acknowledging that this has gotten way out of hand.  I would really appreciate hearing more objections from the Republicans who get it, who understand that women are capable of making their own decisions, and that forcing one's own morals on all women is not considered an advancement to society.  Please, please let us hear your voices of reason.

Is there a war on women?  You bet.  But there's an election coming up, and women are perfectly capable of fighting right back with our votes.  

 

Florida's license to kill?

Following the murder of Trayvon Martin last month near Orlando, much has been made of the role of race in the killing, the "threat" that Trayvon could have posed, and the mindset of George Zimmerman.  I want to take a closer look at the Florida law that allowed Zimmerman to walk free in the first place: the "stand-your-ground" law, which exists in some form in 31 states.  A stand-your-ground law states that a person may use deadly force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of a threat, without an obligation to retreat first. It goes further than the "castle doctrine" laws that allow a person to protect themselves when their home is attacked, by stating that a person can defend themselves wherever they happen to legally be.

The Florida statute, passed in 2005, states that:

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Not surprisingly, self-defense claims have tripled in Florida since the law was enacted.  Florida averaged 12 “justifiable homicide” deaths a year from 2000-2004. After “Stand your Ground” was passed in 2005, the number of “justifiable” deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010. Even more striking, almost all of those killed were unarmed.

It is also important to note that the law does not state that someone claiming self-defense cannot be arrested and charged.  The defense is one to be used in court or at a preliminary hearing, not to avoid charges completely.  It is not meant to be a grant of immunity.  Yet in case after case during the past six years, Floridians who shot and killed unarmed opponents have not been prosecuted. Police have simply taken the word of the killers when they claimed self-defense.

Even the Republican state representative who wrote Florida's law said that he did not mean it to cover killings such as the Trayvon Martin case.  Rep. Dennis Baxley said that he supports moves to have a grand jury determine whether Zimmerman should be charged. “Mr. Zimmerman's unnecessary pursuit and confrontation of Trayvon Martin elevated the prospect of a violent episode and does not seem to be an act of self-defense... There is no protection in the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law for anyone who pursues and confronts people.”

Here's another thought.  Under this law, might it have been Trayvon Martin who had the right to stand his ground?  It is undisputed that George Zimmerman followed Martin, and  Martin's girlfriend, who was on the phone with him at the time, has stated that he was concerned about being followed and eventually broke into a run to try to get away from Zimmerman.  If, as one witness claims, he was slamming Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk, perhaps it was because he saw Zimmerman's gun and was acting in self-defense - legally - trying to prevent Zimmerman from using the weapon against him.  That turns what was thought to be a pro-Zimmerman account of events on its head.

Angela Corey, the state attorney in charge of determining whether or not to pursue charges against Zimmerman, has been working on the case since March 23.  She also says she may well make the decision herself instead of convening a grand jury.  In non-capital cases in Florida, the decision to file charges is routinely made by prosecutors. But in controversial cases, prosecutors often defer to a grand jury, leaving the most highly-charged decisions in the hands of private citizens.  Given the conflicting accounts and lack of witnesses, and the level of anger surrounding the case, my greatest fear, if charges are not filed, is that rioting will break out in Florida and around the country the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1992 Los Angeles riots.  And even more importantly, that a murderer will have gone scot-free.

 

Mitt Romney's bizarro health care conundrum

Health care reform is arguably Mitt Romney's greatest accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts, yet as a GOP candidate for President, he's pretty much forced to pretend it never happened. And by turning his back on his efforts, he once again looks like a flip-flopper who will say whatever it takes to appeal to conservatives.  With principles this flimsy, it's not surprising that he's a very weak front-runner. But how did his healthcare plan go from being his mission to his nemesis in less than six years?

Romney’s current stance on the campaign trail is that he has never advocated a national version of his Massachusetts health insurance program, and certainly not the health insurance mandate. Yet  in July 2009, he wrote an op-ed piece for USA Today in which he urged President Obama to use the Massachusetts plan as the model for national health care reform. In this column, Romney made no mention that the Massachusetts plan might be unconstitutional at the federal level. Instead, he touted his plan for “getting every citizen insured’’ as one that Washington should heed: “Using tax penalties as we did...encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.’’ Um, that sounds like a mandate to me. It also sounds like an idea that makes sense. But apparently Romney no longer thinks so.  Or maybe his campaign managers encouraged him to no longer think so.  That 2009 column was only unearthed a few weeks ago by Romney's foes, and rather chips away at his argument that he opposes - and has always opposed - a national health insurance mandate.

If Romney becomes the GOP nominee, he's going to run into trouble when he debates President Obama. All that Obama needs to do is thank Romney for the model on which the Affordable Care Act is based, and Romney is backed into a corner. If he tries to argue that the Massachusetts plan is different from the federal plan in a substantive way, he becomes a nitpicker. If he acknowledges the comparison between the two, then he also acknowledges that he at one time backed *gasp* mandates, which he now vehemently denies.  He simply cannot win when the topic turns to health care.  And it will.  Pretty much the second he wins the nomination.

The saddest part of all of this is that "Romneycare" has been largely successful in Massachusetts. About 98% of state residents are insured, and 99% of children. Premium costs have gone down for those who purchase their own insurance. Approximately two-thirds of patients and physicians report being satisfied with the health plan.  The plan's original objective was not to cut costs, but to cover more people, and it has done that very well.  And now it's being trampled upon, by none less than the person who made it happen.  To me that's just weird.  But presidential aspirations can cause weird things to happen to a candidate's beliefs.

Ronald Reagan himself wrote a letter to a professor in 1979, published in the book "Reagan - A Life in Letters" in which he said: "while I am opposed to socialized medicine, I have always felt that medical care should be available for those who cannot otherwise afford it. I have been looking into a program whereby government might... make (health insurance) premiums a tax credit or deduction, preferably credit to encourage more use of private health insurance". Why is it that what Ronald Reagan desired and what Mitt Romney accomplished has become so distasteful to the GOP? If Ronald Reagan, against whose principles all other GOP politicians seem to be measured, thought that government had a role to play in expanding health care coverage to more Americans, why does today's Republican base shudder at the thought? Maybe it's greed, maybe it's the concept of small government taken to an extreme, but whatever it is, candidate Romney has allowed it to turn what should be his proudest achievement into a huge blotch on his record, and a no-win situation for his candidacy.

Gas prices are up. Hey, let's blame the President!

Gas prices are on the rise, and the GOP is howling that President Obama is to blame.  They point at his refusal to authorize immediate construction of the entire Keystone XL Pipeline, his reluctance to open up the entire country to drilling, and his determination to promote alternate energy sources, as the causes of rising oil and gas prices.  News flash:  the President - any President - has very little influence on the price of gas in either direction.  And even if "drill baby drill" did ultimately bring down the price of gas (and it likely would not) it wouldn't be for several years. Besides, it's an election year.  Why on earth would President Obama want to keep gas prices high? To think it's part of a vast liberal consipiracy is ridiculous.

 Anyway, the main reasons that oil and gas prices are rising have nothing at all to do with the President. First, and most obvious, is that the laws of supply and demand are working their magic.  Americans' propensity for huge SUVs is only part of the issue.  Japan has replaced a good deal of it's tsunami-devastated nuclear power with oil, nearly doubling its imports in the past year.  An unusually cold winter in Europe has also contributed to increased demand, as has increased car ownership in Asia, particularly China. Higher demand leads to higher prices.  Pretty much always.  

Instability in the Middle East in the past 12 months has led to a significant reduction in the supply of oil.  Civil war has taken 750,000 barrels of oil per day out of production in Sudan, Yemen, and Syria.  Lybian oil output has been reduced by about 600,000 barrels per day.  Political volatility often leads to violence, which means business is not as usual, oil rigs included.  In addition, the mere global fear of further unrest that might lead to reduced supply can set the market on edge and cause a price spike, referred to as a risk premium.  Reduced production leads to higher prices. Pretty much always.  

And in comes the financiers. Bankers who trade in oil futures bet that this volatility will indeed result in higher oil prices...and their bets alone can raise the price even further.  This is called oil speculation, and while it is not per se illegal, it can cause oil prices to fluctuate independently of supply and demand, and create artificially high prices. Because of the potential for huge profits, speculators now make up nearly 65% of the purchasers of contract for the future delivery of oil.  Historically, speculators only controlled about 30% of such contracts.  In fact, Goldman Sachs has reported that Wall Street speculation adds $23 to the price of a barrel of oil, leading to an increase of 56 cents per gallon of gasoline, regardless of demand or supply.  The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act includes a clause limiting how many oil futures speculators can buy, with the goal of preventing such artificial price spikes, but it has yet to be fully implemented.  Wall Street, unsurprisingly, is fighting the law, claiming there is no economic basis for it.  

Some say that domestic drilling is the answer to high gas prices.  Sure, the U.S. has not maxed out its domestic oil production, but would it really affect prices?  Even if we offered new oil rig leases today, the oil would not appear for years.  And when it did, studies show that domestic production would not affect global oil prices. Even if the U.S. were to add 2 million barrels a day of production, which is about as much as we could possibly squeeze out, we would still be dependent on foreign oil.  It would be a drop in the bucket, so to speak.  Oil is traded on a world market, and the United States simply does not have enough oil to increase the global supply, and thus reduce prices.  We'd have more oil, but it wouldn't be cheaper. 

What about a gas tax holiday?  Would a temporary halt to the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax - which, by the way, pays for much of the country's transportation infrastructure - provide any relief?  Well, the oil companies would likely pocket the difference, meaning consumers would see no price reduction at the pump.  And if it did lower the price of gas, that in itself may cause a spike in demand such that prices would go right back up.   A gas tax holiday also does nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it might cause our highways to fall into disrepair.  So no, a gas tax holiday does nothing to help consumers.

Here's the thing with the oil market that's always been true, and always will be.  Neither US consumers nor the government can control tsunamis in Japan, the weather in Europe, unrest in the Middle East, or for now, oil speculation. We can control - or start to gain control - of our consumption of oil.  Whether that means driving more fuel-efficient, hybrid or electric cars, or developing alternative energy for heat, we can have an effect on our overall consumption of oil.   Because doesn't it make more sense to research and develop sources of energy that won't be depleted, rather than to just drill all the oil out until it's gone?