Just a thought.

Before you fire bomb my house, back away and read this using your critical thinking skills, ok?

        I have an acquaintance  who, as I am, is a military retiree. Like me, he has one of the best double barreled medical insurance plans available to anyone, anywhere. As a retiree, I am required to have  Medicare part B deducted  from my Social Security each month.  Unlike non-retirees,  my wife and I are covered by both Medicare, having paid into it, and Tri-care, which was our military health care provider and now serves as a Medicare supplement  for her and for me  for the rest of our lives. Is this a good plan? Hell yes, it is! It is of no financial benefit for me (or him) to use any Veteran's Administration facility or service, as Tricare covers everything that Medicare doesn't. My friend however, frequently sees VA doctors and uses VA facilities instead of using private resources, even though it makes no monetary difference. I would estimate that Tricare has a realistic value to us of probably $12,000 annually. If we need more rigorous care, it will be worth even more.

        Many believe that the military is alone in providing this kind of extended medical coverage to retirees, but I assure you this isn't the case. Some public sector retirees are able to retire on as few as 20 years service with 20 to 25 more working years ahead of them, but only if they so choose, since in many cases their retirement will be sufficient and their health care is essentially free if they so decide. A teacher in Albany, NY for example might  retire at age 59 (for example) with a cash in hand annual retirement pension of about $68,000, they may also elect to continue to keep their same health care coverage until Medicare kicks in, at which time, it converts to a "Cadillac" Medicare supplement program. This healthcare additional coverage has an estimated value of $14,000 annually for a 25 year  NYPD retiree.  

        I know, "Good for you, so what?" - well here's what. We hear today a lot of concern over the log jams at Veteran's Administration hospitals. Hospitals in Arizona are backed up to the point that we are outraged that veterans aren't able to get treatment immediately. Unfortunately, we rarely hear anyone question why that is and even less frequently does anyone suggest any action other than "build more facilities."

        There is, however plenty of room to discuss this issue in a factual, rather than emotional, manner.  First of all, the VA as we know it was established in 1930. For WWI vets, the government's obligation once discharged was as follows: Congress established a new system of veterans benefits when the United States entered World War I in 1917. Included were programs for disability compensation, insurance for servicepersons and veterans, and vocational rehabilitation for the disabled. By the 1920s, the various benefits were administered by three different federal agencies: the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Note that this includes absolutely no provision for lifetime medical treatment for non-service related health problems.     

        Following, actually still during, WWII, Veterans benefits were greatly expanded for active duty servicemen, while in the years since 1930, the increasing number of older WWI vets was already becoming an issue.  Remember one critical factor here, all (or the vast majority of)  these vets were draftees. They had involuntarily been taken from whatever civilian occupation they may have been pursuing and forced into military service. The GI Bill of Rights greatly expanded veterans benefits again, this time as a means of avoiding the usual post war economic doldrums as former soldiers were cashiered out and became gluts on the job market. The GI Bill college, job training  and zero down mortgage guarantee  benefits were aimed specifically at this issue. Meanwhile, the VA became a  "go to" source of health care for all veterans, even if they had absolutely no service connected disability. And why not? We were one of the few industrialize nations not bombed or fought in/on/or over. we could afford it.

        At this point I must come clean and admit that my brother, a two year draftee, received medical care for his several cancers at the VA in Washington. He had been out of the military for well over 40 years, but because the United States, unlike most developed nations, has no universal healthcare and he was a self employed musician, what insurance he could afford would have been inadequate in any case. Am I glad Steve had access to the VA? Of course I am, but I remain unconvinced that he should have. The fact remains, however, that he was a draftee and not a volunteer.

        All this still begs the question, "Why do we provide perpetual  healthcare for any person who serves two years, statistically has a <10% chance of ever seeing combat,  and leaves the military  in good physical condition with no service connected health issues?  Why do we continue to house and treat a man who leaves the service  and works 45 years at a civilian job with medical benefits, and, after he develops a heart condition , treat him as if he is different from, say, a retired 40 year  mechanic who has to pay for his own healthcare?"

       Of course no one in Government will address this issue because it's a political hot potato. There is a simple solution in the near and long term.

         First of all, a military retiree with Tricare for Life, has zero need for  VA medical facilities, unless they were separated with a service connected disability. Stop retirees from using the VA hospital system.  Period. Stop it!  Even an underachiever who retires at 20 years as an E-6 will have about $25,000 annually for life in actual compensation, plus medical coverage worth at a bare minimum, $10,000 more per year!             

        Additionally, and obviously,  current non-retiree users of the system have to be grandfathered in even if their health issues are not service connected.

       We are now an all volunteer military and have been since 1973, so persons entering the military are doing so because they want to, not because they have to. If these persons are careerists with no service connected disability they will have Tricare upon retirement and should use civilian medical providers. Many (most)  will work after separation and, like I was, may be covered under an employer's plan until they retire again.

       Persons enlisting or being commissioned who leave the service before retirement with no service connected medical issues should receive a pat on the back, a job reference and, perhaps as much as 2 years' health care coverage extension, just not at the VA.  Upon becoming employed they should receive coverage under their employer's health plan. At 65 they will become Medicare eligible and can buy a supplement if they wish. Since they left the military voluntarily and in good health, they should not be VA eligible for medical care unless it can be shown that there is an underlying service-connected reason to the contrary. Of course exceptions could be made for proven indigence.

                  The retiree previously referred to who  uses the VA, vice civilian medicine, is retired from the military on 24 years, retired from another  government  job on another 20 plus, has Medicare and Tricare and, with Social Security,  has  a household income in the $120,000 per year range.  

       This should (would) free up a slew of beds and appointment times for veterans with real issues, mental and/or physical  which are now lumped in with persons who should have other insurance.

        The large scandal which rocked the VA hospital system in 2014 was far worse in Phoenix that elsewhere. Why do we think   that is? Well, take  37,000 retirees in Sun City alone of the roughly 200,000 retirees in the area,  many of whom are draft era short service people , and it becomes obvious. People retiring to Arizona are, as a group, not poor, not homeless and have worked for a living. many of them use the VA because they can, not because they need to. Unless specifically diagnosed with a service connected disability they should use Medicare and a supplement like non-vets.

        This may sound harsh, especially from a long time military member, but when we don't have  beds for soldiers with traumatic brain injury or PTSD, or missing limbs, or other line of duty issues because a 75 year old who left the military in good health at 24 has  lung cancer from smoking for 50 years after he left the service, our  priorities are skewed. In most states a cop or firefighter who isn't a retiree gets no follow on health care unless disabled, yet they are exposed to severe hazards  on the job, too.

A brief history of private abuse of public lands

        The Grand Canyon is the largest canyon on earth by any standard of measurement, at  277 miles long, 10 miles wide, and a mile deep. It is also one of the most singularly awe inspiring natural vistas on Planet Earth. Containing some of the oldest exposed rock on earth, Precambrian Vishnu schist, formed 1.7 billion years ago, for  thousands of years, the canyon has been the home of the ancient Puebloans and the Hopi, the Hualapai and Havasupai, the Paiute and the Navajo. Its existence  was first recorded  in 1540, when Spanish conquistadors led by Coronado found themselves halted by its depths.

        In 1857, an American explorer named Joseph  Ives wrecked his boat trying to ascend the river, but brought back the first sketches of what he called the "Big Canyon of the Colorado." Ives innocently and erroneously predicted that the "valueless" region would be "forever unvisited and undisturbed." Twelve years later ,  Civil War veteran and geology professor  John Wesley Powell led an expedition to chart the  Colorado and make the first detailed study of the gigantic stone channel  that encloses and directs it. Although Powell's expedition lost four men and two boats, the expedition  brought the Grand Canyon to national attention.

        Early proposals to make it a national park date back to the 1880s, but  all failed in Congress because of fierce opposition from local ranchers, miners, and settlers who did not want the federal government imposing restrictions on what they could and could not do. This is of course precisely the same attitude reflected today in the actions of the  Nevada Bundy clan and their confrères.

        In 1893, President Benjamin Harrison used an executive order  to create the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve.  Congress, however, pressured by influential  and well heeled Southwestern Senators,  again refused to create a national park, so in 1908, citing the Antiquities Act (actually designed for protecting archeologically significant sites like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon)  President Theodore Roosevelt stretched the limits of the Antiquities Act to far beyond its intent and established the Grand Canyon National Monument. The canyon, Roosevelt said, is "the one great sight which every American should see." Although he advised the people of Arizona to "leave it as it is," few in Arizona listened to him.

        A few log hotels had already been built, and when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway extended  tracks to the South Rim in 1901, construction of even more buildings quickly began. By 1919, the Grand Canyon was attracting nearly as many tourists as Yellowstone or Yosemite, but was still a national monument, ergo  administered by the Forest Service. This meant that grazing was permitted and mining claims were allowed wherever a prospector thought a valuable mineral might be found (or as it turned out the possibility of tourism was promising).  Stephen Mather, the director of the National Park Service, desperately wanted to change all that by making the canyon a national park, as President Grant had done with Yellowstone.

        With activist Roosevelt  10 years  out of the White House, Mather  found national  efforts to protect and preserve the canyon  blocked by Ralph Henry Cameron, a prospector and hotel owner who considered the canyon his own private domain and was overtly hostile to anyone who got in his way. Cameron staked spurious mining  claims on the most scenic and strategically located spots, devoid of mineral wealth but critical to canyon access. As Cameron viewed Mather's efforts at creating a national park a direct economic and political threat, he built a log cabin, at one such claim, near the head of the Bright Angel Trail (which he preferred to call the "Cameron Trail"),named it Cameron's Hotel and sent employees to hound tourists arriving by train to patronize it.

        On the trail itself, he erected a gate at the rim and collected a toll of a dollar a person. When Coconino County was declared the trail's proper owner, Cameron, now a county commissioner, used his influence  to be awarded the franchise to continue collecting the tolls. Halfway down the trail, at an oasis, he ran  a tent camp where he charged travelers outrageous prices for the  water, then charged again for the only outhouses between the rim and the river.

        Meanwhile in DC, a lawsuit filed by Cameron working its way toward the Supreme Court, argued that Theodore Roosevelt's executive order creating the national monument had been illegal. However, in 1919, Congress finally passed a bill creating Grand Canyon National Park. A year later, the Supreme Court ruled against Cameron and ordered him to abandon the phony mining claims he had used to gain control of the Grand Canyon's most scenic spots.  Despite the rulings against him, Cameron refused to remove his buildings, and used his political power, as he was now an Arizona senator,  to ensure no action was taken to make him comply. Park  rangers opposed to him sent their mail in code because they suspected that, Cameron's brother-in-law, the canyon's postmaster, was opening their letters.

        When Cameron proposed two giant hydroelectric dams and a platinum mine within the park, Stephen Mather decided the senator had gone too far and set out to stop him. Mather galvanized public support and all of Cameron's projects in the Grand Canyon were stopped. Furious, Senator Cameron had the entire appropriation for Grand Canyon National Park removed from the Senate budget. He denounced Mather on the Senate floor and stirred up spurious claims against Mather's integrity.

        It all finally backfired when newspapers reported that Cameron had used his Senate position to further his private interests. Park supporters in Congress criticized his vendetta against Mather, and in 1926, the voters of Arizona refused to re-elect him. Out of power, Cameron could no longer protect his Grand Canyon empire. His fraudulent mining claims finally had to be abandoned. Indian Gardens, the dilapidated rest stop on the trail down to the river where Cameron's outhouses contaminated the only fresh water, was turned over to the park. And at Bright Angel Trail, the toll gate was finally removed, so that the public, the people who actually owned the park, could freely use it.

        So if you have ever felt sympathy for the Bundy clan or their ilk, read the history and reflect on the damage environmental scofflaws like them could do if public land reverted to unregulated control of states, vulnerable to the malfeasance of corrupt Senators like Cameron (or Harry Reid) who see the cessation of Federal protection of  such lands as simply an opportunity for private economic gain.

        Currently AZ Senator, John  McCain is a strong advocate for continued federal protection of these public lands, actually having helped place another  3.5 million acres nationwide into Wilderness Protection. However, his colleague, the aptly named Jeff Flake, has voted almost diametrically opposite Sen. McCain, opposing  essentially every piece of environmentally protective legislation since being elected. This continues his miserable House record, only with potentially more impact. Flake has proposed uranium mining just north of the canyon rim which would significantly threaten to pollute the Colorado and its tributaries. Of course much of this is Indian reservation land, historically ignored when the environment is the issue.    With clean water already at a premium  across a significant portion of the Southwest, Arizona and southern Nevada among the most deprived, the idea of allowing uncontrolled private mining interests or cattle  to pollute these scarce resources, and  threaten downstream water rights or quality is foolhardy at best, criminally negligent at worst. 

Ignorance is no excuse

Ignorance is no excuse

       It's disturbing to listen to a candidate, any candidate, spout election year drivel which he (or she) knows, or should  know, to be  false. It reveals two, possibly three, tragic realities surrounding the American  campaign circus.  In the first instance, it reveals either that the candidate is a deliberate liar or, perhaps even more troubling, ignorant of the realities and circumstance related to of the issue. The third, and  saddest part of the equation is that, in far too many such cases, the electorate is either too stupid or too unconcerned to bother to determine which is the operative explanation in the issue at hand.   

        A prime purveyor of this type of rhetoric is Rafael Eduardo (AKA Ted for vote garnering in the non-Hispanic community)  Cruz . One such recent blast of unadulterated garbage has been his commentary during the Nevada primary campaign, allying himself with that other stalwart Constitutional scholar, Cliven Bundy, re: federal lands.

        You really have to read Cruz' comments between the lines to get the message. He said, campaigning in Nevada,  "I believe we should transfer as much federal land as possible back to the states and ideally back to the people," speaking on the record to  the Las Vegas Review-Journal in December. For a time Cruz supported Nevada rancher (and tax scofflaw for 20 years) Cliven Bundy’s  and his now incarcerated sons'  standoff with the federal government over his unpaid public land grazing fees. Like Sean Hannity, as Bundy's racism and generally unsavory nature revealed itself, Cruz quietly scuttled backwards.  Many of the Texas senator’s Nevada supporters pushed for a failed bill in the state Legislature that "would lay claim to almost all federally managed public lands and water rights in the state."

       What has passed relatively unnoticed in all this kerfuffle is the one overriding simple fact which Cruz should know and either has ignored or  of which he has simply chosen to feign ignorance of. The land in question has NEVER been the property of the state of Nevada or of its residents. Even the State constitution recognizes that fact, stating that:  "That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States." This is far from recent, having been ratified and approved by Nevada citizens in  1864. That's 152 years ago, well before even Cliven Bundy's father was alive.

        Cruz's promise to give back what has never been theirs to the citizens of Nevada in exchange for votes is simply one more shining example of the moral and/or mental bankruptcy of so many  Republican candidates this election season. If they were on South OBT we'd simply dismiss them as whores.       

Fraud vs fraud

          Sooooo, in a true "You can't make this shit up!" moment, Dr. Phil sat down with James Corden on The Late Late Show with James Corden the other night, and the late-night host asked the TV psychologist to give his professional opinion about manic serial tweeter Kanye West. First understand this, I think Mr. West (or "Ye" as he often self refers these days, sort of like Rastafarians shorten Yahweh to "Jah" and with same the sense of implied divinity) is as screwed up as a soup sandwich or a football bat. His recent diarrheal tweets and tantrums clearly show profoundly disturbing mental issues. Granted. Conceded. Remember he lives with Kardashians, 'nuf said?

          But holy shit - DR. Phil? This cracker quack isn't suitable to diagnose an ingrown hair, never mind emotional disturbance. He is the Dr. Oz of the mind, casting the psychological runes and immediately getting to the root of all issues, and saving all those months or even years of real therapy. Space limitations don't allow one to record all the shady deals in which this fraud has been involved, from license suspension(currently unlicensed, since 2006) to several Motivational seminars, to diet plans "Woo Woo, Shake it Off" - a real slogan!  I think the real Dr. Phil story will be written when they autopsy his brain and find that he took one too many hits as a middle linebacker in the most lopsided college football game ever played, his team lost 100 - 6!

Dr. Phil commenting on Kanye West's self obsession is analogous to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz calling each other despicable, religious fraud, vote whores.

When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

        

          Let's for a minute ignore the fact that the recent Trump blathering about General John Pershing using bullets dipped in pigs blood against  Filipino rebels (he said terrorists) has no factual basis.  We're used to Trump making shit up, and Cruz and Rubio are equally guilty on that score. What concerns me is the demonstrably abysmal ignorance regarding the situation in the Philippines which is shared by so many Americans, if they have any awareness of said "insurrection" whatsoever.

        Following the bully boy demolition of a markedly inferior Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in May 1898, the United States decided that, even though there was a Filipino national, General Aguinaldo, poised to take command of the Philippines and be their first President,  other plans were more desirable.

        This was the same general whose Filipino troops had taken control of Manila, driving the Spanish from power after roughly 350 years of occupation and forced Catholicism. This was the same man who had drafted a Declaration of Independence  for the Philippines modeled on the US version. After fighting against Spanish rule for several years, Aguinaldo allowed his troops to support the American efforts in the Philippines, on his supposition that this would lead to independence for the Philippines.

        Imagine his dismay when, after Aguinaldo's forces liberated Manila, US military moved in and declared that Spain had merely been supplanted by the US, and the Philippines were still not free and independent. Presidents McKinley and later Roosevelt were avowed imperialists who saw in the Philippines not an oppressed people longing for self government, but, as McKinley repeated from then Governor General Taft in one of the most despicable public utterances ever to emanate from the White House, " 'our little brown brothers' would need 'fifty or one hundred years' of close supervision 'to develop anything resembling Anglo-Saxon political principles and skills.'" At the time, the term (little brown brothers)  was not originally intended to be derogatory, nor an ethnic slur; instead, it is a reflection of "paternalist racism", shared also by Theodore Roosevelt.   The real reasons are far more prosaic - sugar, rubber and coaling stations for the US Pacific fleet. Ergo, like it or not, the Filipinos lost their shot at freedom. This desire for independence soon resulted in armed resistance against the United States.

        McKinley  explained his motives in deciding to seize the Philippines out of a sense of Christian mission:  "One night late it came to me this way - I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them (i.e. the Philippines) back to Spain - that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany - our commercial rivals in the Orient - that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died" Apparently no one explained to McKinley that many Filipinos were Catholic and their families had been for centuries. McKinley's zealous missionary attitude was not only his, nor was his  patronizing sense of the inferiority of the Filipino people.  For example, Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge argued that "[God] has made us the master organizers of the world. ... That we may administer ... among savages and senile peoples."

        The Philippine Insurrection began with a skirmish on the night of February 4, 1899, just outside of Manila.

        No less a personage than Mark Twain, a charter member of the Anti-imperialism league described American troops as "our uniformed assassins" and describes their killing of "six hundred helpless and weaponless savages" in the Philippines as "a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory." Modern methods such as water torture, and concentration camps were used against Filipino patriots, with most efforts covered up by the American commander General Otis, only coming to light when soldiers wrote home describing the butchery in which they had become embroiled. One reporter wrote  "The present war is no bloodless, comic opera (sic)  engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog."

        The United States Department of State estimated  that the war "resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants", and that "as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease".

So tell me Mr. Trump - who were the real terrorists in the Philippines?

One size doesn't fit all here!

Don't misunderstand, I like Bernie Sanders, but being honest should always  trump partisan blind adherence. Especially in this instance.

       Bernie is wrong. Not everyone needs to or should go to college. Everyone should be trained to perform a job in their field of interest which someone will pay them a decent wage to do. This may require a degree, but many do not. We hear a lot of bitching about manufacturing jobs being exported offshore. How many of those jobs require a college education? Approximately none! The person who can repair my air conditioning, fix my plumbing or electrical problems or repair my automobile may well make more over a career than the college graduate who becomes a teacher. That's not right, in my opinion, but it is correct.

       These manufacturing jobs are lost to some extent because other countries pay far lower health care subsidies to employees. As far back as 2008, the average American automobile had, as a cost component, $1,525 in medical, insurance costs for workers. Yet everyone needs to go to college? No, many simply need an employability skill set, easily learned in tech schools or the equivalent, and as a nation we need to get smart about healthcare.

        Much of the early post WWII edge American auto makers lost to the Japanese came because the Japanese, and later the Koreans, have lower employee costs, due not only to lower, yet reasonable, pay structures but also to much lower healthcare costs. The Japanese kōsen tech school system starts at 15. By age 20 the student is employable and, if desired can go on to more advanced technical and engineering training. In America, there is almost a stigma surrounding tech training in high school, even though many districts, includung Orange County Florida have excellent programs.

        We are still paying, as a nation, the extra cost of union gains in the feel good, we're #1 atmosphere which existed immediately after WWII. The UAW and other unions extorted huge (and unreasonable) concessions in health, salary, and work benefits from companies which still clung to the old "you are my workers, I own you, do as I say" mentality of the early 20th century, rather than deal with quality of work life issues, the Big Three reverted to what is commonly referred to as "Welfare capitalism" meaning throw money at the workers in exchange for their abject compliance and lack of voice in the process. So here we are.

         A good start to fixing this problem would be a livable entry level wage and universal healthcare. The healthcare issue would almost instantly reduce the price of a new car , spurring new purchases as well as allowing manufacturers to allocate funds elsewhere. Seems so simple. Requires no expenditure for "universal college." And even better, as every developed other nation has proven over time, universal health care costs the nation less - In the UK half as large a % of GDP, than the US system. Even if one desired to purchase top tier private insurance on top of it as 11% in the UK do, the cost to the individual is far below the current US family of four annual healthcare outlay of.....wait for it....approximately $24,000. Before you call bullshit on that number, here's the data from the Milliman Medical Index for 2015: "The employer portion of the total is still the larger of the two components ‒ $14,198 ‒ but the employee portion is now almost 43% of the total ‒ $10,473. That represents an 8% increase to employees (overall) and a 5% increase to the employer over last year. The $10,473 amount that Milliman calculates as employee spending is divided over two categories ‒ out-of-pocket expenses incurred at the point-of-care ($4,065) and premium costs through payroll deductions ($6,408)."

Read more about this here: 

  http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2015/05/19/annual-healthcare-cost-for-family-of-four-now-at-24671/#422e5a5d4dfb

        So my recommendation to Bernie and everyone else: Quality technical training,  beginning as early as tenth grade and Universal Health Care. And certainly , a reasonable cost for college for those who would benefit from it. That is all, enjoy your day and DONATE TO IN STEVE'S NAME TO THE SPCA!

http://mkt.com/in-memory-of-steve

More things I've learned

More things I've noticed

     Some native English speaking people are apparently unable to grasp the fact that in words like couldn't and didn't there is only one vowel sound. the word is "could- n't with the nt pronounced as a stop. There is no vowel either written or pronounced after the "d' and before the "n't."  Pronunciations like could-ent  and did-ent are just wrong. Stop it.

     The more vociferously a politician proclaims their deep religious conviction, the less their actions reflect it.

     There is a mathematical manner in which one can express the need to use the restroom and the proximity of same. I just don't have the skill to mathematically formulate the following observation.  When one is relatively  far from a facility, the need to "go" can seem somewhat constant over time. Within a radius of   about 5 yards from a suitable facility,  however, the need increases logarithmically inversely proportionally to the distance remaining to get there before having an uncontrolled release of said waste water.

     Fox News invariably has over the last 7 years typically referred to the President as Barack Hussein Obama , prompting the ever prone to foot in mouth  Ms. Palin to proclaim, "Hussein? That's Muslim to me!"  Several years ago I pointed out that "Sarah is decidedly Hebrew, so the ex-governor must be Jewish........(crickets).  If, however, a news organization insists on using the entire name of a candidate why aren't we seeing John Ellis Bush, Marco Antonio Rubio or Rafael Eduardo Cruz? Even better,  at the start of primary season where was  Piyush Jindal?

     Considering the vile and combative nature of the current crop of GOP  candidates, One can almost believe that H.L. Mencken, "The Sage of Baltimore" was right when he said,  "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." It must, in all fairness be noted that Mencken didn't live long enough to witness the intellectual wasteland that was George W. Bush, or he probably wouldn't have used the future tense.

     Many of the candidates running for elective office this election season seem to be approaching the upcoming plebiscite  on the premise that  the principle  aim of Practical Presidential Politics is to keep the populace angry and alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins and "isms," all of them either imaginary or self generated.

      I am convinced to an increasing certainty almost daily, that we now have seen the drug manufacturers shift from noting a disease and then developing treatments, to naming a drug and then inventing a disease for it. There was a time (no really, there was!) when doctors would identify a disease or syndrome by actually speaking the  words which named it. Hard to believe I know, since today every disease and/or syndrome/symptom has been reduced to initials. PAD, IBS, OIC, PDQ, IOU, etc, etc.  It is also increasingly obvious that any treatment will be more effective in direct ratio to the number of "X"s or "Z" s in its name. Accordingly, I'm proposing several new areas for research. In these instances, unlike some others the name conveys a general sense of the drug's purpose.

Zquirtix  - a new snappy sounding drug to treat OIC (Opiod Induced Constipation. No further explanation required.

Puttzinx - This treats a diagnosed , but hitherto untreated syndrome in which golfers are unable to place the dimpled ball into the round hole. Poor putting may be a thing of the past. I've already signed Phil Mickleson to do promos!

Ztinkless -  Say goodbye to fear of crowded elevators! This medication is specifically designed to chemically alter methane with the result that it resembles rosewater in aroma.

Flaxeznot - This new treatment for an old problem makes coal tar shampoos obsolete. Taken orally it causes the scalp to secret a clear gelatinous substance which, while not reducing dandruff, essentially glues it  to the scalp until the release agent, sold by the same company, is applied when shampooing.

Nerdznomore - another oral medication which stimulates the male body -  any male body -  to produce attractant pheromones, irresistible to the fairer sex. A spray version is in development which can be stored in what looks like a pen and will handily fit in pocket protector.  

Flat isn't fair

        Regarding the discussion over "fair" in the larger conversation about tax. Fair is the term used by multi-millionaires like Steve Forbes when they are shilling for Flat Tax schemes. The word fair, to them means everyone pays an equal percentage. Perhaps a better way to look at "fair" would be that a taxation scheme should not unreasonably disadvantage any sector of the population at the advance of another.

     Steve Forbes  proposed that everyone should pay a flat 10% of income as taxes and all would be well with the world. Let's use reductio ad absurdum to show the point. After all isn't that "fair"?  On that basis, let's take an obviously  uncommon situation. Consider that a man with a $5 million income (read "The Big Short" if you think those people aren't around!) also consider the gardener who works for him at $9.00 an hour, which is, actually above minimum wage.

        The gardener works a solid  forty hour week and earns a whopping $18,000 annually, which sadly is considered above the federal poverty guidelines for a family of two, which is $15,930. But wait, there's more. Unless the employer is a scofflaw or the gardener is an independent contractor  who refuses to pay them, there is the issue of Social Security and Medicare taxes. For the hapless gardener, all of his pay is subject to FICA and Medicare withholding, so he is hit for a total of $1,377 off the top. He now has $16,623 left, on which a 10% flat tax will take him to $14,961, and deep into the poverty classification. Remember, he works hard, arguably harder than the employer, certainly with fewer perks and shorter lunch breaks.

        His employer, on the other hand , also pays FICA, but only on .23% of his income, because Social Security withholding maxes out at an income of $118,000  annually. So the "flat taxers" omit the dirty little secret, which is that the laborer earning $18,000 actually pays 6.2% of his wages for Social security, while his far wealthier boss actually only pays a measly 0.14% of his. Fair? What do you think Craig?  Well,  consider this: as a risk/reward exercise, the laborer pays 6.2% of his income for his entire working life, but will have his Social security income calculated based on his actual earnings. The millionaire will only pay 0.14 % of his , but will likewise have his Social Security based on his actual earnings.   

        Now let us consider the $5 mil guy. He "earns" $5,000,000 annually but stops paying Social security at $118,000, so he pays 6.5 times as much into FICA, but he earns 277 times as much! And he will reap much higher benefits, roughly 3 times as much.  Still fair? Huh?  As for Medicare, the rate is constant regardless of income, so they both pay the 1.45%  Medicare withholding. Adding all this up, the $5 mil guy pays FICA and Medicare a total of $77,347.  deduct an additional 10%  ("flat" remember), tax  and he is left to struggle by on only $4,430,388! Of course this assumes no off shore or tax dodge shenanigans to hide income.   So the issue is "whose life style is affected most by the 10%? flat tax? Is the impact "equal" or "fair"  I would submit that it is not. Even after both reach retirement, assuming the gardener and his wife both worked the same jobs for the same pay, they will barely be able to reach the poverty level - without children. Then, the rich man says "Well, he should have saved for his retirement!" Really? There simply is no marginal, or savable income at $18,000 per year. IRAs, flexible spending accounts, investments....? These are just letters and words to the average laboring person in America. And, remember , this doesn't even consider the cost of healthcare.

        A flat tax is inherently unfair for those who are already close to the margins an haven't been born, to use Kent's appropriate word, lucky, or not as intellectually gifted. People just like that built much of the infrastructure of this country while living in or close to poverty. We can do better, and a tax structure  steeply graduated at the top would help us to do so.

       Finally, to hear the whining of the trust fund candidates, you'd think we pay the highest taxes ever right now. Trump actually said we were "The most highly taxed developed country in the world." The graphic above shows just how ignorant he and many are.     

Econ 101 - not!

        As if we needed proof that many members of Congress are simply self aggrandizing windbags, here's the latest "newsletter" sent by my Congressman, Rep. Richard  Nugent (what is about people named Nugent?). I assume I am on his mailing list because I sent him a letter months ago regarding the  price gouging taking place at the USNA gift shop.  

"Dear Friends,

The President released his budget on Tuesday and it was much of what we have come to expect out of his office: more taxes, more spending, and more debt. It even included an inexplicable $10-a-barrel tax on oil. You think the oil companies will incur this cost? Absolutely not. They will no doubt pass this financial burden on to consumers, potentially increasing the price per gallon you pay at the pump by nearly 25 cents. And you can imagine what this tax might do to airline, tourism and shipping customers. The point is, the Administration continues to punish the middle class by siding against America’s energy resources.........."(and it continues in another direction).

My response - probably the last, since I think I'm now off the Christmas card list!

Congressman Nugent,

 Considering the Consumer Price Index (CPI) change from 1955 until the current year, gas prices indexed to inflation are at least a dollar a gallon below what they would be if the price of fuel had simply kept pace with inflation. Of course, in reality, gas prices adjusted for inflation are actually significantly lower  than they were when I was a lad and that was 65 years ago.  Many counties in Florida and elsewhere have increased tax on price per gallon at the pump in recognition of this. Yet when this President proposes it you think it will hurt "airline, tourism and shipping customers." Really?  

Adding $10 per barrel, assuming none of it was borne by the energy corporations  (it wouldn't be, because corporate shills in Congress would make sure it wasn't) would work out to about 23 cents per gallon of refined fuel (gas and diesel) at 42 gallons per barrel which is the average across the industry. That would still leave gas prices about $1.50/gallon below 2011 prices, at somewhere close to $2.00/gallon. Why weren't you screaming "foul" when gas was at $3.75 per gallon, yet you're now heartily offended by the fact that it might be $2.00 per gallon? Do you even read what you or your staffers write?

Federal tax on fuel has remained at 18.4 cents/gallon since 1993. Over the same time span the CPI has increased by a factor of 1.8. Even the basic 1 semester  economics course required for all Florida high school students would teach that the impact of federal fuel tax, adjusted to CPI,  has decreased by almost 50% over the span from 1993 to the present. I assume most who read this have few resources for critical analysis and read it, delete it and think, "Yep, old Rich is my guy!" Tragic, that.  And as expected, I see you played the "class warfare" card again. Please take me off the mailing list.

                                                                                                                      Michael Dorman                                                      MMCM(SS) USN (Ret)

                                     The Villages  

American tragedy

We have recently heard   sound bites and seen news blurbs along the line of "Carson throws red meat to the evangelicals." This refers to the bottom of the barrel former surgeon and current moron's last desperate clutch at the so-called consciences of the far right self styled Christians.  The gist of his message is that the government needs to "protect" Christians from attacks on their religious beliefs. This is hardly new, since Republican vote whores have been invoking this since Jerry Falwell was cruising men's rooms in Roanoke. Oh, that wasn't him? My bad.

Carson,  just like the multitude of sycophants (a dwindling mass, true) who hang on his every word, just doesn't get it. Some of those on the far right are aware that they are lying but are willing to do it for votes. Ben Carson isn't and never has been, that smart. In the faint  hope that even one person might  accidently  read this and go, "Oh, really? I didn't know that,"  I will endeavor one last time to parse this issue in simplest terms.

The definition generally starts like this: "Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them......"

The origins of this practice are not religious, but practical, the object being to delineate by law such things as inheritance and property rights.  The Pilgrims, those paragons of early American Christian virtue  considered marriage too important to do as a religious sacrament, rather it was done as a legal proceeding. In many cases, but not all, there might well have been a ceremony following which was religious. In fact, the "definition" of marriage was done by persons of various faiths taking it from legal into the faith related arena. The basic legal nature of marriage is immediately recognized by several factors. First, special dispensation has been passed to the clergy to perform such unions, but judges, ship captains and other functionaries may perform them with zero religious connotation. It remains the only legally binding duty of the clergy. 

So what the Christian right really wants is the right to define marriage as they want, which right they have always had, just like defining "beauty'' or any other subjective issue. They are, of course welcome to, in their private lives cling to that belief. What many either don't know (doubtful) or, more likely don't want to recognize, is that marriage (the legal definition, not the religious one) carries rights and responsibilities without any further burden on the spouses. There are assumed relationships and prerogatives  which are conferred due to wedlock which would require reams of paperwork for non spousal couples to complete just to insure the same basic  rights. 

Hospital visitation, co- insurance, inheritance, shared domicile, joint tax status, etc are but a few such matters. By law, an unmarried couple (same sex or man and woman) have few if any rights. The classic case is a same sex couple of 20 or more years' relationship, who when one becomes ill, the parents of the other step in and forbid the partner even the civility of hospital visitation. In one such case of which I am aware , the parents  came to the house and seized their son's belongings, even though they were actually joint property.

Marry these two and the game changes , dramatically.  Just one piece of paper. Marriage is about property rights,  and all citizens who make that commitment deserve the full protection of the law.  If a couple decides to also hold a religious ceremony, so be it.  No one in the world has ever tried to deny them that. 

Or have they?  Consider  the USSC case of   Loving  vs. Virginia, decided in 1967. In 1958,  a mixed race couple married in the District of Columbia and returned to their home in Virginia. They were promptly charged with violating a Virginia Statute of some 40 years' standing, which forbid "white" and "colored" persons to marry.  Understand, Virginia (and several other Southern states had defined marriage as a union between persons only of the same racial background. Is that Biblical? Hardly.  Is it racist and bigoted? Of course. In fact that darling of mindless conservatives everywhere, Clarence Thomas,  only missed the same fate by four years, marrying his white college sweetheart in 1971.  

So claiming religious rectitude and claiming abrogation of rights simply because you don't get to define this legal process the way others may, has precedent. Loving vs. Virginia was specifically cited as precedent in the recent same sex marriage decision by the USSC. 

It's simple really. In Carson Land, persons who are by their  nature heterosexual are welcome to all the legal benefits of marriage, while persons who are,  just as much by nature, homosexual  face the ire of the Carsons, Cruzes, Santorums and others  who, far from being attacked, are on the offensive in circumstances which harm no one, simply because they think differently. Their rights are not under attack. What they really fear is the loss of the ability to abuse blameless persons by forcing them  to conform to their beliefs.  They are ignorant people who wear that ignorance as if it were the red badge of courage. The American tragedy is that anyone with a brain listens to their vile drivel.

American Taliban

American Taliban

         Well, kids, it's Thursday again, which means that somewhere, in America, as they do  every other day,  Far  Rightist Evangelical  sycophants  such as Santorum, Carson, Cruz and Rubio will be attacking  current Presidential policy and all things liberal per their usual political bent, all while asserting that God wants them to become president so they can set the world aright. 

       One pundit, however has been even more direct , although equally misguided.  Kathryn Lopez recently reached  new heights of misdirection and outright falsehood in a column entitled "Warren, God and the freedom to choose." She quoted  Rick Warren, another of those mega church pastors whose cult of personality influences his congregation to react to stimuli the way shoals of fish and flocks of birds all seem to  turn at the same time. Warren's Saddleback Evangelical Church, by the way, rakes in  a cool  $2.4 million annually for spouting the following drivel while paying no (as in zero) taxes .

          "Can we really talk about the state of our union without talking about the state of our religious freedom?" Warren says. He further states that  religious freedom is "The freedom to practice my faith and values and the freedom to convert."  Ms Lopez is the far Right's ideal mouthpiece, being a Filipina of brown hue and a devout ultra conservative Catholic, which might lead the ignorant observer to think that perhaps the Republican party represents America's minorities. She then writes, "He cautions against the misreading of tolerance - mistakenly taking all ideas to be of equal value and dismissing the existence of truth." 

          Of course, the "truth" she alludes to is purely her personal credo, not some great cosmological absolute, as she would have one believe. It is her perception and belief (note the word belief) about the nature of God, the universe, morality, etc.  Ms. Lopez certainly must be  aware that more people in the world have other "truths" than those who believe as she does. In dismissing other tenets, credos and beliefs  as being of lesser value, she is not only supremely arrogant, but also  diametrically opposed to Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and others who had the foresight to endorse the intent and meaning of the First Amendment.

          Then President, George   Washington in his letter of 1790 to the Hebrew  Congregation in Newport  eloquently wrote, "The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."  Ms Lopez, a Catholic, has clearly decided that her "truth" is exclusive. As to Mr. Warren's "freedom to convert" line, I would opine  that those of us who disagree with his personal "truth" should also be allowed to be free from his conversion  efforts.

         

          Claims from the far right that religious freedom in America is abridged or under attack by current law are specious. In fact,  current legislative efforts protect freedom from the religiously driven  prejudicial acts of the true believers among us. This is manifested, when, for example, a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription for the "morning after" pill, citing personal beliefs as the reason.  His religious freedom is the freedom to oppose abortion in his personal realm -  family, church, whatever - period. It is equally evident when a Kim Davis refuses to issue a marriage license. The (il)logic involved is ludicrous. When , in the name of subjective "truth," that belief infringes on another's life, that isn't religious freedom;  it's religious oppression. The only difference between the pharmacist, Kim Davis and a Talibani believer who murders schoolgirls is in degree, not principal.

          It's really as simple as that. Those who would impose their beliefs on others, feel justified in doing so because theirs is the "real and only" truth. All others are lesser persons until converted. I reiterate, in far too many instances the only difference between aggressive evangelicals and the Taliban is headwear and the language they speak.

"Real" Housewife, my ass!

        So today on Good  Morning  America  we're treated to an interview with Theresa Guidice about her  recently completed 15 months in prison. "It was Hell," she said with a lowering of the eyes and a sorrowful look worthy of my Bassett hound.   So who is she and why is she news?

       Perhaps the most newsworthy thing about this scofflaw ex-con is that anyone thinks she merits attention. She was elevated to notoriety due to her role in "The Real housewives of New Jersey;" but of course she was neither "real" nor a housewife. A former assistant buyer at Macy's , the show featured her all too frequent temper tantrums as well as her over the top lifestyle, which we now know was funded by over $10 million dollars worth of bank, mail and wire fraud. The worst part of "Hell" as she describes it was having to clean tables three days a week and take cold showers. Based on this tragic narrative, Navy boot camp would have killed her.

        After the  expected denials, she and her even more odious   husband,  Joe, pled guilty to 41 counts related to their  illegally gotten gains. She was sentenced to 15 months in a minimum security facility, Danbury Correctional, the same country club Martha Stewart attended, but allowed to do her stretch before her hubby does his 41 months, in  a military  jail at Fort Dix, NJ.  On release, Joe, who also was convicted of obtaining a driver's license on false pretense (his former DUIs made it hard to do on his own) and failing to pay income tax for several years, will face the possibility of deportation, as he is not a US citizen. Why deportation? Well it seems he (Joe) has been in the US since he was a toddler (well over 40 years), but  just never made it around to becoming an American citizen.  Good! Send him home.  

        It troubles me that anyone with a brain would consider these two pathetic ego driven criminals worthy of either an interview or sympathy. Of course Theresa was also briefly on Celebrity Apprentice. Come to think of it, I guess maybe the same morons who consider the Guidices newsworthy are the same morons who fawn over  the myth, smoke and mirrors that are Donald Trump.

What you "know" might not be what you think you know

        I play golf with several good friends, many of  whom are more conservative than I.  because we are rational persons and good friends, that never gets in the way of out friendships, but it does lead to interesting conversations within the hallowed confines of the golf cart, sometimes.

        Yesterday, One such discussion took the line of "We used to have great healthcare in  (name of home state) , but that damned  Obamacare  ruined it."  At this point I was forced to reflect for a moment on what one could possibly have to do with the other.  Further discussion revealed my friend's growing dissatisfaction with the situation of a close relative who is disabled and in hospital following a serious accident. As the individual in question is in their later years, I asked one simple question. "Is (the person) on Medicare?" The answer, in the affirmative, hammered home the point once again that there are people who will blame anything and everything health related (or otherwise, too) on the current resident of the White House. I refused to let this drop, pointing out several times the fact that Medicare isn't in any real way related to the Affordable Care Act, especially in this case. He harrumphed, and we left it at that.

        Later in the round, discussing mutual interests with a far more informed friend and superb cart mate, I asked how they felt about single payer health care. The immediate response as I knew it would be, was that they were opposed to it. My innocent question "So you don't use Medicare?" was met with the sound of crickets.  

        I say that to say this: If you are a conservative who takes what seems to be the reflexive Far Right point that national or single payer health care systems don't work or are opposed to them as "socialist schemes," then you must realize that we already have a significant number of Americans on single payer healthcare and have for almost 50 years. Over 50 million Americans are currently using a National, single payer, healthcare system. Because this system was forbidden by legislation passed and signed by the Bush administration in 2001,  Medicare pays far more in costs to providers than other such systems.  2003 legislation, a gift to the drug industry (whose lobbying expenses are larger that their Research expenditures every year for the past 15) stipulates that Medicare, Part D will not be allowed to negotiate lower drug prices, as do European systems, which frequently pay 1/10 the price for the identical brand name drugs.  

        Drug companies imply that  they must impose higher prices in the U.S. to pay for research that enables them to innovate and develop new drugs that save  lives. Reality is far different. Half of the scientifically innovative drugs approved in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 resulted from research at universities and biotech firms, not big drug companies. Despite their rhetoric, drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development.”

        Meanwhile, the US spends twice as much (as a % of GDP, a fair way to evaluate) per capita per year as the UK does on healthcare. Don't blame the Affordable Care Act, and don't think you're not already paying for universal healthcare for a large sector of the populace. Don't like the ACA? Then maybe you should shut your ears to the rhetoric of Cruz, Rubio and others , do the research and make up your own mind about the realities of single payer health care.    

Life lessons learned

Life lessons learned

Being  pleasant with  people takes waay less energy than being a dick.

Always check the roll of toilet tissue before you sit.

The probability of the dishwasher being full of clean dishes is directly  proportional to the number of dirty ones you just created.

Bras never, ever  go in the dryer.

Always check the bottom of the bag before you pick up dog  poo. 

The trash will never take itself out.

Golf is inherently evil.

Barking dogs, like people,  rarely bite. It's the quiet ones who bite you in the ass.

I don't inherently mistrust people who don't like dogs. On the other hand I am always suspicious of people whom dogs don't like.

Those who know the most about good teaching tend to get the least press.

Dogs have owners, cats, on the other hand, see us more as  staff.

"Pre-election season"  is far too long. The Brits do it right by limiting campaigning to six weeks.

Dogs have many different expressions with many meanings, Cats do too, but they all mean  "feed me, bitch."

Assisted suicide is illegal in most states, but you can buy cigarettes anywhere.

Canine breeders are far more selective than human ones, and generally to a better end.

The later I get up, the earlier the trash pickup occurs.

If a drug's side effects outnumber the benefits, don't use it.

You have been lied to; broken cookies still have calories.