Just One More Inconvenient Truth

Just One More Inconvenient Truth

     Sometimes a series of minor occurrences will "pile up" in the nooks and crannies of my subconscious until the hopper overflows and I think, "What the F**k, why haven't I written about this?"  Today’s “trigger” was a meme posted by a well-intentioned friend commemorating the four US citizens killed by a Libyan terrorist raid on a US consulate annex.  (bolded and underlined because it’s important!)

        While it has been a while since the thinly veiled “blame it on Clinton circus”, the attitude – “Divert attention from our failings by smearing a political opponent and future candidate”, is still disturbing and is eerily prescient of Trump supporters’ mindset in general. It is especially so in my case since most of those who weep (and properly so) for the four civilians killed in that terrorist act (Benghazi), are pathetically ignorant of the fact that the body count of four pales compared to the hundreds killed by terrorists at embassies and other US overseas establishments during previous administrations and with much more concrete (and largely ignored, warning.

       If you still think Benghazi was, in any way, Mrs. Clinton’s fault, then do yourself a huge favor and read the following  objectively, not as an anti-Obama/Clinton fanatic, but as a literate individual.

        There were attacks on several US installations in Lebanon in the Reagan years. Between October, 1983 and September 1984, hundreds of US citizens, military and civilian were killed in four bombing attacks.  After the second, the horrific Beirut Marine Barracks attack, in which 241 died, a House committee was convened, by a Democratically controlled House under Speaker Tip O'Neill. That committee's report was bipartisan (remember when that word had meaning?) and findings of fact blamed no one specifically, much less the Secretary of State or the President.

       The report made specific recommendations aimed at improving Embassy security. In other words, “We should do this or it could happen again.” About 10 months  after the release of this report,   In September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut yet again, killing 63, including 17 US citizens.

        President Reagan acknowledged that the new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the President said, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time. Reagan actually said in a press conference,  “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” Can we even imagine the reaction to a similar Obama Presidential response to questions about Benghazi, in which just 4 Americans died, vice hundreds?  Draw your own partisan conclusions.

        Of paramount importance here, is the fact that the Benghazi committee was partisan from the get-go. There was no attempt to find fact which didn't fit the desired result. In truth, many such pieces of information were discarded or even worse, military decisions were attributed in several cases to the Secretary of State by implication, a ludicrous leap of illogic.

       The CIA's part in the affair was relegated to the back burner because, from the start, the aim of this committee was to politically hurt the Obama Administration in general and the Secretary of State in particular.  The fact that the CIA had a facility at the compound in Benghazi had been an open secret for weeks, although its central role was not fully acknowledged. I include the following paragraph only for the purpose of pointing out how little actual responsibility the State department had in this instance.

        It turns out the annex (not the "consulate" a fine point omitted by many media outlets) was an outlet for weapons via CIA channels to "good Libyans."

        A Faux News report  alleged that "Several operators at an agency annex had been denied help from their CIA higher-ups (Not the Sec State, who was in no position to provide it anyway), during the fighting", something the CIA strenuously denies, and there had even been indelicate hints of secret components to the Benghazi compound during an open hearing on Capitol Hill. In mid-October of that year,  A U.S. official, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed  that the CIA had an extensive presence in Benghazi, and that the two former Navy SEALs who died in the assault,  were contractors (spelled “‘mercenaries”) working for the agency.  

       According to documents released by the House Oversight Committee, when the Undersecretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy, signed an order last December to maintain a presence in the Benghazi compound for another year, his official memo counted 35 “U.S. government personnel,” of whom only eight were State Department. Most of the rest were secretly with the CIA, the official confirmed. The U.S. official noted that at no point in the October congressional hearing did any of the State Department officials testifying use the word “consulate” to describe the Benghazi compound. This was no accident. In fact, the compound served little routine diplomatic purpose, and was under the operational control of the CIA.

          And yet, and yet....... as was later admitted by several House Republicans with consciences, the real committee purpose was to smear the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. The final cost of these 700- day efforts is more than was spent on investigations of Pearl Harbor, The JFK assassination, Watergate and the 9/11 commission - combined! The results were - in a word - zip!

        Finally, by the numbers, the Benghazi select committee alone, labored longer than the committees investigating Watergate, Katrina or Pearl Harbor. Perhaps even more surprising, the Benghazi hearings, first and foremost regarding the tragic deaths of 4 Americans, were convened for some 700 days, or more than half again as long as the 9/11 Commission met to deconstruct (sort of) the deaths of about 3,000 Americans!

        So, yeah, 4 Americans, two of them hired guns, died at Benghazi. That’s tragic and we should remember them. That said, what about the 304 deaths, in Lebanon alone, on Reagan’s watch, which occurred after repeated warnings and recommendations to fix security holes?  Oh, never mind, Ronnie was a White Republican.

A Few Words From "The Governator"

The article which follows is excerpted by me in its entirety from the Washington Post of September 9, 2019. I do so because it needs to be available to everyone, not just Post subscribers, of which I am one. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs no introduction. Read the article, think about what he says herein. It is important, if for no other reason, because it exemplifies how disastrously far off the rails the current administration has gone. Now if we could just put Arnie and Moscow Mitch in a steel cage match….!  

Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Trump can’t erase a decade of clean air progress with a Sharpie"

By Arnold Schwarzenegger

September 8 at 7:11 PM

“California has been a leader in the fight to clean our air since one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, was our governor.

The Trump administration, for some reason, is hellbent on reversing decades of history and progress. Whether it is political pettiness, shortsightedness or just plain jealousy, I couldn’t tell you. I can tell you that it’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it’s an affront to long-standing conservative principles.

To understand why I’m so angry about the administration’s move to revoke California’s waiver to regulate automobile emissions, you must understand the history. In 1967, Reagan established the California Air Resources Board to fight crippling pollution. He appointed as its first director not a political hack or lobbyist, but a scientist, Arie Jan Haagen-Smit, who was a pioneering researcher of the causes and impacts of smog. The 1970 Clean Air Act, signed by another California Republican, President Richard M. ­Nixon, gave California the authority to regulate air pollution — and ever since, we have had what is called a waiver from the federal government to set car pollution limits.

Historically, it worked well. We set our standards, and the federal government didn’t just respect our authority, it generally made our rules the standard for the entire nation. During my time as governor, we had some hiccups with George W. Bush administration officials. They told us greenhouse gases were not a pollutant, and we won in the Supreme Court (duh). Then they didn’t approve our clean air waiver, but that ended when President Barack Obama took office and made a compromise version of our state standard the national standard. (italics are mine) The Trump administration’s threat to revoke our waiver to clean our air is more extreme. And coming from a Republican White House, it’s downright hypocritical.

How many times have you heard conservatives beat the drum of states’ rights? But suddenly, when a state wants to pollute less and protect its citizens from deadly pollution, conservatives throw states’ rights straight out the window. Nixon and Reagan understood the importance of California’s right to clean air, but some so-called Republicans today seem to only believe in states’ rights when it’s convenient, when the state voted for their party, or when the state is doing something really dumb.

 How many times have you heard Republicans talk about being pro-business? But now, when automakers plead with the administration that they don’t want the Stone Age standards the White House is fighting for, some Republicans aren’t acting very pro-business. This administration is even taking the extraordinary step of investigating four companies — Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen — that made an agreement with California to reduce their emissions. That agreement is another compromise, because California isn’t anti-business. And I guarantee you that more big carmakers will be joining those forward-thinking companies.

How many times have you heard Republicans talk about security and public safety? When Americans are attacked or bridges collapse, we demand action. We know pollution sickens and kills hundreds of thousands; the administration’s own EPA says lowering the automobile standard will literally kill more people. But suddenly public safety doesn’t matter much anymore.

So why is revoking California’s waiver even being discussed?

 I’m sure the EPA and the White House will continue to say this dumb policy decision is all about stopping regulations that “cripple the economy.”

They should come out to California. Last year, the U.S. economy grew by 2.9 percent. California’s economy, with our supposedly crippling regulations, grew by 3.5 percent . We’ve outpaced the nation’s economic growth even as we’ve protected our people. (my note: in plain speak, California with all its “regulations,” etc., outpaced the national economy by 20%. What is less certain is the breadth of the benefits of this growth)

Our success is built on our consistency. Ever since Reagan, each governor has continued the legacy of moving toward a clean energy future. We don’t play the games Washington does, with each administration changing the trajectory of the United States and forcing businesses to guess about where we are headed.

That’s a big reason nearly half of the venture capital in the United States comes to California. Businesses aren’t just thinking about their talking points for their next campaign. They’re planning for five years, 10 years, 20 years. Businesses must have long-term vision to succeed.

Knee-jerk reactionary policies such as the move to revoke our clean air waiver create uncertainty. These companies have been planning and working toward cleaner cars for a decade. They didn’t ask for the Trump administration’s backward thinking, and they know it won’t help them. This “solution” in search of a problem reminds me of the nine words that most terrified Reagan: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Business leaders — and Californians — know that you can’t just erase decades of history and progress by drawing a line through it with a Sharpie. It’s time the administration learns that lesson.

California will fight this decision. And I promise you, we will win.”

The New Pravda?

        If there’s a more blatant liar on the planet than Adriana Cohen, I have yet to notice. The gist of her Sunday op-ed is that “It’s time for the White House to launch its own media outlet.” Her justification for this (other than what is probably her desire to be an employee of such a sham operation)  is that, “Never in the history of America has any president been subjected to such an onslaught of “fake News”, biased reporting, and unfounded conspiracy theories, spread by corrupt and so-called journalists….etc.”  

        Where to start? Let’s first deal with Ms. Cohen’s starting point. She only actually cites two specific instances of what she calls “Fake News” amidst the 10,796 (and counting) lies and/or misleading statements told and documented by her President. The first revolves around what she characterizes as “the Russia Hoax.”  I would agree that there was such an animal, but not as she labels it. She rants a bit and then finishes with: “…later debunked by the special counsel investigation, which found no such conspiracy took place.”  But wait, that’s not what the special counsel found at all. It is, instead a “Fake News version by MS Cohen and the Cheeto in chief. In Cohen world, a refusal to criminally prosecute is the same as a “not guilty” verdict minus a trial.

       So, what did the SP report actually say, minus the “Cohen spin.” Here’s the precise verbiage: "If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime…” (because?). “A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view – that too is prohibited."

        Translated: There is no evidence for a “not guilty” opinion (counter to Ms. Cohen’s assertion). “We rejected ‘not guilty’ because we didn’t think he was “not guilty”.  “We didn’t judge “guilty” because charging the POTUS with a federal crime while in office is illegal and would make no difference.” Taken as it is written, however it becomes plain that, far from “debunked”, the conclusion is “If he was not guilty, we’d have said so. We didn’t, but we couldn’t charge him so…!”

       Clearly, the Fake News here is Ms. Cohen’s allegation that the Mueller commission exonerated the President. It did not. It said, in essence, “We don’t think he’s innocent, but we can’t charge him anyway.” Period.

        The second, and only other example is her citation of a statement by Lawrence O’Donnell which alleged that a check issued for a loan to the Trump organization by Deutsche Bank had been cosigned by Russians. Proven to be unverified (not false, mind you, just unvetted), Mr. O’Donnell promptly retracted the statement in its entirety the next day. He said, “I was wrong.”  These are words Donald Trump is incapable of saying in that order, preferring instead the “sharpie redraw” method of making a lie seem reasonable.    

All that aside, the complaint that the current POTUS is subject to vilification from various sources, while true in and of itself, begs the issue of “Why?” It also, as put by Ms. Cohen, in yet one more Fake News (ish) statement implies that No other President has ever been subjected to such abuse. History reveals the lie.

And it all began in 1800!

        “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”    Thomas Jefferson

        During the campaign of 1800, John Adam’s press supporters made statements re: Jefferson, attacking Jefferson’s racial heritage, accusing him of being “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father” as well as an atheist and libertine. This was in addition to outing his relationship with Sally Hemmings, a woman of color.

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       Jefferson’s “pet newspaper”, and a paid newshound/hatchet man named James Callendar retaliated, accusing President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." There were also allegations that Adams wanted to marry a son into European royalty, and, some said, instigate war with France.

        Political “spin” has become a staple of modern life, and we have Theodore Roosevelt, as much or more than anyone pre-Trump to thank for it. TR understood he could use the power of the press, as well as his larger than life persona to engage with Americans via media (print journalism at that time) in a way that Presidents before him hadn’t. He organized well publicized publicity stunts, even diving in a submarine, the USS Plunger (SS-2) to show his support for the Navy in general and this new warship in particular. He toured the country promoting legislation, upgraded the White House’s pressroom and used it for informal news conferences, and hired government press officers.

        After the publication of Upton Sinclair’s sensational Meat Industry expose, The Jungle. TR exploited publicity surrounding the book to help his plans to push the Pure Food and Drug Bill through Congress. While later, he described Sinclair and other journalists like him as little more than “muckrakers,” Roosevelt used the press to his advantage, giving reporters information on Sunday and then basing his decisions on how the public reacted to the Monday papers. (sound familiar?)  Lincoln Steffens maintained that congressmen went along with Roosevelt because he was “the leader of public opinion” and they were afraid of facing retribution if they defied him.

        Woodrow Wilson also had his “issues” with the concept of a Free Press. Reserving judgement but examining factual events reveals that during the U.S.’s involvement in World War I, Wilson curtailed freedom of the press via a two-pronged  strategy of censorship and propaganda.

He (Wilson, wanted “authority to exercise censorship over the Press to the extent that that censorship…is absolutely necessary to the public safety.”  Both the Senate and House of Representatives demurred. Thanks to the efforts of three Republican senators, the censorship provisions Wilson wanted were never enacted. Once War was declared war in 1917, Wilson then issued an executive order creating the Committee on Public Information, whose mission was to create propaganda for newspapers and newsreels that was aimed at draftees and the public, and intended to explain the country’s involvement in the war and sway neutrality advocates. Later even establishing its own “newspaper,” the CPI created the image we all know now as “Uncle Sam.” This is very much like what Ms. Cohen urges in her column.

  
      In 1955, ex-President Harry Truman, in a private letter,   wrote, “Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington…when the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence [sic] of paid prostitutes of the mind.” Sounds a bit like Trump again, huh?

        Richard Nixon grasped the potential power of broadcast media after what seemed to be (and many agreed) to be his poor showing in the landmark debate during his campaign against JFK.  His perception of “loss” in their televised 1960 debate, made him acutely aware of media influence. He took office in 1969, determined to control his media coverage. He created the White House Office of Communications and hired a strategist to help him improve his television appearances. That strategist was, unsurprisingly, Roger Ailes. Future Fox News CEO, sexual predator and Trump media whore. However, even Ailes efforts were unable to calm Nixon’s fears that the press wasn’t “against” him. Driven by his long-time paranoia—and the embarrassing revelations of his role in the Watergate scandal—Nixon compiled a list of press “enemies” and had them audited, using a supposedly independent federal agency, the IRS as a weapon. His cadre of co-conspirators even mounted a campaign to yank the license of a television station owned by the Washington Post, which broke the Watergate scandal and published parts of the Pentagon Papers (See the film “The Post”).

        Most will recall Bill Clinton’s relationship with the press from candidacy to failed impeachment attempt. He was even cited by the Trump campaign in 2016 in a sort of bizarro world “Well, he did it, so he was worse than our guy.”  Way od discrediting Mrs. Clinton because of her husband’s actions of 15 years earlier.

        This, of course, pales in comparison to the accusations and slander levelled at Barack Obama, who endured attacks, based not as much on policy as race, or place of birth.  Donald Trump was a principal architect and supporter of “birther” allegations, using media to criticize essentially anything Obama did, even criticizing the frequency of his golfing, which seems odd now that Trump has far surpassed Obama’s outings over 8 years in just under three years.

       In summarizing: What Adriana Cohen has written overlooks many factors but one overwhelmingly salient fact. Donald Trump is the author of his relationship with the media.  While many recent Presidents have simply ignored “bad press” or op-ed critics, considering response as beneath the dignity the office should command, he rants endlessly, remaining under informed, and “tweeting” his ignorance. He then becomes indignant and authors personal attacks when a demonstrably false statement is called to public attention. These are self- inflicted injuries.

        A newsman makes what is, in fact, a statement which might be questionable. Trump erupts, and the Far-Right Media trumpet “fake news” even in the face of a retraction. The retraction doesn’t say the story is false (it almost assuredly isn’t) but states. as responsible media should, that having been uncorroborated by the standard the public should require that it should not have been retorted. Trump declares “six new steel plants opening.”  When the truth, that none are, is published, it is Fake News.  

        Maybe in reality Adriana Cohen really just wants to be part of the new White House Media outlet she suggests “we” need. Here’s a suggestion -why not call it Pravda?      

Another Flawed Trump Decision

        If I told you that the federal government wanted a check for 50 dollars every year from every family of four which would be spent on a program which cost them money, most of us would be a bit confused if not angry. And yes, I’m going to make you read all of this to get to today’s totally relevant point.

        And yet, in the U. S., fewer than 4,500 farm businesses produce sugar. Those businesses cost taxpayers around $4 billion a year in subsidies. To what end? Nominally, to keep sugar production a viable US industry. The underappreciated “rest of the story” is that the cost of these price supports is the cost paid to prop up the prices of US domestic sugar and eliminate “unfair” competition from such economic giants as Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and, of course, that great Caribbean bugaboo - Cuba.

       This U.S. sugar program is, in essence, a Stalinist-style supply control initiative that limits imports through quotas and domestic production through what are called marketing allotments. While doing so, it also, and here’s the dirty little secret, substantially increases U.S. prices. On average U.S. sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices, ensuring domestic sugar production is artificially higher, crowding out other productive uses of irrigable farmland.

       If this had a net positive effect, it might be tolerable, despite its effect of enriching a small sector of American society at the expense of all the rest of us. However, it doesn’t work that way. The program is also a net job killer. Employment losses in the U.S. food-processing sector more than offset any positive employment impacts in the U.S. sugar-processing sector. The net result is reductions in U.S. manufacturing employment opportunities in the order of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs every year, per one industry report. An increasing number of (formerly US) confectioners are now producing elsewhere with sugar of the same quality at half the price per pound. And (I told you I’d bring it back together) the annual cost to the average family of four of  artificially expensive sugar is between 44 and 50 dollars, just considering subsidies, not to mention the higher costs of all products using subsidized sugar.

        On a broader scale, the concept has also been applied to farm products in general. I’ve written on farm subsidies previously and don’t care to repeat all the grim details, but the total cost in an ordinary year is a big number. The federal government spends more than $20 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses. About 39 percent of the nation's 2.1 million farms receive subsidies, with the lion's share of the handouts going to the largest producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.

        Yes, I know, you’ve said this before, Mike, so what is new? I’m glad you asked, Grasshopper. In today’s local paper there is a small article, only one paragraph, citing the diversion of $3.6 billion from the Pentagon budget, primarily from such “non-essentials” as schools, and maintenance facilities, domestic and overseas, which would be used for Trump’s wall which, you  may recall, Mexico was supposed to pay for.

       You’ve probably realized by now that the point of this is that, once again acting like the spoiled child he is, Trump has bullied his way through legal opposition to do his own will. In this case, giving to the rich and robbing those who defend us.  The amount spent on sugar subsidies alone, would more than suffice for his wall fantasy. It would only be 18.5% of the “usual” US farm subsidy package. Considering the conservative tendencies of many farmers, it could have been amusing (and appropriate) to have seen Trump tell his “rustic” supporters (and huge agribusiness donors, such as Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Monsanto) that it was their turn to suck it up for the good of “the wall.”

        That would be in a normal year. Here comes the rest of the story. Since the inception of Trump’s incredibly naïve tariff war with China, American farmers are in trouble. An additional $16 billion so far, has been diverted to farm aid as soybean and wheat markets in China have dried up (to be eagerly replaced, by increased sales from Russia and Brazil). This now greatly affects this year’s subsidies. Driven by a tragically flawed economic policy, discredited by real economists everywhere, the 2019 farm subsidy is now $39 billion! That makes the funds diverted from valid DOD uses such as schools & maintenance to “the wall” a mere nine percent of our annual gift to farmers and big agriculture.  “Family farm,” a favorite Republican shibboleth, is not a synonym for “small farm.” In 2015, 90 percent of million-dollar farms were family farms. Almost of all the commodity payments and crop insurance indemnities are going to millionaires and multimillionaires as measured by farm household net worth.

       It’s nice to know that Trump is nothing, if not consistent. He compounds poor decisions based on poor judgement and lack of information on a daily basis. This is simply one more.

Separating Fact from Opinion, a Messy Divorce

Separating Truth from Fiction

        I noted Face Book comments on the recent US House passage of a $15 minimum wage bill, which sadly probably won’t clear the Senate. As expected, several Face Book “experts” simply parroted the traditional natterings of the far Right regarding the effects overall, one in specifically general said “Many companies ….   Layoffs, cutting hours, reducing staff, etc.” 

      Being the data driven kind of guy I am, I wondered. Ever wonder? I do. In this case I wondered if “many companies” was anywhere close to accurate. I also wondered if the real experts, the Bureau of labor Statistics had numbers which might be useful. They do. Although the most recent widespread analysis is from 2017.

       To begin with, “Many Companies” implies that more than not would be faced with increasing pay to many workers. The truth is harder to find. For example, Amazon will be paying $15 with or without a law requiring it. Moreover, no US Auto industry pays lower than $15 for entry level assemblers. Even a custodian at GM earns $19 hourly with cash bonuses and health insurance, 401K etc. The vast number of businesses currently paying under that minimum are small businesses or service industry concerns.

        In 2017, 80.4 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 542,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.3 million had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.8 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 2.3 percent of all hourly paid workers.

       The percentage of hourly paid workers earning the prevailing federal minimum wage or less declined from 2.7 percent in 2016 to 2.3 percent in 2017. This remains well below the percentage of 13.4 (!) recorded in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis.

       Ok, so what can we learn from the data?  Using 2017 numbers, it is actually quite a lot and very compelling. First, some baseline numbers: A two earner family with two children is below the federal poverty guideline if their annual income is less than $25,100. At $7.25 hourly (2017 minimum wage), they will bring in $29,000 if both work 50 weeks and neither gets sick.

        At that wage level they will still be eligible for an additional $640 MONTHLY in food stamps. While the number fluctuates wildly over the nation, simply using a state I could find readily (Montana) this family of four would also qualify for Medicaid! It is impossible to “dollarize” the cost of that since it varies widely. $640 monthly in food stamps, however, is easy to turn into mathematical reasoning. Ready? Here goes.

       $640 for the household is exactly $2 per hour for both wage earners working a 40-hour week.  One more time: take the $7.25 minimum hourly wage, add the $2 represented by the value of food stamps and bingo, you’re at $9.75 hourly. That’s $640 dollars of taxpayer money that the family would neither need nor receive if they earned even $10.00 per hour. Here’s the revelation: Just to keep up with inflation, it should be $14.11! Remain calm, don’t panic, grab your towels, I’ll explain in simple terms later.

       

       At just $10 hourly, this same family earns (again both working 40 hours, 50 weeks) right at $40,000 annually. No Medicare, no food stamps, both of which are taxpayer dollars.

        It seems to me simply snotty, elitist and, too frequently, racist, to sneer at a minimum wage worker (or anyone) who does their job to the best of their ability because you don’t value their work.

       To recap, there are about 80 million hourly workers in the USA. Only 2.3% of them are at or below the minimum wage. Raising all those to a $15 minimum would cost .35 % of the cost of the $5 billion, unnecessary “Wall.” Even more to the point, it would cost a mere .07% of what Trump’s tariffs have cost us in Farm assistance so far.

        So, when the Far rightists whine about a $15 minimum wage, process this. Most industries have relatively few minimum wage positions. Many have almost none. Service industries have the most and many of those individuals also get tips. Sadly, fast food isn’t one of those. If you denigrate the effort or worthiness of the person who provides you fast food, there’s an old Navy term for that – "asshole.”   

        Not unexpectedly, this drew a response - not just from the two "experts" who opined that:

 1) “minimum wage was not “meant to be” a living wage.”  This is to me remarkable, since the history of legislation creating it during the great depression states: “The purpose of the minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees!”   

Or: 2) that “… Many companies will cut hours and cut payroll because they can't survive this stupid democratic initiative!” (This from an individual who, I found out from a Linked-In page, makes $35 hourly. I’m assuming $70k brings with it deep insight into the world of minimum wage, because it surely displays gross ignorance of economics.

      Instead the "new" response seemed to imply that raising the minimum wage to $15 was a waste of time because a single minimum wage earner “Can’t afford to live in San Francisco.” He added “and there is the disconnect!”

       After a moment of internalized “WTF?” I responded. Curiously enough, the person offering this opinion lives in semi-rural Maryland, not CA, hence my reaction. Since figures are my friends, I decided to introduce them to this young person as follows:

        “Then don't live in San Francisco. (you don't) Simple, huh? And by the way, the median income in Carroll County, Md. (where you DO live) is $36,900 per capita. Meanwhile in San Fran the median household income is $96,265. Citing San Francisco or Seattle on a broad national economic issue is a fool's errand. A median 1 bedroom apartment rental in SF is $3700/month ($44,400 annually!) In Westminster (note: small town semi-rural Md, where this person lives) I just found any number of almost new 2 BR rentals at right around $1100 monthly, and one BR under $900. You are comparing apples to oranges.

        By your logic, we should not let anyone, anywhere,  make a living wage because SF is expensive. The same wage in Westminster would have that family off food stamps, off Medicaid, able to buy health insurance and not using social services. We should, per your (il)logic, just not do anything because we can't do everything. If one can't afford to live in downtown Manhattan, one shouldn't. What exactly is the mystery about that? There is no "disconnect" other than in your reasoning.”

        The factors which increase the cost of living are prices of goods and services which includes all businesses, undifferentiated by size. In other words: “The increases in fees, prices and costs levied by small business are, overall, just as significant a factor in the CPI increase year to year as are the prices of cars.”

         So, what is this CPI you speak of, Obi Wan? Well, Luke, The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, is calculated by dividing the price of a specified and generally unchanged, year to year, “basket” (list, sampling,) of goods and services in a given year by the price of the same basket in the base year. This ratio is then multiplied by 100, which results in the Consumer Price Index.  In plain speak, if the basket costs $100 in the base year and $105 in base year plus 1, the CPI in the next year is 105 which equates to a 5% increase in the cost of living in that year. 

        Now that we have that squared away, and working under the assumption that the Federal minimum wage was (it was) designed to support  and produce a minimum standard of living, then several things are also true:

1) Unindexed (tied to) to the annual cost of living increase (it isn’t), the minimum wage can (it has) “lose ground” due to inflation, eroding the intent of the original legislation. How badly? Read on.

2) From 1965 to 2019, the hourly federal minimum wage has been increased sporadically (almost always opposed by the Right) from $1.75 in ’65, to $7.25, today. This is an increase by a factor of 4.14.

3)  Over the same time span (1965-2019) the cost of living (as shown by the consumer price index) has increased from 31.2 (1965) to 251.7 (2019). These are indisputable numbers, not guesses.

4) based on those numbers, the true “cost of living” has increased by a factor of 8.067. This means that if the federal minimum wage had simply been indexed to the cost of living, which it WAS designed to cover, (you know like Social Security, Military retirement, etc.?)  the current minimum wage would be $14.11 per hour! And the rest of the issue would more than likely be moot. 

       This, then, is the reality of the situation. Congressional inactivity, influenced by tightfisted and unconcerned people like Donald Trump, who has a well-documented history of stiffing employees, has led to a steady erosion of the efficacy and purchasing power of a federal  minimum wage. As an aside, Trump's Mar A Lago announced that, in the coming season, cooks will be paid $13.31 per hour compared to the $13.34 they received last year. Servers would see an increase of 80 cents per hour from $11.33 to $12.68 but will not receive tips. A pay cut in the "greatest economy ever?" What else would we expect?  Some states, recognizing this have enacted higher state minimum wages. This isn’t being “generous;” it’s just being fair.      

Guns and the Death of Logic in Wayne’s World

Guns and the death of logic in Wayne’s World

       So, as I’m reading today’s news and e-mail, I open a “survey” produced by the NRA. It has a photo of Wayne LaPierre in one of those great suits on which he is accused of abusively spending NRA funds not his to spend, instead of his $5 million plus, NRA President salary. That aside, it is also a classic example or questions aimed at producing response bias by their wording.

Several are simply boiler plate. Examples include:  

       “Do you agree that the Second Amendment guarantees your individual right to own a firearm?”  

Of course, an informed individual, minus the research into Alexander Hamilton’s stated reasoning, (poorly trained and ill-equipped state militias in times when Indians (and the British and even the French were threats in frontier areas) will answer this with no factual basis for analysis.

“Do you support the confirmation of pro-Second Amendment judges to the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts?”

Obviously, the nominee could be a legal dullard, but as long as he’s pro-second amendment…!

“Do you support laws that protect your fundamental right to use a firearm to defend yourself and your loved ones from a violent criminal attacker?”

This one is a bit trickier since, while most would, in theory, agree that given an assault or life-threatening encounter with a “violent attacker” self-defense is appropriate. This is really a, not so thinly veiled, “pro-stand your-ground law”, statement. 

      What we have seen nationally in these cases is almost never an “appropriate” or “reasoned” response (can you say Trayvon Martin?) but an unjustified shooting by an imbecile - primed, ready, and legally empowered to do what they long to do.

“Should Congress and the states eliminate so-called "gun free zones" that leave innocent citizens defenseless against terrorists and violent criminals?”

       First of all, states can already do that with no recourse from the Congress. Period. Additionally, however, let’s examine how many “terrorist” attacks have happened in any “gun free” zone. In our recent history, a “no fly” zone would have saved more lives than all those killed in “terrorist attacks”, foreign and domestic, in any "zone" in the last 40 years. Moreover, considering the lousy shooting of even trained LEOs under stress, why would we assume armed citizens would kill more terrorists that by-standers?

“Should Congress pass a law that gives law-abiding citizens the right to carry a firearm across state lines?”

       First off; all recent mass shooters were “Law abiding citizens” right up until they weren’t. That fact aside, this law would also abrogate Constitutionally mandated states’ primacy in controlling their own state firearms policy. (anything not specified in the Constitution is the state’s purview.) In fact, however, subject to all the other questions (to which the NRA wants you to answer NO!) which include real background checks, automatic weapons bans, etc., this question is designed to make real hunters, who may wish to transport their hunting rifle from Montana to Idaho safely in the trunk of their car, angry. Such a ban would indeed be onerous and would have had little or no effect in preventing recent mass shootings.

“Do you oppose any United Nations treaty that strips the U.S. of its sovereignty and gives U.N. bureaucrats the power to regulate every rifle, pistol, and shotgun you own?”

       Really? Get the f*** out of here! This is included specifically to create the illusion that such a proposal would: a) Have or gain any traction or b) have the capability to be unilaterally enforced against any national policy. While there could be a lunatic fringe who would like this idea, (but I doubt it) this would be as a realistic as a treaty forcing all Americans to become vegans and drink only vitamin water at football games.

“Do you agree that law-abiding citizens should be forced to submit to mandatory gun registration or else forfeit their guns and their freedom?”

       Well, actually, Wayne, yeah, I do. Just like in Switzerland. The issue here, however, is the use of the word “Freedom.” Free to do what? If you mean amass stockpiles of 15 or 20 high rate of fire automatic weapons and 1000 rounds of ammunition, then one wonders why any individual might need to be “free” to do that. 

     The survey, intentionally, of course, recognizes no middle ground between responsible hunters and mass murderers. In Wayne’s World, both need to have access to all the guns they want. When it suits, the NRA clearly delineates between responsible gun owners (And, contrary some to ultra-left propaganda, many of those, responsible sportsmen, are becoming more and more disenchanted with the national organization’s leadership and rhetoric) and collectors of assault weapons and mountains of ammunition.

“Should NRA direct critical resources toward stopping anti-gun billionaires like Michael Bloomberg who are spending millions of dollars to destroy your Second Amendment freedom in states around the country?”

       Wow, where to start here? That darned Bloomberg! Of course, this is also a classic response bias issue, in which the wording of the question, especially the use of negative absolutes is structured to generate a desired response, vice a measured evaluation of the question. In fact, in this case like much NRA rhetoric the implication inherent in the question is a lie, as well.

        In 2014, Bloomberg told the New York Times he plans to spend $50 million on the initiative, which will focus not on passing federal bans on specific weapons but on expanding the background check system for gun buyers. Read it again. Do you see the destruction of second Amendment freedom in there? Background checks are in no way an abrogation of Second Amendment freedoms in any real sense. 

        Now if the Amendment's wording said “Regardless of ill intent, history as a terrorist, mental instability, proven violent behavior and/or criminal behavior, etc.…” but it doesn’t, does it? In fact, the preface is “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, …..” 

        What the NRA always ignores is the simple fact that we now have that well regulated militia in the form of the National Guard, and no one I know thinks the Guard shouldn’t have whatever weapons are appropriate. One of the benefits of a flexible Constitution is that, as the world changes and the nature of life in it also changes, the document need not be completely rewritten every time it becomes appropriate. 

       That’s why the number of federal courts is unspecified, as is the nature of the executive branch offices (Cabinet posts). Both are left in a sort of “as appropriate” status since Hamilton, Madison and Jay understood that the nation would grow. They couldn’t have foreseen the Department of Energy or Labor, or Transportation, and didn’t need to.

        It would have been even more difficult, considering the general dislike in the former colonies for a standing army, to imagine both a Federal permanent military and States versions as well. The Constitutional convention of 1787 in Philadelphia provided checks on any standing army by allowing the President to command it, but Congress to finance it using short-term legislation. In other words, in 1789 there was no US Army worthy of the name.

        At the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, militias, largely disorganized, and as Hamilton loudly bemoaned, mostly untrained, were the only real time protection on the frontiers. While we all can claim to think we know what the Second Amendments “means,” consider this: Since the militia meant and constituted what was in essence, “the military,” shouldn’t we expand that to mean that in today’s world, “arms” should be expanded to include nuclear weapons, field artillery, airplanes, submarines…?   I mean, "C’mon, man arms is arms, is arms, right?" An F-16 by any other name!  If I haven’t convinced you yet, that the NRA is about more than guns, you need a nap.

       “Do you believe more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners will make our country safer?”   

Again, with the blatant response bias. If we knew which gun owners were “law abiding” and would always remain that way, this would be a no- brainer, but let me give you some “law abiding citizens”  who were on no one’s radar, and would never have been on the NRA’s: Harris/Kleibold/ Dylan Roof/Connor Betts/Patrick Cruscius/Nikolas Cruz. These law-abiding citizens (until they weren’t) are responsible for 73 other dead law-abiding citizens, 32 of them children. All used automatic weapons.         

And finally, not because it’s the last one, but because I’m sick of reading this bullshit:

  

“Do you support or oppose allowing military service men and women to carry firearms on U.S. military bases to guard themselves against violent criminals and radical Islamic terrorists?”

      Notice how he tossed the "radical Islamic terrorists" in there. This is called a “trigger word”, guaranteed to generate a visceral response (in some, acolytes usually). Actually, I’m surprised it took this long to toss it out. In fact, there have been 7 shooting deaths with multiple targets on US military bases since 1994. One involved a Muslim, also an Army Officer. Would we have had him carrying a sidearm, too? In fact, base commanders have that option (but not concealed personal weapons), so the point is moot, but it did allow the “Islamic” insertion. Now here’s the weird part: This shooting spree, by a Major, who also happened to be a US born Muslim, took place in 2009, yet until 2012, 3 years post shooting, Fort Hood security was still being provided by a civilian contractor, not MPs, even though a 1400 man, brigade strength, MP detachment was assigned to the base (God I love research!). Now the rest of the story in this one incident:  reviews by the Pentagon and a U.S. Senate panel found Hasan’s superiors had continued to promote him despite the fact that concerns had been raised over his behavior, which suggested he had become a radical and potentially violent Islamic extremist. Among other things, Hasan stated publicly that America’s war on terrorism was really a war against Islam. Perhaps the gun wasn’t as responsible as the flawed judgement of those who put a clearly troubled and radicalized individual in the position to use it? How truly different is Major Hasan from Dylan Roof?

        Another final takeaway if you will. This is by no means the first or last poorly written “propaganda disguised as survey.” Both major political parties are guilty of using biased questioning to elicit a response which on many cases, they hope will become your reflexive and permanently internalized opinion on the matter, eliminating the need for such things a research, independent thought, discussion, etc.

Gasoline - The Blue Light Special

Gasoline, the Blue Light Special

        Lots of chatter this past week regarding vacillations and levels of gasoline pricing. Of course, this has engendered a bit of the usual “gummint manipulation” conspiracy theories. I have dealt with this fallacy several times, individually, but this will be the Blog Post which ends my attempts to speak rationally on the topic.  

       Historically, people like Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, both of whom should have  known better, either didn’t (option 1) or (option 2) were simply lying, bloviating political empty shirts (or blouses). 

       Bachmann was the worst, when, she alluded to the fiction that “If I’m elected President (cringe!) gas will cost way under two dollars a gallon.” She didn’t even know what she didn’t know. The first revelatory statistic is that gas prices historically drop in a recession, not in stronger markets. The prices of gas dropped precipitously in the last Bush 43 years precisely because the economy, via the housing bubble collapse, had spasmodically soiled its linen. Only a fool would believe that a President would facilitate a recession (he can’t really do that either) just to lower fuel prices!

        By the same token, Gingrich proclaimed that if Obama was elected gas prices would “soar to $9 or $10 per gallon”, and American oil production would decrease. Of course, gas prices didn’t go up as predicted, and during the Obama administration, US Oil Production increased across the board, an “inconvenient truth” which Donald Trump would later attempt to hijack to his own credit. In fact, previous large jumps in domestic gasoline pricing occurred between 1980-1984 (Reagan) and 2000-2009 (Bush 43). As attractive as some may find it to claim it, neither was responsible for “manipulating” gasoline prices. As the Great Recession wound down, starting around 2012, while domestic production increased markedly, process decreased and by 2014, prices were down to pre-crash levels.

        In 1776, Adam Smith, published his seminal work on Economics, The Wealth of Nations. In it, he described the effects on markets of supply and demand. It’s not rocket science, rather common sense.  So, what actually does affect gasoline prices? Supply issues generally. A refinery down or something similar. The federal government has less to do with gasoline prices than the states do, and the federal gas tax has been the same since the Clinton administration. The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and was last raised in 1993. The federal fuel tax is not even indexed to inflation, which increased by a total of 73 percent from 1993 until 2018!

         It's simply a market economy. Can a producer reduce supply to increase price? Sure, but that's not the government in any way, shape, or form. I remember when Bachmann said that if she were President, gas would be a dollar per gallon. She should probably have checked with Exxon, Shell, or BP or any other oil producer before even considering such a ludicrous statement.

        Now for a real dose of reality (can you handle the truth?). For all the complaining we see and hear about gas prices there's a really interesting statistical fact: Gasoline in 1950 was about 45 cents per gallon. Simply adjusting for the cost of living increase over the period from 1950 to 2019, a gallon of gas, to cost in real dollars the same as in 1950, should retail at $4.79 per gallon! In other words, gasoline today actually costs less, adjusted for inflation, than it did in 1950! Gasoline cost is a smaller percentage of the family income than in 1950, and many, if not most, vehicles get better mileage.

        So, why are we complaining? Mainly because we love a conspiracy theory, no matter how ridiculous. Here’s how far we, or some of us, have our heads up our asses on this issue: The 68 year old consumer will accept without a whimper, or even a second thought, that the 1965 Mustang (just as an example) he  filled with fuel when he was 20 cost $2734 (MSRP), while the  2013 he’s filling up today cost $31,545. For the math challenged, that’s 11.54 times as much. Meanwhile, the gas he pumped, at 34 cents per gallon now costs $2.25 per gallon, only 6.5 times as much, and yet he whines about it.  Are we really that dense? Apparently in some cases, yeah, we are.     

       The "average" gas station sells (around) 3000 gallons per day and has (about) 24,000 gallons of storage. This means that if the price goes up at the refinery for whatever reason there's a long supply chain between that and the pump. What you pump today may have been wholesaled at last week's price and will sell at that price. If the merchant refills storage tanks today at 10 cents per gallon more, you’re probably going to see that reflected immediately, since the retailer usually takes advantage of the new delivery price to make a little extra on the cheaper last week's gas. Additionally, crude oil is a world market, some aspects of which are beyond our control. All in all, gasoline is a better bargain, even at $4.50 per gallon, than it was 69 years ago! At today's $2.25, it's a steal in the US. In Norway and the Netherlands, it's about $6.50USD per gallon!