The debate on guns has been changing

A decade ago, when people would ask me whether I agreed with the Democrats on every issue, I'd answer that I generally did not. The exception was 'second amendment issues.'

As a rural Democrat (though I did grow up in the city) I understand that guns are pretty fundamental to the lifestyle around here. A rancher who is way back on his ranch dealing with a sick herd animal and is confronted by a pack of wild dogs may need it (yes, folks, those 'sweet little puppies' that people leave on the side of the road-- 99% of them get hit by cars, starve or die of thirst, or become coyote food, but the other 1%, they're out there-- and you don't want to meet them without a firearm.) But beyond that, a lot of people go hunting in rural areas, and even those who do not, generally know how to use a gun. And crime, while much less here than in cities is not entirely unknown in rural areas, but the difference is that if you call 911, the nearest officer may be miles away and whatever happens will be long over before they even get anywhere close to your home. For a lot of people here, guns are so fundamental that asking them to hand over their guns would almost be like asking them to hand over their kids.

And my own view has always been, "you should be able to buy any gun you want. And other than an instant background check to make sure you aren't a criminal or a loony, there is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to buy a firearm.“ I've opposed registration of firearms as well, believing that it's not the government's business to know how many guns you own. And truth be told, that should be the liberal view. I believe you have the right to read, say, download, smoke or do whatever you want with a consulting adult in your own bedroom, so why not the right to buy what you want, including a gun?

For that reason, ten years ago I often differed with Democrats on gun issues, opposing gun control and registration laws.

I don't disagree with Democrats now, however. No, I have not changed my position, not changed it at all. What has happened is that the debate has shifted.

Although the rhetoric machine on the right likes to call Democrats 'gun grabbers' to keep their faithul in line, the truth is that no serious attempt to ban guns was proposed either by the President or Congress during the two years that President Obama had a Democratic Congress. It just wasn't on the radar screen. Even after the Tucson shooting, while there was a half-hearted attempt to ban the 30 bullet clips that Jared Loughner used to kill six people and injure 13 in a matter of seconds, (and some including me asked why anyone would want a rapid fire 30 bullet clip, unless you are a terrible shot and can't hit anything you aim at) there was no serious attempt to restrict the type of gun or ammunition people can buy.

What we see now (mainly at the state level, and Arizona is a prime example) is a much more aggressive agenda to push guns into places where they have never been allowed in the past, and that's where I am parting ways with the right. Some bills that have been passed by the Arizona legislature in the past few years and signed into law include:

*-- a law requiring that bar owners, unless they put up a sign stating otherwise, must allow guns into bars. Obviously armed drunks wasn't a good idea so virtually every bar in the state posted the sign, but it was an unncessary expense, and more importantly the legislature tried to tell the bar owners how to run their business.

*-- ending the requirement that concealed carry owners attend a safety class, and demonstrate competence. Yeah, we can laugh at the mayhem that followed, such as the man who accidentally blew a hole in the ceiling at Wal-Mart or the or the man who accidentally partially castrated himself with his fiancee's pink pistol or the guy who shot a hole in the floor while standing in the checkout line at the supermarket or the guy who was lounging around on the couch when the gun went off but was it really such a grand idea to get rid of the safety requirement? I mean, my kids took driver's ed and they have to drive around with a learner's permit and had twelve hours of instructed driving (half at the wheel, half observing) before they are allowed to get a license. You know, because a car isn't a toy, and you might hurt yourself or someone else if you didn't know and observe the safety rules? But I guess maybe a gun is now considered a toy. At least that's apparently what this seven year old thought.

It's not the people who know what they are doing who scare me, it's the armed nincompoops.

Even worse than what was signed into law, are some of the laws that have actually passed the Arizona legislature and made it all the way to the governor's desk the past few years. And history teaches that these bills don't die if you veto them, they will just come back in a modified form (such as the guns in bars bill, which was vetoed by Janet Napolitano but later signed by Jan Brewer.)

*-- the storage locker bill. Would have required that private businesses (any private business) allow people to carry a gun openly unless they invested a lot of money to install a secure storage locker where people could store their guns while in the business. So for example a convenience store would have to install such a locker or a person could walk right up to the clerk on the graveyard shift (when many convenience stores only have one person on duty) with a gun in their hand, and at the last moment could either present it butt-first to put into the storage locker or muzzle first ("this is a hold up.") Besides the obvious gift to armed robbers, this pretty much proves that the GOP legislature thinks business owners don't know what their customers want and therefore the legislature must tell them (and THEY are the ones who complain about the 'nanny state?')

*-- the guns in schools bill. Would force schools to allow any adult to carry a gun on campus. Again, a case of 'the legislature knows best,' not the local school board who knows what would work best in their community.

*-- the guns in university classrooms bill. Would force universities to allow anyone to carry a gun into classrooms. All I have to say about that is, I've had a lot more hotheads in classes I teach at a college than I've had school shooters. One time when I was teaching in Albuquerque a hothead got really ticked off in class, threw a pencil (hard) at another student's head (luckily she ducked and he missed) and then screamed obscenities at everyone and stormed off. I’m really glad he didn’t have a gun right then. For that matter, as long as we are talking about Jared Loughner (since the Tucson shooting came up earlier in this post) he was known to be a problem at Pima Community College. But fortunately the school had a gun-free policy which he followed on campus so when he had his periodic psychotic meltdowns on campus, he was unarmed at that moment. So in other words, we have become so obsessed with school shooters (which if we quit covering them and making a sensational story when there is one they probably wouldn't happen as often) that we forget the much more common case: of someone who may be in general a law abiding citizen, but who has a short fuse and a violent temper.

*-- the bill to allow guns into other public buildings, including town council meetings, municipal and civil courts and libraries. They could be banned only if the public entity involved installed expensive metal detectors at all the entrances (at this time of strained budgets, clearly something most such public institutions can't afford, and no, the legislature did not offer to provide funding in that case.) Just what we need, right? People bringing a gun to divorce court and custody hearings. Luckily even Jan Brewer realized this bill was bad news (kind of a sad commentary when you have to depend on Jan Brewer to be the adult in the room, but that's what kind of legislature we have now.)

So no, I haven't changed my position on guns at all. I still support responsible gun ownership. I still oppose gun control or gun registration. But the debate has shifted, and I do not support trying to force guns into places where they have never been part of the picture and don't belong in it.

CD-1 analysis.

One of the benefits of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is that it has produced a much higher number of competitive districts, both at the congressional and legislative level, than what we see in other states where one party has been able to produce a partisan gerrymander (such as Democrats in Illinois or Republicans in Pennsylvania.) The result is that there are a number of legislative districts, and three congressional districts, which are classified as 'competitive,' meaning that it is realistic to imagine a scenario that has either party winning.

I live in one such congressional district, Arizona CD-1. The district is somewhat different than the old CD-1, which was also a competitive district. It is also an open seat. In 2010 Paul Gosar rode the Republican wave (and a $2 million ad buy by a GOP Super-PAC) to an upset of incumbent Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. However this year, Gosar, a Flagstaff resident who resides in CD-1, ran away from a rematch with Kirkpatrick and jumped into a district that is more friendly to Republicans.

The result is that Kirkpatrick is now in a very good position to be elected to the seat again. She has already raised over $1.1 million, including from small donors throughout the district. In fact, the Rothenburg Political Report and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball have rated the race as 'Lean D.' If that prediction holds then it would be one of the 25 seats that are presently occupied by Republicans and that Democrats need to retake to reclaim the House. Redistricting has also helped Democrats, adding the Hopi reservation and removing most of Yavapai county, a Republican stronghold, from the district. Some areas north of Tucson were added, and they do lean Republican but overall the district is still more Democratic. Even more than that, a poll on Tea Party 'favorability' in the district has shown a 17% decline since 2010.

Kirkpatrick does have a primary race against Wenona Benally Baldenegro, a progressive Democrat with a degree from Harvard. Past results however suggest that Kirkpatrick should be strongly favored in the race; in 2006, progressive candidates Susan Friedman and Mike Cacciopoli combined for 28% of the vote in a five way Democratic primary. In 2008, when Kirkpatrick was first elected, progressive candidate Howard Shanker worked the district very hard (in fact virtually everyplace I went that year I ran into either Howard Shanker or someone representing him) but then finished third with only 14% of the vote in the Democratic primary (second place went to Mary Kim Titla, who ran to the right of Kirkpatrick.) It could be a measure of how well progressives are getting their message out to see whether Benally Baldenegro exceeds Shanker's share of the vote in the primary. This is also a district where Hillary Clinton won handily over Barack Obama in the primaries in 2008, and while overall I may wish the district (and the Democrats living here) were more progressive, in fact by and large they are not.

On the Republican side, it appears that history may be repeating itself. For the first six years the district was in existence, it was represented by Rick Renzi, a Virginian who continued to live in that state while he was serving in Congress and only visited Arizona for campaign events. Renzi was a fixture on the non-partisan watchdog group CREW (Center for Responsiveness and Ethics in Washington)'s list of the 'dirty dozen' most corrupt members of congress. Renzi eventually declined to run again in 2008 after being indicted on multiple counts of bribery, extortion and money laundering. The case is now winding its way slowly through the courts.

With Renzi's history of 'representing' northern Arizona from the comfort of his Virginia home, and his ethical troubles reflecting so poorly on the district and on our collective judgment, you'd think the Republicans here would make a point of trying to find someone who actually lived in the old or the new CD-1 to run for 'representing' us and would look for someone without a past history of ethical problems. I mean, that's such a low standard that even Paul Gosar (the guy who abandoned the district because he was afraid of a rematch with Kirkpatrick) could clear that bar.

It seems though that they couldn't find a candidate who met either standard. Instead the leading candidate is Jonathan Paton, a paid lobbyist for the Payday Lending industry. Paton took thousands of dollars (not in campaign contributions either, but in the form of a check to him for 'services rendered' as a lobbyist) to represent this industry WHILE he was simultaneously serving in the legislature. This helped earn him the nickname, "Payday Paton." When asked directly about his roles with the discredited industry (remember that in 2008 voters rejected keeping Payday lenders in the state by a 2-1 margin) Paton tries to dodge the question. If he wants to represent Arizona in Congress, then he should answer forthrightly and candidly that question.

While serving in the legislature, Paton also was key to funnelling almost a quarter of a billion dollars in state money into a Tucson shopping project called Rio Nuevo. The project has turned out to be an expensive boondoggle and a waste of taxpayer money. It did help buy Paton something though-- he got a seat on the Board of Directors of the trust which oversees Rio Nuevo.

Similarly to what failed him in 2010, Paton is running a Republican Primary campaign centered on extremism and pandering to the tea party. Paton's position in terms of the Ryan budget alone is enough reason to vote against him if you care about Medicare and don't want to see it privatized, as Ryan has proposed and which Paton has stated his support for both in 2010 and 2012. Paton lost in 2010 to Jesse Kelly in a GOP primary, in his bid to beat Congresswoman Giffords. But one thing Paton could say, is that he was from the district. He can't even say that this time.

Perhaps that's why he jumped into CD-1 in order to run. He's unknown to most of the voters here, because the voters who know him have already proven they don't support him. But the truth is, Paton has already shown he's a lousy candidate, raising only $197,000 in Q1, less than he raised in a corresponding period in his failed 2010 campaign.

Yes, history appears to be repeating itself with Jonathan Paton setting himself up as the next Rick Renzi. But we don't have to elect him. And fortunately it appears that the voters are not likely to do that.

It's the policy of tax cuts, deregulation and shrinking government that's failing

With the release Friday of May's terrible jobs report (and let's not sugar coat anything-- 69,000 created is terrible, and the unemployment rate notched up a tenth as a result) Mitt Romney and other Republicans have been quick to say that it is proof that President Obama's policies are not working. Their solution is to (predictably) suggest cutting taxes on 'jobcreators' (meaning the very wealthy and corporations,) getting rid of regulations and slashing government spending.

Not so fast. Certainly the policies in place are failing to stimulate the economy, but let's take a look at the policies in place.

Let's begin with taxes. Federal taxes are now at their lowest rates since 1950. It's hard to remember that during the 1950's and 1960's, the top marginal rate got as high as 91% in the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. And there were far fewer loopholes than there are today, so 91% meant 91%. Contrary to what today's conservatives will tell you, this did not deter job creation at all, as the American economy boomed (for example, Ray Kroc bought a hamburger stand from the McDonald Brothers in 1955, fully aware that if he was successful in his plans to turn it into a national chain of fast food restaurants he would be taxed at 91%. He and others prospered anyway.) Conservatives love to claim that the Reagan tax cuts were responsible for an economic recovery in the 1980's. But the top marginal rate under Reagan was cut in 1981 to 50%. That was what was considered 'conservative' in those days. What we have now is a system of historically low tax rates (on everybody) and then we have enough loopholes so that last year more than twenty thousand billionaires and multi-millionaires paid no tax at all as did many of the most profitable corporations. In other words, we have created a tax system in which tax rates are historically low, and what tax is paid, is paid mainly by the middle class, not the very wealthy. So the GOP argument that cutting taxes on the very wealthy will spur jobs is FALSE. Both the official and actual tax rates on the very wealthy and corporations are ALREADY the lowest they've been in decades and they have not stimulated the economy. Cutting them further will not help any more than the past several years of very low taxes have helped. In fact, if I fault Obama here, it's that he bought into the tax cut argument. Recall that the Stimulus was 43% tax cuts (including a mixture of corporate and individual tax cuts) and that he has further cut payroll taxes, and agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts two years ago. Let's be clear. Cutting taxes on so-called 'job creators' has NOT created jobs (certainly not in America.) Mostly, they've stashed the cash in accounts someplace (it is no coincidence that offshore banking in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands has exploded since the Bush tax cuts were passed.)

What about regulation? It's certainly true that there are regulations out there that can stifle small businesses. Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, after leaving the Senate, opened a Bed and Breakfast in South Dakota. He later said that he got overwhelmed by all the paperwork he had to deal with, and recognized most of it as stuff he had written, sponsored or voted for while in the Senate. As he notoriously told one interviewer, "If I realized what a pain in the neck it would be, I wouldn't have written half of that stuff." However, in getting rid of regulations or deciding not to write new ones, we want to be careful as well. Let's remember that it was the (bipartisan) vote in 1999 that repealed the Glass-Steagull act and opened the door to exactly the kind of wild speculation by the big banks in risky derivatives that led to the crash of 2008. Taxpayers are understandably irate at having to bail out these big banks after their own irresponsible behavior, especially since as long as the banks were making big money, it went to their own executives and investors, not to the taxpayers (historically low tax rates, remember?) Dodd-Frank is a start in the direction of regulating the banks, but even at that it was watered down by their lobbyists, ensuring that what happened in the early 2000's could potentially happen again. A part of the act which was removed in order to gain the vote of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and break a GOP filibuster, the so-called Volcker rule would prohibit banks from investing in hedge funds and private equity funds. This is exactly the kind of investing that got them into trouble in the first place. The CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has argued against the Volcker rule and said that the rule could cost his bank $400 million, but then has said little since trading in a hedge fund cost his bank $2 billion, five times the amount he claims the Volcker rule would cost.

Certainly if a chain of interconnected large banks fail, it can destroy the economy for everyone. BUT EVEN WITH Dodd-Frank, and EVEN IF the Volcker rule is in effect, there would still be FAR LESS regulatory oversight than there was under Glass-Steagull. During the time that Glass-Steagull was in effect, between 1937 and 1999, recessions were far milder than they have been since then (even the 2001-2002 recession was much deeper than any other recent recessions before the current downturn.) So once again, conservatives have gotten their way with regulation of the banks. Suggesting more deregulation would be going in exactly the wrong direction.

What about other companies than banks? Certainly if most business fail whether because of lack of regulatory oversight or for some other reason they won't ruin the entire economy. No, but they can ruin a lot for a lot of people. For example, given the BP oil spill, does anyone suggest that we should relax regulations on offshore oil drilling (I'm not saying don't drill, but would 'deregulation' make sense here?) Regulations are generally written either to protect the safety of workers, to protect the environment or to protect the consumer. Which of these three should we protect less? Haven't we seen enough people die in mine disasters in the past few years? Don't we already have enough pollution? Do we want more unsafe products on the market?

Are there some regulations that could go because they are obsolete, unnecessary or needlessly burdensome? Of course. And we should remove unneeded regulation, but we should be sure it is unneeded first. If we don't the price will be paid in lives-- maybe even ours (Vioxx anyone?)

And what about government spending? Isn't the deficit dangerous to the economy? Shouldn't we learn from Europe? To a degree, yes. We do presently have a national debt that exceeds $15 trillion and our debt-to-GDP ratio is very high (though not a record; it was significantly higher in 1946.) However, it must first be noted that a deficit is caused when spending exceeds revenue (just like if you spend more than you make, you will end with a debt, that you will have to borrow to pay.) Republicans love to claim that we have spent our way into a record deficit. Doing so, however, ignores the effect of trillions of dollars less in tax collections (remember those historically low tax rates? That represents revenue not going to the government.) The truth is, that spending under the Obama administration has on average increased at 0.4% per year, the slowest since the Eisenhower administration. I even give the GOP Congress some credit for this, with their (at times unreasonable) insistence on spending cuts as the price for doing anything the past two years (not that we won't pay for it of course, but the price will be less accurate hurricane forecasts and tornado warnings a decade or more from now.) The reason why the deficit has grown so much over the past decade is because tax revenues coming into the government have dropped through the floor (historically low tax rates, remember?)

Well, what about cutting government spending as a means to stimulate the economy then? Unfortunately, as I explained last year, cutting spending in the middle of a recession has exactly the opposite effect. In fact, this is exactly what we SHOULD be learning from Europe. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have all implemented various types of austerity to combat the recession, which involves massive cuts in their public sector workforces. The European Central Bank and the IMF have helped bail them out, but on the condition they cut their govenrment spending so that they could pay back the loans. Only an unexpected (but entirely foreseeable) development happened-- the economies of the countries collapsed so fast that even with the cuts they are having trouble making the payments because with a collapsing economy less is being produced at all and so less can be collected in taxes no matter how high the rate is. For example, the Greek economy has shrunk by over 20% just this year. What about the U.S. economy? With May's report, it is a fact that over 600,000 public sector jobs have been lost during the Obama administration. This includes over 11,000 federal jobs and much larger cuts at the state and local levels. This is precisely the OPPOSITE of what would be called for in classical Keynesian economic theory. One can argue whether this is itself caused by the bad economy (since states have to operate on a balanced budget) or by a conscious GOP attempt to shrink government (the truth is probably some of both, and there are enough public sector job losses to be explained using both of these causes.) However, contrary to what conservatives will tell you, if the economy has not been stimulated, it is not because of government hiring, but rather the dumping of hundreds of thousands of teachers, police and other public sector workers into the job market. So what we see is the effect of government not hiring, but in fact doing the opposite and sandbagging any private sector driven improvement in the economy by adding to the number of unemployed people (with lower income and consumer spending to match.)

So is the economy not doing very well? Absolutely, the May jobs report makes it clear that it is not. And certainly the interconnectedness of global markets means that we are fools if we believe that problems in Europe or Asia won't eventually be reflected in the U.S. But don't let conservatives suggest that they can 'cure' it by cutting taxes, deregulation and cutting government spending. Because that's what we've been doing for YEARS, and where we are now is where it has taken us! MORE tax cuts, deregulation and cuts to government spending would be like trying to cure high cholesterol by eating cheeseburgers.

The New England Patriots draft Chaucer to play wide receiver

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

“’Well, I’ve a mind to go with you,’ said Harry Bailey. ‘But I know that ride. It’s a long time to sit in a hard saddle. Let’s liven up the journey with a competition. Each of us can tell a story, and whoever tells the best will get a free dinner on the way back. The rest of us will foot the bill.’““The Canterbury Tales” is a collection of short stories told by a group of people on a pilgrimage in the 13th century. They kept each other entertained. These stories were recorded by one of the pilgrims, Geoffrey Chaucer. Each of the stories are different and all have their own morals. These stories can help us understand what the middle-ages were like.

In conclusion, I thought that “The Canterbury Tales” was a very good book. My favorite story was “A Barrel of Laughs”. I liked it because it was not a story that I would expect from the middle-ages. It was a very funny story and I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend this book to all of my classmates.

Jon Huntsman talks about today's GOP.

Former Presidential candidate and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who has endorsed Mitt Romney for President, was brutally frank in his assessment of the GOP in an interview tonight with Jeff Greenfield.

Huntsman, whose campaign lived and died in the New Hampshire primary, started off by making it clear this would not be an ordinary interview by making it clear that he realized at the start of the campaign that he was in a field of political midgets:

"Recounting his first experience on the presidential debate stage in Iowa last August, Huntsman says he was struck by the question "Is this the best we could do?"

Huntsman went on to describe the way the GOP is run to 'communist China' and to claim (which I believe is right on the mark) that Ronald Reagan would not be able to win the GOP nomination in today's political climate. He stood by his not very enthusiastic endorsement of Mitt Romney but had a message for Mitt that he needs to find something to run on besides fear and articulate a positive message. The most amazing lines in this story are these:

"Huntsman jokingly blamed his failed candidacy in part on his wife, Mary Kaye, who told him she'd leave him if he abandoned his principles.

“She said if you pandered, if you sign any of those damn pledges, I’ll leave you,” Huntsman recounted.

"So I had to say I believe in science — and people on stage look at you quizzically as though you're was an oddball," Huntsman said, explaining why he was "toast" in Iowa."

Imagine that. If you're a Republican and admit you believe in science, then you are 'toast.'

Daniel Patterson End of the Line

According to recommendation in the Patterson report by a team of legal investigators hired by the House Ethics Committee (which Ted at his Rum, Romanism and Rebellion blog posted earlier today) the investigative team is recommending that Rep. Patterson be expelled from the legislature.

The investigation, prompted by a long, documented history of run ins with the police and violence against others on his part (and more specifically his latest physical assault on a woman as I wrote about a little over a month ago when it happened,) details misbehavior at the legislature itself, including verbal and physical threats of violence against other members of that body (of both parties,) offering to trade his vote on legislation for sexual favors and his repeated denials and outright lies, claiming that everyone else is conspiring against him.

The conclusion is very plain:

"Accordingly, based on our investigation, the results of which are more fully described below, we reluctantly recommend that, in light of his extraordinary and very predictable pattern of disorderly, indecorous, and deceptive behavior, coupled with the ineffectiveness of earlier counseling, reprimand, and discipline, Rep. Patterson should be expelled from the House."

Over the past couple of days, with the writing on the wall, Rep. Patterson's behavior has grown increasingly bizarre. First he resigned from the Democratic party (good riddance) and became an independent, railing against excessive partisanship and suggesting that he could bring the sides together. Well, he may be onto something. I suspect that maybe as early as tomorrow morning we will see an amazing show of bipartisanship and unity in the state House of Representatives as all of the other members vote to expel Daniel Patterson. For that matter, as critical as I've been of the GOP members of the legislature, I'm willing to give them another chance-- after all, it would be difficult to cooperate with the other side even if one was inclined to if one of their members was running around making personal threats against people who disagreed with him. So I'm willing to give it a few days and see if expelling Patterson clears some of the air at the legislature.

Then today, Rep. Patterson showed up in the legislature, and conspicuously sat directly behind Rep. Katie Hobbs, who formally brought the ethics complaint to the panel. As Patterson is known to carry a gun and has threatened other members of the legislature before with physical violence it was a tense situation and security was put on alert. Fortunately Katie (who has always been one of my favorite legislators, even before taking the lead on this) was surrounded by friends who made sure she was safe until she left the premises.

Honestly, I believe that Daniel Patterson needs some very serious mental therapy. However, as he is in denial that he even has an issue I only hope that he figures it out before he seriously injures or kills someone else.

Did Verrilli lose on the Mandate on Purpose?

A lot of the discussion about today's Supreme Court argument has been about how bad a job administration legal counsel Donald Verrilli Jr. did in defending the mandate.

In fact, I've been predicting for some time that the mandate (which candidate Obama conspicuously opposed and which was included in the health care law not because the administration wanted it, but because it was necessary to win the votes of insurance state Senators Joe Liebermann of Connecticut and Ben Nelson of Nebraska) would be thrown out, leaving the rest of the bill intact. That would include (especially) the state level exchanges where people who cannot now afford health insurance could choose from an array of government-subsidized private health insurance plans.

I believe that even without the mandate, most people who now can't afford insurance, will buy it when the exchanges are set up. This was the administration's goal anyway, and not forcing people to buy insurance is in keeping with the position that Barack Obama had when he was elected. Of course given that the bill was passed as a package it would have been politically impossible to not defend the whole thing, but if Verrilli 'mysteriously' improves over the next few days, it almost WILL suggest that he was trying to 'throw' this one without saying so openly.

Politically, removing the mandate but keeping the rest of the law intact (as several lower courts have done) represents a win for the President as well. The truth is, if you go point by point, most of the rest of the law, whether we are talking about the exchanges, ending the Medicare prescription drug 'doughnut hole,' ending pre-existing condition exclusions, ending 'recission' (the practice by which insurance companies arbitrarily canceled 20,000 policies per year after people got sick and began needing them,) allowing the parents of college age young people to include them on their plan, or an end to lifetime caps on coverage, has been very popular.

Remove the mandate, and the right loses their best argument for why people shouldn't like Obamacare. Trying to run a campaign on repealing Obamacare (i.e. bringing back recissions and caps and kicking people off of insurance) won't get them very far after that.

If Verrilli's arguments are much better put together tomorrow, then it may very well be that there was indeed a plan to 'throw' the argument on the mandate, and defend everything else. I'm not the only blogger who has considered that, either.

Cowardly, Woman-Beating Legislator Daniel Patterson Does it Again.

A domestic abuser, always has one weakness that stands out:

He will repeat the behavior. That's not to say that a person with a history of violent attacks on domestic partners or others can't learn to not behave violently, but to do so requires that he first acknowlege that he has a problem with it and go through all the sometimes difficult steps to change the way he responds to people.

Unfortunately, representative Daniel Patterson (D-Tucson) is not one of those who has ever acknowleged he has a problem. Recall that back in March a story broke in the Three Sonorans blog detailing both past police reports in which rep. Patterson had attacked others, and also his assault and battery on his then-wife, Jeneiene Schaffer. Rep. Patterson was at the time going through a messy divorce from her and was living with his campaign manager, Georgette Escobar.

Some of us in the state party put together a series of resolutions (each time being blocked by various bureaucratic inefficiencies) targetting Patterson's violent behavior (and Republican Senator Scott Bundgaard, whose domestic violence episode was front page news.) Our first resolution was posted here along with a synopsis including rep. Patterson's denial on his blog when I asked him about it, which I soon determined was a lie.

One person did believe all his denials. Whether because he is a smooth talker, or because the truth would otherwise be too awful to face, his campaign manager/girlfriend, Georgette Escobar, always stood by Patterson and refused to believe the stories about how he treats the women in his life.

Until now, that is. Apparently Escobar got all the convincing she needed when Patterson went after her, beat her up and drove her out of the house. I actually do commend her for going public with it quickly. Rep. Patterson for his part is cowering in his home and refusing to let anyone on the property to serve him with a restraining order from Escobar (he's known to be armed, so when he refuses to let anyone on the property it's a threat best taken seriously.) This is also in character for him. On one previous occason when police were investigating a violent episode he had with Schaffer he took off, called his home and when a police officer answered he refused to return until after the officers had left. Safe to say that Dan Patterson knows how to do two things well: he knows how to beat up women and he knows how to run away and hide afterward.

He can't hide out forever though, the legislature is in session and he will be expected on the floor.

And I for one hope that the rest of the Democrats in the legislature call for an ethics inquiry, instead of waiting for the Republicans to do it (and if the Republicans do then I will say a laudatory word about them-- at least they had the backbone to confront Mr. Bundgaard and eventually get him out of the legislature.)

Rep. Patterson needs to resign. And if he doesn't then his colleagues should form a bipartisan coalition against him.

As a Democrat, I would like to invite Rep. Patterson to leave the Democratic party. We are a party that is on record as condemning domestic abuse, especially by members of the legislature (we finally got that voted on in Yuma in November.) And unlike someone who (still inexcusably) loses their temper one time, rep. Patterson has done this again, and again, and again. The only safe place for him is a jail cell, but as long as he is out of one he should also be out of the Democratic party.

UPDATE: The state party is coming around on this. State chairman Luis Heredia and House Minority Leader Chad Campbell have both called on Patterson to resign (though being careful to word it in a way that suggests their primary reason is that these allegations are a distraction) and rep. Katie Hobbs has submitted a petition signed by fifteen house Democrats (out of seventeen who could have signed it, given that there is one Democratic vacancy and the other seat is held by Patterson) to ethics committee chair Rep. Ted Voigt asking the house ethics committee to open an investigation into rep. Patterson. Rep. Voigt has taken the preliminary steps to do so.

Why those who blame the Obama administration for higher gasoline prices are on 'empty'

It seems as though Republican critics of the Obama administration in particular are ecstatic, even gleeful at the recent rise in gasoline prices.

Leaving aside their parochial reasons for this, it's worth rebutting some of the spurious claims that are being made in this regard.

First, there is the claim that the administration contributed to this increase by placing a moratorium on deep water drilling after the BP disaster and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. Second (and this relates to it) is the ongoing narrative that the U.S. doesn't have enough refining capacity and therefore our supplies of gasoline (and other refined products like heating oil and jet fuel) are limited.

Let's begin with the first claim, that administration actions taken to protect the environment are the cause of the present price spike. There are two basic flaws here: 1) they do not acknowlege the reasons for these actions, and 2) these charges are not true at all.

The reasons why the administration made these decisions are quite plain.

If you go back to after the BP disaster in early 2010, businesses all along the Gulf Coast suffered as beaches were closed, tourists stayed away and the fishing industry suffered severe and lasting damage. More than that, however, the inept and bumbling attempts by BP and its contractors to cap the spill in deep water made it plain that the supposedly fail-safe systems failed, and they had no idea what they would actually do if the system did fail. In this context it was only prudent for the administration to put a six month moratorium on deepwater drilling until the reasons for the leak could be determined and methods to contain and cap such a spill developed. Imagine if they had not placed a moratorium and then another well, somewhere else in the gulf had blown out and created twice the disaster. The President is sworn to protect the United States of America and in the face of demonstrated incompetence by the drilling rig's operators he was right to follow the mantra, 'first do no harm.'

In the case of the pipeline, the project was under study and on a schedule to be decided early next year. Because it crosses an aquifer that supplies drinking water to Nebraska, and because of a rupture in a similar pipeline that spilled crude oil into the Yellowstone river in Montana last year, there was a good reason to proceed with caution. Congress however intervened and forced the President to make a decision within sixty days. Again, the President followed the advice, 'do no harm' and said 'no' to the pipeline.

What of the economic impacts? Virtually none. In the case of crude oil production in the gulf, it was down slightly during the six month moratorium (which only affected deepwater rigs, a fraction of the total) but has since recovered. As we can see from the linked chart, crude oil production was affected far more by Hurricane Ike in September 2008 than any of the minor effects of the moratorium. As to the Keystone pipeline, even if approved it would not be built for years or be operating at full capacity until at least a decade from now, so it's a stretch to tie it to anything relating to present gasoline prices. Further, the administration has almost certainly done far more to reduce demand for gasoline over coming decades by increasing fuel efficiency standards for new automobiles than the drop in the bucket that the Keystone pipeline would increase supply, whether it is eventually built (along a less environmentally sensitive route) or not.

OK, what of limited U.S. refining capacity, also said to be responsible for an increase in gasoline prices? Again, that is false. In fact, last year the United States became a net exporter of refined products. Maybe what we need to do is implement a tax on exports so gasoline produced in American refineries would be cheaper to sell in the United States than abroad.

There are both long and short term reasons for the run up in oil prices. Long term, it is simply a fact that there are billions of people in developing countries (especially China and India) who are now beginning to earn enough money to be able to afford motor vehicles and use fuel. So globally the demand for oil is, and will continue to, increase. The price will also continue to rise with it. The only realistic solution for the U.S. is to get entirely off of that treadmill by moving towards electric vehicles and other alternative sources of fuel. Short term, the increasing tension around the strait of Hormuz certainly plays a part. The west (including the U.S.) has been increasing the pressure on Iran even to the point of risking a war in the strait over the Iranian nuclear program. These sorts of foreign policy complications are inevitable given that much of the world's oil supply comes from a small area along the far end of the Persan Gulf. To assume that the diplomatic temperature around the Persian Gulf does not affect the price of oil is foolish. It does, and right now it is causing us to pay more. However, the President is to blame for this only in terms of the fact that he is not backing off from his stated position with the Iranians. So at least let's get the facts right on that.

GOP gets rabbit ears on the Clint Eastwood Chrysler commercial

Republican Clint Eastwood is catching all kinds of grief for making a commercial for Chrysler saying that "It's time for the second half in America." Of course this aired during the Super Bowl, so the slogan was logical.

But beyond that, it clearly tags with Chrysler's comeback. They are trying to sell cars, and their comeback story is a big part of their sales campaign.

I don't see what the big deal is about it, but some Republicans are upset about the commercial, claiming that it is really about President Obama's re-election campaign and alludes to a second term. That of course is hogwash; the commercial is about selling cars.

This kind of paranoid overreaction does however say a lot about the psyche of a lot of the Republicans who are blasting it. They know that President Obama took a big risk and bailed out Chrysler and General Motors. It has in fact been a smashing success. Unemployment in the city of Detroit has shot down from over 16% when he bailed out the two auto companies to about 9% today. The city is making a comeback, and the resurgent auto industry is the main reason why. Republicans, including Mitt Romney, criticized the President for the bailout at the time. So now that Detroit is back they can't avoid seeing the credit going to the President. Maybe they'd prefer that Chrysler and General Motors not show off their successes until after the election?

They also know that this has been a good week for the president. Following the January jobs report in which almost a quarter of a million net jobs were created, new polls by ABC News and Rasmussen both have Pesident Obama jumping out to a statistically significant lead against Mitt Romney.

Having gambled on the economy failing, and doing everyting they could to obstruct and not cooperate with the President and make it clear they were being uncooperative, the GOP is now on the verge of getting caught in a political no man's land.

So the truth is that Karl Rove, Mark Steyn and some of the other Republicans who have jumped all over Clint Eastwood about this, are spooked. If they hear in the phrase, "second half in America" an echo of Reagan's "morning in America," maybe it's less that the message was overtly political as it is that they know they are on the wrong side of an improving economy, and their negativism won't last until November.

New Year's predictions. 2012.

January: The Iowa caucus will be held. But the TV ratings on all the networks together will be less than the number of people who tune in to ESPN to watch the game between BCS # 12 Michigan and # 11 Virginia Tech.

February: Rick Perry's Presidential campaign will implode and he will bow out after he says at a debate, "I'm sure I could beat President, uh, President, ummm.. what's his name? Oops."

March: Super Tuesday primaries. Given a ballot that is limited to a choice between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, Republicans in Virginia will head to Long John Silver's and vote for the shrimp basket with fries.

April: John Boehner will announce that the Republican caucus has agreed to support a deal negotiated between Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid and the Obama administration on a long term tax reform deal. The three of them will hold a joint press conference. After President Obama praises the work of the negotiators, Boehner will quickly step up, slap Obama on the back and cry, "APRIL FOOL!!"

May: Joe Arpaio's office will again be the subject of inquiry after it is found that due to the massive use of manpower involved in saturation patrols trying to find illegal immigrants, 400 murders have not been investigated. Joe will call the publication of the disclosures "politically motivated" and explain that the cases have been filed in the same cabinet as he files sex crimes cases. The round one.

June: The Chinese economy will go into a recession and the Chinese government will quickly pass a public works program to put people to work. Unfortunately, people who are used to working in factories making stuff out of cheap, bright colored plastic will cause more problems when they try to fill potholes the same way.

July: At the London Olympics, officials will announce a suprise steroid test. All weightlifting, sprinting and swimming events will all be canceled after all the competitors cite a sudden injury and withdraw from the competition.

---ALSO in July: Ron Paul will announce a third party run for President. In order to articulate his vision for America he will have banners printed up that say, "Ron Paul. 1912."

August: After a long battle going all the way to the convention in which Republicans wanting anybody but Mitt Romney make a last ditch effort to draft Harold Stassen's ghost, Romney will wrap up the GOP nomination. He will announce that Kim Kardashian is his running mate as he struggles to drum up interest in his campaign.

September: A new law will take effect in Arizona ninety days after the legislature passes and Gov. Brewer signs the bill mandating that all colleges and universities must allow anyone on campus to carry a gun, anyplace. It will however help ASU win the PAC 10 when running back Cameron Marshall carries a pistol in his waistband, announces that it has a hair trigger and opposing players are reluctant to tackle him.

October: North Korea's new Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un, will need to be replaced after he visits a nuclear facility and asks, "And what is this button for?" Radiation, and Kim Jong Un, will drift in a cloud across the Pacific. Not to worry, the world will be introduced to Kim Jong Tyke, looking sharp in his new Mao jacket and military hat as the most dapper five year old in the picture.

November: Barack Obama will be re-elected as President. Mitt Romney will concede graciously. But the hot ticket for Washington reporters who don't get out much will be the Ron Paul party because-- well, let's say the 'refreshments' are more popular.

December: Emergency workers will be called to the U.S. Capitol building on Christmas Day when it is discovered that Eric Cantor's office has been packed full of coal overnight by Santa.

Why I support President Obama without reservation in 2012

Lately, when I've criticized the Obama administration on specific issues where I've disagreed with policy (such as Afghanistan or the extension of the Patriot Act) there are those, especially on the left, who have asked why I still want to see him re-elected, whether it's because I duly admit to being a party hack or simply because he'd 'just be better than the Republicans.'

Although both of the above are true (I am an elected Democratic county party first vice chair, and have no doubt that any of the leading Republicans would continue all of the policies I dislike as well as do many other things I would't like) I am enthusiastically, and without reservation ready to work for the re-election of President Obama in 2012. He is the candidate most qualified to serve as President of the United States during the next four years.

Let me address three main topics as to why the President should be re-elected for another four years, and I will talk about the President here, not about why Republicans are bad.

1. The economy

2. Health care

3. The President's personal temperment and how it relates to the job.

THE ECONOMY

Let's start with the biggest issue, the economy. The criticism from the right about President Obama is two-fold. They argue that he has failed to fix the problems that they acknowlege that he inherited from the Bush administration, and they also argue that he has made things worse by running up the deficit with massive increases in government spending.

In regard to not fixing the problem, it is true that when President Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate was 7.8% and it is today 8.6%. However, at the time he was inaugurated the U.S. was teetering on the brink of a Depression. We were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs per month with no end in sight. The President took a Keynesian approach and negotiated the Stimulus bill with Republicans. These negotiations resulted in a bill that was 43% tax cuts (while major elements of spending, such as on school construction were removed from the bill in order to gain GOP support.) Despite these concessions, the GOP followed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's "top priority to make President Obama a one-term President". Therefore the bill, heavily loaded with GOP-sponsored tax cuts as it was, received zero GOP votes in the House and only three in the Senate. Republicans like to claim they were right, and that the stimlulus was a tremendous waste of money that did not work. They cite an erroneous projection made by a staffer (made even before President Obama was inaugurated) that if the Stimulus was passed then unemployment would top out at 8% vs. 8.8% without the Stimulus (which it arguably had exceeded even before the Stimulus took effect.) That the recession was far deeper than even some of the President's economic advisors had foreseen is not the same thing as claiming that the Stimulus didn't work. In fact,
the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has backed up the administration's claims regarding the impact of the Stimulus. So when Republicans claim it did not work, that is what it is-- a claim, not backed by data. It's difficult of course to prove something which did not happen would have, and it is true that the country got out in front of the situation more quickly (TARP) than in 1929, but it is certainly a reasonable conclusion that the Stimulus and other actions taken by the Federal government saved the nation from a Depression similar to the one in the 1930's. What the administration failed to do was take enough credit for the effects of the Stimulus. It was sent out to states with permission for the Governors to spend it as needed in their own states. Some Governors have given the Federal government the credit but others have claimed that there was some kind of economic miracle in their own state without crediting whatever portion of it was due to the stimulus (this means Rick Perry especially, though Jan Brewer here in Arizona is guilty of taking the money without saying thank you too.)

The recovery since then has been bumpy but it is on the upswing. The November 2011 jobs report marked the fifth consecutive month in which private sector job growth has exceeded 100,000. In fact, it would look even better if public sector jobs weren't being cut at a record pace (so if the recovery is slow, it's not a failure of Keynesian economics, but of anti-Keynesian economics of slashing government payrolls in the middle of a down economy.) The Stimulus then was a success, in that it helped the economy land as softly as possible at the bottom of a very deep hole, and we are now crawling out at a steady and gradually improving rate. I believe that as a steward of the economy, President Obama has indeed lived up to his ideals of 'hope.' Things are getting better slowly, but they are getting better and in most states unemployment has fallen substantially over the past year. President Obama does in fact deserve credit for turning the direction of the economy around, from 'declining' to 'growing.' He deserves a chance, having done so, to work on getting it all the way up to speed. The following graph of job gains/losses in the critical period before and after the Stimulus bill passed makes it very plain.



The other area where Republicans have been critical of the President's economic policy is in the area of spending and the deficit. It is true that the Stimulus bill cost $862 billion which was added to the national debt (though as described above, it was necessary because the Depression it was designed to prevent would have been far more deadly to the overall economy.) And the President has conceded that although the Stimulus (as well as TARP) was necessary spending, in the long run the deficit needs to be reduced. I believe that given his explanation for the initial round of spending (and his acknowlegement of why he did it) that's all the explanation that is needed. He spent when he felt it was necessary to spend, so there is no reason to believe he wouldn't cut when he felt it was necessary to cut.

FINALLY let's apply the metrics I used in this post from the day President Obama was inaugurated to see how his economic record is so far:

1. The stock market. The Dow closed at 8281.22 on its last close before Obama was inaugurated, and continued down on that day to close at 7479.09 (a sense of where things were headed.) Today it closed at 12,169.65. This is not only 50% higher than it was when the President took office, but even above the 10,587.60 it was at on January 20, 2001 when Bush was inaugurated. Anyone who says this is anything less than a success (albeit on the narrow metric of how the folks that invest in stocks are doing) clearly has an agenda of running down the President no matter what the numbers say. And sales of luxury items like yachts and luxury cars are doing extremely well this year, bearing this out. Of course, as we've seen though 30 years of 'trickle down' just because the 1% are doing well, does not mean that the 99% are. However it is also true that millions of ordinary Americans are seeing their retirement accounts, IRA's and pensions in much better shape than they were a couple of years ago because of the booming stock market.

2. The Euro exchange rate. When Bush was inaugurated the rate was that it cost $0.94 to buy one Euro. After the economy tanked with Bush in the White House that was $1.32 per Euro the day Obama was inaugurated. Today it is just under $1.31. I'm willing to concede that this is not good news. Essentially the dollar (which represents faith in the American economy) has made only a very small gain against the Euro, which of course we well know that the European economy is now in a severe crisis. The exchange rate had dipped as low as $1.16 per Euro when it looked like a Greek default could be imminent but it has recovered substantially.

3. Net job growth. During the eight years after Bush was inaugurated, we had a net total job growth of 3.8 million jobs. This works out to about 40,000 per month on average. It is true that more than 2 million jobs were lost during the first two years of the Bush administration, so if you take that away then you have a gain of about 6 million jobs in 72 months, or about 83,000 jobs per month after the initial recession (which Bush apologists like to blame Clinton for even though the only big piece of legislation that was passed during the first couple of months of the Bush administration were the tax cuts, which they claimed would spur growth but it did not.) HERE IS THE KEY: even though those who pump up Bush's number by blaming his first two years on Clinton like to fully credit the first year of job losses starting in 2009 to President Obama, as we can see from the chart above the rate of loss turned around almost immediately when the Stimulus was passed, and today, despite the GOP around the country forcing public-sector job CUTS the rate of net job growth (over 100,000 now for the past five months) is STILL substantially higher than the average for the Bush administration AFTER the first two years of recession (!) In fact, during the few occasions when the Bush economy WAS producing substantially more than 100,000 private sector jobs (remember it is still over 100,000 even with the public sector cuts subtracted out) Republicans were trumpeting the same kinds of numbers as a success! Now, I will grant that we need more job growth than this, but the President has gone from a loss of -700,000 jobs per month to +100,000 and going up, so clearly his record on the economy deserves a deeper look. Even in some of the highest unemployment regions, hiring has been picking up and the unemployment rate is lower than it was last year.

4. Price of crude oil. This is the one where Obama takes the biggest hit. It was $34.20 when he took office and a barrel of Brent crude closed at $107.89 today. I was critical of Bush when crude oil prices hit $140 per barrel during his term. While some issues are clearly outside of the ability of the administration to do anything about (Arab spring, increased demand from China and India) it does push energy issues to the forefront. The Obama administration has invested in light rail, higher energy efficiency standards for automobiles and green energy. Those are all long term solutions and perhaps the biggest threat from a GOP Presidency is the threat that all of those things will be reversed and we will be back to the fossil fuel-dependent status quo on energy. That said, conservatives DO have a point that we have to feed our need for oil now. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Keystone pipeline now that it has turned into a political football. Its projected route is in fact unacceptable because it crosses some of the most sensitive regions of the aquifer which supplies the state of Nebraska with everything from drinking water to water needed for wildlife. The question is whether the route can be made environmentally safer. There is an eastern route which crosses only a small, and less sensitive portion of the aquifer. The administration must look for how, given that they will now have only a sixty day window to make that decision, they can mandate that the pipeline misses the aquifer, entirely if at all possible. Similarly, drilling is now resuming in the Gulf of Mexico, but the question is whether the safeguards are in place to prevent another spill. Sadly, there is no evidence that they are. And as we know, there is no plan in place about what to do if such a spill occurs. Maybe they should invent something that will stop it before they go back to deep sea drilling.

5. National debt. It increased under Bush from $5.8 trillion when he took office to $11.8 when he left. Yes, it has continued to increase under President Obama. However, this is one area where he makes perfect sense. There was an immediate crisis when he took office (the loss of more than 2/3 of a million jobs per month.) He did what he had to to stanch the job loss. Yes, it increased the deficit. He's fully owned up to the fact that it did, and is now saying he wants to look for ways to bring it back down in the future. Good. His opponents also like to point to the health care law as 'big spending.' Only that is not supported by the facts: The non-partisan CBO found that the PPACA actually REDUCES the deficit by $143 billion over ten years compared to if it had not been passed. Further, when the new GOP House came in the same CBO found that their attempt to repeal the law in its entirety, if it happened at the beginning of this year, would ADD almost a quarter of a trillion dollars to the deficit! So when a Republican uses 'health care' interchangeably with 'deficit spending' they show they haven't a clue what they are talking about.

HEALTH CARE

Nothing that has happened during Obama's first term is as controversial as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA.) It is true that the final bill does not include a public option (as the President himself had wanted) and that it does include an individual mandate to purchase private insurance (which candidate Obama clearly stated his opposition to during the campaign, and which contrasted him with Hillary Clinton who favored an individual mandate.) Conceded, readily. Given unified GOP opposition, the President needed the votes of all sixty Democrats. That included Blanche Lincoln who stated flatly that she would never vote for anything containing the public option, and Independent Joe Lieberman (who represents a state that is famously the home of several large insurance companies) who was looking for any excuse at all to vote against the bill, even signing onto an agreement that included a Medicare buy in at 55 that he was on record as supporting but then backing out and refusing to back the plan. As we know too, Democrat Ben Nelson (whose state is home to the Mutual of Omaha insurance company) refused to vote for the plan until it included special treatment for Nebraska (the so-called "Cornhusker kickback.") So the plan we got was the plan that was necessary in light of unified opposition from the right and the need to placate, therefore, every single one of fifty-eight Democratic and two Independent Senators. Yes, getting it passed was ugly, but also yes, it did get passed.

Given that there is room for improvement, let's consider what it does do. It sets up exchanges so those who can't afford insurance will receive a subsidy to help them buy it. Maybe we would have preferred a public option (or even single payer if we could get it) but achieving universal coverage (though granted universal coverage that excludes undocumented immigrants, but that's a topic for a different discussion) is a good and firm step in the right direction. When it was passed, there were 51 million Americans without health insurance. Because of changes that have already gone into effect such as an end to pre-existing exlusions and recissions and allowing parents to continue to cover their kids while they are in college, that number has already gone down by two million despite the slow recovery in the economy. When the bill is fully implemented, there will no longer be two classes of people in the emergency room: those who are insured or can pay cash, vs. those who are uninsured and poor and generally have to wait far longer until the people in the first category have all been seen. THIS IS A GOOD THING and those, particularly liberals, who suggest otherwise because of some esoteric argument that the health care bill isn't 'better' are wilfully blind and probably have never been uninsured themselves or know what that means if you are sick or injured but stacked on the back rack waiting for hours on end or sometimes even days to be seen.

Further, the first President to propose and push for a national health care system was Teddy Roosevelt. He left office more than a century ago. That's how long we've been trying, and that's how long conservatives have blocked any kind of insurance reform. THE FACT THAT THIS GOT PASSED AT ALL is, in the words of Vice President Biden, a "BFD." Certainly an achievement for the President.

THE PRESIDENT'S PERSONALITY IS SUITED TO THE JOB

Let's end with the President's basic temperment. He's both thoughtful and careful in thinking through his response to crises and but also willing to be bold and accept the consequences and see things through once he's made a decision. This was first put on display just a couple of months into his term when Somali pirates kidnapped and held for ransom the captain of an American freighter. President Obama gave negotiaters the chance to act but finally when the captain's life was in danger he gave the order to the SEALS to rescue him and use lethal force if that was what it took. Then a couple of months later, when bankruptcy loomed for Chrysler and General Motors, President Obama used TARP funds to aggressively intervene and preserved the core of the American automotive industry, and under American ownership. The success of the two companies since then has vindicated his decision but at the time it was not clear at all that it was the right decision. We've since seen other similar reponses to a crisis (Libya*) or when an opportunity presented itself (bin Laden.) This mixture of coolness when considering options followed by boldness and resolve once it's time to act is exactly what we need in a Commander in Chief. I believe President Obama passes this test while the leading Republicans do not. Mitt Romney is undeniably cool, but his past history to equivocate on issues and (as we saw in the 2008 campaign) adjust his strategy reactively instead of keeping a steady course does not inspire confidence in how he would respond to a crisis. Newt Gingrich has a history of impulsive, 'fly by the seat of his pants' decisons. While his ability to improvise is certainly bold, one has to be concerned about whether he would make the same decision he would make if he took time out to think through his position. His statements on Libya earlier this year highlight this concern. On March 3, Gingrich criticized Obama for not intervening in Libya unilaterally. After Obama, with the backing of the U.N. and the Arab League, participated in a joint intervention with France, Britain and other nations, Gingrich flip-flopped and criticized the intervention. It's perhaps understandable in that as a GOP candidate Gingrich felt the need to criticize the President no matter what he did, but the sudden, whiplash reversal makes one wonder for how long Gingrich really thinks anything through before responding.

President Obama has both characteristics: coolness when it is time to think things through and make a calculated decision, then boldness when it is time to follow through on that decision and see it through, including all consequences and fallout that may result.

So yes, for these reasons I believe, despite my sometimes copious disagreements with the President, that he deserves to be re-elected.

*--I myself questioned the Libya intervention once it took longer than he predicted, but I do give him credit for keeping his commitment to not send any American ground forces and getting completely out once it was done.

Tentative Final Redistricting maps up

Yesterday the Independent Redistricting Commission voted to approve "Tentative Final Maps" (pending review by the Department of Justice) for the congressional and legislative maps.

Not surprisingly the vote on the congressional maps, which although they include 4 safe Republican and 2 safe Democratic districts, is generally perceived as more favorable to Democrats than the present set of maps, passed 3-2 with the two Republican commissioners (Stertz and Freeman) dissenting.

The legislative map, while not as Republican-friendly as the present map (which is essentially a Republican gerrymander that allowed the GOP to build their supermajority in the legislature) is still favorable to the GOP, and will likely guarantee Republican control of the legislature through the end of the decade. What is interesting about that is how the Republicans on the commission tried to play politics with the vote and were exposed by commissioner Herrera. Both of the Republican commissioners initially voted 'no,' (apparently to preserve the strongest case for their party to claim the maps were unfair.) Commissioner Herrera, however, voted 'present' so that the commission deadlocked and could not pass the map on a 2-2-1 vote. Commissioner Stertz then quickly changed his vote to 'yes,' showing that his opposition was indeed just for show. Credit to Steve Muratore for pointing this out.

Locally, the changes made in CD 1 from the October draft map are minimal-- to remove eastern Cochise county from the district and replace it with areas around Sedona. I doubt if this will make any significant difference, and it appears that the population shifted in and out of the district was small. CD 1 is, however, because of the inclusion of additional reservations and the exclusion of Prescott, substantially more Democratic than the old CD 1. Since Paul Gosar's winning margin was provided entirely by Yavapai County, if he ran in 2010 against Ann Kirkpatrick in the CD 1 we now have, he would have likely lost.

The changes in LD 6 and 7 from the draft map seem to marginally favor Democrats. LD 6 has picked up areas to the immediate northeast of Flagstaff and Grand Canyon Village. Residents of Show Low-Pinetop/Lakeside (heavily Republican) were upset by being split apart in the October draft map and insisted they wanted the communties to be joined together. They are-- in LD 7 (the Native American dominated district that will include the Navajo, Hopi, Apache and Havasupai reservations.) I doubt if that is the change the residents who insisted on 'sticking together' had in mind, but it's what they got. Sun Valley, a Republican area east of Holbrook also was moved into LD-7 (while areas in the far northwest corner of the state were removed from LD-7 and put into a district with Lake Havasu City and Kingman.) I believe that LD-7 may be slightly more Republican with the changes but is still virtually certain to elect only Democrats this decade. The draft map for LD-6 was considered marginally competitive but had a distinct Republican tilt. But now that it's gained more of Coconino county and lost Show Low and Sun Valley I suspect the new demographic reports that will be presented today or tomorrow will show it to be more competitive (maybe still with a Republican edge, but one that might not hold for a very conservative Republican like Sylvia Allen that scares away independents.)

Why I hope the payroll tax cuts are NOT extended

This week the Obama administration has been pushing their advantage on the payroll tax cut, implemented as the GOP was poised to assume control of Congress and about the only kind of stimulus spending they could get (at the time) GOP support for (or at least to not filibuster) that would get money into the hands of ordinary Americans.

The argument that is being made now is a simple one: that despite yesterday's positive jobs report (and more importantly five straight months of 100,000 plus private sector jobs being created) the economic recovery is not yet strong enough to sustain a sudden loss of spending power from ordinary Americans (most of whom have adjusted to and spent the few extra dollars per paycheck the payroll tax cuts added and would in fact see a decline in their weekly paycheck, which could well ripple into the economy. And it is no secret that Republicans in Congress, who have seen their ratings tank even further after the failure of the supercommittee, want to inflict a political defeat on the President just to show that they still can.

I understand this, but I believe it is important that Democrats lose this battle. There are two reasons why I believe this.

The first one is that the payroll taxes are supposed to be dedicated to Social Security and Medicare. Although the actual money in the Social Security Trust Fund has long since been raided in order to mask the true size of congressional budget deficits and replaced by a stack of IOU's from Congress, the total of money in the Trust Fund is still calculated and used to project the future health of Social Security (and Medicare.) I fear that the decreased flow of money in payroll taxes would allow those who want to get rid of or radically change these programs to claim (accurately in fact) that their financial doomsday is much closer than the last time we checked and use that as a weapon to destroy or seriously damage Social Security and Medicare. And the logical way to fix them (getting rid of the cap on income subject to the payroll tax) would be effectively off the table if a Republican Congress, at the behest of a Democratic President, has just been extending a cut on payroll taxes.

Yeah, I'd probably notice the $40 a paycheck or so that I started getting two years ago and would quit getting, but I'd rather have Social Security and Medicare.

The second reason why I would like to lose this battle is because of the message it sends and how it will play next year during the debate on the Bush tax cuts and whether to extend them. Buying into the concept that failure to extend a TEMPORARY tax cut is a 'tax increase' plays into the hands of those who want to extend the tax cuts and instead get rid of the deficit by focusing only on spending (meaning for education, social programs and other programs that benefit the public.) To begin with, the argument that letting a scheduled tax cut expire on schedule is really a tax increase, is false and we should be consistent in saying so. If your grocer puts an item on sale and then the sale ends as scheduled, but then you went to the grocer and accused the store of 'raising prices' you would be laughed at. But that's the argument we are being asked to make this year (and may be asked to buy next year) about taxes.

We hold an ace in that next year the Bush tax cuts are due to expire. We should let them, on schedule. As Ezra Klein points out the GOP is in a deep, deep hole of its own making. If Congress does nothing (which is far easier to accomplish in Washington than actually doing something) then automatic tax and spending changes will kick in that will cut $6 trillion off of the budget defict. But 3/4 of that will caused by the end of the Bush tax cuts (and the other quarter by sequestration due to the failure of the supercommittee, but half of that is from the war budget.) Like the payroll tax cut, the loss of the Bush tax cuts for most people would be noticeable, but not anywhere close to how much we'd notice in terms of cuts to public services if conservatives had their way.

But add the payroll tax cuts up, and then the Bush cuts for the working class (not sure there is much of a 'middle class' anymore) isn't that a significant additional burden on working people? Yes, it is. I fully understand that (being a financially stressed member of the working class myself.) However if considering how massively the Bush tax cuts were weighted towards the wealthy, and more importantly what the GOP has proposed cutting (remember the Ryan budget that wanted to privatize medicare and slash Social Security?) there is no way that any member of the working class would receive enough from the continuation of these cuts to be able to make up for the lack of Social Security and Medicare in our old age. Social Security provides a guaranteed income that is at least enough to keep people who are too old to work anymore off the streets and with at least a minimal amount of food on the table, and medicare ensures that they will receive medical treatment at an age where private insurance would become prohibitively expensive. Compared to that, the loss of working class tax cuts is a small price to pay compared to the end of the 'deficit' argument that the Republicans have made to justify draconian spending cuts if ALL the Bush tax cuts expire and a flood of revenue returns to the government.

In other words, Democrats and progressives next year will hold most of the aces. It will be up to the GOP to try and put something together that we can agree to, because we have much less to fear from the automatic changes that would occur than the right. Let's show that our representatives in Congress and those of us who are out in our neighborhoods have learned how to hold onto our cards, and not waste them to score small (as continuing the payroll tax cut would be.) Buying into the logic that ending a tax cut on time is 'raising taxes' would undermine our own position next year that it is not.

Christmas in the stores, Christmas out of the stores

[Reprint of a 2005 article I wrote on another blog; reposted here to make it easier to access.]

In 1935, Charles Darrow was awarded the patent for the board game, 'Monopoly,' which he later sold to Parker Brothers. In those old games, the houses and hotels were made of wood, but much has stayed the same as when Darrow was making the sets by hand. That includes this Community Chest card.

Now today, you will hear some right wing 'Christians' claim that there is suddenly a 'war on Christmas.' They claim that secular America is out to get rid of Christmas, all in the name of political correctness.

Well, as we see from the card above, the idea of separating the holiday aspect from the religious aspect (Christ) was alive and well decades ago. So it is certainly nothing new.

Besides, wasn't it until a year or two ago that the same people were bemoaning the 'commercialization' of Christmas? They were worried about how the 'true meaning of Christmas' was being swallowed up in a giant rush to the malls. But let a mall store greet you with 'Happy Holidays,' now they will rush to a microphone and tell you that the store in question is part of some giant conspiracy to do away with Christmas.

Maybe this will placate them in their new obsession: How about a mall that features a nativity display, sponsored by Visa (It's everywhere you want to be). Joseph will be dressed in a very nice suit by Ralph Lauren (shoes by Bruno Magli). Mary will be dressed in a very sharp outfit from Pendleton (plus sizes available), with solid wood platform shoes by Steve Madden, exclusively available at Nine West. The three kings will be modeling Patagonia sportswear, with Nike tennis shoes. The infant will be modeling swaddling clothes from Baby Gap. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh will be on loan from Bank of America. Animals will be wearing collars that read, ILoveAlpacas.com.

Get commercialism out of Christmas. Put Christmas into commercialism. But only the way we tell you to. No wonder these people are never happy. They get their way, and they aren't satisfied with the results. And I bet some of them will grumble about it all the way to the Department store and buy something that hearkens back to the 'good old days' when nobody thought twice about saying, 'Christmas.' Something that brings back pleasant memories from when they were kids. Maybe even a game of Monopoly.

Domestic Violence Resolution (third time.)

The following resolution has now been displayed on the state party website (not our fault that it wasn't last August, somebody else dropped the ball on it) for the requisite 40 days.

It will be presented for a vote in Yuma.

WHEREAS, over 25% of women in the United States have been or will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes,

WHEREAS, according to the Domestic Violence Resource Center, it is estimated that 600,000 to 6 million women are physically abused by husbands or domestic partners every year, and the vast majority of these cases go unreported because of fear,

WHEREAS, domestic violence is the cause of four deaths per day in the United States,

WHEREAS, according to figures from the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 96 Arizonans died in domestic violence incidents during 2010 alone,

WHEREAS, members of the legislature, including members of both parties, have been cited in police reports for acts of violence against their spouses or domestic partners,

and WHEREAS, domestic violence is too serious an issue with which to play partisan politics or selectively ignore according to partisan allegiance,

BE IT RESOLVED that the Arizona State Democratic Committee condemns all incidents of domestic violence and in particular condemns all elected officials who have engaged in violence or threats of violence towards a spouse or domestic partner and does so regardless of partisan affiliation.

Out of Iraq-- a war we never should have gotten into

I had the following comment on a website I visit sometimes that caters mainly to conservative Christians. In particular, a poster back in 2007 (during the 'surge') had posted that Iraq was still a 'war we could win.') But the comment is appropriate as well as a blog post so I'll put it up here too.

The President announced yesterday that all troops will be home by the end of the year.

Hard to see how this is a 'win.' At best, a Pyrrhic victory.

We are leaving Iraq with a government friendly to Iran, in fact one in which Moqtada al-Sadr holds more power than anyone except the Prime Minister (who is dependent on al-Sadr for his ability to govern at all.) Iran has essentially a free hand in Iraq, and its former Badr militia are now the core of the Iraqi army.

If there is any democracy at all, it is very disfunctional (look at what came out of the last election, when it took months to form a government and the winner became the loser because al-Sadr decided to make it so.) Half the population (the female half) actually have less rights in matters like divorce, inheritance and custody than they had even under Saddam, and the Constitution begins with the phrase "Sharia shall be a source of law" which the parliament has acted on it with enthusiasm, writing Islamist laws to replace the secular ones. Not surprisingly in such an environment tens of thousands of Christians, a community that dates to the very early church, have had to flee the country and nobody has done anything to prevent it.

In exchange for this rather dubious outcome, we fought for eight years (longer than we fought in World War II and Korea put together,) paid a trillion dollars of borrowed money (which is now part of the debt that everyone is wringing their hands about) and lost more than 4,000 Americans (with tens of thousands crippled or suffering from chronic conditions.)

How does that in any way, shape or form, qualify as a 'win?'

If anybody 'won' the Iraq war, it's Iran, and they did it without firing a shot.

I'm just glad we are out of there.

Russell Pearce recall election

I was at a professional conference last Friday and a conversation with a colleague turned to the Russell Pearce recall. Pearce, as some who don't live in Arizona may not know, is the President of the State Senate and the second most powerful politician in the state (and some would argue the first, because the Governor reacts to what he does, rather than the other way around.) This individual, who does not reside in district 18 (Pearce's district) wanted to know why so many people in the state care. My answer was, because what Pearce has done affects the whole state, and well beyond for that matter.

Pearce was the lead sponsor of SB 1070 and has over the past few years been the chief proponent of a whole raft of anti-immigration legislation which has made Arizona synonymous with 'anti-immigrant' and some would argue 'anti-Hispanic' (I have Hispanic friends here in Arizona who are natural born U.S. citizens but since this has passed they have experienced racial profiling, unwarranted detention and harrassment of a type that as a white person I have never had to face.)

Besides Pearce's personal quirkiness which leans towards the extreme (for example in 2006 he 'accidentally' forwarded a virulently anti-Semitic email from the National Alliance, a white supremecist group to dozens of his supporters; and he carries a loaded firearm onto the floor of the state Senate and has encouraged others to do so as well) he has pushed towards the far, far right on virtually every issue. As President of the Senate he has pushed for cuts far more devastating to education and other state services than even Governor Brewer or House Speaker Kirk Adams (who is himself very conservative) have asked. Pearce promised that this state Senate would be a 'Tea Party Senate' and he has delivered, pushing or passing bills asserting the right of Arizona to nullify Federal laws, seize Federal land to train a state militia and kick thousands of people off of medicaid, including many who would be eligible in any other state in the nation.

The anti-immigrant rhetoric of Pearce and his supporters almost seethes with hostility, and it is for this reason, and for his role in crafting such a bad budget that earlier this year Pearce opponents (from both inside and outside of district 18) have come together to support his ouster. More signatures were collected on recall petitions than people who actually voted for Pearce last year, and despite several desperation lawuits by Pearce the recall is moving forward.

Pearce's supporters have even gone to the point of using despicable and unacceptable tactics, like throwing a padlock that struck Pearce's recall oppnent (more on that in a moment) in the nuts to try and deter him from announcing a run, and putting a sham candidate with an Hispanic surname on the ballot for the express purpose of diverting Hispanic votes. The candidate, Olivia Cortes, withdrew once it became clear that recall supporters had 'smoking gun' evidence tying her candidacy to Pearce supporters and she was about to be confonted with it in court.

Pearce's opponent is Jerry Lewis, also a conservative Republican from Mesa. Like Pearce, Lewis is a Latter Day Saint (Mormon)-- full disclosure: so am I-- and like Pearce, if he gets into the Senate expect him to cast mainly conservative votes. In their debates, the only place where Lewis clearly differed from Pearce was on immigration, decrying the mean-spiritedness behind a lot of Pearce immigration legislation and pushing for a comprehensive solution that is focused on keeping families together rather than deporting family members. Pearce has also gotten into some hot water with the Church for claiming that his position on immigration was supported by the Church and implying that he was some kind of church spokesman. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Pearce has never held any such calling, and in fact recently the Church has stated bluntly their position on immigration and it is in favor of the kind of comprehensive plan that Lewis is proposing-- in other words NOT what Pearce wants.

So why are so many Democrats and Independents, as well as Republicans supporting Jerry Lewis? If this is an election between two conservative Republicans then shouldn't we claim that we don't have a dog in this fight?

No, we should not. I don't care if Jerry Lewis is a conservative Republican. I don't care if he votes 95% with the Republicans. I don't care, because no matter what his positions are, he's not Russell Pearce. The substance may not change, but if Pearce is removed as leader of the Senate you can be sure that the tone will change.

As well it should.

State Legislative interactive map up

Specifically, it is up here.

KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS MAP IS NOT FINAL. Some adjustments can and likely will be made during the constitutionally mandated public comment period, but more or less these are the lines we will be using for the next ten years.

Again, I can't tell from the maps much about the rest of the state (because I don't know the partisan leanings on a block by block basis as much as someone who lives here) but it looks like we will be having an interesting time here in northern Arizona.

Roughly speaking, it appears as though the previously existing LD-5 and LD-2 have been largely replaced new districts 6 and 7. This is said approximately, because for example district 7 extends all the way to Nevada and portions of what used to be the southern end of district 5 including Globe and Safford have been put into other districts.

Flagstaff has been lobbying vigorously for years to get out of being put into the same district as the reservations and this in fact is the case; Flagstaff is in district 6 and the Navajo, Hopi, Hualapi and now also the Apache reservations are in district 7. All of Apache county is also in district 7.

The boundary line between the two districts is likely to be a matter of some controversy in Navajo County. Winslow and Pinetop-Lakeside (yes, you read that right) both join the reservations in district 7. Distict 6 includes Holbrook, Snowflake/Taylor, Show Low, Payson (which is actually in Gila county) and Heber/Overgaard. Probably in an attempt to make me zoom all the way in, Joseph City is in the most bizarre position of all. Joseph City is in district 6, but areas immediately to the north, west and south of town are in district 7. Jackrabbit is in district 7, and while it appears that all houses presently in Joseph City itself are in district 6, if people build very far outside of town in any direction except east they will be in district 7.

Politically, district 7 appears to be dominated by Native Americans and probably pretty close to safe for Democrats, especially with Democratic-leaning Winslow in the district (this won't make the 'Tea Party' crowd in the Springerville area or in Pinetop/Lakeside happy but then it would be difficult to make other adjustments in the boundaries without moving someone else into district 7 (and given the precarious position that Joseph City is in with regard to remaining in district 6 if someone from one of these areas convinces the commission to include them in district 6 rather than district 7 then I suspect we will be the first ones to be added to district 7 in order to rebalance the population.) Jack Jackson will likely represent this area in the Senate. One of the members of the legislature will likely continue to be Albert Hale, and the other legislative seat will likely be up for grabs but probably decided in the Democratic primary.

Distict 6 is clearly a competitive district. Flagstaff leans strongly Democratic and is its main population center, and is supplemented by Sedona (the rest of Yavapai county is mostly in another district.) Central Navajo County is heavily Republican, and this is likely to set up a head to head battle between two current legislators, present LD-5 Senator Sylvia Allen (R-Heber) and Rep. Tom Chabin (D-Flagstaff) who has made it clear that he plans to run for the Senate. LD-5 representatives Brenda Barton of (R-Payson) and Chester Crandall (R-Heber) will also likely run again but it is hard to see Barton's brand of conservatism (even farther to the right than Allen) appealing to people in Flagstaff or Sedona. Crandall would have slightly more credibility in areas like that but his failure to move away from the far right party line during his two years in the legislature will come back to bite him if he claims to be a 'different kind' of Republican. Democrats will have two openings for house candidates. All other things being equal, you could make a case that this district marginally favors Democrats because the population of Flagstaff/Sedona outweighs central Navajo County, but on the other hand Flagsaff is only fairly strongly Democratic while some of the areas in central Navajo like Snowflake and Heber are extremely Republican (80-90% GOP.) There is no question that this will be one of the most competitive districts on election day.

Interactive map lets you see the proposed new redistricting lines.

Here is a fully interactive map of the proposed new Arizona Congressional districts:

click here to see them

These lines are not completely set yet because the public will still have time to weigh in and try to persuade the redistricting commission to change them, but in all likelihood the final district lines will look very similar to this.

It appears that congressional districts 1, 2 and 9 will be competitive districts, districts 3 and 7 will strongly favor Democrats and districts 4,5,6 and 8 will strongly favor Republicans.

Locally, it is worth noting that Paul Gosar's winning margin over Ann Kirkpatrick last year was provided almost entirely by Yavapai county, which is now in district 4 (except for a sliver around Sedona and Camp Verde.) Payson is also now in district 4. New territory in district 1 includes the Hopi reservation, a much larger slice of Pinal county and a Phoenix area reservation, a mainly Republican slice of Pima county, and most of Cochise county, including a sliver of the border with Mexico. Overall the new territory looks to be quite a bit more Democratic than what has been removed from CD-1. Overall, CD-1 is classified as 'competitive' and it is certainly true that a Republican could win it, but the new district does have a 9 point Democratic registration edge and it is hard to see a weak incumbent like Paul Gosar holding on.

So even though as a Democrat I was hoping for at least four competive districts in the state (as it is, only a third of the voters in the state will typically have a race in November where both candidates can realistically win) I am happy to see that Mr. Gosar may be a one term congressman (it appears that David Schweikert will most likely be representing district 4 so the idea that Mr. Gosar could move to Prescott and run is probably even more of a stretch than that he could win a second term in a district where he really hasn't distinguished himself this term.) In order to return to Congress, Gosar will now have to win what is left of the district, when last election he barely broke even outside of Yavapai county, and if you take out Payson he actually lost the areas that under this map still remain in CD-1. It's hard to see him picking up many votes from the new areas either, particularly given that the Hopi (who are, like the Navajo, 90% Democratic voters) have agreed for the first time to share a congressional district with the larger tribe.

Former congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick is running again (and has outraised Gosar) but she will first have to win a primary against Wenona Benally Baldenegro, a newcomer but also a native American (in a district which is over 20% native American.)

Definitely though, Gosar (who has voted about 100% of the time with John Boehner-- ironically after running campaign commercials critical of Kirkpatrick for voting about 80% of the time with Nancy Pelosi) can't be pleased with the new district.

UPDATE: It looks like Schweikert may NOT run in district 4, even though that is where his residence is. He said in an email to his supporters he intends to run in district 6. That starts a game of musical chairs among Republicans in which either Gosar or Ben Quayle will be odd man out, with neither of them strong enough to defeat either Scweikert or Franks. Right now, Franks would be running in district 8, in which case Quayle would have a tough time against either Schweikert or Franks; in this case, Gosar could sprobably ave himself if he ran in district 4. On the other hand, if Franks decides to do Quayle a favor, he could run in district 4 and open up district 8 for Quayle. Either way there are four Republicans trying to fit into four GOP districts, but in such a way that it is almost certain that somewhere in Phoenix or points northwest there will be primary between two of them.