Reality Check!!

In the wake of the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama there is elation in liberal and Democratic circles and soul searching in the Republican folds.

The focus is on the fact that “Democrats have won the popular vote in four out of the last five Presidential elections — including the 2000 race in which Al Gore got 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush nationally, but wound up losing the electoral vote by two votes, courtesy of the Supreme Court.” See here. Of course, at the same time it overlooks that Obama, is the only Democratic President since F.D.R. to be granted a second term by a popular majority. See here.

But the first part sounds good! Makes for good headlines! Even has Republicans eating crow. Thus Governor Bobby Jindal in the most dramatic words of any Republican spokesperson said:  

We’ve got to stop being the stupid party… It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. It’s time for us to articulate our plans and our visions for America in real terms… We are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes or big anything…We must not be the party that simply protects the well off so that they can keep their toys.

So is it a whole new ball game. Have Republicans seen the light? Or in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, is it  “deja vu all over again".

It is a mere six years since I posted an article on my blog entitled "Euphoria and Reality" in which I pointed out that despite the big win in mid-term elections, the ability to govern was far from our grasp. After 2008 euphoria was even greater, but it was still a very big slog to get real reform enacted. To get the stimulus enacted, three Republican votes had to be found to overcome a filibuster, and the three votes were bought by diluting the crucial funding of state governments, leading to enormous job losses in the state’s public sectors, and a drag on job creation in the private sector.

But now in the elation of 2012 we seem to have forgotten what happened a mere two years ago. That was a real drubbing. As a result in 25 of the 50 states Republicans have complete control of all three branches of government, and 30 of the 50 states have Republican governors.  This came at a very propitious time for them since it followed the 2010 census, allowing them to redraw Congressional and even state legislative lines so as to assure them of a majority in State legislatures and in the House of Representatives into the indefinite future. See here. As of this year Democrats will hold complete sway in only 13 states. See here.

But what of the new Republican awakening as outlined by Jindal? Just recently he introduced into his state legislature a plan to “eliminate Louisiana's income and corporate taxes and pay for those cuts with increased sales taxes…” which according “to the Institute onTaxation and Economic Policy, would end up cutting taxes for the wealthiest Louisianans while raising taxes on the bottom 80 percent of Louisianans. So much for “We must not be the party that simply protects the well off so that they can keep their toys.” The talk has changed! The reality has not!

And is Jindal this new Republican moderate on other issues? According to Raw Story he favors "allowing creationism to be taught in biology classes, opposes abortion in all cases, votes against expanding federal funding for stem cell research and supports a constitutional ban on marriage equality."

So what does he mean when he says we have to stop being “the stupid party"? He means that they have to be better at obfuscation.

The fact is that the shift in state taxes from income to sales taxes, increases the burden on lower incomes, and decreases the burden on upper incomes, and it is happening in Republican controlled states, through out. For example Republicans in North Carolina are pushing such a plan. Kansas, which cut its income tax significantly last year, may trim further. Oklahoma, which tried to cut income taxes last year, is expected to try again. See here.

But far more ominous are Republican attempts to fix not only congressional elections by gerrymandering, but fixing the electoral votes by changing the rules.

They tried to suppress the vote in the last election. It didn’t work, or at least it didn’t work well enough. As the Washington Post wrote, now Republicans:

...who have control of states that went for President Obama in the 2012 election are pushing for their states to change how they award electoral votes. While almost every state awards electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, Republicans want these states to instead award one vote to the winner of each congressional district. 

The other two electoral votes that each state has likely would be given to the statewide winner, as they are in the two states that currently employ this method: Maine and Nebraska. 

The new system would allow Republicans to consistently win electoral votes (and quite possibly a majority of electoral votes) from states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia, regardless of whether they win the statewide vote. 

All five of these states went for Obama in 2012. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have consistently gone blue at the presidential level, and Virginia is tilting in that direction, which would make winning any electoral votes in these states a victory for the GOP. 

Why does it matter? 

It matters because the congressional district method gives the GOP a much better chance of winning, since a strong majority of U.S. congressional districts lean Republican. 

In fact, if every state awarded its electoral votes by congressional district, it’s likely that Mitt Romney would have won the 2012 presidential election despite losing the popular vote by nearly four percentage points. See here.

They are talking about a new party. They are talking about being more inclusive. About courting the Hispanic vote by supporting legalization of the 11 million illegal aliens in the US. Watch what they do, not what they say. It is already no legalization until the borders are secure, and of course we have been trying to make the borders secure for decades. They will never be secure enough to suit these pretend converts. They are owned lock stock and barrel by a majority of Caucasians, mostly rural, who founded this country on slavery and will never, never, accept the idea that they may no longer be the majority. They will do whatever it takes to keep the vote in their hands. Charles Krauthammer writing in the Washington Post speaks for them. “There is an obvious solution: enforcement first.” Even if somehow Republicans in the Congress agree to legalization, i.e. Green Cards, the will never agree to citizenship. Would they really allow 11 million more non-whites to vote, particularly if they are more then likely going to vote Democratic? I think not! Or as the Christian Science Monitor explains: 

In addition to sinking $1 billion into the failed "virtual fence," the US government has spent $2.6 billion for 650 miles of solid border. This wall doesn’t deter people – but it does defy the laws that protect the land.

As for the idea that the illegal aliens have to go to the end of the line before being considered for legalization that is the biggest hoax of them all. As was pointed out in a recent article in the New York Times:

If we really want to tackle unauthorized migration, we need to understand why it exists in the first place. The most important cause is our system of allocating green cards, or visas for permanent residency, which stipulates that no country may have more than 7 percent of the total each year. With an annual ceiling of 366,000 family- and employer-sponsored visas, the per-country limit is 25,620. 

“In practice, this means it is easy to immigrate here from, say, Belgium or New Zealand, but there are long waits — sometimes decades — for applicants from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. These four max out on the limit every year. When critics admonish prospective immigrants — as well as the 11 million plus undocumented migrants currently in America — to “go to the back of the line,” they should realize that for many people the line is a cruel joke.

Republicans may go along with allowing illegal immigrants, who in the words of Senator McCain are, “… individuals to mow our lawn, serve our food, clean our homes and even watch our children, while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great, … I think everyone agrees that it’s not beneficial to our country to have these people hidden in the shadows.”

Republicans may allow them to come out of the shadows, but I predict that giving them citizenship and the right to vote is something that they will fight to the bitter end.

For a history of attempts at immigration reform, see here.

Marco Rubio, a descendent of Cubans, who won his Florida Senate seat, by less than 50% of the vote because his opposition was split, has been touted as the great immigration reformer. Is he? See here.

The cry of  “no amnesty” may no longer be the rallying cry, but citizenship and the right to vote is another matter all together. Of course that “no amnesty" cry was always phony, for we have statutes of limitations for every crime except murder. Why would we not have a statute of limitations for aliens having come here illegally decades ago?

But people who have made lives for themselves in this country, who have been here for decades, who have families here, are entitled to not only come out of the shadows, but to have full participation in our Democracy. Nothing else can or should be accepted.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Contraception, Abortion and Komen – Discussion

On February 9, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen" and on February 13, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)." I urge readers to re-read these commentaries before reading the discussion, which follows.

Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia, enthused:

I read your original blog after receiving today's comments on it. Bravo to you for exposing this covert religious effort to demean and endanger women by eviscerating hard-won rights.

Irving Lesnick Esq. of Boca Raton, Florida brought us this insight:

On the subject of when human life begins, there is a statement in the Bible on the subject:  Genesis Chap 2, Verse 7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This seems to say that a fetus becomes a human when it starts breathing, which is when it is born alive.

I never understood why this verse is never referred to in the "when does life begin argument."

To which I responded:

Thanks so much for your input. 

It is startling to find that not only does the Bible not support the theory that life begins at conception, but it actually supports the view that life begins when the fetus begins to breath on its own, i.e., when the umbilical cord is cut.

It appears that the fundamentalists not only ignore science, but even the Bible, that they claim to revere.

Finally Professor Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY made this contribution:

"I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut." If I recall correctly, there was also a distinction made when the fetus "quickened," that is, could be felt to move. Killing of a quickened fetus had more substantial penalties than pre-quickened abortions. Now, of course, a fetus can live as a baby outside the womb by the third trimester. Roe v. Wade allows states to prohibit abortion in the third trimester and although viability is not the sole basis for the trimester system Roe creates, it has a logic to it. If the fetus can live, one shouldn't have the right at that point to choose an extraction process that kills it. What will be interesting is when science, as is inevitable, can grow a fetus outside a woman, a true "test-tube" baby. At that point, it will be interesting to see if extraction is permitted, but abortion forbidden (i.e., the woman has a right to remove the fetus, but not to terminate it), or if the debate shifts from a woman's right to control her body to the right to choose whether to bring a life into the world. If it becomes the latter, it will also be interesting to see what rights, if any, fathers may acquire -- of course as it stands now in the body-control regime, there are none.

To which I responded:

Thanks for your comment. You raise some interesting questions. I don't think I agree with some of your moral conclusions. I don't agree with the Sup. Ct. holding that viability controls. Even then I wouldn't want to criminalize it. As for a test tube baby, I would assume if it became possible, it would be made illegal. As for the father, that opens up a whole new debate, but I don't believe that under any circumstances, anyone but the person who is carrying the fetus should be allowed to determine how her body is to be used. The fundamental right has to be the women's right to control her own body and all that resides within it.

Additional comments received on or before February 20, 2011 will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. 

Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)

I posted my commentary entitled "Contraception, Abortion, and Komen" on February 9, 2012.

In response thereto one of my subscribers who does not want to be identified commented:

Excellent letter. I think that women have just gotten tired of trying to talk to men with closed minds; the men do not want to hear what really happens at Planned Parenthood. I volunteered for a year after retiring as a nurse, and gave it up because I could no longer stomach the youngsters coming in with STD's; many of them had more than one, and they were so out of touch. Pregnancies were few, and requests for abortion even less frequent. But women who work with women know the facts and I think that is one of the reasons that there was such an outcry. Women could not believe and could not accept that a women’s organization did not know what Planned Parenthood is all about---which is women’s health care. Komen made a big mistake---turning their back on women who need help. I am not sure that they will be quickly forgiven. Omit my name please---I like talking with you, a breath of sanity in a world of viciousness. 

Allow me to add:

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Since then the controversy has escalated, and now swirls around the Health Insurance Reform, under which, among many other provisions, all insurance policies must include coverage for pre-existing conditions, primary care, and birth control, at no additional cost. Opponents of birth control now have escalated this into a religious issue because the Department of Health & Human Services has refused to exempt religious institutions from its provisions. Let me make clear that no institution is required under this law to provide contraceptive services. This is only about insurance. If you choose to sell or provide insurance to your employees all must comply with the law.

Nevertheless, the administration has now exempted religious institutions from having to pay or insure women for birth control. This will be done only by insurance companies, but will, in fact have no cost in the long run, because like all preventive health care, it reduces the cost of health care in the long run.

But the hysteria on the part of Republican Presidential candidates has, if anything, escalated. According to Planned Parenthood:

Mitt Romney told his supporters "This same administration said that in churches… that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills…  

 This is flat out untrue. 

Here's the truth. Nearly every sexually active woman — including 98 percent of Catholics — will rely on birth control at some point. It's basic preventive care — not just as a contraceptive, but for women who use the birth control pill to manage ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and other conditions. The health care reform law requires employers to provide coverage for preventive care with no co-pays. While churches, mosques, and other religious institutions do no have to abide by this requirement, the Obama administration has decided that religiously affiliated hospitals and universities with large numbers of employees of different faiths can't impose their ideology on those employees. It's simple: your boss can't decide whether you have access to birth control with no co-pays.

The Republican agenda becomes more and more radical, and more and more oppressive. The liberties, not only of women, but of all are at stake. Romney, the ultimate opportunist, is willing to sell his soul in his lust for power and prestige, to add to his billions of dollars.

Finally, I have been trying to understand where the fundamentalists get their concept that life begins at conception. In this connection I entered into a discussion on this with a friend a while ago. 

Without going into what prompted my discourse I think my response may be of interest:

What I think you are suggesting is that the point of the Right's position on abortion is to require women to be continuously pregnant, i.e. to be plentiful, and there is support for this in the Bible. Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

           

But what I hear them saying, does not suggest that to me. I rather hear an anti-sex message. More than anything I hear abstain from sex outside of marriage, and this too has support in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 and to have sex only to procreate.

           

But while I think this underlies their views, they rely on the idea of "when life begins," for which I can find no support in the Bible. Furthermore, the idea that "life" must be protected is silly, since life exists in the form of a mosquito, and surely they do not mean that mosquitoes, or for that matter bacteria, which too is life, must be protected. What they must mean, though they never seem to say it, is that human life must be protected. They then postulate that human life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. But that is completely arbitrary. The egg looks no different after fertilization than before. If they argue that this ultimately leads to human life, than it can equally be argued, that the sperm itself, or the egg itself, leads to human life, and there is no doubt that the sperm is alive, even before it enters the egg. 

           

What really drives this, outside the hard-core fundamentalists, is that traditionally, abortion was frowned upon, and the physician who performed them illegally was looked down upon as the lowest of the low. But this always coexisted with the dangerous back-alley abortion, or self induced abortion, and the abortion sought by those with the means to go to a jurisdictions where it was legal. 

Just as we have learned, that many prejudices of the past don't make sense, whether it was that left handed is unacceptable, to that being gay is not normal, or that contraception is immoral, so it is simply moving with the reality that abortion is simply a late term contraception.

           

The question is not when does life begin, but rather when does human life begin. While abortion was frowned upon in past generations, it was never considered the killing of a person. It was never murder. The introduction of the idea that a human life begins at fertilization of the egg, inevitably leads to claims of murder, but it has no basis either in the past, or in logic.

           

The fertilized egg is no more a human that a tadpole is a frog, or a fertilized hen egg is a chicken, and I think few, if any, would claim that to be so.

When does human life begin? I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut.

           

Any other approach has no basis in religion, in the Bible or in precedent.