Romney's problems with the Hispanic vote

My column in the Sky Hi News April 25 2012

 

 

Colorado is one of the states in which Hispanics play a large role in determining who gets all nine of our electoral votes for president in 2012.

Given the predicted closeness of the race nationally, Colorado could determine who gets elected president in the fall. Nearly 21 percent of the registered electorate in Colorado is Hispanic, and so far Mitt Romney has scored a “nada” in appealing to Hispanics nationwide. Most polls show that 65 to 70 percent of Hispanics in the U.S. are leaning toward the Democratic column, with Romney getting around 29 percent.

Those nationwide figures include Cuban-Americans in Florida who usually vote Republican and who do not have immigration problems. So, the Colorado vote, with 70 percent of Hispanics from Mexican and Central American roots, could go more heavily for President Obama.

Mitt Romney has several problems that will make it difficult to win over Hispanic voters, many of his own making and the result of his representing a GOP/Republican party that sounds and acts hostile to immigrants. The question facing Hispanics is that President Obama may have not delivered on all of his promises to them, such as immigration reform, but would Romney be more likely to deliver?

Instead of showing he would do better, Romney is on record supporting positions that alienate Hispanics. Such a visible record will make it hard for him to flip flop later.

Romney hopes he can convince Hispanics his expertise in economic matters will be an acceptable trade-off. So far, that has not worked.

Part of Romney's problem is that he Is wedded to the GOP that has made it a litmus test of partisan loyalty that any path to citizenship is called “amnesty.” While the GOP has pointed out that Obama has increased deportations, the GOP has never said they would decrease the number. Romney's advocacy of self-voluntary deportation was greeted with guffaws.

GOP office-holders have supported letting local police and sheriffs enforce federal immigration laws, allowing local officials to ask for documentation if they stop or pull over a suspect that looks like an illegal immigrant. Arizona has just passed such a law. The fear that anyone with a brown complexion and an accent legally in the U.S. or not, will be racially profiled has further angered many voters in the Hispanic community. Not only has Romney supported the law, he has called it a model that all states should adopt.

In state legislatures across the country, the GOP legislators have fought the Dream Act, which would, among variations, allow children born outside the U.S. but brought here by their parents, to attend college with in-state tuition. Republicans in the Colorado Legislature have been able to block the passage of such a Dream Act. Romney has vowed to veto Dream Acts if Congress passes one.

There has also been a concerted effort among GOP legislators, including those in Colorado, to require all to have a government issued photo ID to register and vote. Democrats in the Colorado Legislature have beaten back efforts to pass such a law. The estimate is that 20 percent of voters in some states — mostly Democratic-leaning Hispanics, minorities, students, and elderly — now do not have one and to get it requires time and travel. The GOP claims they wanted to require photo identification to prevent fraud, but there has been no proof of any widespread voter fraud. Such GOP efforts have been called “voter suppression.” In 2012 Colorado Hispanics do not need to have a photo ID to register or to vote.

 

Footnote: the Arizona law's constitutionality is before the US Supreme Court today. The justices are hearing oral arguments, with decisions being handed down later probably in the summer. In the meantime, the law is not being enforced until the decision. The Colorado Dream act has cleared onde committee in the state legislature, but faces problems  later in other committees. 

 

 

Translation en Espanol follows. 

April 25, 2012 En Espanol  My column, Sky Hi News. Translation via Google Translate

Colorado es uno de los estados en los que los hispanos juegan un papel importante en la determinación de quién recibe todos los 9 de los votos electorales para la presidencia en 2012. Dada la cercanía prevista de la carrera a nivel nacional, Colorado podría determinar quién es elegido presidente en el otoño. Casi el 21% de los electores inscritos en Colorado es de origen hispano y hasta el momento, Mitt Romney se ha apuntado un "nada" al apelar a los hispanos a nivel nacional. La mayoría de las encuestas están mostrando que entre el 65 al 70 por ciento de los hispanos en los EE.UU. se están inclinando a la columna demócrata, con Romney conseguir alrededor del 29%.

 Esas cifras a nivel nacional incluyen los cubano-americanos en la Florida que por lo general votan por los republicanos y que no tienen problemas de inmigración, por lo que el voto de Colorado, con un 70% de los hispanos de las raíces de mexicanos y centroamericanos, podría ir en mayor medida para el presidente Obama.

Mitt Romney tiene varios problemas que hacen que sea difícil para ganarse a los votantes latinos / hispanos, muchos de su propia creación y el resultado de su representación de una parte del Partido Republicano / republicano que suena y actos hostiles a los inmigrantes. La pregunta que enfrentan los hispanos es que PRES.Obama no han cumplido todas sus promesas para ellos, tales como la reforma migratoria, pero Romney es más probable que ofrecer.

 En lugar de mostrar que iba a hacer mejor, Romney está en el registro en la televisión el apoyo a las posiciones que alienan a los hispanos. Tal registro visible hará que sea difícil para él flip flop más tarde. Romney espera poder convencer a los hispanos a su experiencia en materia económica será un compromiso aceptable.Hasta el momento, que no ha funcionado.

Parte del problema de Romney es que él está casado con el Partido Republicano que se ha convertido en una prueba de fuego de la lealtad partidaria de que cualquier camino a la ciudadanía que se llama "amnistía". Mientras que el Partido Republicano ha señalado Obama ha aumentado las deportaciones, el Partido Republicano nunca ha dicho que se reduciría el número. La promoción de Romney de la deportación propia, voluntaria fue recibido con carcajadas.

 Los titulares de cargos del Partido Republicano han apoyado a dejar que la policía local y alguaciles de policía hacer cumplir las leyes federales de inmigración, permitiendo que los funcionarios locales para pedir la documentación si parar o detenerse a un sospechoso que se parece a un inmigrante ilegal. Arizona acaba de aprobar una ley. El temor de que cualquier persona con una tez morena y acento uno, legalmente en los EE.UU. o no, se ha perfilado racial más enfureció a muchos votantes en la comunidad hispana. No sólo ha Romney apoyó la ley, que ha calificado como un modelo que todos los Estados deben adoptar.

  En las legislaturas estatales en todo el país, los legisladores del Partido Republicano han luchado el Dream Act que, entre las variaciones, permiten a los niños nacidos fuera de los EE.UU., pero llevado a los EE.UU. por sus padres, para asistir a la universidad con la matrícula instaurar. Los republicanos en la legislatura del estado de Colorado han sido capaces de bloquear el paso de una Ley del Sueño. Romney ha prometido vetar leyes Dream si el Congreso aprueba una.

Marco Rubio, un republicano cubano-americana senador de la Florida, ha propuesto un acto del Partido Republicano sueño: Haciendo caso omiso de la cuestión de la matrícula instaurar, dejaría los estudiantes universitarios hispanos indocumentados permanecer en la universidad pero no se le daría un camino a la ciudadanía. ¿Qué sucede después de la graduación? En caso de que ellos mismos, si deportar a Romney tiene su manera?

También ha habido un esfuerzo concertado entre los legisladores del Partido Republicano, incluidos los de Colorado, para exigir que todos tengan una identificación oficial con fotografía para registrarse y votar. . Los demócratas en la legislatura de Colorado han rechazado los esfuerzos para aprobar una ley. La estimación es que el 20% de los votantes en algunos estados, en su mayoría hispanos demócratas se inclinan, las minorías, estudiantes y tercera edad ya no tiene uno, y para conseguir que requiere tiempo y los viajes. El Partido Republicano afirma que querían exigir una identificación con foto para evitar el fraude, pero no ha habido ninguna prueba de fraude electoral generalizado. Estos esfuerzos del Partido Republicano se han llamado "supresión de votantes".En 2012, los hispanos de Colorado no es necesario tener una identificación con fotografía para registrarse o votar.

The gender gap and why Romney will have a hard time closing it

My column in the Sky Hi News Apri

Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist employed by CNN, created a political storm when she criticized Ann Romney for being the messenger and spokesperson for her husband Mitt Romney on what women were thinking.

Rosen commented that Mrs. Romney had “never worked a day in her life,” implying that she could not know the struggles of women less privileged. GOP pundits immediately seized on the comment as “a war on stay at home moms.” The Democrats, including President Obama, took issue with Rosen and were quick to pay homage to the tough job that stay at home moms have.

Republicans exploited the unfortunate sound bite to try to win back the support of women they had been losing. Lost in their noise was a valid point: It is not about whether stay at home moms work hard and deserve our respect. It is about the ability to choose whether to stay at home or work. Many women have no choice. There are women who would like to stay home, raise their kids, and be a homemaker, but they are either single or their husbands cannot bring home enough bacon to cover the costs of raising their family.

One important question women should be asking is which contender for president in November will make life easier for women who work or who want to work. Currently 65 percent of women with school-age children work outside the home.

The GOP and Romney have been making a case that job creation and improving the economy are so important to women, they will forget the dust-up that caused the women's flight to Obama, who has a nearly sterling record of supporting pro-women's rights policies. The Romney forces are miscalculating.

Event heaped upon event changed perceptions earlier this year. State legislatures dominated by the religious right attempted to force intrusive methods of ultrasound on women seeking abortions and advocated personhood amendments that could make contraceptives and even early term abortions murder. Opposition in the US House of Representatives to Obamacare provisions requiring employers to provide contraceptives with no co pay passed the Blunt Amendment that would exempt all employers who objected to contraceptives from compliance.

Women suddenly woke up and realized that their access to low-cost contraceptives and even affordable non-abortion-related health care was endangered. Women understand that access to family planning makes it easier to go to work because they have control over their reproductive lives.

Romney had tried to establish conservative credentials by endorsing de-funding of Planned Parenthood and the Blunt amendment. He gave a tepid, tardy response when asked if he supported the Obama backed Lilly Ledbetter equal pay law, saying he would not repeal it. To make a case that it was Obama who is bad news for women (even though Obama's position is nearly sterling in support of women's rights ), Romney claimed that 92.3 percent of jobs lost since Obama took office were lost by women. Fact checkers quickly called those claims mostly false. (www.politifact.com and www.washingtonpost/blogs/fact-checker ). Others pointed out that the jobs Romney wants to cut in his rush to approve the Ryan-GOP budget plan are mostly those held by women who dominate the workforce of health care, teachers, and government workers.

There are several factors that could dim Romney's hope women will swing back to his column.

• Many women remain in shock that long-established rights are under attack with the GOP's and Romney's tacit or expressed approval.

• Today's media provides records of Romney's position. Expect campaign ads run by Democrats reminding women on whose side Romney was in the spring.

• Romney's embracing of the same economic policies that caused the most epic job loss since the Great Depression will get great play by Democrats challenging the GOP's case that Republicans would improve the economy and create jobs for women at a better rate than the Democrats.

For a more personal take on the issue, visit www.mufticforum.com

l 18, 2012

HUD...What ..the department does Romney wants to eliminate

At a Florida fundraiser this past weekend, he was over heard telling donors what departments he would eliminate or consolidate.  Aside from reducing the size of the department of Education and moving it in with another unnamed department, he said he would eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  What does he want to eliminate? What does HUD do? It enforces fair housing rules against discrimination.  From the HUD website, here is what it also has done:" Behind the formulas and the grant eligibility criteria of our programs are the stories of people's lives, whether they are among the 1.6 million responsible first-time homebuyers the FHA has supported since President Obama took office; the 1.8 million people with disabilities we serve through Housing Choice Vouchers, the Section 811, Public Housing programs, and other initiatives; or the more than 900,000 seniors who live with the care they need and dignity they deserve thanks to our Section 202, Project-based Section 8, and Public Housing programs."

Woodward, OK again and memories of growing up in tornado alley

Reports of Woodward, OK being hit by a tornado shortly after midnight today, with at least 5 killed,  reminded me of a post on this blog in June 2011 shortly after the Joplin tornado.  Woodward figured prominently in that post, as well. Early reports indicate the tornado warning system failed this time;  in the past, there were no warning systems and the earlier tornado killed over 100. Excerpts from that 2011 post : "I was born and raised in tornado alley so spring was a time of terror for me. The pictures of Joplin, Mo., brought back some familiar pains in the pit of my stomach and memories.

My home town, Muskogee, Okla., is 125 miles south west of Joplin, and Joplin was on the way to grandmother's house in southwestern Missouri. My 1940s childhood memory of Joplin was a pit stop to fill up the gas tank.

When tornado season came I huddled in my bed on the second floor of our wood frame house, waiting for death to come. It never did, but I resolved never to live near tornado land again.

The Wizard of Oz story never had much credibility with me. I never thought I would wake up from a fantastic dream because I knew I would be sucked up and die in a funnel cloud.

Looking back on those times, I probably was realistic. There were no tornado sirens, no Doppler radar, and no storm shelters. The closest cellar was in a neighbor's home nearly a block away. All we were educated to do was to go to the southwest corner of the building. We knew no more than that. We were just sitting ducks waiting to be plucked up. The myth had always been that Muskogee was immune because it sat down in the Arkansas valley. One April day in 1945 the myth was blown away by a tornado that devastated the east side of the town. Two children were killed and my father, a telephone company executive, took me on a tour of the destruction, which only reinforced my terror of spring.

Two years later the Woodward tornado in the southwestern corner of the state killed more than 100 people. I remember the radio reports, newspaper's screaming headlines, and my parents talking about it. It was since that terrible episode that records began to be kept of death and destruction caused by tornadoes in the U.S. Joplin 2011 was the worst."

War on women? Most miss the point. It is about the ability to choose

Hilary Rosen created a tsunami of a political brouhaha when she criticized Ann Romney for being the advocate that women cared about jobs more than other issues (referring to her husband’s hard line position supporting the Blunt amendment that would give employers the option of  not covering contraceptives with health insurance, and embracing the right wing stance on many of the social conservative issues).  Most pundits have missed the point: It is about the ability to choose.

Romney himself was on record for saying women do not care about the social issues and care about jobs. Perhaps he had better look at his poll numbers as many  women switched sides to the Democratic column.  

What Hilary Rosen, a former aide to Hillary Clinton  and not a member of the Obama administration or a paid consultant to the Democratic National Committee, did was to infer condemnation of  Ann Romney for never having to work a day in her life, had the choice to stay home, and raise her large family, and therefore did not understand the problems other less privileged women had.   

One  point they all missed is  that there is a connection between women’s choice to  control their reproductive lives and an ability to be able to work . Family planning is critical to the ability of women to go to work in these days of expensive child care .   There was a time when your job position was not held open if a person took leave to care for a newborn.  In most European countries, women get compensation for staying home that first year, but not in ours.  Nursing a baby  was not an option on the job. Those possibilities have been mitigated, but are still dependent upon employer policies and  a patchwork of laws allowing family leave and the ability to come back to work after a brief time at home recovering from child birth.

Wage discrimination meant that those who did go to work earn 70% on every dollar as compared to men and Romney’s campaign was totally ignorant of the fact that Pres. Obama had signed into law rather recently the Lilly Ledbetter act, which made discrimination against women…equal pay for equal work…a law.  This obviously was not in Romney’s  staff’s radar or interest area.

Another point not expressed is that there are many women who would like to stay home, raise their kids, and be a homemaker but they are either single or their husbands cannot bring home enough bacon to cover the costs of raising their family. 

There was a time in my career where I was fired for being pregnant.  It was in the early 1960’s.  I had set out to be a “career woman”,  working in public relations  in media and Wall Street, but I found that at that point, it was no option. I had no choice.  When I graduated from college in 1960, I was the oddball, a woman who wanted to work for the joy of feeling that I was a whole human being, educated and able. In those days of  lower living costs,  and married to a physician, I became a professional volunteer. Even then,  we could afford “help”.   I did not work full time until all three children were in school.

I had watched my mother married to my telephone company executive father who was a stay at home mom, who also had “help”.  My brother was handicapped and even if she had wanted to work, she could not, in any case.  It was not until his medical bills (pre Medicaid) overwhelmed salary and savings that she went to work, and she was in her ‘50’s .   She had no choice.

.

On the other hand, I do have cousins in the military who raised their family on military officer’s pay and she homeschooled her brood of six children,  a choice for which I have nothing but respect.  I would not have had the patience, and I fault myself for that.

Where all are missing the point is that women should have the choice and be respected for it if they want to work or must work or if they want to stay home. Reality is that it also means women must be able to control their reproductive lives and when they enter the workforce, get paid fairly.  From that standpoint, Obama gets it. Romney does not.

Freedom v Fairness in 2012

My column in the Sky Hi News today
In his Illinois and Wisconsin primary victory speeches , Mitt Romney reset his campaign to his original theme: Experience in business gives him special insight into how to restore the economy. His formula: “freedom” for business interests.

President Obama has emphasized: “fairness.” Those words chosen by both men reflect their backgrounds, with whom they connect, and in whose interest they would govern. Now each is branding the other as the most out of touch.

“Fairness” seems to be touching more of the voters. Romney's favorability ratings plunged to 34 percent in a March 23 ABC poll. Obama's ascended to 53 percent. Why?

The rough GOP primary, getting bin Laden, and the slowly improving economy weakened Romney's case that Obama was a failure. Rick Santorum raised the public's consciousness that there was a difference between a person raised in privilege and a coal miner's descendent. Romney helped make that point by committing one gaffe after another, from Cadillacs owned to hefty bets on trivia.

Romney is now ridiculing the president for being ignorant about economic matters, dismissing Obama as an out of touch professor and a government-loving community organizer. What he slyly didn't acknowledge is Obama's life story, coming from the struggling middle class, which Obama is of, by, and for.

Romney's understanding of the economy is of, by, for, and limited to his own world of finance and the self-serving theory that tax cuts restored to the rich create wealth that trickles down to the rest. Trickle-down taxation policies between 2001 and 2008 failed. The rich got 275 percent richer; the rest, 6 percent poorer, and the private sector lost 650,000 jobs. Somehow he missed those facts.

Romney equated his experience in private equity to his ability to create jobs, but what is good for Wall Street does not necessarily translate to what others think is in their interest. In analyzing the auto industry through the eyes of a banker, he concluded it was good public policy that auto manufacturing should go bankrupt in spite of resulting job losses. This sank his poll numbers in some Rust Belt swing states.

His plan to restore the economy is to govern on behalf of business, to free business from more regulation, and to “make the regulators the allies of business.” In repealing Wall Street reform and installing foxes to guard the hen house doors, he would restore the same practices that caused the 2008 crash, epic losses of jobs, and the fleecing of the home-owning middle class.

We know in whose interest Romney would not govern. Last month Romney criticized women for wanting to receive pills and mammograms free of copays through Obamacare and he pledged to end support of Planned Parenthood. He claims those issues are not as important to women as the economy. Both are important, and his support from women has dropped dramatically.

We know in whose interest President Obama is governing and why. He has said his priority for health care reform was inspired by his dying mother's struggle to pay medical bills. His issuing rules to alleviate the staggering burden of student loans was born of his own difficulties in paying them off. His income tax proposal would have the rich pay proportionately no less than the middle class (the Buffett rule).

Unlike Mitt Romney's life experiences , Obama learned much about the poor as a community organizer. He saw firsthand the pain of factory closings and the need for a hand-up to escape poverty when the free market cannot or did not provide it. Freedom to stay poor is a poor kind of freedom.

Obamacare will be political fodder no matter how the Court rules

My column in the Sky Hi Daily News today
The Supreme Court heard the arguments against Obamacare last week and it will be late June before they rule. The part of the law that received their most scrutiny was the mandate, the requirement that all must carry health insurance. The Court will decide whether they uphold the law, deny the one mandate clause and leave the rest standing, or whether they throw the health care law baby out with the bathwater.

Regardless of the Court ruling, health care reform will continue to be political fodder for the 2012 presidential campaign. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the law, the debate will continue about whether it is good policy. If the popular provisions, making health insurance affordable to all, removing life time limits, or covering pre-existing conditions, are thrown out with a ruling the entire law is constitutional, Democrats will point the blame finger at the GOP and a Supreme Court divided by party affiliation that gave us the legalized corruption of the election process by super PACs and sided with the election of a Republican president over Al Gore, as well.

If the court rules only the mandate is unconstitutional, it could be the Administration as plan B implements the remainder. If the court upholds the entire law or all but the mandate, GOP legislators sworn to kill Obamacare will not be able to repeal it. Because of the uncompromising turn to the right by the GOP, some moderate senators have quit, making the goal of GOP's getting sixty votes in the Senate to agree with the Tea Party dominated House of Representatives and vote for repeal is an impossible dream.

Assuming the GOP candidate is Mitt Romney, he will be no help to the GOP on the issue . He was the advocate and signer of a very similar law when he was governor of Massachusetts. He says with ringing rhetoric he says he will “kill Obamacare” and he calls the law “horrendous.” It is sound and fury that rings hollow, a clanging bell enclosing a puny clapper and a lot of air, crafted to bring applause from conservative audiences.

By calling the law horrendous, does he mean it is horrendous to make it possible for all to afford health insurance? Is it horrendous to forbid health insurers to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions? Is it horrendous to make it illegal for an insurer to drop coverage when you get sick? Is it horrendous to mandate all to carry health insurance? All of these provisions were in his own Massachusetts law.

What is left for Romney to oppose is the requirement that all states do it as part of a nationwide law. His position, that states rights in these matters are simply superior to a federal program, appeals to those who want a limited federal government, but has a worthless ring that provides neither a workable plan B or a plan C-Z.

Unless federal money from federal taxpayer's pockets is irresponsibly gifted to states without requiring standards and accountability, what state would be compelled or could afford to provide a similar alternative with the same benefits, including covering the uninsured and pre-existing conditions and removing life time limits? Not ours. Shoving Obama/Romneycare to the states would be dumping it in file 13 and Romney needs to come clean on that clunker.

Weighing in on the Trayvon Martin tragedy

_{Weighing in on the Trayvon Martin case…}

_{I am the grandparent of a 17 year old teen.  He is white, over 6 feet tall,  and he lives in a neighborhood which is, to put it mildly, not diverse.  He occasionally walks around wearing a hoodie.  I doubt sincerely that some self appointed neighborhood watch vigilante would ever have followed him to see what bad he would be contemplating doing.   To deny that racism was an element in the actions of George  Zimmerman is to deny that  many   racially profile a black face wearing a  hoodie, a disguise favored  by many a  bank or convenience store holdup perpetrator.}

_{Thanks to the Florida Stand Your Ground law,  in spite of what  former Governor Jeb Bush believed, that it was to allow homeowners to use weapons to defend their  own homes and lives if they  felt threatened, there has been unleashed untrained, unscreened, unauthorized  neighborhood vigilantes to do what Zimmerman did.  It is a fact, documented in the 911 call,  Zimmerman ignored the orders of the police  and continued following Trayvon Martin with the inevitable confrontation, documented almost to the fatal end by eye witnesses, the 911 recordings,  and Martin’s own cell phone conversation with his girl friend.   Both Zimmerman and Martin felt threatened. Both could have invoked the Stand Your Ground Law  broadly interpreted, but Zimmerman had the gun that killed the teen.}

_{The police themselves gave Zimmerman a pass from arrest because they believed him and that it was his word against a black kid with  no other witnesses, though they made no effort to find witnesses.  Their role in this is certainly worthy of  scrutiny.  They  tested Martin alone  for drugs, again a profiling assumption that a black kid with a hood was up to no good and was the threatening party that the Florida law protected.}

_{I have served as a homeowners association president and I am now the chair of the executive committee condo association. I have spent significant time in a gated community in southwestern Florida within the past year.  I also once  headed a district attorneys’ investigative unit and I can claim familiarity with working with police and enforcement of criminal law.}  

_{The neighborhood of which I was the association president was a large, not very diverse suburban type and it had been plagued by an infamous, illusive  burglar,  dubbed the Southmoor Cat Burglar by the press.  We found homeowners leaving doors unlocked and garage doors left open, only assisting the criminal.  We ourselves were victims when he jimmied open a basement window.  Alert police grabbed him in a nearby shopping center after his long career.}

_{Instead of arming a well meaning   resident or even having a unarmed resident patrol our neighborhood,  we hired a guard service and increased assessments to cover it.  In the Florida gated community, a uniformed guard service patrolled the area, screened the visitors, and made frequent swings through the local streets.  An armed vigilante was not designated.  Neighborhood watch means exactly that: a watch.  It does not mean cruising around with a powerful pistol.  Even supervised and trained law enforcers have their problems with racial profiling, but an amateur with an itchy trigger finger is even more of a potential  problem.}

_{In addition to the investigation by those outside the police department and to reform/retrain the Sanford  police department, what should  be done is to rewrite or overturn such poorly written laws as the Florida one. Revisions should  exclude from its protection   action outside of a person’s own home, just as Jeb Bush thought it originally intended . Uniformed and trained guards should be hired to patrol neighborhoods.  Anyone with any color  walking through a neighborhood that does not reflect his race should not wear a hoodie.  It is a sad commentary on our times, but that is  reality.}