Sunday, July 27, 2014

The limits of US leadership. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

President Obama has come under fire for a good part of his presidency from the GOP for “being feckless” and “leading from behind.” I have lost count of the number of times Sen. John McCain has advocated getting militarily involved in this or that conflict. Sen. Lindsey Graham calls Secretary John Kerry “delusional” and the President “King of Indecision,” but ignores reality. There are limits to US ability to lead our allies. The old saying fits:  You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
If the leadership’s judgment is wrong or misleads us intentionally, blunders and quagmires make thoughtful, cautious leadership personified by Obama’s approach look good. We have experienced leadership of hawks and neocons before.  In my lifetime, we were led into Vietnam mission creep by fear of a domino effect; and we were fooled into invading Iraq by claims they possessed WMDs. We know how both of those turned out.  No wonder we are gun shy.
A recent Politico poll shows we are a schizophrenic nation with hawkish GOP leaders in Washington urging one thing and a large majority of the public decisively agreeing with the details of Obama’s  policies of getting out or staying out of Aghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East. 
Obama himself has recently added to the “feckless” perception with bad optics of not flying to the White House to take up hands on leadership. Of course he can conduct matters anywhere thanks to modern communications.  Reality is what we face; not optical illusions.
The Gaza conflict is fraught with reality, and hope is dimming for a two-state solution. Hamas is still sworn to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and Israel is using the conflict as an opportunity to cripple Hamas. Those are two horses who do not want to drink the water of permanent peace yet. Bless Secretary John Kerry for trying.
Here is reality:  The Cold War was a dangerous time with only fear of mutually assured destruction keeping it in check.  On the other hand, it was a simple time.  The US was able to lead the Western world because the West had been decimated by World War II. We  controlled their ability to recover, and we protected them with our military.
2014  is not your old Cold War.  Russia has been lifted by oil exports and is in the hunt to restore its former glory and control of its neighbors. The European Union is  nearly equal to the US as economic powers, but 40% of their economy  is tied up in trade with Russia and very little of ours. Some members of the EU are 99% dependent on Russian oil; on the average, 30%.   It is so easy for the US to tell Europe to boycott Russian oil because of the Ukraine. It would be devastating to their economy if they did all some have asked. Economic sanctions are water they might sip, but not gulp down.

A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com August 1, 2104

Data sources:
http://rt.com/business/174676-mh17-sanctions-eu-russia/

Friday, July 25, 2014

Udall the victim of a false ad; he did not vote for a carbon tax; Crossroads GPS is playing dirty tricks

An ad running in Colorado attacks Sen. Mark Udall for voting for a carbon tax that would raise fuel costs for middle class Americans. Factcheck.org says "he did no such thing".  The dirty tricks season is upon us.
http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/more-carbon-tax-distortions/

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Appeals courts attack and support Obamacare. What impact and reaction can we expect?

There is a great deal of confusion over the recent appeals courts decisions on Obamacare   At issue is whether those who got Obamacare through the federal exchanges could have their policies subsidized to make them affordable. One appeals court dominated by Republicans ruled against the ACA subsidies of federal exchange issued policies  and the other dominated by  Democrats ruled support for  the subsidies.

This  issue will go to a Supreme Court that has already once before upheld Obamacare, but given the 5/4 split against the administration in recent decisions, who knows. The appeals will take many months. In the meantime, the administration announced the subsidies would continue.

What sort of a reaction could we expect if the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare? There will not be much impact in Colorado.  Any of these court rulings  will not affect Colorado because Colorado and fourteen other states  set up their own exchanges and can subsidize premiums.. 

 For those 4.7 million who would   lose their affordable insurance, the reaction would  be an angry one. The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 9, 2014 reported that Obamacare is working as designed . The article reported  ""that 87% of the people signing up for coverage in the federal marketplace qualify for income-based premium subsidies that lower their average premium from $346 per month to $82, a reduction of 76%."

Many would not be angry. The ACA's acceptance has been particularly  challenging, because experience with it has been  short.. Employer provided insurance has been vastly improved , stopping  insurance companies from overcharging, discriminating against women and setting lifetime caps. Now employer insurance is  covering cancer screenings without copays. Consumers wanting to work part time or leaving a job will always have the security of  access to affordable health care.  Those advantages  will only be  fully appreciated and understood when the beneficiaries experience them.   

Complicating acceptance of the ACA is political polarization , coloring any objective views of it. About 60 percent polled recently by the Kaiser Family Foundation (May 30, 2014) said they had not been affected by the law yet the majority still disapprove of the law, affected or not.  Approval of the ACA  remained at about 38% and disapproval at around 45%.   Per the same Kaiser poll:." As in the past, most Democrats view the law favorably, and most Republicans view it unfavorably." Count on any reaction to be mostly partisan.

  What a decision to  deny subsidies will mean, is that either the  states who declined to set up their own exchange/marketplaces, or who  refuse to do it in the meantime, will leave their near poor who could not afford insurance again uninsured as  before Obamacare. . Most of those are in red states that  also refused to expand Medicaid.
  State budgets will also feel the strain of covering more  uninsured.  How long that will last depends on whether their voters demand that their states set up their own exchanges when they see how disadvantaged so many of them  are compared to other states.
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There is an excellent discussion in the Wall Street Journal. For those wanting fuller explanation of the appeals  and the potential impacts, go to http://online.wsj.com/articles/key-section-of-health-care-law-struck-down-by-appeals-court-1406039685.

Another good read (I didn't see it until after I posted the above)  but this one also speculates on whether and how the Supreme Court will rule as well as the significance of the Obama administration's request that the appeals court as a whole hear the case. The whole thing could die there. 

PS: writing in the Wall Street Journal blog 7/26/14, Drew Altman has a posting worth reading, that the public polls show voters do not want the ACA repealed, just improved. If they view this case as a back door attempt to kill it by defunding it, there could be repercussions against the political proponents and the plaintiffs, in the case. The legislative intent for the subsidies of the federal exchange premiums are clear.  This is recommended reading.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/25/the-stakes-beyond-the-halbig-lawsuit/

Sources for data in this blog posting.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/23/wonkbook-what-you-need-to-know-about-obamacares-wild-day-in-court/


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-22/obamacare-ruling-by-the-numbers-4-dot-7-million-could-lose-subsidies


Monday, July 21, 2014

How the suit suits both the White House and the GOP
The irony of the suit House Majority Leader John Boehner is filing against Pres. Obama on the issue of executive overreach is that it benefits both the moderate wing of the GOP and even  the White House to some extent. The likelihood is that in the long term the suit will fizzle like a fire cracker dud, lit up  for the 2014 midterms, but going nowhere later.
To recap what the suit is all about is that the President overstepped his authority and became a legislator when he delayed the mandate for a year for certain employers with  50 or more employees  to provide health insurance for their employees. The White House claims whether or not the provision is upheld by courts, the impact would not  impact many employers. The Census Bureau shows only 3.6% of firms employ 50 or more workers.
The GOP dominated House is playing whac-a-mole.   While decrying the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)’s  burden on employers,  the President acted by ordering the delay to appease a protest from the business community and now the House suit wants to whack him for doing what they themselves had advocated. 
The suit will more likely not be settled by the Supreme Court until well after the 2014  midterms, so Court decisions themselves will not influence the 2014 midterms.   What are the chances it will go nowhere, anyway?    The Washington Post’s Wonkblog compiled some opinions and is worth a visit. "Boehner's problem is that the vast majority of lawsuits brought by members of Congress against the president on policy issues have been dismissed for lack of standing. “ and the Court will not hear the case per Lyle Denniston of the National Constitution Center as reported by Andrew Prokop in Vox.  The New York Times Jonathan Weisman notes it would truly damage the power of the executive branch.  The implication of Weisman’s remarks is it would damage power of any future GOP president as well,so the GOP shoul be careful what it wishes.
So why bother? It suits the GOP and Boehner’s  agenda because it rides the unpopularity of the ACA (aka Obamacare) and gives the GOP sustained ability to  dramatize their opposition.   Boehner’s suit supports the establishment side of his fractured party while giving the Tea Party talking points  to use  in place of advocating  impeachment when the likelihood of impeachment  is dim and not popular. Per a yougov.com poll,  only one third of Americans support initiation of impeachment proceedings. (Approval statistics fall along  party affiliation; independents are equally split)
Why should the Obama administration see an advantage? To dramatize the GOP as a “do nothing party of No” that opposes his acting even on issue on which they partly agree if it has Obama’s name on it. It also diverts attention from wannabe impeachers   and gives anti Obama passions another outlet to express themselves, one  that would be less damaging to the balance of powers.  

A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com July 25, 2014
Data sources:

https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/07/14/one-third-americans-want-impeach-obama/

Monday, July 14, 2014

GOP's proposal to oppose the President's request of 3.7 billion dollars and come up with their own is even more a shame and a sham.. The GOP  seems determined to continue adding to the perception they are anti Latino and begging political trouble. Now they are quibbling over the amount and  proposing   changing  or violating current laws by  advocating putting  refugees  on the next plane back home . . It would  deprive these children  of a process that sorts out who is worthy of asylum,  subjecting some to dangerous conditions at home again,   opening up once again the ability of human traffickers to get away without scrutiny by  destroying any  ability to determine who is a victim .Making any appropriations conditioned  solely on “first securing the borders” does not address the current crisis   where apprehension is not the problem since the crossers just turn themselves in to the border officials.   

This is an update on the prior posting," Border Crisis is a shame."

A version of this appeared  in the www.skyhidailynews.com July 18, 2014.  The impact of GOP policy on their ability to win the Senate is dimming...in part because of the Hispanic vote in Colorado...as the recent NBC/Marist poll shows. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/poll-democrats-hang-slight-leads-key-senate-races-n155531

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Border crisis is a shame

The border mess of 50,000 children and families escaping violence in Central America is a matter of shame.  Clear and simple: they should be treated as refugees as the current law requires,, whether they have been trafficked by Coyotes or motivated to flee to the US by misinformation and lack of understanding of our laws.

Shame on  GOP politicians pandering to their anti immigrant constituents to  take advantage of a crisis to bolster their core support instead of offering their own plans to solve a problem , all the while blocking  any constructive solutions.

It is shameful that young children are spit at by hate faced demonstrators waiving  American flags. That sets a terrible example to the rest of the world  of how to deal with their own ethnic and religious conflicts and  refugee crises.

75% of Colorado’s 480 thousand  registered Latinos  that voted for Pres. Obama in 2012 and, 70% nationwide, swung key states blue. (source: a Pew poll October 1 2012) They understood that the real culprit is the GOP and a Republican dominated House of Representatives which  has   refused to pass any proposed  comprehensive legislation that would have funded more border patrols and border security in return for a plan to deal with the 11 million undocumented already in our country.

 Should the President visit the border? Did he just commit a Bush Katrina error? Maybe. The GOP is making much of his non visit, but it is a diversion tactic from their own lack of action or sympathy with the plight of the child refugees. Action, though, is more important than photo ops and the GOP as usual is stonewalling action once again.

 Those  few Hispanics and Democrats  who are criticizing the President for not doing more or too much should be careful not to promote  a plague on both houses mentality resulting in many  sitting out elections.  Election of more anti immigrant GOP members to Congress  or the election of a Republican president would  just put comprehensive immigration  on ice for years or even result in more harmful measures. 

Now the GOP is concocting reasons to  oppose the President’s proposal of $3.7 billion to address the crisis by  quibbling over money, dragging their feet while decrying an immediate crisis ,  or advocating putting  refugees  on the next plane back home ,  depriving them of due process. The purpose of the President’s request:  to add more border agents to process and patrol,  to provide humanitarian detention of the influx and to launch a public campaign to educate Central American parents that their children will not qualify for citizenship and will face deportation. Dare Congress to vote no on this one;  the “party of do nothing, stonewall all with Obama’s name  attached”,   will add to increasing  evidence of the GOP’s  dereliction of duty to  govern.


The GOP stance on immigration reform is a sham, if  not a shame:” secure the borders  first and then we might  discuss some way to send immigrants back from whence   they or their parents came, just so any plan does not include a path to citizenship.”  Whatever is done to secure the borders could never be sufficient  because there is no definition  of when enough is enough. It is much like the old joke: “Mother, may I go swimming? Of course you may, my daughter, but do not go near the water.”





Data source:

http://pewsr.ch/VrJFCu  Pew Poll, October 1, 2012

§  484,000 Hispanic eligible voters in Colorado—the ninth largest Hispanic eligible voter population nationally. California ranks first with 5.9 million.
Some 14% of Colorado eligible voters are Hispanic

Monday, July 7, 2014

Gardner political ad is a backpack stuffed with untruths

It is worth a wry smile or a whiplash when a political ad runs immediately after a news report that makes a joke of the commercial. So it was the other night.  The news story was that job growth and unemployment figures were back to October 2008 (the beginning of the recession) and that the DOW was nearing record heights. The glowing report  was followed immediately by a Cory Gardner commercial .  Gardner is the Republican  who will take on incumbent Colorado Senator Mark Udall in November.  

The Gardner ad featured an angry young adult woman, a college graduate, claiming that Udall had passed “massive spending bills that crippled our economy “  and left us with 10% unemployment, high student loans, and paying for health insurance “we cannot afford.”
Her message  was a backpack stuffed with  untruths.

Udall crippled the Colorado economy? He was not even a senator when the crash occurred in during the Bush Republican administration and in spite of a stonewalling GOP dominated Congress, the news story was that the economy had pretty much recovered.  The Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (Metro Denver EDC)  presented the 2014 Metro Denver Economic Forecast  that concluded ”  "2013 was a year of records in areas such as employment growth, housing, commercial real estate, and the stock market…”

High unemployment?  The   Department of Labor shows actual unemployment figure in Colorado is 5.8%. Per the Metro Denver EDC,”  The state restored all of the jobs lost during the recession by the middle of 2013”. 
What about college grads like her? True, 10% of  those of college age are unemployed, but  in her age bracket of over 24, the unemployment rate is only 5.1 percent.  Among workers with bachelor’s degrees like her, only 3.3 percent are unemployed.

The ad continued, claiming Udall left students with high student loans, yet  the GOP in Congress, (including Rep. Gardner)  voted against  and prevented lowering interest rates and allowing refinancing at lower rates. Gardner also voted to cut Pell grants, and  to eliminate in-school interest rate subsidies. (Gardner did submit a bill in May to increase tax deductions caps from $2500 up to $5K on loan interest, but it hardly offsets the his votes against  more significant, immediate and direct measures).Through executive order, Obama tied loan payback to income level, providing some relief. Her finger needs to point at Gardner, not Udall.
The ad hit Udall for  forcing young people” to pay for health insurance they could not afford’, yet Obamacare allows young adults under 26 to remain on their parents’ plans and it  subsidizes policies based on income, with those earning less than $15,000 paying little to nothing.  Cory Gardner ,who wants to repeal Obamacare,  would return young people to the past, risking a car or bike wreck or skiing accident that would  put them in debt or cripple them with  bad credit ratings  for years to come.
Why such an ad? Perhaps Gardner fears  single women like her, who swung the 2012 election blue because of his and  the GOP’s anti reproductive rights planks,  might do it again in 2014, and they are hoping no one pays attention to the facts.

A version of this appeared in the Sky Hi Daily News July 11,2014 (www.skyhidailynews.com)

Links to data sources used in the posting:

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Obama and Executive Overreach

Obama and Executive Overreach   This is a very learned approach to the issue and for those who want to get in the weeds, factcheck.org is worth  a read.  In short, claims by the GOP that the president has overreached his executive authority 13 times is not true.  Only once was the President called on the carpet: for appointing members to the NLRB without Congress' approval. The other 12 are shot to bits by this fact check...one of which is really subject to any sort of debate.  Factcheck.org is a respected, independent fact checker.

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/obama-and-executive-overreach/?utm_source=FactCheck.org&utm_campaign=41bcaeecb5-FactCheck