The Privilege to Vote: Why Democracy Is in Trouble

Philosophically and legally, all law abiding citizens have the right to vote.In practice though, it is a privilege to be a voter. The right to vote assumes that everyone has free access to casting a vote, possesses the same knowledge of how, when, and where to vote, and believes that voting is fundamentally important or even patriotic to do. I will try to demonstrate that, while all of these things are worth striving for, the truth is voter turnout has some interesting trends that help to make my point.

As everyone who follows voter ID (VID) laws is likely aware, the more hoops that you put in front of a person to vote, the less likely it is that he ir she will do so. In fact, while proponents of VID laws stress it is to protect the sanctity of the election, it serves more to disenfranchise voters largely across accessibility and economic lines. Make registration time consuming or documentation intensive, less people register. Wired points out that of 3.6% of white people lack the "approved" credentials to vote while 7.5% of black people did. With regard to disability, according to American Association of People with Disabilities, voter registration was 2% lower for those with disabilities than for others and voter turnout for those with disabilities (who make up 1/6 of all voters) was 6% lower than among all other voters. Whether this is attributable to VID or other variables is speculative.

Secondly, information about when and where to vote is often attached to communications and how and to whom things are communicated. Many election boards have adopted state-wide voter information systems that work for those with smartphones and computers, but are not helpful for those who don't. Canvassing for votes tends to be much higher in certain precincts than others, typically high minority precincts, so again, another means of communicating information is not there.Also, canvassing has a very small impact on voting behavior. As Alan Gerber opined in the NY Times, "When the findings of 51 canvassing experiments were pooled together, the results showed that a successful effort to contact a voter produces a 4.3 percentage point increase in the probability the voter will cast a ballot. But this overstates the impact of the intervention: Typically, when a campaign canvasses a neighborhood, most door knocks go unanswered. If a standard canvassing effort reaches only 25 percent of the intended targets, then the overall effect on the target group’s turnout is just 1 percentage point. An increase of this size could make the difference in a close election, but it suggests that even a huge canvassing outreach would have a small effect on turnout."

Lastly, many people choose not to vote for many reasons, but chief among them is the value they see in doing so. A lot of my progressive friends like early voting. However, studies have shown that early voting actually may lead to decreased voting numbers. In addition voting may vary by how diverse the district is. A study by a University of Indiana researcher showed these interesting results:

• Having a political candidate of the same race or ethnicity on the ballot does not, by itself, prompt a larger voter turnout among minority groups.
• Turnout is often greater for minority voters when they live in a congressional district where their racial or ethnic group represents the majority of the citizen voting-age population (CVAP). For black and Hispanic voters specifically, turnouts are higher when each group makes up a larger portion of the electorate – regardless of the race of the candidates listed on the ballot.
• When no black congressional candidate is on the ballot, the general-election turnout for black voters is, on average, 40 percent in a district where black people make up 10 percent of the citizen voting-age population. The turnout is considerably higher — an average of 49.3 percent  — in a district where black people are 50 percent of the voting-age population.
• In the absence of a Hispanic candidate, the general-election turnout for Hispanic voters is 6.4 percentage points higher in a voting district where Hispanic people make up 40 percent of the voting-age population compared to a district where they comprise 10 percent of the voting-age population.

Pew Research surveyed those who did not vote in the 2016 presidential election and learned that the main reasons for not voting were dislike for the candidates and/or the campaign issues, didn't think their vote mattered/disinterested or were too busy or had conflicts with work or school schedules. More information is in the charts below, including trends from prior years.

There are many possible solutions to this problem, mail-in voting options, a national election day, weekend voting, mobile voting stations among them. As always, it is important to reflect on why things are the way they are and who is motivated to change them. Without addressing this, democracy is for the privileged.

Potentially More Devastating than Citizen's United

The House last week just approved a bill that any progressive or supporter of separation of church and state should be contacting your Senator about. According to The Hill, "The House passed a measure Thursday to block the IRS from using funds revoking the tax-exempt status of churches that participate in political campaigns." Yes, you heard that right. A church will be able to use its clout to support political candidates as well as, de facto, strong-arming its membership to fall in line. A indelible stain on democracy if it should happen.

The legislation limits the agency from rescinding the groups' tax-exempt status and requires the express approval of the IRS commissioner to do so. As you might imagine, it was tacked on as a rider to a government funding bill which was passed 217 to 199, pretty much along party lines. This bill also applies to other non-profit organizations which raises the spector that there will be more "pay to play" with politicians holding their hands open to possible contribution in exchange for a little quid pro quo.

The measure has been sent on to the Senate who killed a similar measure in December of 2017. However, with tight senate races underway, the temptation this time may be too great for the Senate to reject this, especially attached to a funding package. Even those you might perceive have the most to gain aren't thrilled with this. A 2016 poll showed that 3 out of 4 Evangelical Christians don't want their ministers preaching politics out of the pulpit--do your part to prevent this. However, it will go a long way to holding the senators accountable, if they know you are watching and acting! 

Turning Polarity in Progress: How Progressives Can Win

Having a divide along political lines is far from a new phenomenon. What we must never forget is that issues can unite us where politics divide. For instance, while national healthcare has been politically divisive, there are few that would argue that our current form of health care coverage is successful. So it may be surprising to know that of all the people who had Medicaid or ACA coverage in 2016 , nearly three-quarters of adults said they are satisfied with their plans. According to The Hill, "Overall, 71 percent of people who have plans through the ObamaCare marketplace or Medicaid said their healthcare plans were good, very good or excellent, according to ... the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund." And yet, when Trump and the Republicans were successful in eroding funding and limiting access for the ACA, satisfaction went down to 22% in 2017.

So, what we now know is that people are again going without health coverage and still believe it is important to address. Governing listed health insurance as the second top priority for states for 2018. An AP-NORC poll showed that healthcare is the #1 concern on domestic and economic issues.

What is missing is a push from the public to make it front and center to our expectations from our legislators. Not uncoincidentally, voters believe that their lawmakers won't get far with their priority this year as 72% believe the government won't make progress on this as the survey below shows.

As usual, as long as politics divide us, progress on the things that matter to people get side-stepped. In this less than optimistic time, it is important to note that when we join together on the things that we hold in common, stuff gets done. A popular catch phrase is "pick a lane" and we all need to do it around the issues we mostly agree on.

Trump Trumps Trump

Unless you were in a coma or other catatonic state, you are aware that our President threw his national intelligence agencies under the bus at the summit he had with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. He also intimated that he felt like Russia was not involved in the 2016 election mess--comment that he has since walked back (while still claiming no collusion occurred between his campaign and the Russians.

Badmouthing is not a new thing for Trump. He seems to take great pleasure in calling his opponents all kinds of diminishing names. However, what is doing now is harmful to us, the American people. He is saying that the only authority you should trust is his. This is simply authoritarianism and not how representative democracy is supposed to work. Coupling this with his own party's inability or unwillingness to censure him in any way lends credibility to him and reduces trust in them as a countervailing force to executive overreach.

Add to this  the tax cuts made before the new year, the US government is going to borrow a $1,000,000,000,000 to pay the bills and support the programs that the budget is addressing. According to Fiscal Times, "the updated budget now includes a projected 2019 deficit of $1.085 trillion, up from $984 billion in February — and more than double the $526 billion the White House called for in its 2018 budget." The Chicago Tribune adds, "The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to a documents released Wednesday. It's the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year."

Essentially, the idea that growth in the economic sector would take care of these tax cuts is proving to be a big, fat, lie. According to Market Watch, "the Treasury Department on Thursday said government receipts fell 7% in June compared with the same month a year earlier, including a 33% drop in gross corporate taxes. Individual withheld and payroll taxes were down 5% from June 2017, while non-withheld individual taxes rose by 7%."

Meanwhile, at least until the mid-term elections November, the Democrats are observers with little power to prevent these shady dealings from happening. As Edward R. Murrow once said, "Good Night and Good Luck."

Trump Nominates Originalist Judge

For years conservatives have framed progressive or liberal judges as "activist judges" and suggesting that they use their political views to form their judicial decisions. However, for the last 30 years or so, conservatives have been working an agenda that does exactly what they purport the other side does. In nominating Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the conservative movement has reason for patting themselves on the back. Kavanaugh, a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and a White House Staff Secretary under George W. Bush.  His confirmation hearings were contentious and stalled for three years over charges of partisanship. 

Where he stands in his words is "My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”  This puts him in the camp of the "strict Constitutionalists" or "Originalists."

Kavanaugh was part of Ken Starr's impeachment team against Bill Clinton and, according to Mother Jones,  "has so frequently inserted himself into high-profile political battles that during his confirmation hearing for his DC Circuit seat, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called him the “Forrest Gump of Republican politics.”

For example, Kavanaugh represented former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in his fight to overcome constitutional hurdles to his controversial school voucher program that would direct public money to private religious schools. In the 2000 election came down to Florida, he worked on George W. Bush’s legal team.

While these qualities will not endear him to many Democrats, it is his legal record that is of issue.

Kavanaugh, has been cagey around the issue of abortion. According to Wikipedia:

During his confirmation hearing in 2006 for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Kavanaugh stated that he considered Roe v. Wade binding under the principle of stare decisis and would seek to uphold the ruling of the higher court. However, he also ruled in favor of abortion restrictions in several cases.

In May 2006, Kavanaugh stated he "would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully" and that the issue of the legality of abortion has already "been decided by the Supreme Court". During the hearing, he stated that a right to an abortion has been found "many times", citing Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

In October 2017, Kavanaugh joined an unsigned divided panel opinion which found that the Office of Refugee Resettlement could prevent an unaccompanied minor in its custody from obtaining an abortion. Days later, the en banc D.C. Circuit reversed that judgment, with Kavanaugh now dissenting. The D.C. Circuit's opinion was then itself vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Garza v. Hargan (2018).

He has also been a dissenting vote in preserving the Affordable Care Act,  In 2015, Kavanaugh found that those directly regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) could challenge the constitutionality of its design

There is more to be learned about Brett Kavanaugh and his hearings will likely go on for awhile.

Addendum: On-going list of articles that shed further light on his judicial background.

Trump’s Supreme Court pick: ISPs have 1st Amendment right to block websites (added 7/11/18)
Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Is a Major Net Neutrality Opponent (added 7/11/18)
Brett Kavanaugh Has GOP Bona Fides, But a Surprising Record (Added 7/11/18)
Here’s How Kavanaugh Could Deal a Big Blow to Gun Control (Added 7/11/18)
How Brett Kavanaugh Would Change The Supreme Court (Added 7/12/18)
Judge Brett Kavanaugh: In His Own Words (Added 7/12/18)
A look at Brett Kavanaugh's opinions on guns, abortion and the environment (Added 7/12/18)
America Under Brett Kavanaugh (Added 7/12/18)

Trump Putting Hardworking Americans He Hired Out of Work

No one said being POTUS would be easy, but by his 365th day as president, 34% of Donald Trump’s "A" Team staff quit, changed roles or were fired, this according to the Brookings Institution’s Katie Dunn Tenpas. That statistic has now climbed upwards past 43 percent.  According to the National Journal,  this is "more than double every other administration since 1981."

As a comparison, Barack Obama lost 9% of senior staffers by the end of his first year, George W. Bush lost 6% and Ronald Reagan had the previous record of 17%.In 2018 alone, 58 officials have left, changed roles, or were fired from the White House and Executive branch departments like the State Department and the DOJ,

     Added to this, Trump has already accepted the resignation of or fired 5 cabinet officials, Scott Pruit just the latest in a line. According to the New York Times "analysis of 21 top White House and cabinet positions back to President Bill Clinton’s first term shows how unusual the upheaval is through the first 14 months of a presidency. Nine of these positions have turned over at least once during the Trump administration, compared with three at the same point of the Clinton administration, two under President Barack Obama and one under President George W. Bush."

   Perhaps in other segments of service industry jobs, this would not seem so out of the ordinary, but in terms of other presidencies, this is without parallel. Perhaps someday there will be an accounting of the reasons why these rats are leaving or being told to leave a seemingly sinking ship.

What Would the Founding Fathers Say?

The United States has an interesting core values dilemma. We are a nation founded both on religious freedom and tolerance and yet we have locked up asylum-seekers and their children on our southern borders. As of today, the DOJ announced it needs more time to bring the children of asylum seekers and their parents back together despite being court ordered to do so by July 10th for children under 5 and by July 26th for older children. This despite compelling medication on several children in custody, forcing dozens of women to be paraded in front of the DHS head, keeping kids in detention centers that avoid state oversight, using DNA testing to ID children and their parents and keeping them in captivity for weeks. Many of these people are deeply religious and socially conservative by our standards.

While many churches are rightly vilifying our government for this inhumanity, the wheels of bureaucracy creak on.  This continued inhumanity is a black mark on our country and the indignities that these people face are reprehensible.

Contact your Senators and Representatives. You have a voice, use it.

Feel The Sun Burn

With thanks to the word warriors at the Merriam -Webster dictionary, I now know that we have entered into the canicular time of the year, that hot period in our hemisphere between now and early September (aka: the dog days of summer). It is fitting, politics are also heating up. Though likely to feel like a slow boil up to November,  Iowans and other voters throughout these United States will have the opportunity to "feel the burn" of at least two or more years of conservative policies that are mostly hurting average Americans through higher prices on fuel and items that will now be tariffed by our trading partners (creating job uncertainty/instability, by the way), policies that allow air and water quality to be severely compromised, education to be extremely under-funded, and local property and sales taxes and other "fees" for services to escalate.

   These lazy days of summer are creating discomfort for many people who want a sense of real relief from their state capitals and the chambers of DC (that  they are being told that they are getting), but are seeing little evidence that it is actually occurring. People don't want to play moral "Monopoly" and side with dishonest wheeler-dealers who lull them into thinking they are having a spa retreat when all that is happening is the water on the stove is being turned up incrementally until they and things boil over.

   While many people also are concerned about the mistreatment of immigrants and their families, they also made to worry about "bad" people crossing our borders. They want blue and black lives to matter. They want safer communities and more consistent, common-sense gun laws while also maintaining their right to self-protection. It is likely that with the heat of the summer, tempers may flare and fires of disparagement will be fanned for the sake of driving a wedge between people who are far more alike than not on many issues.

   Even those who wish to restore an America that others fear may be in the rear-view mirror recognize that we can't be great if our allies are uncertain of our goals and question our resolve to live up to our own agreements. It has never worked for one nation to wield so much clout without resistance being fomented. America, as most have known us, has been great because we have used our diplomatic power to broker more democracy in many parts of the world. Clearly we are in uncharted waters with a President whose foreign policy is undefinable and is so self-congratulatory in the face of nebulous results.

   The summer reminds us that while the other seasons bring cool relief to us, only it can bring the degree of discomfort to our entire being and also solace to our tired bones. We may enjoy the warming trend for a period of time, but it can also wear us out and lead us to into doldrums that only the coming of autumn coolness can bring.

   During my self-imposed vacation from social media, I have discovered that losing the voice of the echo chamber has been healthy, like a brief intense breeze on a summer day. It is important to hear each other out. We have seen what a lack of civility and unforgiveness can do to people. We have seen the real enemy; we live with ourselves. May cooler heads prevail in the months ahead, even as we fight for the future of our country. For this democracy to work, we have to make it work every day, with each person to be one nation indivisible. As the bumper-sticker says "We are the change we've been waiting for."

Coming Distractions-- Who Gets To Name The Next Supreme Court Justice?

To say that Judge Anthony Kennedy's resignation is a blow to the future of progressivism in the US for the next 20 years is to put it mildly. Because of the amount of laws and policies that end up being ruled on and over-ruled by SCOTUS, the next choice is likely to bend the court much further right than the more moderate on social issues Kennedy has allowed.

   With less than three months to decide who will have a majority of or retain the majority vote in the Senate and the House for the remainder of Trump's first (and hopefully only) term is anybody's guess. Of course it is in the interest of conservatives to name Kennedy's successor sooner than later and you will not need to be Nostradamus to guess how Republicans will be playing this. However, given the rulings handed down just this month, it is not in the interest of progressives to let that happen easily. But, since a super-majority is not required to approve a nomination nor to knock down a filibuster, it would seem that Republicans have all they need to do their worst.

   Aha! That is until you consider the Republicans who are retiring in January (Shout out to Jeff Flake and Bob Corker) who could exact revenge on a President with whom they have parted ways or an ailing John McCain who may not be up for a vote on a nominee. This would mean that an embattled Democrat like  Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, or Heidi Heitkamp would have to be pulled into the fracas and arm-twisted to go along with the Republicans. So it will be a drama to the end to see how cards are played and who ultimately wins or gets a stay of execution.

   Then it all gets real when, at best, the Democrats win the Senate and still have to negotiate with Trump for the Kennedy replacement. Or the President lives without the nominee knowing he has a deadlocked SCOTUS for the next two years and runs for re-election on the theme that Democrats are obstructionists. Or, the Republicans use the obstructionist angle now to attempt to win Senate seats outright and then name anybody that Trump or they desire.

   All this points to a challenging scenario wherein the blue line has to hold and the Democrats would need to run the table in November and again in 2020. This also points to a lot of dollars being spent trying to win the electorate over to the narrative each side will be promoting. Let the wedge issue framing games begin.  Note to Liberal SCOTUS members, please stay healthy.

Addendum: Over the weekend Senator Susan Collins said that an opponent of Roe v. Wade would be a deal breaker for her. Sen. Lisa Murkowski may also be in that camp. So there are a number of ways this could go past November.
1) Democrats hold, Murkowski and Collins join to block a nomination.
2) McCain, Flake, Corker  abstain from voting and nomination fails. Even if an embattled Democrat crosses over, the nomination fails.
3) Some combination of 1 and 2, the nomination fails.
4) The Senate leaves the SCOTUS with 8 justices through the lame duck session and Trump has to negotiate a moderate choice come January--if the Senate numbers hold or go slightly bluer.

Improvable Objects: Politics Not Sensitive to Concerns and Circumstance of People

Many years ago when I started this Blog, I thought about what to call it. At the time, I remember thinking about Paul Wellstone as he described what he believed politics should be about. He said, "A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail." A failure I recognized in pure progressive politics is that it does not always account for the differences that wealth and values create for people. Populism, it seemed to me was the missing piece. Giving the people what they agreed they needed seemed to be inherently important to the success of a progressive movement.

   As we know, the progressive left pushed a type of populism under Bernie Sander's leadership that came up a day late and many dollars short of capturing the Democratic Party's nomination. He spoke to the pain that poor and middle class Americans were experiencing, but was running against Hillary Clinton. Clinton, while not the most progressive Democrat was seen as the right woman for the job by many party faithful (particularly after Elizabeth Warren thought better of running against her). The "I'm with Her" bankrollers and supporters, with the success of Barack Obama breaking through the color barrier that served as the glass ceiling for African Americans, believed it was the time for women to do the same.
 
   What Democrats failed to see was the clapback that had been fomenting in the Age of Obama. Sure people were aware that angry people were saying and doing despicable things to showcase their bigotry, but conventional wisdom held that this was a relatively small group of disaffected people and that they were living life in the rear view window, living in America of their imagined past. Progressives and others dismissed these voices as they might anything they assessed as politically incorrect, as fodder for late night talk show monologues or assuring themselves that now that we had, in their estimation by electing Obama twice, accepted that "Black Lives Matter" as the new reality.

   What I and others did not count on was what would happen if populism came at us from the Conservative side of the yard. While we thought the Tea Party movement was "astroturf" as opposed to "grass roots" politics, it turns out that the righteous anger of unheard people could be turned into a type of populism/Nativism that found enough votes in the right places to elect Freedom Caucus members and eventually Donald Trump as our President.

   Paul Wellstone's voice reminds me that "intellectually arrogant politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives...deserves to fail" is what generally what happens after the election. No matter which party wins. Before the election, people have been surveyed and focus-grouped to learn what will move them to vote this way or that.Then the communications are formed and framed around winning the vote--from the top of the ticket to the volunteer calling you at home. You, dear voter, are a fish to be caught in a net. In fact, if you vote early, that's even better, you are still in the net if the candidate says or does something stupid, like say what he or she really thinks.

But after the election, you are a form-letter recipient when the person who you elected does something that he or she told you they wouldn't. Because now, they don't work for you or even try that hard to represent you. Now, they work for special interest groups or self-interested groups. The most self-interested groups are the political parties that are trying to grab and maintain power and pulling the strings behind them are the business and issue groups who want to make sure their interests are properly looked after. There is a country club made up solely of elites and you and I are not invited.

   While those are politics Wellstone said "deserve to fail," the truth is that those politics fail us, not the practitioners of them. Hence a people-powered political base is the only possible solution to the poison in the well of politics. Not a small marginalized group of people, but a large, organized mob of people who realize they have been bamboozled by politics as usual and resort to politics that are unusual. They run for office independent of party bosses and win. Then they win some more. Until finally, the politics of the unusual become the usual politics when people see that their lives are improving by them.

   To be sure, the elite will not go quietly, they will use their resources and knowledge seeking to drive wedges into such a movement. But history tells us that if we have resolve and trust that we will win, even the most corrupting of forces will fail to hold sway against such an army of every day women and men.

    So, I hope you are finally getting a view of what I am seeing so clearly; politics where the "radicals" win is probably a better brand of politics for people when the only other options are supplication or bloody revolution. The radicals on the left and right share something very basic, these are people who want the power in the hands of the people versus the elite. Right or left, it is the same battle. Defeat the political elites and then a politics that is sensitive to the people is truly possible, both before and after the elections.

Lost Wages and Lost Perspective

On July 1, 2018, Johnson County would have enacted a $14.00 minimum wage. But, due to legislation passed in 2017, counties no longer have the authority to enact wage polices. Despite this, many businesses in Johnson County have held a $10.10 minimum wage in place as it was the going rate when the Johnson County Ordinance was in place.

According to the Corridor Business Journal, "Johnson County had a higher minimum wage than the state for 17 months, including three months when it was $10.10 per hour. Last year, the county's Minimum Wage Advisory Committee found that the  increase did not appear to hurt businesses - one suggested possible negative consequence. The committee also found the wage increase benefited low-wage workers, who saw a larger increase in their average weekly earnings."

 Sadly for workers in the area, Johnson County can only symbolically call for the raising of the minimum wage. The need for a higher minimum wage has not gone away. Remember that the state minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour and also remember this in November.

Sick Puppies Abusing Dogs in Iowa with No End in Sight

Iowa is a state that is known to be very lax where animal rights and protections are concerned. As the Quad-City Times reported recently, "Iowa has the third-most puppy mills in the country with 10. In total, Iowa has 260 licensed dog breeding facilities" and with it, groups trying to effect change in Iowa run up against pro-agriculture legislators who are unsympathetic and worse.

Again according to the Q-C Times:

"When the Animal Rescue League of Iowa proposed amendments to the state law that seeks to protect dogs and cats, Illinois law was their guide.

The amendments approved this year by the Iowa Senate would have increased penalties for crimes that sicken most Iowans. For those convicted more than once of abuse or neglect of a dog or cat, causing serious injury or death, the penalty would increase from an aggravated misdemeanor to the more serious class D felony.

For torturing a companion animal, a felony charge automatically would result. A second offense of torture would lead to a more serious felony.

But the bill didn't make it to the Iowa House. It was hijacked by House leadership and the powerful agriculture lobby."

In yesterday's The Daily Nonpareil, it was reported that a Council Bluff's area man was arrested and change with "36 counts of animal neglect — a simple misdemeanor — and four counts of animal neglect as a serious misdemeanor" when his breeding and training business was  reported to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office. When officers arrived on the scene, their investigation revealed that at least 4 dogs were dead, the facilities were covered in feces and urine, and many of the dogs were malnourished. A total of 25 dogs and 13 puppies were removed and sheltered.

The owner of the kennel was released on a $20,000 bond. Each simple misdemeanor carries the possible sentence of up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $625. Each serious misdemeanor charge carries the possible sentence of up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,875.

This is the latest case in Iowa, it won't be the last. It is time for Iowa legislators to improve the inspection process and levy more severe charges against poor operators such as this one.

Fear and Loathing of Human Rights

In the latest blow toward America as arbiter of global human rights, the Trump Administration's Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is expected to announce that the US is walking away from the UN Human Rights Council for alleged anti-Israel bias. At the same time, the US government is arresting asylum seekers and their children and interring them for an indeterminate period of time on our borders.

This march toward isolationism is directly attributable to the Trump Administration's nationalistic bent in which people who are not "patriotic" Americans, i.e., don't walk in lock step with Trump's ideology are to be dismissed or destroyed. Policies are replacing the rule of law to make this happen at an alarming rate.

The important thing to keep in mind is that we all need each other because we are all on planet earth.
There is a good reason that propaganda and wedge politics are so closely entwined, the goal is singular. For ideology to prevail, it must be seen as the only sensible game in town. If we allow our own government to dismiss the world community, people seeking asylum, or even our own citizens to be dismissed, democracy has ceded to demagoguery. God save us all if our shared humanity fails us.

Updated: The US has now officially withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council, Haley "saying the group should make it easier to expel states with poor human rights records. She said the U.S. withdrawal came after the desired reforms were not fulfilled.

“We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights,” she said, adding that the U.S. would be “happy” to rejoin the council if it is reformed."

John Bolton added this morning via The Hill:

“Getting off the U.N. Human Rights Council is an assertion of American determination to stick by its Constitution and not to recognize that there is some higher authority at the U.N., whether it is the Council or the High Commissioner for Human Rights, to judge our performance or to give us advice on how to implement the Constitution,” Bolton told "Fox and Friends."

“We’re perfectly capable of doing that ourselves. We make our share of mistakes and we correct our mistakes. That’s what this is about, self-governance,” Bolton added.

Editor's note: How conspicuously contradictory is this move in light of separating immigrant/asylum seeking children from their parents and interring them in Texas and other places?

Welcoming Sky Sprawl to Johnson County, IA

Years ago I spoke to a friend of mine who was concerned about urban growth and outward sprawl. He said, "I'd much rather watch building get taller than for them to continue to spread out further and further into the county." And that made sense to me--the more you can build upward, the less you'd have to spread outwardly. However, as I fast-forward to today, I failed to see a fatal flaw in our agreement. What if we ended building both up and out? When you use that context, you now see every city and suburb that was ever built.

   Currently in Johnson County, Iowa, we are in the midst of a housing/building boom. Places that used to be farm fields are now new large single-family housing subdivisions. In the urban core, buildings that used to be two or three stories tall are now at least 4 stories and most new developments in the 10+ story category. We are beginning to see sky sprawl near the campus where I work as smaller buildings are beginning to look out of place in the shadows of the behemoths that stand above them. Naturally some of the growth is welcome, but as other amenities are being built simultaneously, the "charm" of the city is taking a hit as barricades and orange cones are cutting off streets and sidewalks.
 
   Progress, as it were, is impeding traffic. But, the visionaries tell us, a small price for a future of gleaming cities and high-rise dwellings for the well-heeled urbanites who will assuredly move in and make our city more prosperous and increase the tax base so the city government can make ends meet (and the rest of us can enjoy the new amenities, even if the ones we are near fall into decay). But we are also building canyons which will make it windier and hotter and potentially dangerous to traverse. I experienced a version of this first-hand while walking by a construction site on a particularly blustery day and watching parts of the construction blow off the building.

   Our brains years ago forgot that builders build any way that they are allowed to build. Up, down, or out, it really doesn't matter that much. As we imagine our city growing, we have a hard time imagining it morphing into something we hardly recognize because each of us comes to it at a different point in time. This means that what I see as my "ideal" town is different from what a person seeing it for the first time today may experience it. Hence we keep growing until we have reached capacity and that may be aesthetic capacity, or real estate capacity--which are generally not the same measure.

   So, we will continually welcome sky sprawl, as we did urban sprawl. We see it as part of democracy. As human beings, we like to believe that we watch out for nature and give it its due. As it turns out, nature has no friends and must fend for itself. As I watched the piece of the building sail off into the middle of the street, I wondered if it was a warning shot or just poor construction.

(photo credit: Alan Light)

The Army Turns 243 and It Shows

As of June 14th, the US Army celebrated its 243rd birthday which predates the US as a country. Approximately 1,016,000 men and women serve in the US Army, Reserves and National Guard. 24 of our Presidents served in the US Army and for many soldiers it is a noble calling. As less than 1% of American households have a family member in active service, and only 22% of US senators and congressional representatives have served in the military, all members of the US military and their families deserve our respect. 

However, there are facts about the Army that may surprise you.

According to AL.com:

• During World War II, supporting one soldier on the battlefield took one gallon of fuel per day. Today, the Army uses more than 22 gallons per day, per soldier.
• The Army has 158 installations worldwide; more than 132,000 miles of infrastructure for electric, gas, sewer and water; and over one billion square feet of office space.
• The Army owns more than 15 million acres of land across the United States, or about 24,000 square miles which, if the Army was a state, it would be the 42nd largest.
• The U.S Army is the second largest employer in the U.S.

Business Insider and other sources also have these interesting facts: 

• If the US Army were a city, it would be the 10th largest in the United States.
• The Army owns so much land that if it were a state, it would be larger than Hawaii and Massachusetts combined.
• The US Army Special Forces has 450,000 soldiers deployed to 135 of the 195 recognized countries of the world. 
• President Trump has asked for a budget of $186,403,156,000 for the US Army for FY 2019 which is a 16% increase from the year before.

Food Insecure About to Become More Insecure

Summertime and the living is not so easy for the 12% to Iowans who are experiencing food insecurity. Summer months mean that many children who are fed breakfast at schools are sometimes going without. I worked on a mobile food pantry and saw about a dozen people gathering up groceries for their families. One was a parent of a family of eight whose daughter was a student in the classroom of one of the other volunteers who is a teacher.

     I helped an person with disabilities to gather up food for a the week who relies on the food pantry to fill the gap that her disability check does not cover. There are many stories of people who hold jobs, who make do with what they have got and still can't make ends meet. At this time, Congress is looking at making qualifying and maintaining services through the SNAP program based on meeting minimum work thresholds. While the intention may be to keep people from defrauding "the system"--the truth is, it is likely to make it so more people are food insecure, also known as hungry.

    Thankfully, because of food banks and other programs, people are are able to get by. But, because of hardline governmental policies, more and more pressure is being placed on these agencies to handle the overflow when programs like SNAP are adding restrictive rules designed to "save the taxpayers money" at the expense of those truly in need such as the 14 million children who  live in food insecure households.The current Farm Bill expires Oct. 1, and a number programs will lose funding if a bill is not passed before then. Let your Representatives know that this not something you support. 

Open To All

Let Them Eat Cake

Earlier this week the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision that favored the cake baker in Colorado who chose not to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. Unfortunately, some people did not get the memo about what they decided and why. For instance, a hardware store owner, Jeff Amyx, in Tennessee who took down a sign in 2015 that said "No Gays Allowed" has rehung it stating "Christianity is under attack. This is a great win, don't get me wrong, but this is not the end, this is just the beginning," Amyx said. "Right now we're seeing a ray of sunshine. This is 'happy days' for Christians all over America, but dark days will come."

The question of what is under attack is equal rights under the law. The case that SCOTUS decided was that the baker from Colorado's rights were not treated equally under the law by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. One commissioner on the panel during a public hearing disparaged the baker’s faith as “despicable” and another member compared his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. “This sentiment is inappropriate for a commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law — a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

The court said Colorado law can protect gay people from being discriminated against by businesses that are open to the public, but the law must be applied in a manner neutral toward religion.So, in essence, the Court found for the baker because of the treatment he received by the Commission, which has a degree of irony in that the gay couple seeking to buy a cake from him had a similar experience, thought to his credit, without the degree of contempt.

Back to the hardware store owner, though. If he makes duplicate keys and a gay person wishes him to make keys for his home, Mr. Amyx will be hard pressed to defend 1) limiting access to his store to that person 2) refusing to make a key because of his religious beliefs. Mr. Amyx owns a hardware store and sells hardware. Keys are hardware. If Mr. Amyx makes keys for anyone, he must make them for everyone. Mr. Amyx must allow people to buy his hardware regardless of his beliefs because he cannot refuse service based on race, creed, color, gender, or sexuality under federal law.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Sadly, Mr. Amyx and others will be looking for opportunities to test the degree to which they can discriminate owing to religious beliefs.  For instance if the customer who is gay wanted a house key for his spouse to be made, Mr. Amyx might argue that for religious reasons he won't do it because his faith does not support gay marriage. The Supreme Court and/or lower courts would have to decide if their is precedent to support that viewpoint. More to the point, the courts will be constantly barraged with how free freedom actually is within the walls of a nation that seem to be closing in and minds with them.

Iowa Women Do Well

After taking a break to visit Des Moines, I caught up with the results of Iowa state contests which were very good for the women candidates of Iowa. With the exception of the Governor's race and the 4th Congressional district, Democratic women candidates were the choice in the Iowa 1st and 3rd Congressional district, the Secretary of States's race, and also many House and Senate seats.

In the Senate 16 women from Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties out of 18 who ran were victorious in their primaries and in the House races, 58 out of 62. The positive is that the Iowa House and Senate may be more equally represented by gender in November than ever in the history of the state. If women won all the races that they are in, they would have 12 of 25 senate seats and 59 out of 100 House seats. However, though gender equality may be achieved, the politics would still be shaped down party lines as in the Senate 6 Republicans and 10 Democrats who are women are in contention for the seats and in the House, 16 and 46 respectively and also 2 Libertarians.

While top of the ticket women remain the domain for Republicans, the Democrats have fielded quite a few future party leaders. Anyway you look at the outcome of the primaries, change will come to the Iowa Legislature, the question is will that change be decidedly more progressive or conservative?

Do Puerto Rican Lives Matter?

In the last few days, stories about the death toll from hurricane Maria which leveled much of Puerto Rico reveal that the count was highly under-reported according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The death toll that was originally listed at 64 deaths is estimated to be 70 times higher or 5,740 casualties. Why this discrepancy? Part of it is due to the lack of essential resources like electricity and accurate mortality counts due to the widespread nature of the disaster.

What is less clear is what was the impact of the US government's response to the hurricane when it hit Puerto Rico. How was that response so different from the response in Houston where the response was much more in the public eye? Is it possible that the lives of Puerto Ricans were lost due to a feeble response or indifference to a protectorate that is "out of sight, out of mind"?

In December, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló asked for a review and recount of the death toll, when a New York Times analysis concluded that more than 1,000 people had died as a result of Hurricane Maria. At the time he said, “Every life is more than a number, and every death must have a name and vital information attached to it, as well as an accurate accounting of the facts related to their passing.”

This week, one Democratic legislator, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), in an article from the Hill, is suggesting that President Trump should be held accountable for inaction which may have contributed to the higher death toll. Gallego said, "The Trump administration's failure to deliver timely and sufficient aid to United States citizens in Puerto Rico was an utterly careless decision with deadly consequences," Gallego said. "The Trump administration must be held accountable for their abject failure to protect and assist our fellow Americans."