Author Archives: Sheila

Rand Paul Is Insane..Or Worse

A friend of mine from what I’m beginning to think of as the “good old days of politics” spent time as a Republican member of the Indianapolis City-County Council. He has steadfastly refused to exit the party, insisting that the few remaining sane folks need to be there to pick up the pieces when the fever breaks.

I hope he’s right about the fever breaking…

In any event, he continues to be the recipient of rightwing emails and solicitations, and on occasion, he shares them with me. This one from increasingly bizarre Rand Paul hit my inbox a couple of days ago, accompanied by a simple message: “wow!” Here it is in its entirety.

From: Rand Paul <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 11:32 PM
To: Patriot (I’ve blanked my friend’s name)
Subject: throw away your masks and burn your ‘vaccine passport’
 

Patriot,

The left has gone completely COVID crazy.

They want government-enforced shutdowns, mask mandates, school closures, forced vaccines, and now they’re talking about a COVID vaccine passport.

It’s absolutely unconstitutional – not to mention, it’s absurd.
 

A Democrat politician famously said, “never let a crisis go to waste.”  Boy, did this pandemic really see them put their shoulder into that old axiom.

Throughout the COVID crisis, these radicals have embraced theatrics, abandoned science, and the longer it goes on, the more they double down. 

The newest power grab comes in the form of an alleged “Vaccine Passport” which would determine whether or not you’re “ALLOWED” to engage in your everyday life.

Want to go to the store? Show your vaccine card.

Want to go to a restaurant or concert? Did you tell the government what vaccines you’ve had?

Want to travel? VACCINE PAPERS PLEASE.

This is the slippery slope I warned about and it’s exactly what I’m fighting to defeat in Washington. Will you chip in to join the fight today?

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 Patriot, this passport idea from these hypocrites in Washington is just completely unacceptable. 

Let’s not forget: these are the same people who are boycotting states like Georgia for implementing common-sense policies like voter ID.

Let me tell you something… if you think voter ID is racist, but the vaccine passport is just fine, you need some serious help thinking through public policy.

I will never be in favor of this COVID hysteria and I will never support a COVID passport. JOIN ME: CHIP IN NOW >>

It’s time to say enough is enough. 

I urge everyone to get the vaccine if you need or want it. And then I urge everyone in America to throw away their masks, demand their schools be open, and burn your vaccine passport if they try to give it to you.

If you’re with me, please chip in today to join the fight against the vaccine passport powergrab.

Where to begin? During the year-long fight against COVID, Rand Paul has consistently played to the (misnamed) “Patriots” –engaging in uninformed debates with Dr. Fauci, dealing in a variety of anti-science conspiracy theories, and just generally making an ass of himself. 

If he really believes half of what he spouts, we can shrug and chalk up his behavior to mental illness, but if–as I half suspect–he is playing the “patriots” on his email list for suckers in order to raise money, he’s  just venal. Either way, of course, the conclusion is the same: a member of the United States Senate who has absolutely no business being there. 

Rand Paul and his ilk have displayed exactly ZERO interest in policy, in deliberating in good faith, or in representing the genuine interests of a majority–or even a minority– of their constituents.

Most Americans would undoubtedly define “patriotism” very differently from the implicit meaning conveyed by Rand Paul’s (mis)use of the word .
 
 

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I Hate It When My Husband Is Right…

A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer Rubin had an unsettling column in the Washington Post.

She was considering a recommendation issued by the nonpartisan Unite America Institute. The organization had been analyzing the “root causes, effects, and potential solutions to political polarization and partisanship,” and determined that fixing our political system requires eliminating partisan primaries. Instead, the Institute favors nonpartisan contests decided by “immediate runoffs,” sometimes called ranked-choice voting.

This recommendation rankled, because it echoed an argument my husband has made for years–one with which I’ve largely disagreed. He points to the (well-documented) fact  that primary election voters–right or left– are far more ideological than general election voters, and that the slates of candidates we used to get, chosen by those men in smoke-filled rooms, tended to be far more reasonable and appealing to the broad middle, or to the less doctrinaire voters.

I would respond to his position with a defense of “more democracy” represented by an additional electoral choice. I would also point out that primary voters were likely more ideological because they were more interested in/ informed about the political process; and I’d argue that what we need to do is engage and educate more people, not eliminate an election.

The Unite America Institute agrees with my husband.

“Voters who participate in primary elections are often unrepresentative of both their own party, and especially the electorate as a whole, producing similarly unrepresentative outcomes in the candidates they elect,” the report argues. “New polling data from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, for example, found that the Republican primary electorate that voted for challenger Lauren Boebert over incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton was nearly twice as likely (60%) to identify as ‘very conservative’ compared to general election voters (25%).”

Since so few people vote in partisan primaries, the election outcomes for Congress are essentially decided by the most ideological voters that dominate these contests. “Though turnout in the 2020 general election shattered records at 67%, a supermajority of Congress had already been elected in the primaries,” the report found. “As our analysis found, only 10% of eligible Americans cast votes that mattered in partisan primaries that effectively decided 83% of seats.”

The Institute favors nonpartisan primaries and general election ranked-choice voting. These mechanisms have gained wide support by scholars seeking to address polarization.

“Compromise is politically dangerous, so candidates appeal to their bases,” Larry Diamond argues in a symposium for Politico. “General election voters can’t vote for a third alternative without wasting their vote on a ‘spoiler.’

I must (grudgingly) concede that the argument is persuasive. My husband wins this round.

If that wasn’t annoying enough, a blog post by Paul Ogden, expanding on a comment he made to a previous post here, did further damage to my pro-democracy assumptions.

I have applauded the growth of small-dollar political donations, which the internet makes possible. Such fundraising, I have fondly believed, erodes the influence of the well-heeled political donors who have previously been able to command the attention and obedience of political figures they supported. 

After all, what candidate is going to be influenced by my twenty dollar contribution? And on the “pro-democracy” side of the ledger, people who send ten or twenty bucks to a candidate are demonstrably more interested in the campaign, more likely to vote, follow policy arguments, etc. It’s a win-win!

Paul argues otherwise–convincingly.

The big money for Republican officials today is in small donor donations, not corporate contributions.  Republican elected officials like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Senators Ted Cruz and and Josh Hawley are examples of GOP elected officials who raise huge sums of money off of small, individual contributions.

If you would have told me that there would come a day in politics in which elected members of Congress could eschew hosting big fundraising events attended mostly by corporate donors in favor of raising small donations from individuals, mostly online, I would have applauded the change.  The lack of corporate contributions means these elected officials can now act in a way that is in the people’s best interests rather than the interests of their big corporate donors.Or so I thought. 

That supposed “good government” change to fundraising practices has turned ugly. For elected officials to get a plethora of small donations, they have to draw attention to themselves.  The best way to do that is to act as crazy as possible, say outrageous stuff, and get as much time on Fox News, NewsMax and other conservative media outfits as possible.  

Damn damn damn. He’s right too.

I need a drink…..

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Listen To Peter

A former member of the Reagan administration issues occasional broadsides about social welfare policies, using the pseudonym “Peter the Citizen.” I almost always agree with his positions, which are deeply informed and far from the dismissive and inhumane proclamations of too many of today’s Republicans.

Recently, he sent comments on an exchange about “The Dignity of Work.”

He began by examining an assertion by Matt Weidinger of the American Enterprise Institute, to the effect that “FDR’s vision promoting the dignity of work is under assault by Democrats providing relief to able-bodied adults.” Weidinger was taking issue with the (widely lauded) expanded child tax credit, arguing that

These “child allowances” replace a program that today provides tax relief and associated assistance only to parents who work, amplifying the new program’s embrace of relief over work.

As Peter points out, many of Weidinger’s arguments about the “success” of welfare reform and the potential negative effects of a child allowance are misleading when they aren’t simply wrong. They certainly don’t reflect the mainstream view of researchers and experts who study anti-poverty programs.

Indeed, they also seem to be out-of-step with his one-time colleague, Ron Haskins, who is considered by many to be the “architect” of welfare reform.

Peter quotes from Haskins–another conservative, albeit one who seems much more knowledgable about the history and current status of welfare reform– on several points, and I encourage readers to click through for a broader, more in-depth analysis, but I was particularly struck by the back-and-forth on restricting child support to children whose parents work. As Peter writes, Weidinger is simply wrong to suggest that supporters of a child allowance are rejecting “work in favor of relief.”

Haskins served as a member of the Committee on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half in 10 Years. That committee produced a report that recommended a child allowance.

In testimony summarizing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations from the Committee’s report, A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty, Haskins describes the possible pro-work effect of a child allowance: Because child allowance benefits are not reduced as earnings increase (at least not until incomes reach 300 percent of the poverty line in Policy, they provide a more secure floor than means-tested benefits, one that does not penalize intermittent work.

At least 17 developed nations have some form of a child allowance. The U.S. federal tax system’s current $2,000 child tax credit is akin to a once-a-year child allowance. Many families with children benefit from its $2,000 per child reduction in taxes. However, currently, these benefits are not universal: families with no or very low incomes (and the very rich) are not eligible. Haskins also explains the importance of extending aid to poor children living in “families with no or very low incomes,” citing the possible long-term employment (and other) benefits for children themselves. Child poverty compromises the health, learning and development of our children and their future employment opportunities and well-being. …

I would file this last observation under “duh.” An enormous amount of data demonstrates that children raised in poverty are stunted in later life–they are less productive, and less likely to be steadily employed. But even if that were not the case, what sort of person says “if your parent doesn’t have acceptable employment, kid, we’re taking it out on you”?

Weidinger echoes GOP talking points to the effect that welfare checks under AFDC “flowed mostly to households in which no one worked and many remained on benefits and in poverty for years.” As Peter notes in response,  AFDC checks “flowed mostly to households” without earners because it was targeted to very poor families.

In most states, a job would make a family ineligible for assistance because the income eligibility limits in all states were very low and recipients faced a high marginal tax rate when they went to work (100 percent for AFDC after four months of work).  Notably, the expanded child tax credit will be very different than AFDC, because checks will “flow mostly to households” with earnings.

The Weidingers of this world act on the longstanding and pernicious American premise that being poor equates to being morally defective–and evidently, they don’t want to feed poor children if that will help their morally-defective parents.

I understand arguments that focus on the best way to deliver social benefits. I will never understand the argument that we shouldn’t feed and clothe children if we disapprove of their parents.

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How Do You Spell Relief?

Yesterday at five o’clock, the jury rendered its verdict in the Derek Chauvin case. I was hardly the only person on pins and needles, waiting for that verdict. (I’m certainly not the only person to comment on the result, and I’m unlikely to say anything particularly original. Nevertheless, this verdict was too significant to ignore.)

As a lawyer–albeit a “recovered” one– I am well aware that what the public sees through publicity and trial coverage, is not necessarily reflective of the full evidence presented to a jury. Nevertheless, the video of Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd’s neck was so shocking, so inhumane, it seemed unimaginable that a jury could see anything other than an entitled officer’s utter contempt for Floyd’s existence.

And yet, as we all know, in so many previous cases the justice system has excused police behaviors that led to the death of Black and brown Americans. In case after case, judges and juries have given police officers an expansive benefit of the doubt–even when, to the observer, there would seem to be very little doubt from which to benefit. Most cases, of course, lack the impact of a 9 and a half minute videotape. There may be witnesses, there may be allegations–but its hard to overstate the impact of visual evidence.

It also bears noting that the video in this case followed several years of other videos, most less horrific, but nonetheless capturing reprehensible behaviors of which most White Americans had been unaware–and doing so with an immediacy that verbal testimony cannot provide.

When the verdict was read, those of us who have followed the trial and worried about the aftermath let out a collective sigh of relief. But that sigh was followed almost immediately by a realization that the battle against systemic racism in–law enforcement and elsewhere– has just begun. President Biden said it best: this could be a giant step forward, but there is no guarantee.

That said, this verdict does represent an inflection point. It was an immensely important signal that Black lives do matter, that although police are entitled to a lot of leeway, they are not entitled to act as judge, jury and executioner–that murder is murder even when the perpetrator wears a uniform and a badge.

I think it is possible–not certain, but possible–that America is finally facing up to the deeply entrenched racism that has stained, and continues to stain, our national history. The Trump Administration’s blatant bigotry, the emergence of “out and proud” White supremicists, and the appalling embrace of racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism by the GOP, all have made it impossible for Americans of good will to ignore the pervasive bias that distorts virtually every aspect of our common lives–not just the criminal justice system.

The verdict in the George Floyd/Derek Chauvin case was compelled by a mountain of evidence that the defense simply could not minimize or explain away. But there have been mountains of evidence before, and verdicts that ignored that evidence. The relief at this result–and the hope it kindles–is the possibility that it represents a turning point–that we may have arrived at a time when we are finally prepared as a nation to confront the deeply entrenched belief that some people are less human than others, and that their lives don’t matter.

As many observers have said, the verdict doesn’t represent justice. Justice would be George Floyd alive. But it does represent accountability, and that’s the next best thing.

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As Long As We’re Defining Terms….

One of the biggest problems Americans face in our (diminishing) attempts to debate policy in a civil and productive manner is that Americans often use the same words to mean different things–that is, when we aren’t simply using them as insulting labels devoid of discernible content (“libs” “socialists” “Nazis,” etc.)

Sunday, I considered the definition of infrastructure. Today, I’d really like to “poke a bear” and broaden the definition of what should count as religion.

As a conservative columnist for the Boston Globe recently noted, true believers are everywhere. They certainly aren’t confined to churches, synagogues and mosques; 
increasingly, the passions of faith are being expressed through politics and culture wars.

A Gallup poll last month  reported church membership at 47 percent. “For the first time ever, only a minority of American adults are affiliated with a church.” Jeff Jacoby, the columnist penning the cited column, bemoaned this statistic. He expressed his concern that the continuing disappearance of religion from American life is a negative occurrence.

I’m not so sure. Although there is, as Jacoby notes, a positive correlation between church attendance (note, attendance–not membership or religious belief) and physical, mental, and social health, more careful research studies attribute that correlation to the social support that comes from such gatherings of generally kindred folks–and many people get similar socialization from other, more secular groups.

Where Jacoby is right, however, is in the worrisome transfer of “religious” passion to politics.

A very different effect of religion’s disappearance is already all too visible: The unwavering faith and passion of true belief is increasingly being channeled not into religious observance but into identity politics and the culture wars.
“Political debates over what America is supposed to mean have taken on the character of theological disputations,” remarks Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution in The Atlantic. “This is what religion without religion looks like.”

On issue after issue, Americans increasingly treat political disagreement as blasphemy and dissenters as apostates. From climate change to immigration, from face masks to guns, debates take on the fervor of crusades, and true believers portray the stakes as all-or-nothing — a choice between salvation or damnation.
At its most extreme, this “religion without religion” is giving rise to dangerous political cults.

Jacoby says that “Religion without religion” is aggressive, intolerant, and scary. What he fails to acknowledge is that the same can be said for fundamentalist religions and their true believers.

Perhaps what we need is recognition that any belief system that is intransigent, intolerant and determined to impose itself on those holding differing values and beliefs merits being described as a religion.

To be fair, there is a truth buried in the hysteria of today’s culture warriors. In order for inhabitants of a country to function as at least a semi-coherent polity, a majority of citizens need to  share what sociologists call a “civic religion.” In the increasingly diverse United States, the only workable content of such a civic religion would seem to be devotion to the principles and aspirations of the country’s constituent documents: the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

 Of course, the same folks who “cherry pick” their biblical readings are also noticeably selective in their reading of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

And it would help if more Americans actually knew what was in those documents.

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