Benefits Which Should Not Be Negotiable

"The irony," William Conrad dramatically and weekly asserted some 45 years ago: "Richard Kimble is innocent."  However, the irony of the summary of last night's Democratic debate (transcript here and here) by David A. Graham is that he applauded Bernie Sanders' performance while neglecting to mention the most significant point the Senator made. Graham believes

Sanders’s problem is that though he delivered a sparkling performance and out-debated Clinton at nearly every turn, it’s not enough. He trails Clinton in popular votes and pledged delegates, to say nothing of superdelegates. The tied national polls he cites are meaningless, since there’s no national primary. Sanders needs a knock-out—though even that probably wouldn’t give him the nomination—and tonight, he won the bout on points.

If Sanders "delivered a sparkling performance"- a highly debatable notion- it was never so important as when he directly confronted the former Secretary of State on Social Security funding.

Wolf Blitzer asked Secretary Clinton "Are you prepared to lift the cap on taxable income, which currently stands at $118,500? Yes or no, would you lift the cap?" (shades of Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations).








During her decades in government or politics, Hillary Clinton has learned a lot, enough to know not to respond to that question but instead to what came immediately before: "Senator Sanders has challenged you to give a clear answer when it comes to extending the life of Social Security and expanding benefits."

That one was easy.  Clinton asserted "it's time that we provide more benefits for widows, divorcees, for caregivers, for women who deserve more from" Social Security.   (No one ever has opposed the "widows and orphans" fund of yore.)   "Extending the life of Social Security" was even easier, simple even for Republicans, who speak of a desire to "preserve and protect Social Security," a threat which should prompt the elderly, the near-elderly, and individuals who want to be elderly to hold on to their wallets.

Clinton recognizes a softball when she get one and stated "we are going to protect Social Security." Moreover, four times- four times!- she assured the audience she would extend the Social Security system: "in addition to extending the Trust Fund, which I am absolutely determined to do"; " "we're having a discussion about" how "to extend the Social Security Trust Fund"; "we are going to extend the Social Security Trust Fund"; and "we are going to extend the Social Security Trust Fund" (the latter a nod to the value of repetition).

If not paying close attention- as with myself at first- one might not realize "extending" the Social Security Trust Fund is at best meaningless, at worst what any conservative pol would applaud. Without a Social Security Trust Fund, there can be no benefits. How to make sure it endures is at issue: cutting benefits or removing the cap on taxation.

The Vermont senator knows.  After all this (virtually all; before the last "we are going to extend" blah, blah, blah), Sanders honed in with "Maybe I'm a little bit confused. Are you or are you not supporting legislation to lift he cap on taxable income and expand Social Security for 58 years and increase benefits."

After Clinton began "I am," Sanders (a little like Stevenson, himself) interjected "yes or no?"  In an answer which should reverberate throughout the remaining Democratic primaries (though probably won't), Clinton replied "I have said yes, we are going to pick the best way or combination..."

The audience responded with a smattering of knowing boos, after which Clinton continued "or combination of ways" and after more boos started to change the subject.








It's a pity the exchange did not continue, given that it revealed a fundamental difference of opinon. Heretofore, Secretary Clinton had relatively successfully- if disingenuously- navigated the waters separating her centrist perspective with the increasing realization that the economic needs of people go beyond their racial, gender, or sexual preference status. Yet here she was, unmasked as yet another pol who will not commit herself, and is not committed, to maintaining earned benefits as they must be for the elderly.










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Clinton Playing Defense

"The prevent defense," the saying goes, "prevents you from winning."

Extremely popular among fans, the cliche is astoundingly invalid. The prevent defense virtually assures that team a victory though often allowing an inconsequential field goal or touchdown, it is unpopular with fans as well as gamblers.






In New York State, Hillary Clinton has been placing her confidence in the prevent defense. USA Today reported Wednesday

Hillary Clinton is keeping a lid on Bernie Sanders’ appeal in New York — by touting her Senate record upstate and pounding him on the gun issue in the Big Apple.....

Sanders has also fared best in states where the population is less diverse, so the demographics upstate, which is whiter than New York City and surrounding areas, could favor him as well.

But Clinton campaign aides believe her efforts as a New York senator for eight years, promoting economic development in communities like Buffalo, will offset Sanders’ potential advantage.

Touting her effort in the Senate to help upstate New York, criticizing Sanders' record on gun control, even knocking her opponent's recent interview in the (New York) Daily News does not represent an aggressive, no-holds barred campaign, but rather one reflecting her early (now diminished), big lead in the state.

Skeptical of this notion, one might argue that on the issues (except- arguably- gun safety), Sanders is more in tune with the Democratic primary electorate and that stressing policy would be foolhardy.

But not on everything. Just in time for the New York primary, the Sanders campaign has hired Simone Zimmerman as its Jewish outreach coordinator. According to The Jerusalem Post

During the 2014 Gaza war, Zimmerman was one of the leaders of a group of young Jews that held regular protest vigils outside the offices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reading the names of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the conflict.

It's hard to argue with non-violent protest of the deaths of thousands of civilians killed in war. Moreover, the BDS movement has gained steam, especially in ecclesiastical circles and has become, distressingly, arguably mainstream. Therefore, it is barely eye-opening that Zimmerman

opposes Israel’s occupation, wants Hillel to allow participation by groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, is against Jewish federation funding for Israeli projects in the West Bank and wrote favorably of the efforts of Jewish Voice for Peace, a pro-BDS group, to get “international corporations to stop profiting off human rights abuses.”

However, we learn that she has gone a little off the rails, for

“The hypocrisy of expecting feel-good social justice projects to offset millennials’ deep outrage at the grave injustices committed by the Jewish state is almost too much to bear,” wrote Zimmerman, who is in her mid-20s. “No public relations trick can save Israel’s image. The problem isn’t with the hasbara [public relations]. The problem is nearly 50 years of occupation. The problem is rampant racism in Israeli society. The problem is attacks on human rights defenders by extremists and by the state. The problem is a Jewish establishment that ignores or justifies all of this.”

Like many people- especially activists- nowadays, Zimmerman (from Instituto Manquehue, of her from 2/11) is unaware that sometimes accuracy is no defense and, in this case, should not be. Fortunately, she since has deleted from the profanity from her Facebok entry “Bibi Netanyahu is an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative asshole. Fuck you, Bibi.”

(Sarcasm ahead) Heck of a good hire.  Nothing says pluralism and tolerance better than hiring someone who tars the Israeli people with an accusation of "racism." Michelle Goldberg (a Clinton supporter) recognizes that support for Israel as a Jewish state is significantly less among young voters than among the older generations. Nonetheless

The question, to me, is not whether it’s OK as a matter of principal to called Netanyahu an asshole—he most assuredly is. It’s whether a Democratic candidate for president can afford to be associated with that sentiment. Whatever your views about god and Zionism, to answer yes is to take a leap of faith.

Ultimately, a Democratic (or Republican) candidate for President cannot afford to be associated with that sentiment.  Ultimately will not be far off if Mrs. Clinton jumps on this.

Victory in a state primary, unlike victory in a football game, is a mere aim, not the goal. Playing defense and failing to exploit (or at least criticize) the remarkable addition of Simone Zimmerman to her rival's staff would  be curiously cautious prior to a contest in a state home (still) to far more Jews than anywhere in the USA. Call it Hillary Clinton's inexplicable entry in a year in which the other Party's leading candidate is unfailingly inexplicable.









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About That Woman In The Oval Office Thing...

It might be a lack of self-awareness, or confidence that no one would notice.  The Washington Post reports

President Obama paid homage Tuesday to those who had fought for women's equality, designating a historic house on Capitol Hill a national monument, and hinting that his successor could represent yet another victory for women's rights.

Speaking at the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, which has housed the National Woman's Party since 1929 and will now be called the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, the president called the site "a hotbed of activism, a centerpiece for the struggle for equality, a monument to a fight not just for women's equality but, ultimately, for equality for everybody."

"I have faith because what this house shows us is that the story of America is a story of progress," Obama said before a crowd of women's activists that included tennis legend Billie Jean King and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).

"I want young girls and boys to come here, 10, 20, 100 years from now, to know that women fought for equality, it was not just given to them," he said. "I want them to be astonished that there was ever a time when women earned less than men for doing the same work. I want them to be astonished that there was ever a time when women were vastly outnumbered in the boardroom or in Congress, that there was ever a time when a woman had never sat in the Oval Office."

He wants them to be "astonished" there was "ever a time when a woman had never sat in the Oval Office."  In fairness, it was a long time before there was even a serious bid for the White House by a woman (Carly Fiorina, Hillary Clinton) in either major political party. It was not until this year that a woman had a legitimate shot at either the Democratic or the Republican nomination. Oh, wait- there was that moment in 2008 when Hillary Clinton ran against.... Barack Obama!

He must have forgotten.















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"Proud To Be Jewish" Insufficient

At the Apollo Theatre in New York, NY Saturday night, Bernie Sanders was confronted at the close of the event by an obvious anti-Semite, and he started off exactly right. Slate's Daniel Politi notes

“As you know, the Zionist Jews—and I don’t mean to offend anybody—they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign,” John Prince, 32, shouted. Sanders starts to frown, shakes his hand and holds up his hand: “Brother, brother, brother.” Prince continued: “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That’s all I’m asking.”








When someone starts by claiming "I don't mean to offend anybody," it's a sure bet he knows that he is offending someone, usually many people. Sanders recognized "That's not what you're asking."

Sanders apparently knows an anti-Semitic question when he sees one and quickly fired back: “That’s not what you’re asking" and, after the crowd settled down, "I am proud to be Jewish." Yair Rosenberg of Tablet Magazine (which evidently markets to American Jews) explains

But then Sanders did something odd. Rather than using the question as a teaching moment to address and rebuke its anti-Semitic underpinnings, Sanders instead immediately pivoted to his stump speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Talking about Zionism and Israel,” he said, “I am a strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinian people.” He never challenged the actual contents of the question, let alone labeled it anti-Semitic.

Do pay attention to the Palestinian people, Senator, but not in response to someone obviously anti-Semitic.  "The Jews run" everything is a hackneyes stereotype, as old as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and it's a wonder Prince didn't add a reference to Jews controlling the world economy. Sanders understood- notice him wagging his finger- but transitioning into a reflection on the problems of the Middle East avoids the thrust of the question and even conveys a small measure of legitimacy on the character who asked it.  Rosenberg, who clearly should be hired as a candidate's speechwriter, realizes Sanders should have responded

What you just heard was outlandish and unacceptable, but I am glad that you did, because it gives me an opportunity to utterly repudiate it. The lie that a secret Jewish conspiracy controls this country or others has been used to justify the persecution and murder of Jewish people for centuries, including my own family in the Holocaust. It is an ancient anti-Semitic canard whose bigotry is not lessened by prefacing it with the word “Zionist.”

I completely reject that question and the prejudice behind it, just as I have stood on stages like this one and rejected the systemic racism in our society and the rising tide of Islamophobia in this election. There are those who traffic in hateful stereotypes and seek to pit us against each other–black and white, gay and straight, Jew and non-Jew–and I will always stand against them, and for all of us.

If Sanders isn't very quick on his feet (and evidently he's not), he might instead have noted that most prominent Jews are secular and do not control anything on the behalf of Jews or Judaism. Were that a little wonky, he could have emphasized the historical alliance of Jews and blacks and its continuing need as part of the base of the Democratic Party to advocate policies of equality for blacks, women, gay people, and everyone still denied full rights as American citizens.

At worst, he should have lapsed into his familiar argument against Wall Stret, dedicated to accumulating as much as it can and largely oblivious to whether its victims are Jewish or Christian, male or female, white or black.  But Israel?

The primary in Michigan is over. Dearborn and Hamtramck are in the rear-view window.  It's New York city and New York state now, and any mention of the beloved Palestinians without a mention of the hated Hamas is to be avoided, especially when one is offered a free shot at anti-Semitism.   When you get a hanging curve over the heart of the plate, take a whack at it. You don't know when you'll see it again.









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Incarceration Not Always Mass

The New York Times' Amy Chozick reports

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that he regretted drowning out the chants of black protesters at a rally in Philadelphia the day before, when he issued an aggressive defense of his administration’s impact on black families. His reaction thrust a debate about the 1990s into the center of his wife’s presidential campaign, one that has focused heavily on issues of race and criminal justice.

“I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television,” Mr. Clinton said Friday of the Black Lives Matter protesters who had accused him and Hillary Clinton of supporting policies that devastated black communities. “But that doesn’t mean that I was most effective in answering it.”

 "It was a remarkable reversal for Mr. Clinton," wrote Ms. Chozick, who evidently believes "I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television" is a sentence of endearment. Still, while Bill Clinton's reference to "hopped on crack" are roughly as contemporary as "feeling groovy" (and even in the early 90's were intended to instill panic), he might hold off on apologizing for the sentiment.









Although the 1994 crime act had little to do directly with mandatory minimums, it helped inspire enactment of state laws mandating a minimum period of incarceration for specific crimes or under specific circumstances. Unsurprisingly, it is one of the targets of reform advocates, who decry the "mass incarceration" which followed the crime epidemic of the 80's-90's.

Though at one time overemphasized, mandatory minimums can play an effective role in deterring crime. Presumably, there are at least three children in New Orleans who would agree now that

Will Smith, a former defensive end for the New Orleans Saints, was shot and killed late Saturday night in that city, after his car was rear-ended. Police are calling the shooting a road-rage incident....

New Orleans Police Superintendent Michael Harrison told NPR last year that his city’s murders are not due to gangs, but rather “domestic violence related homicides, arguments that have turned fatal, and robberies that have turned fatal.”

Indeed, that’s what appears to have happened Saturday night. According to a police statement, Smith’s Mercedes was hit from behind by a Hummer, causing him to crash into the car ahead of him, which was being driven by a friend.

“At some point, the 30-year-old male driver of the Hummer and Smith exchanged words. The 30-year-old male driver produced a handgun and shot Smith multiple times, the female victim was also shot to the leg,” police said.

The female victim was Smith’s wife. She was taken to a local hospital and is reportedly in stable condition. The pair have three children.

Mass incarceration sounds horrid. However

On Sunday, police announced they have booked 28-year-old New Orleans resident Cardell Hayes on second-degree murder. In 2014, Hayes pleaded to illegally carrying a weapon and possession of drug paraphernalia and was sentenced to six months probation, The Advocate reported.

God, it is said, is in the details. The devil, it is also said, is in the details, and we don't know the facts about the circumstances pertaining to Hayes' arrest in 2014 on weapons and drug charges. But a sane and responsible society would incarcerate an individual found guilty of simultaneously possessing a weapon and drug paraphernalia, and do it each and every time.

It should not be optional, not should it matter if it contributes to "mass incarceration."


Rest in peace, Mr. Smith.








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Unthreatening Outrage

Bruce Springsteen has canceled his show scheduled for April 10 in Greensboro, North Carolina. In a statement released Friday, the performer cited the recently-passed HB2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which "dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use."   Additionally, the legislation

also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace. No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.

Springsteen and his band want "to show solidarity for those freedom fighters," the "groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments." The band recognizes "some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them."

The performer is convinced "it is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards."

In a stroke of good luck, Springsteen is scheduled to perform only two days later, on April 12, in another state determined to push the nation backward.  In another stroke of luck, the concert is due to take place in the capital of that state. And in a third piece of good luck, all of them together comprising a trifecta, the governor of that state is a presidential candidate. On February 21, the Huffington Post reported

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) on Sunday signed a bill that effectively defunds Planned Parenthood in his state.

The bill strips state and some federal funding from health clinics that perform and promote “nontherapeutic abortions,” including Planned Parenthood facilities.

You recognize the GOP line. Nonetheless, Staff Editor Marina Fang adds

While the bill grants an exemption to abortions performed in cases of rape, incest and preserving the life of the mother, it jeopardizes the fate of other vital women’s health programs.

For example, the $1.3 million in state grants that Planned Parenthood is slated to lose was allocated toward HIV testing, cancer screenings and programs that help prevent domestic violence and infant mortality.

There will be a steep price to pay for a lot of people in the seventh largest state in the country. Consequently

In a statement, the organization’s president, Cecile Richards, denounced the bill, arguing that it would have “devastating consequences for women across Ohio.”

“John Kasich is proudly eliminating care for expectant mothers and newborns; he is leaving thousands without vital STD and HIV testing, slashing a program to fight domestic violence, and cutting access to essential, basic health care,” she said.

“It’s clear Kasich has no regard for women’s health or lives, and will stop at nothing to block health care for the tens of thousands of Ohioans who rely on Planned Parenthood,” Richards added.









The man falsely labeled "The Boss" will not play North Carolina, safely joining the multitude of actors, businesses, and governments ensuring that the state will pay a considerable penalty for a bad bill. However, it's a safe bet he won't be issuing a satement about how women of modest means in Ohio will be deprived of health care because of the state's legislature and governor.  He won't be talking about how poor women are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, as well as about the impact of breast cancer on women.   Nor will he equate the struggle to end domestic violence with the fight against prejudice and bigotry.  Evidently, some things are not more important than a rock show.

None of the above makes Bruce Springsteen a hypocrite. We all have our causes and priorities. Selective outrage is not a crime, nor should it be, though in this case no sacrifice is made because Springsteen is not alone in his criticism, some of which should be employed in confronting the popular rationale of "religious freedom" behind the attack on Planned Parenthood in Ohio and elsewhere. That, along with a declaration of support for women in Ohio, would be a greater act of courage from a guy who is likely to keep his date in Columbus on April 12, 2016, and keep his mouth shut.















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Wall Street And Trade, However, Are Other Things

Bernie Sanders has now acknowledged that Hillary Clinton is qualified to be President, and good for him.

If nothing else, however, Sanders' claim Wednesday that his opponent is not qualified should draw our attention to the specifics of the statement 

I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest funds.

I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.

I don’t think you are qualified if you voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.

I don’t think you’re qualified if you supported almost every disastrous trade agreement.

I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed, which has gave the green light to wealthy people and corporations all over the world to avoid paying taxes owed to their countries. 

At a campaign event on January 7, 2008 on behalf of his wife, Bill Clinton stated in part

Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years and never got asked one time, not once, "Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since."

Give me a break.


 


After applause, he continued

This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen. So you can talk about Mark Penn all you want. What did you think about the Obama thing, calling Hillary the "Senator from Punjab?" Did you like that? Or what about the Obama handout that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook, scouring me, scathing criticism over my financial reports.

The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've seen. On one level, the former President's allegation was unfair.  On October 22, 2008 Illinois state senator Barack H. Obama gave a stirring, eloquent speech challenging President Bush:

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with bin Laden and al-Qaida, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure that the U.N. inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Then Obama almost made the point which in retrospect most needed to be made, arguing

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight.

"Let's fight to make sure," Obama maintained, so "our so-called allies in the Middle East" don't encourage their youth to become "the ready recruits of terrorist cells."

Call it nitpicking, if you will, but it's not. State Senator Obama foresaw the likelihood that increased terrorism would become the product of repressive, pro-Western, Arab states.

Recognition in 2002 of the importance of terrorism as a greater threat than the Iraqi regime is impressive. However, relatively few Islamic terrorists were created by the regime in Cairo, one Obama understandably failed to recognize would better serve the interests of the West than the two which have succeeded it.  And the 9/11/01 terrorists, most of them Saudi nationals, were not individuals rebelling from the oppression and corruption from Riyadh but led by Wahhabist bin Laden. Moreover, President Obama seems to have become quite cozy with that "so-called ally," run by the fundamentalist, Wahhabist sect.

There are, further, indications that Obama's opposition to the war was, largely, "fairy tale."  However, there is an aspect which more directly links his 2002 speech to Senator Sanders' criticism of Hillary Clinton for voting in favor of authorizing military action against Baghdad.

Very few people foresaw that the primary result of the USA invasion of Iraq, as well as the major reason it has become a disaster, is the profound impact it has had on the growth of Islamic terrorism. This goes well beyond the President's current, steadfast refusal to acknowledge that the global terrorist threat is primarily of an Islamic nature.  Obama in 2002 railed againt the coming "dumb war," also a "rash war," and advocated "battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

That is wonderful. However, he did not foresee what was to become of Iraq, and of the region. Neither did Hillary Clinton- and several other Democratic and many more Republican Senators.  Yet, Senator Sanders cited her vote as part of the reason she is unqualified to be President and, though he now has conceded that she is qualified, likely will continue battering Mrs. Clinton's foreign policy in large measure on the basis of that vote.

Clinton has publicly expressed regret for that vote. Sanders, to his credit, voted against the resolution, very likely out of the conviction so many others lacked. One of those, it now seems, was Barack Obama who, like most of the other opponents, had little or no clue what would become of the region, the tinderbox it would become, and the threat to Europe, the USA, and elsewhere that it would ignite.

Hillary Clinton is the very essence of a neo-conservative, representing a foreign policy perspective clearly inadequate to respond to international affairs at this time.  (The somewhat paleo-conservative approach of Cruz and thoroughly paleo-conservative approach of Trump probably are even worse.) However, criticism of her Iraq vote of 2002 should be tempered by the realization that very few individuals, including Obama and probably Sanders, understood what was coming.

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