Openly Gay Republican Carl DeMaio to Challenge Rep. Scott Peters in California – Why?

No, Not Why is He Running – That’s Not the Question

With the 2014 Congessional election well underway (the U. S. having entered a period of permanent campaigns) the announcement out of southern California that a former San Diego city council member will challenge an incumbent Democrat for a Congressional seat is hardly news.  But what is news is this.

Confused?  You won't be after
you meet E. W. Jackson

Carl DeMaio, a former city councilmember from San Diego will announce Thursday that he plans to challenge vulnerable freshman Rep. Scott Peters, a Democrat.

Republicans recruited DeMaio, who is openly gay, to run in the 52nd District. 

And the question here is not why is Mr. DeMaio running, he is a politician, running for office is what politaicians do.  The question is why is he a Republican.  Why is he a member of a political party that literally would like to put him in jail for being gay?  Mr. DeMaio, you need to meet the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Virginia, Mr. E. W. Jackson, a man whom Republicans say really represents their values.

Jackson on gays and lesbians:

·                                 Referred to gays and lesbians as “perverted,” “degenerate,” “spiritually darkened” and “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally.”

·                                  

·                                 Said regarding homosexuality: “it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.”

Yeah Mr. DeMaio, Mr. Jackson is the hero of the party you belong to, not you.  Republicans just want you as a usesful idiot in Congress, one who will vote the party way and then go away so they don't have to be with you, socialize with  you, or even acknowledge you exist.

The Federal Appeals Courts, Like Harvard Law School Grads Who Become Radical Conservatives, Moves in Mysterious Ways on the Plan B Lawsuit

Sometimes There is Just No Logic There

One of the issues in the contraception wars is whether or not the over the counter morning after pills known as Plan B can be age restricted.  The FDA said there was no reason to.  The FDA was over-ruled by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  A Federal judge said this was ridiculous, that there was no basis in law for the Secretary to do such a thing and ordered the pill to be made available without age restriction to all women.  And he was rather adamant about the government having no case.

Federal judge Edward Korman has ordered FDA to make both types of birth control freely available. While the fight was going on, FDA gave an amended approval to one brand, Teva’s Plan B One-Step, saying it could be sold to any girl or woman 15 or older with ID and in stores with on-site pharmacies. 

Korman, clearly furious, accused the FDA of being politically motivated and said it made a “sweetheart deal” with Teva. 

The issue of whether or not to grant a stay of Judge Korman’s decision went to a three judge panel of the 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals.  They have ruled that Judge Korman’s decision can be stayed and they have ruled that it cannot.  Huh?

The FDA has appealed the ruling and the three appeals court judges -- Ralph Winter, Peter Hall, and Gerard Lynch -- have now given the FDA a little bit more time to appeal the decision on Plan B One-Step. But the court says FDA has to comply with Korman’s order to make the older, two-step formulations available to all comers right away.

“Insofar as the order mandates immediate over-the-counter access to the two-pill variants of emergency contraceptives, a stay is denied because the Appellants have failed to meet the requisite standard,” they wrote.

So the Appeals Court has said any woman can buy the two pill version, but not all women can buy the one pill version because denying the two pill version did meet the ‘requisite standard’.  Really, just what standard is that?   Oh, the 2^nd Circuit order didn’t say. 

The entire process here with the government was largely political.  The Secretary over-ruled the FDA because she didn’t want young girls to be able to buy the pills without parental involvement.  But everyone should put on their Libertarian hat here.  Exactly why the Secretary should be in a position of making that judgment is not clear, is not evident and has no basis in law.  And parents who want the government to take over their responsibility, and some of these are probably rock bound conservatives, ought to think about just why they cannot work with their kids, and why they need the government to do their parenting for them.

Marco Rubio, Champion of Immigration Reform, Says He Will Vote Against Bill He Developed, Sponsored and Supported

Rubio to Attempt to Gain Both the Anti-Immigration and Pro-Immigration Vote is Unprecedented

In order to get the attention of the national press a politician sometimes has to do a “Nixon to China” thingee, that is do something that goes against the basic grain of his party or his political philosophy.  Florida freshman Senator Marco Rubio has been doing just that, gaining national attention by being the face of immigration reform, something conservatives in general and Republicans in particular just hate. 

So it should come as no surprise given the coveted Badge of Hypocrisy that most conservatives proudly wear that the Senator has come out and said he will not support his own legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio says he will not vote for the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill unless substantial changes are made before final Senate consideration. (Photo: Examiner file)

Senator Rubio - denying he has only one face

Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, says he will not vote for the legislation he helped write and has staked his political future on, unless substantial changes are made before final Senate consideration.

This Forum was moved to get further insight into Mr. Rubio’s thinking (?) but since Mr. Rubio has never heard of us and would certainly not grant us an interview, here is how we think it would go if we asked Mr. Rubio to explain his position.

Senator Marco Rubio did not say the following:

Look, immigration reform is non-starter with the Republican base, who hate Hispanics unless they are Cuban, which I am or unless they are Republican, which I am.  On the other hand I needed an issue to get the national press to notice me, so I pretended to champion immigration reform so I could bask in the attention of the national press.

I really never expected it to get this far, and so now I need to vote against it, unless of course they amend the bill in a way that I can vote for it.  But since they have already done that, I am going to have to keep coming up with more demands until they reject one, and then I can say that I supported the issue but that godless liberals just wouldn’t amend it to be more to my liking. 

So this way I can campaign with conservatives on an anti-immigrant platform, and can campaign in the Hispanic community as someone who supports their aspirations not to be given life imprisonment for the fact that their parents brought them to this country when they were too young to protest.  Really it’s the ideal strategy.

This isn’t going to be reported is it?

Not to worry Senator, being on both sides of an issue just marks you with the political courage that many members of  your ilk display.

Want to Know Why the Koch Brothers Are So Opposed to Pollution Regulation and Controls and Fighting Global Warming?

Easy Answer, They Are Making Millions From Lack of Regulation and For Causing Global Warming

And Conservative Activists Who Support Them – A Bunch of Useful Idiots

The billionaire Koch Brothers fund conservative causes, and in spite of the fact that the causes they support are just awful, one at least hoped that they did so out of a dedication to principles.  Well it turns out the principles they are dedicated to are the principles of making millions and millions of dollars for the Koch Brothers and their companies.

Case in point, the problem of carbon waste that is generated from the processing of oil from tar sands. 

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Petroleum coke, a waste byproduct of refining oil sands oil, is piling up along the Detroit River.

An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.

And some is being piled near Detroit, which in case anyone noticed, already has enough problems without this.

Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

Now this stuff can be burned to produce energy, but, but, but

And what about the leftover coke? The Environmental Protection Agency will no longer allow any new licenses permitting the burning of petroleum coke in the United States. But D. Mark Routt, a staff energy consultant at KBC Advanced Technologies in Houston, said that overseas companies saw it as a cheap alternative to low-grade coal. In China, it is used to generate electricity, adding to that country’s air-quality problems. There is also strong demand from India and Latin America for American petroleum coke, where it mainly fuels cement-making kilns.

“I’m not making a value statement, but it comes down to emission controls,” Mr. Routt said. “Other people don’t seem to have a problem, which is why it is going to Mexico, which is why it is going to China.”

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” he said. One of the world’s largest dealers of petroleum coke is the Oxbow Corporation, which sells about 11 million tons of fuel-grade coke a year. It is owned by William I. Koch, a brother of David and Charles.

Lorne Stockman, who recently published a study on petroleum coke for the environmental group Oil Change International, says, “It’s really the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth,” he said.

So now everyone knows what in part drives the Koch Brothers in their quest to end regulation of pollution and to deny global warming.  Plain old ordinary unbridled greed.  And the people that support their causes, the ones who will suffer from lack of clean air and clean water, just a bunch of useful idiots thinking they are doing the right thing for freedom when all they are doing is helping billionaires get richer at the expense of the environment.

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus – And As Proof Positive of His Existence

He Has Gifted Everyone with the Fall Elections in Virginia

The news from Virginia about the Republican party’s radical right wing ticket for Governor, Lt. Governor and state Attorney General in the fall is really about the Democrats.  Huh? 

Yes, if the Democrats were a strong, viable national party they would be trouncing the extreme Republican ticket in the state.  But because at the state and local level the Democratic party is so weak, it may not be able to defeat what is one of the nastiest group of far right nut jobs that the Republican party has produced outside of Michele Bachmann’s district in Minnesota.

The really big news in Virginia is that the candidate for Lt. Governor, E. W. Jackson is an inflammatory person even by ultra conservative standards.  He is not intellectually challenged, he is a Harvard Law graduate (what is it at Harvard Law that produces men like Mr. Jackson and Texas Senator Ted Cruz?).  But he is, at least in the aspect of public life, flat out nuts.  Don’t think so, consider this, which is a mild representation of Mr. Jackson’s views.

Jackson has called homosexuality “perverse,” compared Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan and sharply criticized Obama over same-sex marriage and foreign policy. . . .

On Twitter, Jackson has called the federal health-care law “slavery-care,” questioned whether Obama’s Middle East policy is anti-Semitic and blasted the president’s support of gay marriage.

The candidate for Governor, Ken Cuccinelli, would like to be left out of it, but Mr. Jackson says that Mr. Cuccinelli encouraged him to run.

“He said essentially, ‘I think you’d make a good candidate for lieutenant governor. Have you thought about it?’ ” said Jackson, recalling that Cuccinelli had not yet decided to run for governor. “I do remember him suggesting that if it worked out . . . he would be proud to have me as a running mate.”

Cuccinelli doesn’t remember it quite that way,

Cuccinelli’s campaign acknowledged the men met three years ago, but spokeswoman Anna Nix challenged Jackson’s recollection.

“Ken asked why the Senate and if he ever thought to run for anything else — like maybe Lieutenant Governor? E.W. may have misconstrued that as a direct ask,” Nix wrote in an e-mail.

But Mr. Cuccinelli has all sorts of memory problems.  For example, when he bought a large amount of stock in a company that has a tax issue with the state of Virginia and did not report it, he claimed he just forgot.  And forgetting is also a problem with Mr. Jackson.

During the interview, he denied the “slavery-care” tweet. But when presented with a copy of it, he said he didn’t remember writing it.

In any normal election the Republicans would have no chance.  But the Democratic candidate will be Terry McAuliffe, a former fund raiser for the Democrats and a man who ran for the Democratic nomination last time around.  Mr. McAuliffe lost to a rural state senator, who then was swamped in the general election.  As far as anyone can tell Mr. McAuliffe has no reasons he should be Governor of Virginia except that he wants to be.  He may stand for certain policy objectives, but so far no one knows what they are.  His claim to fame, he is a friend of Bill and Hillary.

Democrats have a chance in the fall to deal a severe blow to extremism by defeating the Republican ticket.  That they might not do so says far more about the state of the Democratic party in Virginia and many other states than it does about Republicans.

Meanwhile Mr. Jackson say he is not mad at anyone and not insulting them,

the former Marine said his remarks were not meant to be offensive, and that as lieutenant governor, he would strive to represent all Virginians, including homosexuals.

Okay, in the spirit of the moment we will label Mr. Jackson a moronic ignorant bigot, but we do not mean that to be offensive.

Ohio State University President Shows the Arrogance and Insensitivity of Highly Compensated College CEO’s

Why Does This Man Still Have a Job?

[Update:  Mr. Gee doesn't have a job.  He has decided to retire, thank you very much.  And no, his stupid remarks were not the only cause.

Gee, 69, said in a teleconference that the furor was only part of his decision to retire, which he said he had been considering for a while. He said his age and the start of a long-term planning process at the university were also factors.

"I live in turbulent times and I've had a lot of headwinds, and so almost every occasion, I have just moved on," he said. Gee explained away the abrupt timing by saying he was "quirky as hell" and hated long transitions.

What a guy, a jerk to the end.]

Gordon Gee is the President of Ohio State University.  Here is what the Board of Trustees thinks about his personal skills.

The letter called Mr. Gee's ability to make personal connections with varied audiences one of his greatest strengths and called his sense of humor "infectious." 

So how does Mr. Gee make personal connections with his audience and what is it about sense of humor that is infectious?  Well there is this great example of his 'infectious' humor.

In the December meeting, which related to the realignment in which numerous schools changed athletic-conference affiliations in recent years, Mr. Gee spoke of the years in which the Big Ten Conference courted Notre Dame's membership. "The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they're holy hell the rest of the week," Mr. Gee said. 

And this

Mr. Gee made at a December meeting of the school's athletic council, during which he joked that "those damn Catholics" couldn't be trusted.

And this

Mr. Gee also joked about the lower academic standards of the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. He also joked about members of the Southeastern Conference not knowing how to read or write.

To their credit the Trustees did say that any repeat would bring some punishment, possibly dismissal.  But for Mr. Gee it is hard to see how he is really humbled or upset.  After all there is this in his history.

Ohio State University trustees on Friday rewarded President E. Gordon Gee’s efforts to bring more money and top talent to the university by giving him a 3 percent salary increase and $333,812 annual bonus, boosting his total compensation to $2.14 million.

Yes, when hundreds of thousands of students are leaving college with massive debt this self appointed clown is making millions.  Gosh, given the above remarks doesn’t everyone think Ohio State could find President that really connects with his audiences and has an infectious sense of humor for a lot less?  And if Mr. Gee represents their standards, the first place they should look is at Ringling Brothers.

Oh, and in case anyone wonders what Ohio State’s priorities are, consider this.

Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Schottenstein said Gee has been able to attract top talent to Ohio State. “Our football team is 10-0. We want to be 10-0 in everything and you’re making it happen Gordon,” he told the president.

Gordon Gee, the symbol of higher education in America.

More Evidence Mr. Obama Has No Idea of How Washington Works – Wants Republicans to Justify a Filibuster of Judicial Nominees

Is the White House Located in an Alternate Universe?

In what is news, but shouldn’t be news, President Obama recently got a judicial nominee approved by the Senate.  Apparently that has led to this from the New York Times via Taegan Goddard.

Obama Plans 3 Nominations for Key Court

President Obama "will soon accelerate his efforts to put a lasting imprint on the country's judiciary by simultaneously nominating three judges to an important federal court, a move that is certain to unleash fierce Republican opposition and could rekindle a broader partisan struggle over Senate rules," the New York Times reports.

"In trying to fill the three vacancies on the 11-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at once, Mr. Obama will be adopting a more aggressive nomination strategy. He will effectively be daring Republicans to find specific ground to filibuster all the nominees."

Notice the last sentence.  Mr. Obama is daring Republicans to find grounds to filibuster when Republicans have consistently filibustered for no reason at all other than to deny the President a vote.

Really.  We don't know where has Mr. Obama been the past four and a half years but he needs to revisit reality.

It Turns Out that Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell – In Defending Himself About Gifts From Wealthy Citizens – Misled About His Wife Not Receiving a Paycheck

Mrs. McDonnell Gets a $35k Salary For Doing – About Nothing

In Virginia the outgoing (thank you) Republican Governor Robert McDonnell has been receiving a lot of gifts, very nice gifts, from folks who just want to be his friend.  The Washington Post, to its credit has been reporting on this even though the national press is largely ignoring the story.  (Republican Governor has wealthy friends who pay for wedding expenses, provide cars and vacation homes, nothing new about that).

But one of Mr. McDonnell’s excuses for this was that his wife does all sorts of good stuff and doesn’t get paid.  Here is from an earlier Post on the subject when it was revealed a wealthy Virginian paid for part of the wedding of the Governor's daughter.

The Governor’s explanation for this and things like the use of fancy cars, travel in private jets etc is that, well, he has a lot of friends.

“I’ve been blessed to have a lot of friends,” he said. “And Mr. Williams and his wife, Celeste, have been family friends for four or five years. But I think it’s important for the people of Virginia to know nothing has been done with regard to my relationship with Mr. Williams or his company, Star Scientific, to give any kind of special benefits to him or his company.”

Of course, nothing special for Mr. Williams or his company includes this.

Three days before the wedding, first lady Maureen McDonnell traveled to Florida to address a group of investors about Star’s supplement, sold under the brand name Anatabloc. The governor and wife later hosted a luncheon at the mansion to mark the product’s arrival in stores.

which the Governor says is just part of his job.  And besides, he whines his wife is not getting paid. (other than the free housing and huge benefits that are paid for by the good citizens of Virginia)

“My wife is the first lady,” he said. “You know how much she gets paid? Zero. She’s a volunteer. She’s done a very good job as first lady.”

Now it turns out this is just not true.  While Mrs. McDonnell gets no money from the state, she did pick up a very nice paycheck for very little work because she is the wife of the Governor.  This is a fact the Governor sought to conceal.

Maureen McDonnell, the wife of Virginia’s governor, was paid $36,000 last year to attend a handful of meetings as a consultant to the philanthropic arm of one of the state’s major coal companies, a top coal company official said.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) indicated on his annual financial disclosure forms for 2011and 2012 that his wife served as a paid trustee of a family charity, the Frances G. and James W. McGlothlin Foundation.

But in an interview, James McGlothlin said the $21 million family foundation never named McDonnell to its board.

Instead, McGlothlin said, the family asked Maureen McDonnell to become an adviser to the charitable efforts of both the family foundation and the United Co., a natural resources and real estate company in Bristol, Va., that has made the McGlothlins one of the wealthiest families in the state.

McGlothlin, who founded the company in 1970 and is its chairman and chief executive, said the first lady is paid by the company and not the foundation.

By reporting that his wife was on the board, the governor never had to say on his financial disclosure form how much she was paid. McGlothlin confirmed the salary.

Okay, $36k is not a lot of money, (for wealthy people of course, if you are a teacher it’s your starting salary) unless one did very little to earn it.

For a few days of work, Maureen McDonnell picked up a salary nearly equivalent to the average starting pay of a Virginia teacher. . . . she attended two or three meetings with company and foundation officials in Bristol as part of the arrangement.

And the defense that the Governor has is that all of this is okay because Mrs. McDonnell didn’t ask to be paid.

McGlothlin said that Maureen McDonnell never asked to be paid but that the company decided to compensate her for her advice. He said the arrangement was born over a dinner at which he, his wife the governor and first lady got to talking about how the McGlothlins’ charitable interests in education and health care aligned with those Maureen McDonnell has pursued as first lady.

Now it would be just amazing if such arrangements were not present with almost all public officials, Democratic and Republican ones alike.  But in Virginia the McDonnell’s are just so bad at even making a basic attempt to do the right thing.

Finally, how does one arrange a dinner like that?  Mrs. Dismal Political Economist has a few hours to spare, and getting $36,000.00 for them is something she, or at least Mr. Dismal Political Economist would like very much.  And no, she would never ask to be paid (hint, hint, wink wink).

Southeastern Conference to Distribute over $289 million to Member Schools

And Everyone Gets to Guess How Much of That Goes to the Football and Basketball Athletes That Generated It - 

Here's a Hint - The Number has a Lot of Zeros

Intercollegiate sports has long ago become the tail that wags the dog of higher education.  It used to be that the number one mission of higher education was to provide a perpetual, easy, comfortable life for senior faculty. (What, you expected the mission to  be undergraduate education? That’s not even in the top five.)  But some time ago the highest priority of colleges and university became entertainment of the public and the generation of millions of dollars from the athletic departments.

So the news that a single athletic conference will distribute $289 million to its member schools is not really news. 

The SEC announced Friday a payday of $289.4 million for fiscal year 2012-13), or $20.7 million per school. . . .

It's a continuation of growth. Ten years ago, the league distributed $101.9 million to members. This year's payday is an increase of more than $45 million – which means even with the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M, the pot got bigger.

And the news that this number will just get bigger in the future should not be surprising. 

College athletics is just another big entertainment business, with one exception.  The NCAA, which also makes tens of millions enforces to the maximum a rule that the players can get none of this.  The only hope is that lawsuits now in the courts will destroy this system, but courts will be loathe to take on the college athletic establishment just to bring fairness to college athletes. 

In Minnesota the State Senate Passes a Bill That Allows Some Health Care Workers to Vote Over Republican Objections

Well Vote to Join a Union if They Wish – But Republicans Just Hate Voting Rights

The right of a group of people to vote on various issues would seem to be a bedrock of democracy.  But among Republicans, if they don’t like the issue then they don’t want to people to have the right to vote.  This is evident in their undying quest to restrict the voting opportunities in states for groups that don’t vote Republican.

In Minnesota the state Senate has debated and now passed a bill allowing some health care workers to vote to decide if they want to join or form a union.  No the bill does not require a union, it just lets workers decide.  Republicans were furious.

An all-night, 17-hour debate prompted by furious GOP opposition ended with a victory for unions seeking to organize care-workers on Wednesday.

The Senate, which began debating the unionization bill at 3 p.m. Tuesday, approved the bill on a 35-32 vote around 8:15 a.m. Wednesday.

The issue that caused the ruckus was a DFL-backed plan to allow certain in-home child care workers and in-home personal care attendants to vote on whether to unionize. The bill was backed by the two unions seeking to organize the workers -- the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union.

It has been bitterly opposed by Republicans, many child-care providers and conservative organizations.

Now this Forum is not a great fan of unions who work in the area of public services because they sometimes tend to put their own welfare above that of the public, thus harming both the public and themselves.  But it seems that the right to vote to join a union is an integral part of democracy.  And that statement tells everyone which side the Republicans are on when it comes to democracy.

Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie and other Republican foes attacked the bill as something child-care providers do not want, as a payoff to DFL-supporting unions, and as an unnecessary intrusion of government into the private sector.

"This is a horrible, horrible bill -- the worst bill in my 11 years," said Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester.

Gosh Dave, we think not allowing voters to vote for you would be a great thing.  Yes that would be anti-democratic, but then isn’t anti-democracy a part of your core beliefs?  And tell us Dave, don't you just miss the old Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  There was where government insured that voting was free and open, as long as voters voted the 'right' way.

Paul Krugman Receives an Honor Even Higher Than The Nobel Prize

And Surely The Dismal Political Economist is Next (Not)

But I already have the beard!

Conservative Justices on Supreme Court Say Convicts Should Serve Their Sentence Even If They Have Proof of Actual Innocence

Fortunately for Justice, Decency, and Most Importantly Law, The Position Does Not Stand

The Supreme Court has just considered whether or not a person who can show ‘actual innocence’ post conviction can petition the federal courts for a habeas corpus even after the time limit for such a petition has passed.  In a five to four ruling the majority said, YES, they can.

This should have been an easy and 9 to 0 decision.  If justice in America means anything, it means that if a convicted person can later show proof that they are innocent, they should be let out of jail.  This basic right is surely inscribed in the 14^th amendment right to due process.  But Congress in a law passed in the 1990’s gave convicts only one year to file for relief, and the Court had to address the situation of whether or not Congress could make this restriction when a person later found proof that they were innocent.

The majority said no, Congress could not restrict such a basic right.  But conservatives on the Court are furious, how dare the government let someone out of prison who is innocent.  Justice Scalia (who else) leads the indignation of allowing innocent people to go free.

Justice Scalia
Doesn't care of a person
is innocent, they stay in
jaul or are even executed

That's his vision of America
and the Constitution

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a blistering dissent for his fellow conservatives. He said that Congress was specific in writing the one-year limitation into the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and that the court’s exception was “a flagrant breach of the separation of powers.”

“One would have thought it too obvious to mention that this court is duty bound to enforce AEDPA, not amend it,” wrote Scalia, who was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Notice that there are any number of situations where Justice Scalia has no problem in over-turning an act of Congress when he personally disagrees with that act, or finds some Constitutional flaw in the law.  And notice how here he and his fellow radicals completely abdicates the responsibility of the Court, which is to pass judgment on a act of Congress, not to blindly enforce it.  (If all the Court is supposed to do is simply ratify an act of Congress, what's the point of having a Court?)

But this is the face of modern Conservatism, a Supreme Court, that denies basic justice to Americans in the name of, well, we don’t know what it is in the name of.  Certainly not Conservatism, which would hold that the rights of the individual trump those of the state, and that the right not to be held in prison when one is innocent of a crime is certainly a bedrock of Conservatism (and Liberalism and democracy and the Constitution.)  Congress simply does not have the Constitutional right to deny relief in the courts to someone who can show actual innocence even if an artificial deadline has passed.  One would think this basic right was obvious even to the "hang 'em high' Conservative Justices on the Supreme Court, but apparently it is not.

Ultimately History will not be kind to Mr. Scalia, and the judgment of history will be as a result of things Mr. Scalia has written himself. He is not a Conservative, does not uphold conservative practices, he is just a mean and vindictive person.

In Desperate Attempt to be Relevant, Wall Street Journal Publishes Opinon by David Malpass That the Fed’s Credit Expansion and Low Interest Rates Harmed the Economy

The WSJ Opinion Section – Going From Just Partly Right to Totally Wrong

We are not sure why Conservatives hate the Federal Reserve System so much.  In the current case it may be that they are afraid monetary policy will create sufficient economic growth so that voters will not return Republicans to the White House.  In any event, they have now become so desperate that they have employed a former Treasury official in the Reagan Administration to set out a bunch of lies about monetary policy.  (Sorry about the ‘lies’ thing, but there is not other way to put it.)

A gentleman by the name of David Malpass writes this in the Wall Street Journal opinion section.  After (correctly) documenting the weakness of the recovery Mr. Malpass claims to have found the culprits, expansionary policy.

The disastrous state of affairs was rationalized as a "new normal" following the Great Recession, but the reality is that poor policy choices hurt growth. Tax-and-spend policies sapped investment, and the Fed's low rates and bond purchases damaged markets, hurt savers and channeled credit to the government at the expense of job creators. It's a zero-sum process that should be stopped because of the bad effect on growth and jobs.

Okay, let’s skip over the obvious errors here and go to the big one, that the Fed has somehow taken money that the private sector wanted to use for investment and given it to the government.  Here is the argument in more detail.

The Fed's intention is that the low bond rates it provides the government will spill over to big corporations and banks, who in turn will help the little guy. This trickle-down monetary policy has contributed to very fast growth in corporate profits, part of the explanation for the record stock market, but also to weak GDP growth and declining middle-class incomes. The extra credit the Fed channeled to government and big corporations meant less credit elsewhere in the economy, a contractionary influence since most new jobs come from small businesses.

As every student in Econ 101 knows, this is just plain false.  The money supply is elastic, and there is absolutely no way that the Fed has restricted supply of funds to the private sector.  In fact the system is awash in bank reserves.  Banks will simply not lend to private companies because banks are afraid their low capital levels cannot support the added loans on the balance sheet.  This is a supply problem in part.  Small business and consumers want credit, but the banks simply will not supply it even though they have the funds to do so.  This is what happens in a recession that includes a breakdown of the financial system. 

As for the level of cash balances, large businesses are awash in cash.  The problem here is also a demand problem, because of a poorly defined stimulus program that was too short and too weak, private demand is simply not high enough to generate high growth.  But as far as the Fed is concerned, it has done the right thing and it has done as much of it as it can.  The limitations of monetary policy, not the policy itself is the problem here.

So what we have in the WSJ opinion section is an essay that if it were handed in to the teachers in a high school economics class would receive an F.  As for the WSJ, when the truth does not fit their prejudices, print the myth.  And if people like Mr. Malpass ever get back into power and raise interest rates drastically, which sounds like what they want to do, well kiss the weak recovery goodbye.  United States, meet Spain. 

Documenting the Horrendous Rise in the Cost of Higher Education – And Why

The Why? – For the Same Reason Mitt Romney is Building Himself More Houses

As anyone who has a child who is going to college, or knows a person who is going to college, or has even a passing acquaintance with someone thinking about going to college knows, the cost of that education is staggering.  Unless the student receives massive financial aid or is the offspring of very wealthy parents, that student will leave college with a huge student loan debt. 

The source for the indebtedness is the fact that the cost of a college education has risen rapidly over the past several decades.

Yeah students, you could leave here with no debt but that would mean our faculty had to work full time 

The average tuition and fees at a public, four-year university rose to $8,655 in 2012-13, not counting the costs of room and board, according to the College Board. That’s 250 percent more than it would have cost in 1982, when a year of college would have set the average student back just $2,423 in today’s dollars.

The tuition at private colleges has increased at a slightly lower rate over the same period: the average four-year private institution costs $29,056, not counting room and board. It would have cost $10,901 in 2012 dollars back in 1982.

Notice that this doesn't include the cost of texts, which have risen by even more than the cost of tuition.  College texts are a classic monopoly, the professor assigns them and the students must by them.

Now the reasons for this increase in the overall costs of college are many, and here are a few.

One theory, referred to as “Bowen’s Rule,” says that the decisions made by many colleges and universities—such as how many administrators to hire and how to spend its cash—primarily drive the cost.

A competing theory, called “Baumol’s cost disease,” posits that higher education is expensive because of outside macroeconomic factors that affect other businesses, like the cost of hiring highly educated workers.

In other words, it’s either the colleges’ fault, or it isn’t.

Actually both of these are correct.  Colleges have become administratively inefficient, and students now require a ‘college experience’ instead of an education.  This means luxury accommodations, entertainment from a luxurious student center, athletics both participatory and those that are watched and about everything else.  Education at college is just one of many aspects of the college experience, as the 'fee' components of the overall cost will readily attest to.

But one reasons costs are so high is that the faculty has become a group of overpaid, underworked, part time professors.  Senior faculty in many institutions teach two courses a semester, work about 2 to 3 days a week, for about 30 weeks a year.  Anyone who has any doubts should simply visit the faculty offices on a Friday around 3 p.m. during the school year.  In one word, DESERTED.

And finally, the reason colleges want to hide about why costs are so high.  Colleges and universities discovered they have an essential service, that without a college degree most people are doomed to limited economic success.  So colleges have raised their prices for the same reason Mitt Romney is building yet another home.  Because they can. 

European Doctors Will No Longer Treat Infections with Antibiotics – And Instead Will Prescribe Drugs That Destroy the Body’s Naturally Produced Anti-bodies

Imagining What Would Happen if Medicine in Europe Acted Like Economic Policy in Europe

An article in the Wall Street Journal documents how the Central Bank of Spain wants to cut working class wages, on the idea that this will cause more employment.  In economics this idea was totally and completely and utterly buried by Keynes over 70 years ago.  (More on this on another post.)  So essentially the Spanish monetary authorities want to go back to policy that is based on erroneous beliefs in the 1920’s and before.

This Forum wonders what the story might be if medicine in Europe did the same thing, that is, if it abandoned and reversed the progress that was made with the discovery of antibiotics in the 1930’s. 

Major Reversal in Medicine in Europe; Doctors

will No Longer Use Antibiotics and Instead will Presecribe

 Drugs that Kill the Body’s Antibodies

Madrid, June 2 (Reuters).  A consortium of European medical societies today announced that the policy of treating infections with antibiotics was not effective, despite the decade’s long success of such treatment.  “We have concluded that using antibiotics just spoils the body’s natural defenses, and causes the body to be weak and sniveling” said a prominent European medical researcher.  “We think we have a better way.”

The better way that will now be used in the entire European Union, except for Germany, is to totally cease the prescription of powerful antibiotics for patients that have infections that cannot be fought off naturally.  Instead the doctors will inject drugs that destroy the body’s naturally occurring antibodies, and severely limits the ability of the body to produce its own infection fighting antibodies. 

The rationale for such a policy was explained at a news conference in which several researchers said that they had noticed that when the body has an infection, the level of antibodies in the blood increases.  “Obviously the antibodies are causing the infections” said the head of the research group, “so if we can just destroy the antibodies the infections should go away and the patient will recover nicely.”

When asked how trials of the new treatment had gone, a second researcher admitted that “Almost every patient got worse and died” but the spokesperson for the group said they thought that was because the treatment had been too mild.  “We think that if we can kill every antibody in the blood when an infection is present, then the patient will quickly recover.  Our problem is that we have just not pursued the treatment with enough intensity.”

One of the most noted doctors in the field from the United States, Dr. Paulus Kragman asked if the researchers were aware of the fact that the reason high levels of antibodies were present during an infection was because the body produced them to fight the infection.  The research group replied that they were aware that some, if not all of the medical profession outside of Europe believed that, but that based on research that was conducted and published in the 1920’s they felt that science was debunked, and that they could use the authority of the 1920’s research to justify their new policy.

Funding for the research that led to the new policy was provided by The International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank.  All three groups have amended their health insurance policies to allow patients to travel outside of the European Union for treatment.

Harvard Continues Its Downward Spiral in Academic and Scholarly Areas – Has Media Mogul Oprah Winfrey as a Commencement Speaker and Honorary Degree Recipient

Remembering When Harvard Stood for the Very Best

This Forum has nothing against Oprah Winfrey, in fact like almost everyone else in America we admire her accomplishments in business and entertainment.  Ms. Winfrey has succeeded against what is probably the biggest odds against success in America, she is an African American woman whose success has come despite an upbringing in a low income family in the rural south.

Ms. Winfrey was recently honored at Harvard commencement activities and given the traditional honorary degree.  And while Ms. Winfrey’s business and economic success is certainly a proud achievement, one wonders exactly what she has done to validate recognition by Harvard in such a prestigious manner.  According to Ms. Winfrey, one of her great accomplishments was making her namesake network a success.

Ms. Winfrey at Harvard
A Great Success Story - But Is Harvard Trying to Buy a Big Donation?

And then came OWN, which during its first year left her "stressed" and "frustrated." She said, "I thought I'm going to turn this thing around and be better for it" by the time Harvard's graduation day came. Today, she said, "I have turned that network around!"

Now it may be that Harvard felt the honors should go to Ms. Winfrey because she overcame such tremendous odds in her life.  But while we hate to be the thrower of cold water on Ms. Winfrey's happiness and pride at getting this honor, we think maybe there is another motivation.

Harvard President Drew Faust said in March that Oprah is one of the great American success stories. Forbes listed her as the 11th most powerful woman in the world last year. She has a net worth of $2.7 billion.

And Harvard, whose endowment, largely unspent on things like education at Harvard and is only slightly less than the GDP of small countries, certainly has its eye on some of tha $2.7 billion.  Yep, that would explain a lot.

Medicare Trust Fund to Last Longer Than Expected; Social Security Trust Fund Expected to Last at Least Another 20 Years

Conservatives Devastated – Wanted Medicare to Die a Natural Death

The Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare systems annually announce the expected life of the trust funds that support the two systems.  This year there was good news for everyone, well almost everyone.  On Medicare there was this.

Lower health-care costs are improving the financial outlook for Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly, extending the life of the trust fund that supports the program until 2026 — two years later than previously forecast.

The new projection, released Friday by the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, is an improvement of nine years in the forecast since passage of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The trustees’ report credits the act with part of the cost slowdown, particularly by placing new limits on Medicare Advantage, a form of Medicare run by private insurers.

However, the trustees also credit lower costs and use rates in “most . . . service categories — especially skilled nursing facilities,” a development that most economists believe is in part due to the recent recession, but also to more fundamental efforts to reduce costs throughout the health-care industry.

Conservatives have been counting on the death of the Medicare Trust Fund, which funds only one part of Medicare, to spur a change which would turn Medicare over to private insurance companies, you know, the companies that are just bending over backwards to see that their policy holders get all the medical care they need.

On Social Security the news was neutral.

The trustees reported no such improvement in the finances of Social Security, but no significant deterioration, either. The combined trust fund that finances both the disability benefits and the retirement benefits funds is still forecast to run out in 2033, at which point the programs would only have enough cash to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits.

But notice that the SS system does not go bankrupt.  The worst case scenario, benefits are still at 75% of scheduled amounts.  This is not good, but not a situation where everybody on Social Security gets nothing, which is the scenario the doomsayers put out there.

The bad news continues to be the Disability Fund.

 Congress must act to shore up the trust fund for disability benefits, which is still projected for depletion in just three years.

but a relatively small amount of general financing should do the job unless of course Conservatives, whose position is that people who cannot afford to have disabilities should not choose to get them, prevail.

Also everyone should remember that these are point estimates, the expected value of a probability distribution of the models that project revenues and expenses.  So in the real world, the one everyone lives in these estimates are probably going to be wrong.  We just don’t know in which direction they will be wrong. 

So stay tuned for next year’s numbers, and the year after that and the year after that . . .  When the systems do exhaust their funds we’ll let you know.

A Rare Criticism of Nobel Economist Paul Krugman – He is in Toronto Debating Newt Gingrich

But Why?  - Mr. Gingrich is Ignorant of Even Basic Economics

There is very little to find fault with Paul Krugman.  The Nobel winning Economist and opinion writer for the New York Times has been almost completely accurate in his assessment of economic policy that led up to the Great Recession and his analysis of policy that was implemented both in the United States and Europe in response to the Great Recession.  But even Mr. Krugman apparently has his blind spots.

May 30, 2013, 12:04 pm 

Travel Eh

In Toronto to debate with Newt Gingrich (I guess John Lithgow wasn’t available), so no time for posting. Service probably won’t resume until late afternoon tomorrow.

It is impossible to understand why Mr. Krugman is doing this?  Mr. Gingrich is a total lightweight, a person of almost no knowledge of basic economics, an individual who says what his emotions and political philosophy tell him to say regardless of the relationship of those thoughts to the real world.  There is no argument that Mr. Gingrich can make in disagreement with Mr. Krugman that would have any credibility. For him to debate Mr. Krugman is a non-event, a meaningless activity, a waste of Mr. Krugman’s time.

So why do it?