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Donald and Sarah Barnstorm Iowa

Mother Jones

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Oh God. I know I shouldn’t do this. I know I shouldn’t post snippets from Sarah Palin’s endorsement speech for Donald Trump just because they amuse me. But I’m weak. So, so weak. Can you find it in your hearts to forgive me? Please please please? Thanks. Here goes:

On national security: I’m in it, because just last week, we’re watching our sailors suffer and be humiliated on a world stage at the hands of Iranian captors in violation of international law, because a weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief has decided America will lead from behind. And he, who would negotiate deals, kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, “No, America would apologize as part of the deal,” as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, “Thank you, enemy.”

Ed note: Actually, our sailors violated Iranian waters and were released after 16 hours. Nobody in the Obama administration apologized for anything.

On Islam: Are you ready for a commander-in-chief, you ready for a commander-in-chief who will let our warriors do their job and go kick ISIS ass?….And you quit footin’ the bill for these nations who are oil-rich, we’re paying for some of their squirmishes that have been going on for centuries. Where they’re fightin’ each other and yellin’ “Allah Akbar” calling Jihad on each other’s heads for ever and ever. Like I’ve said before, let them duke it out and let Allah sort it out.

Ed note: Um, which is it? Is Trump going to kick ISIS ass or is he going to withdraw and let Allah sort it out?

On Donald Trump’s family values: Oh, I just hope you guys get to know him more and more as a person, and a family man. What he’s been able to accomplish, with his um, it’s kind of this quiet generosity. Yeah, maybe his largess kind of, I don’t know, some would say gets in the way of that quiet generosity, and, uh, his compassion, but if you know him as a person and you’ll get to know him more and more, you’ll have even more respect.

Ed note: Actually, Trump married a model; started an affair with a younger actress; dumped the model; married the actress; started an affair with an even younger model; dumped the actress; and then married model #2. There’s no telling how long this one will last.

On Trump’s fiscal rectitude: He, being an optimist, passionate about equal-opportunity to work. The self-made success of his, you know that he doesn’t get his power, his high, off of OPM, other people’s money, like a lot of dopes in Washington do. They’re addicted to OPM, where they take other people’s money, and then their high is getting to redistribute it, right?

Ed note: Actually, Donald Trump loves other people’s money. That’s why he’s been involved in no less than four bankruptcies: because he borrowed lots of other people’s money and then squandered it.

On her future career as a hip hop artist:

No, we’re not going to chill. In fact it’s time to drill, baby, drill down.
Cops and cooks, you rockin’ rollers and holy rollers!
Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religion….Tell us that we’re not red enough?
Yes the status quo has got to go….Their failed agenda, it can’t be salvaged. It must be savaged.
The main thing, the main thing, and he knows the main thing….He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge.

Ed note: Not bad! Let Dre produce and she might have something here.

OK, that should hold me for another year or so.

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Donald and Sarah Barnstorm Iowa

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Should Bernie Sanders Support Reparations?

Mother Jones

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A few days ago, someone asked Bernie Sanders if he supported the payment of reparations to African-Americans. He said he didn’t—and then, as with every other subject he’s asked about, used it as a springboard to talk about the “real issue” of poverty and income inequality. Ta-Nehisi Coates was pretty unimpressed:

Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform….Sanders is a lot of things, many of them good. But he is not the candidate of moderation and unification, so much as the candidate of partisanship and radicalism….Sanders should be directly confronted and asked why his political imagination is so active against plutocracy, but so limited against white supremacy.

Coates is unhappy that Sanders is so reticent about reparations, but this strikes me as an odd criticism. A couple of years ago Coates famously wrote an Atlantic article titled “The Case for Reparations,” and after reading it I concluded that he was reticent about reparations too. He certainly made the case that black labor and wealth had been plundered by whites for centuries—something that few people deny anymore—but when it came time to talk about concrete restitution for this, he tap danced gingerly. Here are the relevant paragraphs:

Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “appropriate remedies.”

….Scholars have long discussed methods by which America might make reparations to those on whose labor and exclusion the country was built. In the 1970s, the Yale Law professor Boris Bittker argued…$34 billion….Today Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School professor, argues for something broader: a program of job training and public works that takes racial justice as its mission but includes the poor of all races.

….Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely….What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.

What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.

If you say “reparations,” an ordinary person will almost certainly understand it in a very specific way: A disbursement of money to blacks to atone for slavery and its aftermath. But despite the provocative title of his piece, Coates never squarely endorses this. Instead, he suggests we pass a bill that would study slavery. He writes approvingly of Ogletree’s proposal for job training and public works. And he wants a “full acceptance” of our past along with a “national reckoning” about its consequences.

I’m not being coy when I say that after I read this, I couldn’t tell whether or not Coates supported reparations in the sense that most people understand them. And since I’m sure that’s the sense in which Bernie Sanders was answering the question, I’m not quite sure what Coates is criticizing here. To my ear, Sanders sounded a lot like Ogletree, who Coates seems to have no problem with. So what’s his problem with Sanders?

POSTSCRIPT: Since someone is bound to ask, I don’t support reparations myself because I don’t think they would do any good. But maybe I’m wrong. I can be convinced otherwise.

And if I am wrong, I’ve never thought that practical considerations are an insurmountable obstacle. A simple solution is to try to roughly equalize black and white net worth, which would require payment of about $50,000 to every black person in the country. That would be expensive but affordable over a course of 10 or 20 years. Nor would the supposedly sticky subject of “who’s black?” be all that difficult. About 95 percent of the cases would be easy, and the rest would go to an arbitration panel of some kind. The arbitration might be messy, but it would hardly be the first time we’ve done something like this.

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Should Bernie Sanders Support Reparations?

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The Real Republican Problem Is an Appallingly Shallow Bench

Mother Jones

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For what it’s worth, I want to toss out a theory of what’s happening in this year’s GOP primary. Basically, there’s no Mitt Romney or John McCain.

Here’s what I mean. In the past two cycles, Republicans have offered us Snow White and the Seven Loons. In 2008 the loons were Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Fred Thomson, Rudy Giuliani, Alan Keyes, and some other also-rans. In 2012 it was Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and a few others. Both of these primaries were clown shows, but in both cases there was one savior: John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

This year the saviors were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, but both have turned out to be horrible candidates. Rubio is a little better on the campaign trail, but he doesn’t have the gravitas to unite the middle of the party behind him. So that leaves us with the loons. Donald Trump is currently leading the loon pack, but honestly, it could have been anyone. Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, Chris Christie. They all have loon appeal, but not quite as much as Trump (so far, anyway).

It just goes to show that Mitt Romney was a better candidate than we gave him credit for. He was too stiff and too rich, but he had presidential credibility; he was able to subdue the loon pack; he chose a non-loon as running mate; and he ran a fairly decent non-loon campaign against Obama. He didn’t win, but just imagine how much worse any of the others would have done.

So the big story isn’t so much Trump as it is the failure of the Republican Party to field even a single decent mainstream candidate. The Democrats aren’t much better, but at least they have one. The truth is that both parties seem to have an appallingly shallow bench. I don’t quite know why, but to me that’s a bigger story than Trump. He’s just the latest clown in a party full of them.

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The Real Republican Problem Is an Appallingly Shallow Bench

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George Washington’s Cakemaker Gets the Boot

Mother Jones

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From the New York Times:

Scholastic Publishing said on Sunday that it would halt distribution of a children’s picture book about George Washington and his enslaved household cook amid an outcry over its visual depiction of the former president’s slaves as happy, smiling workers.

….“We do not believe this title meets the standards of appropriate presentation of information to younger children, despite the positive intentions and beliefs of the author, editor and illustrator,” it said in a statement. While defending the team that produced the book, the publisher said that without more historical background, “the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn.”

I find this whole episode pretty astonishing. How did Scholastic not realize that a whole lot of people were going to find this inappropriate and offensive? It took me about two seconds, and I’m not notably steeped in sensitivity toward racial portrayals.

More generally, is it ever appropriate to depict American slaves in children’s books like this? I doubt it. Presenting the reality of slavery is a bit much for 7-year-olds. But sanding down the reality is wrong too. All it does is provide a vague misconception that has to be unlearned later. I’m not really sure there’s a middle ground that works well for very young readers.

Maybe some of the parents and schoolteachers reading this will have other opinions. Is there any reasonable way to present slavery in books for young children? And what’s the age when you can start to present something at least modestly realistic? Comments are open.

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George Washington’s Cakemaker Gets the Boot

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Bernie Sanders Releases Outline of Universal Health Care Plan—And It’s Pretty Good

Mother Jones

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With only moments to go before tonight’s Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders has finally dropped his universal health care plan. Exciting! I imagine that Team Clinton is poring over it pretty carefully right about now. Here’s what he says it does:

Bernie’s plan will cover the entire continuum of health care, from inpatient to outpatient care; preventive to emergency care; primary care to specialty care, including long-term and palliative care; vision, hearing and oral health care; mental health and substance abuse services; as well as prescription medications, medical equipment, supplies, diagnostics and treatments….As a patient, all you need to do is go to the doctor and show your insurance card. Bernie’s plan means no more copays, no more deductibles and no more fighting with insurance companies when they fail to pay for charges.

….Under this plan, a family of four earning $50,000 would pay just $466 per year to the single-payer program, amounting to a savings of over $5,800 for that family each year.

Well, that sure sounds good. And I’m all in favor of universal health care. But I’m also curious about how he’s going to provide comprehensive care like this with no payment by patients at all and at such a low cost. Here are his basic claims:

He will raise $630 billion by increasing the employer part of the payroll tax by 6.2 percent.
He will raise $220 billion via a 2.2 percent progressive income tax on everyone (he calls it a “premium”).
He will raise $548 billion in various taxes on the rich along with the end of current tax breaks that subsidize health care
That’s a total of $1.4 trillion
Current public spending on health care (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) runs around $1.2 trillion.
This means that Sanders is figuring that under his plan total national health care spending will be about $2.6 trillion.

This is considerably less than the $3 trillion we spend now, and Sanders also says that his plan will keep spending growth down. This accounts for his claim that his plan will reduce total national spending on health care by $6 trillion over ten years.

So is this credible? It’s close. His taxes will probably raise about what he says. I’m not sure that he can reduce spending as dramatically as he hopes, but he can probably reduce it some. In other words, his sums might not add up perfectly, but they’re pretty close.

If there’s anything to criticize, it’s his statement that the average family of four will pay only $466 per year. The problem here is that while his payroll tax might come from employers, it will end up being paid for by workers—just as existing employer health plans are ultimately paid for by workers. That would cost his family of four about $3,100, putting their total at around $3,600. And if you figure that Sanders is being optimistic about cost savings and will probably need to raise taxes more than he says, our family’s total bill probably clocks in at around $4,000.

That’s still not bad. An average family pays a whole lot more than that right now via employer health coverage and copays. There’s a wee bit of smoke and mirrors here—counting employer plans when he talks about savings but not counting employer taxes when he talks about costs—but that’s a small thing. Overall, his numbers are pretty honest.

As for the details of exactly how the plan would work, I don’t know. The document on Sanders’ website doesn’t say much about that. I assume there’s another document somewhere, or maybe more to come. Stay tuned.

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Bernie Sanders Releases Outline of Universal Health Care Plan—And It’s Pretty Good

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An Update on the Yosemite Park Trademark Dispute

Mother Jones

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I wrote a post yesterday about a New York company that claims it owns the trademark to various locations at Yosemite National Park. Based on the story I read, this seemed obviously outrageous, and that was the tone I took.

But that was probably wrong. I ended up looking into this issue a little more deeply, and it turns out that the whole thing goes back several years and is actually a fairly pedestrian contract dispute. Here’s a quick outline of what happened:

In 1993, the National Park Service put up the concessions at Yosemite for bid. The winner was Delaware North, which was required to buy the assets of the Curry Company as part of the deal. This included the Ahwahnee Hotel, Camp Curry, and several other pieces of property.
In July 2014 the concessions were once again put up for bid. The winning bidder would be required to pay Delaware North fair market value for the assets it owned, which included real property such as the Ahwahnee and Camp Curry, as well as “other property.”
The Park Service initially valued the “other property” at $22 million. In December 2014 it increased its valuation to $30 million, which included an estimate of $3.5 million for intangible property. Of this, $1.63 million covered trademarks and other intellectual property.
Delaware North disagreed with this assessment. It valued “other property” at about $100 million, which included an estimate of $51 million for intangible property. Of this, $44 million covered trademarks and other intellectual property.
Delaware North filed a protest with the GAO over the Park Service valuation, but in April 2015 the GAO dismissed the protest.
June 2015 Aramark won the Yosemite contract.
In September 2015 Delaware North took the case to court.

And that’s pretty much where we stand today. It turns out there’s nothing inherently outrageous about Delaware North owning some of these trademarks, as even the Park Service admits. “We have not denied the fact that they do own intellectual property,” said Scott Gediman, a spokesman for Yosemite National Park. “But with these trademarks, it’s kind of two issues: One, are these trademarks valid, and, two, what is the value of them?” So this is a pretty routine contract dispute. Which trademarks are legit and which aren’t? Did Delaware North acquire these trademarks “surreptitiously” or with the knowledge of the Park Service? And how much are they worth? Delaware North says they’re worth $44 million. The Park Service says they’re worth $1.63 million. The issue is now in court, and Delaware North says it has offered to allow Aramark free use of the trademarks until the dispute is settled. Yesterday, however, the Park Service announced that it would simply rename everything and make the case moot.

It’s quite possible that Delaware North’s valuation is absurdly high. That’s my guess, since the value of these trademarks is mostly due to being attached to Yosemite Park, not to anything special that Delaware North has done to create or exploit them. But I’m no lawyer and I don’t know. That’s for a court to decide.

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An Update on the Yosemite Park Trademark Dispute

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Friday Cat Blogging – 15 January 2016

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A few days ago Marian went out to buy some new cat toys because, you know, a couple dozen clearly wasn’t enough. You can see her haul below, all with nice, fresh tails. Once the tails come off—which doesn’t take long—they’re no fun anymore. But you can’t please everyone. Hilbert looks like he’s saying “What? That’s all? I jumped all the way onto the counter just for this?”

In other cat news, my sister points us to this YouTube video of a cat invading a Liverpool-Spurs soccer match. It’s three years old, but who’s counting?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 15 January 2016

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Come On, Folks, Give Nikki Haley a Break

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My Twitter feed has been alight with mockery of the latest from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley: “We’ve never, in the history of this country, passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion,” she said at a press conference today. What an idiot!

But, you know, always click the link. Here’s the full quote:

When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion. Let’s not start that now.

This still isn’t quite correct: After World War I a series of immigration restrictions were passed that explicitly favored northern European whites; limited immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans; and banned Asian immigrants almost entirely. Still, Haley can be forgiven for not knowing this. It’s not especially common knowledge these days. In any case, she obviously wasn’t pretending that Jim Crow and its ilk never existed.

So let’s dial down the faux outrage. Haley was doing the Lord’s work here, criticizing Donald Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the country. In fact, given the context, she might have meant to refer not to immigrants at all, but merely to people visiting the country on ordinary visas—in which case she didn’t really say anything wrong at all. Either way, though, she did nothing worse than betray an incomplete knowledge of American history while talking off the cuff. It’s hardly a big deal.

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Come On, Folks, Give Nikki Haley a Break

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Iran Releases American Sailors

Mother Jones

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Am I the only who senses that conservatives are pretty disappointed that Iran released our sailors quickly and without any fuss? Maybe I’m just being hypersensitive….

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Iran Releases American Sailors

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Let’s Give Mark Zuckerberg a Break, OK?

Mother Jones

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Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he will use 99 percent of his wealth for charitable purposes has generated a surprising amount of acrimony. I don’t really get why. Anyone who looks into it for more than a few seconds understands that the financial structure he set up doesn’t benefit him personally, so there’s no point griping about that. Nor does it make a lot of sense to make Zuckerberg into a poster boy for income inequality. There are lots of better examples. Josh Barro identifies the only real concern about Zuckerberg’s plan:

The bigger issue is the promise: to use nearly all his wealth “to further the mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality.”….This is, to a large degree, subjective. Most political donors believe their favored candidates benefit not just themselves but the public, and essentially all start-up founders in Silicon Valley believes their companies will serve to advance human potential. Even donations that fit within the legal framework of charity can be duds: Mr. Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to the Newark Public Schools seems to have done little to benefit Newark students.

Well, yeah. There’s no way to force Zuckerberg or anyone else to give their money away. There’s no way to force to them to give it away on projects you approve of. There’s no way to guarantee that all their donations will work out well. That’s life, and Zuckerberg is no better or worse than any other billionaire on these scores. Still, the mere fact of announcing that he plans to give away 99 percent of his wealth is praiseworthy, isn’t it? He’s putting himself under pressure to follow through and setting an example for others at the same time. What’s not to like?

As for the fact that he wants to oversee what the money is spent on instead of, say, giving it all to the Red Cross—well, I’d do the same thing. Wouldn’t you?

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Let’s Give Mark Zuckerberg a Break, OK?

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