Pick a number

The art of data denial

The United States economy has climbed out of the hole created by the Great Recession and the Obama Administration has presided over an unbroken string of increasing job numbers lasting more than five years. I commented on this accomplishment and posted an illustration summarizing the data.

This did not sit well with one of my Facebook “friends,” who promptly took me to task:

Really, you are smarter than this BS!

It's a puzzlement how many people assure me I'm smart while insisting I'm also stupid. I asked my accuser how I had gone astray when my evidence-based conclusion was supported by the published numbers. She didn't hesitate:

Evidence that can be changed or tampered with. Too easy to make things look good for the moment!

Ah, yes. We must question authority and doubt the data. No doubt she took comfort in 2012 from the “poll correcters” who disdained the conclusions of the professional pollsters that President Obama was heading toward reelection. Remember them? (I'm sure folks in the Romney campaign do.)

I shared a story with my data doubter, explaining to her that data tampering in this context is a myth. It doesn't happen. Perhaps that sounds like simple-minded credulity, but I actually know what I'm talking about.

Once upon a time I worked for a state agency that was responsible for the annual computation and publication of the California Necessities Index. The CNI had been adopted by the legislature as the standard for indexing public assistance benefits (mostly because, at the time, it was lower than the Consumer Price Index). I was the person within the agency who was assigned to perform the actual computation, since I was the closest thing to a staff mathematician.

My father was amused by this situation and jokingly suggested it would be nice if I shaved off a fraction of a percentage point, thus denying full benefits to welfare cheats (most of the people on public assistance, in Dad's proto-tea-party view of the world). Contrariwise, I could have been a benefactor to California's destitute and downtrodden by judiciously rounding up the factors of the CNI, giving them an unexpected windfall. We could tamper with the numbers!

No. The very notion was ridiculous, as well as impossible. The components of the CNI were public information, factors selected from the published data for the CPI. Anyone could look up the factors that went into the CPI, apply the weights stipulated for the CNI, and derive the number. My role was simply a formality, providing the number that appeared in our agency's publications to make it official, pursuant to state law. Well before we published the number, the governor's Department of Finance had done its own independent calculation, as had the Legislative Analyst's Office and anyone else who needed the index number or was just curious about it.

The same thing is largely true of the numbers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The worker bees of the federal government compile the monthly data each month, analyze the figures, and publish the summary information. The monthly unemployment rate, for example, is not vetted, suggested, or even approved by the White House. The faceless bureaucrats who crunch the numbers for the Obama Administration did the same exact thing when Bush was president (and, for some of these civil servants, they did it under both Bushes). They have no more control over the conclusions or final numbers than I did when I was a California civil servant. (It's popular within the right wing these days to decry unemployment data as unrepresentative of the “truth” because the usual unemployment number is deemed to have fallen when people just give up and stop seeking jobs. If they think the U3 measure published by the BLS is insufficiently informative, they are welcome to cite U6, which the BLS also publishes. You want numbers? Go to the BLS. They publish practically everything and the numbers aren't fudged.)

Data denial is a fundamental component of the refusal to recognize global-warming induced climate change. Data denial is also currently hard at work in California, giving aid and comfort to people paranoid about vaccinations, who pick and choose among an Internet stew of “research” and anecdotes to bolster their arguments that vaccines are more dangerous than now-rare childhood diseases (rare because of vaccines!).

If you want your conclusions to be rational and evidence-based, you have to avoid the denial of well-established data. We have seen, however, that even the most robust numbers are rejected when they get in the way of political ideologies.

Happy Nixon Resignation Day!

Pretending to draw lessons

It's the 40th anniversary of the resignation of our much-unloved 37th president, the only one of the nation's chief executives to have departed in this manner. Therefore it's natural to look back on Nixon's shameful example and attempt to draw lessons that we might usefully apply today. Of course, if you're a right-wing pundit you might prefer to distort things beyond all recognition as you declare that Nixon's crimes are ever-so-similar to what Barack Obama is currently doing. Here's how Ben Boychuk does it:

Public opinion all but guaranteed Nixon’s impeachment and ouster 40 years ago. Public opinion all but guarantees Barack Obama won’t be impeached today....

Whether Obama deserves impeachment is another matter. Here Nixon’s case remains instructive.

Cue the imaginary scandals!

Nixon broke his oath of office. He disregarded “his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He “repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens.” In particular, Nixon used the IRS, the FBI and the Secret Service to harass and punish his political enemies, alleged the second of three articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved in 1974....

Perhaps the same could be said of Obama. His IRS singled out tea party and other conservative groups for excessive scrutiny, although nobody so far has managed to turn up the proverbial “smoking gun” linking the president to those abuses.

That's right. Boychuk is flogging the multiply-discredited “IRS scandal,” neglecting its origins in the cherry-picked factoids disseminated by the deliberately dishonest Darryl Issa. As a result of a deluge of new political groups claiming 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status, the IRS gave a lot of attention to so-called “tea party” groups—and liberal groups, too, though you wouldn't hear that from mission-driven Issa.

Obama has been lax, at best, about taking care that “the laws be faithfully executed.” From waivers to the Affordable Care Act’s mandates for unions and politically connected businesses to invoking “prosecutorial discretion” to exempt 1 million illegal immigrants from deportation, Obama has pushed executive authority to the limit.

Now the president is mulling an executive order that could, in effect, grant amnesty to some 6 million illegal immigrants. Yet the Constitution clearly reserves the power of “naturalization” to Congress, not the president. Does that matter anymore?

Boychuk spins the notion of “waivers” from the ACA as if they are exemptions handed out as political favors, rather than executive decisions based on easing the implementation process (something President Bush also did for Medicare Part D and which the Supreme Court deems within the president's executive authority).

Note also Boychuk's invocation of the N-word: naturalization. Whether or not Obama issues executive orders affecting the status of undocumented residents, he will certainly not be offering them “naturalization,” which entails citizenship and voting rights. That, however, is what Boychuk wants to imply, causing tea-partiers to clutch their pearls and swoon. Given complete inaction by the House of Representatives while a continuing crisis percolates on our southern border, the president will have to act without the assistance of the derelict legislative branch. It is well within his authority to declare that no one will be denied due process and summarily deported.

Although Boychuk claims that the president is pushing his authority “to the limit,” it is an obvious and necessary perquisite of his position to set priorities. Shall we haul the so-called Dreamers into court and prosecute them as illegally residing in the country where they've spent their lives since childhood and deport them back to native lands many of them don't even remember because of their youth when their parents brought them across the border? The Department of Justice has enough to keep it busy without also taking on foolish and unfair prosecutions of life-long residents.

Violating the oath of office? Usurping congressional authority? Using the might of the presidency against political foes? Not trivialities. Or, at least they weren’t 40 years ago.

And they're not trivial today, either. They're merely nonexistent.

It's the law!

Can't anybody here play this game?

My lack of interest in sports is well-nigh complete. Please don't bother making small talk with me by asking whether I “saw the game last night.” Nevertheless, even I remember Casey Stengel's lament about his wretched New York Mets: “Can't anybody here play this game?” Stengel's question sometimes echoes in my head whenever I see another fumble by the Obama administration. (Yeah, I know: “fumble” is football. Did you forget that I don't care?)

Obama and company could stand to be a little more aggressive in the face of constant carping, petty backbiting, and outright lies. The president has been largely content to allow tea-stained critics to denounce him for “lying” about his statements that the Affordable Care Act would allow individuals to keep health insurance plans they liked. A little push-back would have been a good thing, instead of stoically accepting so much abuse and then apologizing.

In particular, I'm thinking Obama should have cited chapter and verse from the healthcare reform legislation itself. Yes, the measure is big and unwieldy (and Republicans like to pretend that no one knew what was in it despite months of delays and debates), but it's not impossible to look things up if you have specific questions. Have you ever read Sec. 1251? Did you even know it exists? Check it out:

SEC. 1251. PRESERVATION OF RIGHT TO MAINTAIN EXISTING COVERAGE.

(a) NO CHANGES TO EXISTING COVERAGE.
    (1) IN GENERAL.—Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.
    (2) CONTINUATION OF COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act, this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply to such plan or coverage, regardless of whether the individual renews such coverage after such date of enactment.

(b) ALLOWANCE FOR FAMILY MEMBERS TO JOIN CURRENT COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act and which is renewed after such date, family members of such individual shall be permitted to enroll in such plan or coverage if such enrollment is permitted under the terms of the plan in effect as of such date of enactment.

(c) ALLOWANCE FOR NEW EMPLOYEES TO JOIN CURRENT PLAN.—A group health plan that provides coverage on the date of enactment of this Act may provide for the enrolling of new employees (and their families) in such plan, and this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply with respect to such plan and such new employees (and their families).

That's right. The provisions of the healthcare act expressly establish a person's right to keep a health plan! The language is clear and explicit. In what way, then, did the president lie? Why, then, are people losing their current plans despite Sec. 1251?

Simple. Nothing forces the insurance companies to continue to offer those plans. Sec. 1251 has an invisible and unanticipated qualification: You can keep your current plan if your insurance company doesn't cancel it! The Obama administration cared enough to put the language of Sec. 1251 in the bill, but it failed to anticipate how many insurance companies would use the measure's enactment as an excuse for immediate cancellation of plans that don't meet Obamacare standards. Are we grandfathered in for a period of time? Who cares? We insurance companies sure don't!

Perhaps the president needs a little help in rebutting his critics, but it's probably too late for him to deliver the following short speech I just drafted:

My fellow Americans, you have heard many critics accusing me of having lied to you when I said, ‘If you like your health plan you can keep your health plan.’ Most of them know that accusation is false. In fact, that provision was expressly written into the Affordable Care Act. I quote word-for-word from Section 1251: ‘Nothing in this Act ... shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.’ So what happened? I'll tell you. Many insurance companies decided to cancel policies anyway, abandoning their clients despite the fact that the Affordable Care Act does not require it. Perhaps healthcare reform needed more mandates rather than fewer, but we did not require insurance companies to maintain their existing policies during the transition period. We should have been stricter.

Let me remind you again that nothing in the Affordable Care Act requires anyone to terminate a current health plan that does not initially meet the requirements of healthcare reform. They were grandfathered in. Unfortunately, the many people who were tossed aside by their insurance companies have not had ready access to a fully functioning health care website in order to seek out their most affordable alternatives. We are committed, however, to rectifying the situation and improvements are being made every day. We will stay the course and get the job done. In the meantime, whenever you hear someone screaming about the supposed lies and failings of healthcare reform, be sure to ask them what they are doing to help, besides just making baseless accusations. Thank you.

The GOP wants you!

In your place, of course

When the August recess arrives, members of congress will (in most cases) return to their districts to ingratiate themselves with the constituents who will be deciding their fates in November's general election. Naturally enough, many of them look to the organs of their political parties for support in this endeavor. We recently learned that the House Republican Conference has the backs of the GOP representatives in congress, providing them with a 31-page manual for maximizing their effectiveness during the crucial days of August. The manual is titled Fighting Washington for All Americans, which clearly implies that the Republicans have nothing to do with Washington (“doing nothing” is arguably true) and that voters must choose Republicans to fix all of the things that Republicans have wrecked in the last several years (like the economy and employment).

Fighting Washington is replete with the sort of subtle and sophisticated strategies that you would expect from the party of Boehner, especially when it comes to outreach techniques that bring women and minorities into the fold. (The “fold,” as with sheep, right?) Since each picture is worth a thousand words, let's take a look at the most eloquent part of the Republican play book. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for women in leadership positions and black and brown people in any role at all. (Hint: These latter appear almost as often as Waldo.) First, though, the textual preamble.

The women do at least start off strong in the text, where the one-named “Cathy” (like “Cher,” I presume) provides a full-page introduction whose third paragraph is

We know that Washington is broken. It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources and makes our health care crisis worse. Our government is out of control.

A killer argument. (Don't forget now: The GOP has nothing to do with Washington's failures.) On the next page, Republican House members are exhorted to submit op-ed pieces to their local print media. A complete sample draft is provided for Republicans too dim to write their own. What's the lead? This:

As we conclude another busy legislative session in Washington, I look forward to working hard at home for the month of August. Each day I am grateful for the opportunity to represent you in our nation’s capital because Washington is broken and needs to be fixed.

It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe and punishes them for their political ideologies. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources, and makes our health care crisis worse.

Washington is out of control.

Hey, if it works on the members themselves, why shouldn't it also work on their dim constituents?

Let us now consider the importance of ginning up support from those “potentially targeted by the IRS.” This is ideal, because everyone is at least potentially subject to enhanced IRS scrutiny. One may as well start with the biggest real-life bogeyman of them all!

Check out the IRS's potential victims. That could be a token woman in the pink shirt, with her back toward us. The pants aren't very feminine, though, so we can't be certain. At least youth is represented by the teenage boy in the far corner. No doubt the revenuers are threatening his 501(c)(3) organization. Fortunately, the authority figure of the balding middle-aged man is present to instruct them on anti-IRS self-defense.

We can make a smooth segue from the IRS to the dangers of ObamaCare, which —as we all know—is merely a way to let the tax people threaten our health just as they do our wealth. The scruffy and rumpled doctor needs to be warned that the Obama administration's obsession over drug abuse (they really are rather over the top there) will threaten his easy access to prescription drugs for his recreational use (or energy boosts during long hours on duty in our understaffed socialist health system). That might be a woman there in the back, wearing purplish-blue and framed against a window. No doubt this is subliminal messaging that lets women know they're not entirely forgotten (just mostly ignored unless they're dangerously fertile).

A representative's constituency contains more than dissolute doctors and frightened IRS targets. To embrace the wide, wonderful world of one's district in all of its delightful diversity, organize a meetup! Be sure to salt the crowd with your hand-picked minions (“This will strengthen the conversation and take it in a direction that is most beneficial to the Member's goal.”)

This is the illustration the minions of the House Republican Conference chose to represent a typical meetup. Three white guys and one white gal. (Seen any minorities yet?) The woman is appropriately demure and quiet, listening with a docile demeanor to the guy in the middle. Observe the clasped hands of sincerity. Doesn't this look like fun?

One must be certain to use the August recess to argue in favor of people getting jobs (as distinct from actually passing job-stimulus legislation; this long-discredited socialist approach has been anathema since it was last done for the Bush administration). Fighting America—oops!—I mean Fighting Washington recommends a live YouTube Roundtable to boost jobs and fight (or at least whine) about unemployment.

As seen in the picture, a job roundtable need not be a roundtable at all. It can actually be as simple as a white guy haranguing people who are trying to have lunch in a cheap diner in an unidentified war zone. See the pensive lady in this one? (She's wondering if she's getting paid enough for this soul-killing posing job.)

Did you know that the Republicans favor family leave? It's another perfect topic for a roundtable! Your Republican representative can single the praises of the Working Families Flexibility Act, which empowers employers to rearrange your hours so as to avoid overtime pay. But don't worry, if you end up working overtime anyway and don't get a chance to take compensatory time off, you will eventually get paid. (Please don't think of this delayed compensation as an interest-free loan of your wages to your employer. That doesn't sound nearly as good as “flexibility.”)

As before, no roundtable is actually necessary. It's just an expression. Since we're talking about working families, it's important to run a photo with an unambiguous female in it. There's actually three or four in this one, and the nice lady in the blue top is congratulating a morbidly obese Tea Party member on his recent eating contest victory. Note the subtle way it reminded the reader about health issues and the dread impact of ObamaCare! And a bonus: There's a black guy in the back! Hi, black guy! (We're done with you now. Bye-bye!)

It's important to never stop hitting the jobs issue. (Remember, it's all Obama's fault that no jobs measure had gotten through the House of Representatives since the GOP took control in 2011. But what else could you expect from a shiftless black guy?) But let's stay on topic. Jobs!

The compassionate conservative congressman will find time to at least shake the hands of people waiting in an unemployment line. (Most of them are overweight, so look into cutting the food-stamp program some more.) There are one, two, maybe three women in this picture. A high point!

Now on to the job fair! Representative Bucshon managed to get his job fair on the local NBC affiliate. (Time to call up the local Fox affiliate and scream threats at them. Didn't Murdoch's check clear?)

There's something funny about this video-capture photo. Notice how the mix of men and women begins to approach societal norms when a real-life event is captured? Quite a contrast to the default choices of Republican operatives. Did any of them scratch their heads and think this picture was somehow “wrong” and out of place in their play book? I guess they decided to use it to please Rep. Bucshon. But it is a little jarring. (Hey! Is that a minority in the back? Or is he only in a shadow?)

The Republicans have a big demographic problem. Not only do minorities refuse to vote for them, so do most young people. But never fear! Having recognized this deficiency in their recruitment program, the GOP is highlighting the predatory impact of ObamaCare, which will force millennials to pay for healthcare while they're young and healthy, thus helping Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa to stay alive while the youngsters could be using that cash to improve the quality of their partying. Vile redistributionist policies! If young people can be inveigled into destroying ObamaCare today, they can live happier, wealthier lives right now and not be concerned about it till much, much later (which is another matter altogether and not part of the current discussion).

Oh, look! Helping young people understand the wickedness of ObamaCare apparently involves old white-haired guys giving a talk to groups of young, pretty, nubile females. Hey, man, do you really want a camera in the room? (Oh, okay. I hadn't thought of that.) Big progress, though, for female representation in Fighting Washington. We have three young women listening submissively to an older man (just as God intended).

I know from personal experience that farmers love the Republican Party. It appears to make no sense, but they do. (Something about rugged individualism and subsidies for agribusiness.) Certainly the GOP will not fail to address farm issues during the August recess.

As we all know, women have nothing to do with agriculture. Neither do minorities. They're just no good at it (unless, of course, they're under the supervision of an overseer).

Much of the same is true with energy production. That's an engineering problem, and there's the rub. Women don't like hard hats because they muss their hair. The GOP understands this.

Also, there are no young or minority engineers. Get over it if you don't like it. The Republicans accept reality just the way it is!

Hey! Just one doggone minute here! Where did that picture of award-winning black engineering students from Clarkson come from? (It sure wasn't from Fighting Washington, I'll tell you that much!)

Sorry. We got a little off-topic there. Let's turn instead to the GOP's concerns about fuel and food. According to the GOP play book, the August recess should be used to tour gas stations and grocery stores (with the members acting like they've actually been in those places in recent years and not just during childhood). After making sure that the station owners and grocers “are comfortable with the overall messaging them” (that is, ensuring that these people understand that Obama is evil incarnate and responsible for all their problems), the congressman can stage a series of events where he stops off at each business to decry the horrible things Obama has done for them while the owner nods and/or wrings his hands.

This is yet another occasion where womenfolk are irrelevant. When it comes to grocery shopping or gassing up the car, all you need is a couple of white guys. Message received!

Another good topic is higher education, where you can address major concerns like student loans (and the importance of letting interest rates fall too low), lack of available jobs (because of Obama's destruction of the economy during 2008, before he was president), workforce training (which community colleges should provide more efficiently to compensate for budget cuts imposed by Republican governors), and keeping education affordable (see “student loans” and “workforce training” again).

And what says “higher education” more than a white guy lecturing at a white audience? Nothing, of course! (It is just possible that an Asian or two has slipped into this group, but that's okay because Asians are a good minority. Especially in math class.)

It's not enough to tour through farms, warehouses, gas stations, and schools, of course. You have to get out there among the little people. Like the good, honest folk who work in mom-and-pop outfits in strip malls that GOP policies are putting out of business via tax breaks to more efficient megacorporations with off-shore labor forces (where the miracle of the unfettered free market enable young people to find employment opportunities that would be denied them in the US [at least until they are teenagers]).

For a common touch, wear jeans under your sports coat. Commoners will relate to that. It's not clear that women were required in this picture, but perhaps they do the cleaning up. They seem friendly enough to their oppressor, suggesting that it must be hard cider in those plastic jugs. The wine is probably another reliable sales item in depressed economic sectors.

Republicans hate red tape (except when it comes to regulating abortion clinics), so  naturally Fighting Washington suggests yet another roundtable discussion on government over-regulation. A congressman can wander into a convenient factory and bring production to a total halt while he delivers a sermonette on the importance of efficiency through deregulation. He can demonstrate this by refusing to wear a safety vest while lecturing the employees.

If he lives through the experience, he can then visit a senior citizen center, part of his reliable support base as he promises to protect Social Security and Medicare from his party's policies.

The woman in the picture is just posing. She's got her flag pin on her lapel and is probably an example of the female of the Republican congressional representative species. She's a nice lady and probably won't be pushing the old man down the escalator in the background after the camera goes away. Legislation takes longer, but has fewer fingerprints.

When a GOP member of congress gets tired of going walkabout on these various roundtable tours, he can always cede the heavy lifting to local talk-radio hosts. Most of them are always willing to carry water for the GOP. You can read almost any dreck you like from cue cards cut from the party platform (or Fighting Washington!) and they'll run with it. They already feed their listeners several hours every day of right-wing cant. Rest assured that they know your talking points even better than you do!

This photo depicts a model talk-radio station. See the man's arm in the lower-left corner? He's undoubtedly the guy who has the cut-off switch in case the female host is having her time of month and goes off the reservation.

Broadcast media are dominant these days, but it's important not to neglect the surviving print media, which can be important in certain key demographics (like the old people who subscribe so they can keep up with Peanuts). Remember that op-ed stuff. You can get newspapers to run articles that align with your interest if you schmooze sufficiently ingratiatingly with the paper's editorial board.

As shown in the picture, modern editorial boards are made up exclusively of old white guys. These people are the GOP's core constituency and hardly even need an excuse to pitch their stories the way the local congressman would like.

Townhall meetings are lot like roundtables and all the previous tips and rules apply. Don't forget to salt the audience with shills who have the questions you'd prefer to answer. Get free media from your minions inside talk radio and newspaper editorial boards. Then you're on solid ground.

If you're a member of congress who wants to impress people at a townhall meeting, don't leave your visual aids immobile on an easel. Wave them around. That makes it harder to read anything that they can reconsider later, but people will remember your passion. Also, if you have an assistant with a semi-dark complexion, tell people he's of Indian descent (like Bobby Jindal!) and not Mexican (which will make people think he's illegal, or at least his parents were). Call him “Raj” or “Apu.” These are media-tested acceptable exotic names and will make your audience give themselves credit for their fake open-mindedness.

Republican candidates who learn the lessons of Blighting—I mean, Fighting Washington can be certain to reap the votes of their palest and most gullible constituents. Their success will continue until the dwindling supply of such constituents reaches a certain critical level. Fighting Washington is Exhibit A in the argument that the Republican establishment thinks that critical level is many cycles away.

Please prove them wrong in 2014.

Restoring the Voting Rights Act

What happens next (or should)

The Supreme Court wobbles from side to side in its rulings, notoriously gutting the Voting Rights Act the day before it similarly eviscerated the Defense of Marriage Act. Apparently ensuring that people get to vote is unimportant while expanding the right to marry is all right. Go figure.

Chief Justice Roberts did, of course, offer a rationale for tearing the guts out of the VRA: Things are better now, so we can shut the door on intervention against vote suppression. Also, the VRA is inherently discriminatory because it singles out certain regions for heightened scrutiny.

Actually, I am nearly on board with that last item. The regional rationale for the VRA is old and certainly in need of reexamination. As Roberts phrased it, “40-year-old facts having no logical relation to the present day.” Unfortunately, Roberts and the court majority saw fit to simply strike down Sec. 4 of the VRA and set free the regions required to obtain preclearance from the Department of Justice before implementing changes in voting laws or procedures. The congress, the court blithely said, “may draft another formula based on current conditions.”

The congress. Right. And how much longer will it be before congress recovers sufficiently from its Tea Party dysfunction and begins to act like a legislative body again? The court's action and the congress's certain inaction have opened the way to the vigorous pursuit of partisan voter suppression, the current favorite hobby of Republican-controlled states. Texas and Mississippi didn't even pause for breath in the wake of the VRA decision before announcing the implementation of draconian new measures that had been previously blocked.

Now is the time for Democrats and democrats to respond vigorously to the Supreme Court action. Otherwise, new voter-suppression rules will seek to disenfranchise enough people so that right-wing rule in the red states and in the House of Representatives will be prolonged well beyond its sell date (which, frankly, must have been somewhere in 2011, a few days after Boehner became speaker).

I see a response with two major features.

Harness voter anger

Remember how Republican governors conspired with Republican legislatures to reduce early-voting hours, consolidate minority precincts, and impose voter ID requirements? While the GOP pretended to be fighting voter fraud (without ever managing to document anything significant—unless you examined their own activities), a few Republicans occasionally forgot the cover story and let the truth slip out; for example, Mike Turzai: “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done!”

The Pennsylvania law was largely blocked for the November 2012 vote and Obama beat Romney by 5.38 percentage points, or 309,840 votes. The ID law would have had to discourage approximately 310,000 Obama voters (and no Romney voters) in order to flip the result. So close!

But several voter-suppression efforts did take effect, resulting in ridiculously long lines at precincts in minority districts and waiting times of several hours before being able to cast a vote. Why didn't these measures swing a few more states in Romney's column, he being the intended beneficiary of reduced vote totals?

The answer may be relatively simple. The voter-suppression efforts were so blatantly partisan and so clearly aimed at minority voters that people got angry. No one was going to deprive them of the right to cast their ballots, so they endured the miserable delays and cast their votes as acts of defiance.

In the 2014 midterm elections, the Democratic Party should not, however, rely on anti-GOP resentment to pump up the ranks of stubborn voters. With Section 4 of the VRA struck down, many more blockades will be put in place in the Republican states. Hence the Democratic Party and Obama's Organizing for America operation need to put into high gear a broad-based voter-assistance effort that aids voters in clearing the hurdles in their way. Help them obtain personal photo IDs in those states that require them, being aware of those states where the “acceptable” IDs are strictly and narrowly defined. Provide support in insufficiently equipped precincts where Republican election officials “forget” to provide enough voting stations. Roll up support vans with food and water and folding chairs (and chemical toilets?) to help people during multi-hour vigils in long lines.

And, of course, teams of lawyers to obtain court orders and injunctions wherever necessary to mitigate the most blatant abuses. The traditional “get out the vote” efforts must be expanded by a full magnitude if it is going to trample down the GOP-imposed barriers to democratic action. This is war, baby.

Accept the Supreme Court's invitation

Yes, the House of Representatives is singularly dysfunctional and the filibuster-hobbled Senate isn't much better. Nevertheless, Democrats in both houses should introduce measures to address the demise of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. After all, the chief justice specifically invited congress to speak to the matter.

The brand-new standard should be simple and relatively easy to explain. That way Republican naysayers will be more easily exposed as the anti-voting thugs they are. Since statistical measures would inevitably be involved (and people are often put off by such arcana), keeping it simple and explainable would be a challenge, but it must be met. I suggest a modest approach along the following lines:

Use census data and voting data to create two profiles for each state and compare the profiles. Compute the difference between the profiles by means of a simple calculation, perhaps something like the sum of the squares of the differences between corresponding demographic segments. For example, suppose that a state's population breaks into four groups: 60% is A, 20% is B, 14% is C, and 6% is D. However, voting data indicates that the voting profile was 80% A, 12% B, 4% C, and 4% D. The metric based on summed square differences would be

(60 − 80)² + (20 − 12)² + (14 − 4)² + (6 − 4)² = 568.

Is this a shockingly bad result? Let's not worry about it, because there is no need to decide in advance. Instead finish computing the metric for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (or any city or county or other electoral entity under scrutiny; see the examples in the margin). Now the states can be ranked in order of accumulated differences between population demographics and voting demographics. The scores will be big for states with disproportionate discrepancies and small for those where differences are close to zero. Designate the top quartile (12 or 13 states) as preclearance regions. They could be anywhere in the country, without singling out the South. The playing field is level. The legislation could select a break point so that no state achieving that level of voter participation would be subjected to preclearance just because it's in the top dozen. (If a large majority of the states are doing well, some states with small metric numbers would start slipping into that dirty dozen without deserving it.)

I'm sure that sophisticated statisticians could happily argue about more suitable metrics, but I tossed this out as merely an example that could work and is simple to compute. As long as comparable data are used for the various states, the results would be sufficiently comparable to rank the states in order of voting conformity with actual state demographics, highlighting those states where certain demographics get disproportionately represented or suppressed.

Will congress adopt any measure like this to restore the VRA? Probably not. But who will the obstructionists be? Make them stand up and be counted. Flush them out and expose them to the light. Let the irritated voters know exactly who it is that does not want them to cast ballots.

Get working, folks. Voter suppression is real and the response needs to begin yesterday if we're going to be ready for the challenging landscape of 2014. Don't be content to rely on the self-destructive tendencies of the nutcases running the Republican Party. They can do a lot of damage if we're not ready to rein them in!

Custom-made shoes to fill

From time's deep abyss

It has been more than a quarter-century since I screwed my courage to the sticking point and resigned my sweet and secure civil-service position for a temporary academic appointment. Several people commented at the time that it was a “gutsy move,” and I admit that it certainly felt like one at the time. Fortunately for me, the temporary appointment eventually turned into a tenure-track position, leaving me to live happily ever after (mostly) as a full-time math professor.

My memories of this event were tickled recently while delving into the stacks of detritus that decorate my college office. The semester is over, grades have been filed, and no summer school assignment looms over me. Nevertheless, I have been on campus several days in a row because of a writers' colloquium being conducted by colleagues in the English department. During free intervals I have repaired to my office and sifted through the piles of papers and books, slowly sorting them into stacks destined to be filed, recycled, or shelved. This morning I stumbled across the job announcement that was issued when my state agency was seeking my replacement. It gave me a good chuckle.

The job announcement was drafted by the agency's executive secretary, the semi-competent and ill-tempered appointee who was extremely helpful in increasing the diligence of my job search. Until her advent, I had had a lot of job satisfaction in my position. She injected enough poison into the atmosphere to help me on my way toward the teaching position that I desired. The job announcement was a perfect illustration of the boss's myopia. She created it by simply listing every function I had accumulated in my years at the agency. In effect, she was advertising for someone who was my clone (although preferably without my subversive attitudes and tendencies toward insubordination).

Here are excerpts from that job announcement, shorn of the standard civil service boilerplate and thus reduced to the essentials of the position's duties. It brings a smile to my face when I peruse it:

Description: The Commission has a small, highly specialized staff whose basic missions are (1) to monitor the status of California's General Fund revenues, expenditures, and reserves; (2) to track the collection of federal taxes and receipt of federal expenditures by California and its counties; and (3) to issue regular reports concerning the State's short- and long-term fiscal situation and the impact of federal taxation and spending on the State for use by the Legislature, the Administration, and other interested parties.
The duties of this position are as follows: (1) providing technical advice and support to enhance the Commission's use of its computer systems; (2) being the lead editor of the Commission's publications and being principally responsible for preparing those publications for photo-reproduction; and (3) heading the Commission's legislative tracking system (including the preparation of articles for inclusion in Commission publications on the status of significant pending financial legislation).

Desirable Qualifications:This position provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate, expand, and apply expertise in the use of computer hardware and software. The position also showcases adroit writing skills, as well as providing the opportunity to identify, research, and describe key issues under consideration by the Legislature. Accordingly, the individual who fills it should:

• have a thorough working knowledge of the IBM AT and the Burroughs B-20/B-25 system used by the Commission. [Knowledge of Basic and Fortran programming languages is preferred, as is familiarity with the Microsoft Word, Lotus 1-2-3, Multiplan, and Ventura software packages.]
• write and edit well
• know how to track legislation, analyze its contents, and evaluate its financial implications.

Therefore, the ideal candidate would be a computer tech support person for multiple platforms who would also be the in-house editor and compositor of  publications (one job or two?), a prolific writer (a third job, or doesn't it count because there'd be much less editing on the employee's own documents?), and a legislative analyst (surely we're up to three by now).

I remember taking the job announcement to a state user group where I knew several members had the necessary computer expertise. Many of my fellow civil servants were unfazed by the necessity of supporting two incompatible computer systems, since many state offices had been infiltrated by personal computers in addition to proprietary networked systems. They nodded their heads when I read the first desideratum. They were less sanguine, however, when I tossed in the part about programming languages and desktop publishing. The writing component made several of them nervous because they knew of my background and did not relish comparisons. However, when I added legislative analysis to the package, groans were heard and questions were asked: “Is this supposed to be one job?” “Who is your boss kidding?” “Is she trying to ensure that the position stays vacant so that she has some salary savings to play around with?”

Of course, in a small state agency where the staff members wear several hats, multiple responsibilities are standard operating procedure. However, these job configurations develop with time and evolve to fit the capabilities of the people who occupy the positions. I certainly had not started mine with the same portfolio with which I ended it. My initial assignment was legislative tracking and analysis, mainly because I had just come over from the legislative staff. While serving in that capacity I acquired a home computer and developed skills that came in handy when PCs began to invade our office. Furthermore, it was during this period that I began to publish magazine articles in computer publications and math journals. This skill set of mine grew as I worked at the state agency and my job description grew with it. No one should expect many other people to stroll in with the exact same experiences and the exact same skill set. That, however, is what my boss was looking for.

The job opening was announced while I was serving out my final weeks on staff. My position remained vacant for a few months after my departure, until someone took a sharp pencil to the job description and made it a little more generic. At one point I met my successor, who was manifestly not doing the same job I had been doing. And neither was the boss, who had been sacked as the head of the agency.

Happy memories!

Back away from the penis!

San Francisco on the cutting edge

The voters of the City and County of San Francisco have placed a proposed circumcision ban on the November general election ballot. It would make it illegal to remove the foreskins of minors without a showing of medical necessity. It would not, however, have any impact on adult males who wish to have their penises clipped. The rationale is simple: Baby boys cannot give informed consent.

The reaction to the ballot initiative is unsurprisingly shrill. Here's the opening paragraph of an opinion piece by Rabbi Gil Leeds, which was published on May 20, 2011, in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Freedom of religion, enshrined over two centuries ago by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, is now subject to a vote with the certification in San Francisco of the referendum on circumcision for the November ballot. The vote will empower a secular majority to impose its will, and ban one of the oldest religious traditions known to humanity. When religious belief and practice become subject to vote by the majority of a city council, government agency or referendum, it endangers all of our rights and freedoms.

The proposed legislation contains no religious exemptions, so the traditional Jewish bris ceremony could no longer be practiced in San Francisco if the circumcision ban were enacted. That is why Leeds frames it as an attack on religious freedom. This got me to thinking.

What does religious tradition protect? How far can it go? Leeds correctly points out that male circumcision is a very old religious practice, so it definitely fits under the mantle of tradition, at least for Jews. It's also long been considered normative for American males, quite apart from religious practice. As a culture, we're inured to it and most people take it in stride as expected and unexceptional. While a few circumcised men have complained about having been robbed of their foreskins, most clipped males appear to be content with their condition. It hasn't been a major controversy.

On the other hand, female circumcision is widely condemned as genital mutilation and is against the law in the United States and the target of an international campaign to suppress it. In fact, “circumcision” is rather a misnomer for the procedure(s) applied to young girls in those cultures that practice it. The term comprises a broad range of actions, from reduction or amputation of the clitoris to wholesale excision of the labia. The most extreme form involves infibulation, stitching up the vaginal passage to make it smaller and to ensure the virginity of the victim; the procedure may be reversed when she is properly married off.

Female “circumcision” is an ancient practice that is done in secret in places like the United Kingdom and the United States, nations in which it is legally banned. Members of immigrant families may go to great lengths to ensure that their daughters are genitally cut so that future suitors may be assured of their respectability. The UK and US make no allowance for the ancient tradition, deeming it a violation of basic human rights and labeling it as “female genital mutilation.”

The sponsors of the anti-circumcision measure in San Francisco took a page from the international campaign to protect girls when they titled their proposal as the “San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation” initiative. The city attorney toned that down to the “Male Circumcision” measure, but Leeds the mohel is unmollified:

The proposal's backers are trying to deceive the voters by labeling it a “ban on genital mutilation.” Honesty would have demanded they called it a ban on circumcision. By using such a toxic term as mutilation, they hope to garner support from an unsuspecting public.

My question is this: How is cutting off part of a little boy's penis not a “genital mutilation”? Because our society is inured to it? Because some people practice it as a religious rite? Because it's not as grotesque as the female version? Because there are some supposed health benefits?

What if a religious sect insisted it was their right to practice infibulation on their infant daughters? Would we be violating their freedom of religion if we refused to allow it? (We have clearly already decided that question, haven't we?)

Circumcised males can take comfort in being in the majority and having undergone a procedure that has long been considered unremarkable and of which they haven't the slightest recollection. They understandably react negatively at being told that they were “mutilated” at birth. It's a charged term. At the same time, the uncircumcised minority cringe at the thought of having their foreskins lopped off and marvel that their clipped brethren can be so complacent about having lost theirs. It's what you're used to, I suppose.

The religious aspect doesn't faze people for whom religion is just a superstitious practice that gets more respect than it deserves. Rabbi Leeds hung his argument on the right of people to clip their sons' penises in honor of a supposed covenant with Yahweh. After his article appeared in the Chronicle, San Francisco's archbishop weighed in with an angry letter in support of the rabbi:

I would like to add my “Amen” to the op-ed piece by Rabbi Gil Leeds, “Circumcision ignores our basic religious freedom” (May 20).

The proposed ban on circumcision represents an unconscionable violation of the sanctuaries of faith and family by the government of San Francisco. Although the issue does not concern Christians directly, as a religious leader I can only view with alarm the prospect that this misguided initiative would make it illegal for Jews and Muslims who practice their religion to live in San Francisco—for that is what the passage of such a law would mean.

Apart from the religious aspect, the citizens of San Francisco should be outraged at the prospect of city government dictating to parents in such a sensitive matter regarding the health and hygiene of their children.

George Niederauer, Archbishop of San Francisco

I don't know that you're helping, George. Protecting the health and hygiene of one's children these days would seem to include keeping them away from Catholic churches. May I suggest that you—ahem!—keep your hands off their penises?

Like a House of Representatives on fire

A government fantasy

Sprint Nextel is running a humorous 30-second commercial titled What if firefighters ran the world? It depicts a group of begrimed firefighters all kitted out in their work gear and assembled in a legislative chamber. With a few raps of the gavel and a couple of voice votes, they quickly solve all the problems of the world. Most of the comments posted on YouTube are quite positive. One rather wistful commenter says, “I think in some respects, it really COULD be that easy.”

Yeah, right.

It's really pretty idiotic. Check it out for yourself or scan the transcript I provide below:

Fire Chief: [gavel] All right, firefighters. Settle down!

[Screen text: What if firefighters ran the world?]

Fire Chief: How about the budget?

Firefighters: Balance it!

Fire Chief: And the taxes?

Firefighters: One page or less!

Fire Chief: Anyone want better roads?

Firefighters: We do!

Fire Chief: All in favor?

Firefighters: Aye!

Fire Chief: Opposed? [silence] [gavel] Done!

Fire Chief: [riffles a bunch of pages] A lot of paper to tell us we need clean water. Need clean water, guys?

Firefighters: Aye!

Fire Chief: All right. This is the easiest job I've ever had. We're out of here! [gavel]

---

Okay. I get that it's just a commercial, but it irks the heck out of me anyway. Sure, I'm a former legislative aide and know the system from the inside. I could be overreacting. Still, this parody has an underlying snideness that makes me grit my teeth.

You want a one-page tax form? Great! Show me what you have. Think you can get a majority vote on it? (Let alone a unanimous vote like with the firefighters.) Tell me, did you include a write-off for home mortgage interest payments? You'll lose quite a few votes if you didn't. Did you decide on a flat tax? You'll lose quite a few votes if you did. Are some people exempt? How did you choose the cut-off? I'll bet you that won't be unanimous.

Some one-page proposals in various states are based on letting the Feds do all the work: (1) Write down what you paid the IRS. (2) Send us xx% of that. Good luck getting consensus on what xx% should be. Of course, most states refuse to pin their tax receipts to whatever the federal government chooses to do. It's the easiest state income tax scheme of all (a postcard would suffice!), but most states recoil from it because they're jealous of their modicum of sovereignty.

Whatever you do, you're going to get stuck with compromises. The Sprint commercial lives in a fairyland where people vote “yes” for good things and “no” on bad things. So simple! It is exactly what governments do in reality when they merely pass feel-good resolutions: We think you should be nice to your mother on Mother's Day. We think you should practice conservation on Earth Day. We think you should be patriotic on the Fourth of July. We think you should have a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Cheerful Kwanzaa/Joyous Solstice. That sort of stuff. It's virtually content-free sense-of-the-legislature resolution language.

Actual legislation is tougher. Clean water? Good roads? Work is involved. Hard work. Tedious work. Details. As brave as firefighters may be, they won't get it all done in 30 seconds.

The only real point of an advertisement is to sell products. The advertising firm that created the Sprint Nextel ad is probably thinking it's a feel-good spot that will cause viewers to associate Nextel with efficiency in getting things done. For me, though, the stupidity burns. I see a reinforcement of the idea that sound public policy is as easy as one-two-three. Well, keep counting...