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Why I’m Against Exceptions for Rape and Incest

October 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Tom Anthony

Politicians hone the art of the non-answer. The stock—often flippant—thing they say when asked a direct question; their go-to platitudes. For example: “What would you do about the war in Afghanistan?” Answer: “Listen to the commanders on the ground.” Translation: I wouldn’t DO anything. Another fave is saying, “I’d leave it up to the states.” It’s a way to not give your opinion and display a basic knowledge of civics. Slavery, segregation and later miscegenation were all state laws—but the “up to the states” verbal tic still sounds reasonable when said by a name on a yard sign.

But perhaps the worst, due to its lack of challenge in the stenographic media, is the answer on any abortion question: “I’m against it except for instances of rape, incest or the life of the mother.”

This (at least sometimes) is Mitt Romney‘s stance on abortion. It wasn’t his running mate, Paul Ryan‘s, until he joined the ticket. But Romney, after being staunchly pro-choice disclosing his family friend, Ann Keenan, died of an illegal abortion in 1963, now says he’d like to see it illegal once again. Except, he says, for women who are victims.

Romney and victims: It’s becoming a theme. If you worked at one of the companies Romney took over at Bain, Texas Governor Rick Perry called you a victim of “vulture capitalism.” Romney assesses a whopping “47 percent of Americans see themselves as victims” and the only way to get a medical procedure legally in Romney’s America is, yes, to be a victim.

What sounds like a not-so-extreme position on abortion rights is actually much worse than an outright ban.

If there are exceptions for ending a pregnancy requiring the recipient prove she was raped, two things happen: 1) Just as with total criminalization—abortion goes back underground. 2) Rape is trivialized.

The accusation of rape has always been plagued by the counter-accusation of an ulterior motive. “She’s trying to destroy a good man.” “It’s just the remorse talking!” “This is blackmail.”

Or as Paul Ryan-endorsed Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard put it last week, “Some girls rape so easily.”

To put this into perspective, think of what Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky‘s victims had to endure to get justice: Sports fans rioted on campus after they came forward.

In order to terminate a pregnancy women who are raped will have to defend themselves against yet another charge: She just wants to get an abortion.

An exception for rape means not only ending legal abortions, it means profoundly changing rape.

As with anything, if abortion moves out of the light, it will find its place in the shadows, and then we’re back to where Mitt Romney’s family friend, Ann Keenan, found herself in 1963: bleeding to death from a botched back alley abortion.

Abortion rates don’t change with legality. A 2007 study by the World Health Organization found the same number of women who want abortions get abortions regardless of whether or not they’re legal. What changes is the numbers of women who die of unsafe procedures. In fact, the study noted, in Ethiopia abortion was completely illegal and also the second leading cause of death among women in that country. If you want to save lives—you want legal abortions, sex education and widely available birth control.

This rape clause is horrible public policy. This is not anything remotely resembling how a free country functions. This is not valuing life. It’s valuing easy answers to viscerally complicated issues.

If you morally disagree with abortion, then I suggest you don’t get one. But to nationalize women, to make their bodies legally akin to public incubators, is not the kind of country we want to live in.

It’s a country we should keep in our rearview. Abortion needs to stay legal, and most importantly—private.

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Here’s The Poll to Dispute

October 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

Republicans say the polls are skewed, until they show their guy in the lead. Then the polls are clearly right and we should all take note! Democrats panic when the polls fluctuate in the least bit and start using words like “outlier” and “anomaly” (liberal words for skewed). We’ve never had more polls or more ways to compile polls and the controversy over their accuracy has never been higher.

Yes, it’s election season and along with the primetime presidential debates — everyone wants to debate poll numbers.

But there’s another poll warranting even greater scrutiny: A Pew Research Foundation report just released claims they found 20 percent of Americans do not identify themselves as religious. This, according to the foundation, is up from 2007 when the number was just over 15 percent. In the 30 years of age and under category, it’s 33 percent — a third of younger Americans will tell pollsters they’re not religious at all. With 90 percent saying they’re not interested in seeking religion whatsoever.

Just to put this into perspective, 19 percent of Americans are white evangelicals and 22 percent identify as Catholic. Their numbers are now on par with the “unaffiliated” and yes (gasp) atheists.

But here’s the problem when pollsters ask Americans about our religion: We lie. When someone with a clipboard asks us about our belief in god and our church attendance we give the answer we think we should instead of the truth. According to the Pew study in 2012, 73 percent of Americans were religious and 68 percent said that religion plays an important role in their lives. According to Pew: “[American religious importance] is far higher than in Britain (17 percent), France (13 percent), Germany (21 percent) or Spain (22 percent).”

How do we know Americans are embellishing their churchiness en masse? If 37 percent of Americans went to church weekly or more and 33 percent went monthly/yearly — you know what you’d see at churches? Lines of people. A hundred million people every single Sunday. Instead churches (even iconic mega-churches) are going bankrupt and the pews are collecting dust instead of donations.

No, when it comes to self-reporting religious devotion Americans cannot be trusted.

We under-estimate our calories, over-state our height, under-report our weight and when it comes to piety — we lie like a prayer rug.

A different study at the University of Michigan looked at the rate of self-reported church attendance by Americans in contrast with actual attendance. “America maintains a gap of 10 to 18 percentage points between what people say they do on survey questions, and what time diary data says they actually do,” said the report.

Which means Americans attend church as frequently as (gasp) Europeans. Only unlike those heathen Europeans, we feel the need to say we’re in church when we’re actually watching the NFL. In short: Americans attend “church.” Wink. Wink. Air quotes.

On the other hand, there’s no evidence people are telling pollsters they’re atheists and then secretly go to church. The deceit is one-sided.

So if we have been consistently over-reporting our religiosity by 10 to 18 percentage points, it’s reasonable to suggest this current estimate of non-religious Americans to be at 20 percent, could actually be closer to 38 percent. Which is on par with the largest religious group in the U.S., Protestant at 42 percent.

What does this mean? It means the non-believers, agnostic, non-theists, secularists, spiritual but not religious, and moral without mythology folks could be the actual silent majority.

It’s possible we’re completely surrounded. Shh.

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Beyond Broken: Congress is Morally Bankrupt

October 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I don’t really make predictions. But my prediction is in 10 years, we will all snidely refer to anything inept, broken, petty and lazy as being like the 112th Congress.

Coaches will yell it at their athletes when they’re falling behind, “Do you want people to call you the 112th?! Do you? Then get up and get back in the game!” A nasty burn in a breakup: “You’re too 112th to live with, Darrel.” This Congress should not have its jersey retired—but quarantined—nothing we ever like, respect or care about should ever be called 112th.

Out of 112 Congresses this batch of Brooks Brothers barnacles has managed to break the institution. Their public approval rating is hovering around the margin of error—and that’s only because some of the people pollsters called think the president is Martin Sheen.

Because of the abuse of the filibuster, the Senate can no longer function. The filibuster is a storied device to pause a vote with a Senator’s yammering. Now it’s used as a veto threat. It’s as if the “hold” button was rigged to just hang up the call (and then block the number). Anything less than one party having 60 lock-step voting members means a stalemate. Without a super majority “nothing” is now the only thing possible in this deliberative body. The same amount of votes it takes the Senate to amend the Constitution is now what it takes to rename a post office.

Speaking of which, that’s basically all the 112th House has done for two years: re-name post offices. Naming things that already have a name. That’s what they’ve been doing on our dime. Out of the paltry (and pathetic) 124 laws that have originated in the House, 27 of them have named post offices. Two have issued commemorative coins. That means of the two years this House has met they’ve only originated 95 bills that have become laws.

How do they compare? Well the average number of laws originating in the House in a normal (not mind-numbingly obstinate) Congress is around 300. The 111th House, under Democratic majority, made 254. The 109th House, with a Republican majority made 316 laws. Going back to the 1970s, the 93rd Congress had 337 laws originate in their chamber.

What has the House been doing? “Nothing” would be something to aspire to. They’ve been introducing symbolic, go-nowhere bills that will never be brought up in the dysfunctional Senate and therefore never make it to the President’s desk. Their bills have mainly been to outlaw abortion and overturn the Affordable Care Act. That’s right: Not only have they been ineffective at MAKING their own laws—they’ve been ineffective at unmaking other laws.

They’ve voted 33 times to overturn ObamaCare. As if the president was going to sign that piece of legislation. Ever.

Jobs, jobs, jobs? More like: Blah, blah, blah.

I asked a congressional staffer the other day if working in the lowest rated Congress in the history of counting was like being on the set of “Gigli.”

His answer? “Pretty much.”

Part of this is our fault. To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, we voted in a bunch of people who think government is ineffective so they have to prove themselves right once on government dole.

But really, I’ll just quote congressional candidate Wayne Powell running against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: In a debate last week the retired Army Colonel said, “You don’t like government. You should just resign and then I’ll take over.”

Indeed. But instead on October 5, 2012, Congress will take (yet another) break. They will not resume their idle busy work until November 13. They’re taking five weeks off so they can campaign to keep their jobs they don’t really do.

Like I said: morally bankrupt.

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Trickle Down Economics is a Pyramid Scheme

September 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Victor Varela

A few years ago, I had a friend who didn’t want anyone to know she was going to therapy. Instead, she would announce at her place of business she was leaving to attend her Amway meeting. At one point I had to inform her, “You know that doesn’t make you look any less crazy, right?”

The classic multi-level marketing or pyramid scheme is where one guy at the top convinces people at the bottom to give the top money. The hope is the guys in the middle will recruit enough people under them to move from the middle to the top—hence the pyramid shape. The model is, clearly, and provably unsustainable. Only a couple of people (those at the top) do well. Everyone else gets ripped off.

In fairness, Amway, has massaged its methods enough to not qualify as the illegal type of pyramid scheme. It’s now the more legal type of pyramid scheme.

But the model—the idea of those at the bottom sacrificing their retirement benefits (pensions, social security, Medicare etc.) so that the top tier can pay even less in taxes is what Romney/Ryan are peddling. Mitt Romney wants to cut taxes for the wealthy. Paul Ryan‘s budget would shrink benefits to give the savings in the form of a tax cut to the highest brackets. What didn’t work in the Bush years to strengthen the middle-class (evident by their Lost Decade), they tell us will work this time! Or as veep-pick also-ran, Senator (R-FL) Marco Rubio put it, “We have never been a nation of haves and have-nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”

No, actually, we are a nation of haves and have-nots. We have the worst wealth inequality of all industrialized nations. Our poverty rate is the highest in more than 50 years at 15.7 percent. Contrast that with the top 1 percent of Americans who own nearly half—42 percent of the nations wealth. Also that same top 1 percent only has 5 percent of the nation’s debt. So 99 percent of Americans own 58 percent of the pie and have 95 percent of the debt. We’re fatter, sicker, further in debt and using the most illegal drugs in the world—all signs Americans have become overspent from bad economic policies.

But the haves—these demigods of capitalism—won’t trickle their wealth down to us because of “uncertainty in the market” according to Republicans. Therefore we bribe them with an even lower tax rate!

Instead of calling it “trickle down” which has been largely panned for decades—the new term is “not punishing success.”

“If your priority in this country is to punish success vote for President Obama,” said the offshore account holder, Mitt Romeny.

If the rich get richer—we’re not getting thinner, healthier, solvent and off the crack needle. If the rich get richer, the middle-class doesn’t get more stable.

If the rich get richer, the working poor don’t get pulled out of poverty. If the rich get richer—they just get richer and park their money in Luxembourg (where at least their money will be near universal health care).

We’re actually not a nation of haves at all. Not if you go by a simple majority—or even a super majority—we’re a nation of have-nots. Have-nots being sold on a fantasy of wealth trickling down if we’re nice enough to the haves.

Trickle down economics is a pyramid scheme: It’s the rich telling us if we just recruit others to believe in the con then we will become the rich too.

It’s a lie.

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Stop Comparing Paul Ryan to Sarah Palin

August 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore

The charm of Sarah Palin as a vice presidential pick is she set the bar incredibly low for her successors. As long as a nominee can name a newspaper and their foreign policy experience isn’t living next to a foreign country, the press can dub them better than Sarah Palin. More qualified. More gravitas. More ready to lead than Palin was…

A Palin standard for being fit for public office is like a Donald Trump standard for public humility. Basically, no standard at all.

It’s really not fair to compare Paul Ryan to Sarah Palin. Sure it makes Ryan as a VP nominee seem less cynical——less Hail Mary——less desperate than if Palin had never word-souped the nation four years ago. If John McCain would have picked Tim Pawlenty in ’08, the Ryan pick would look pretty irresponsible. But now the GOP has the “Palin Standard.”

A better comparison for Paul Ryan is former Republican presidential candidate Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Both are from mid-western cheese-heavy states. Both are high-profile tea party Republicans in the lowest-rated Congress in the history of percentages. Even when Bachmann is causing international incidents with her xenophobic race baiting about the Muslim Brotherhood’s alleged infiltration of the U.S. government——she sounds as pleasant as someone selling orange juice on television.

If the 1980′s Michael J. Fox sit-com character——the beloved Reagan-idolizing Alex P. Keaton——were a self-hating public employee who cherry-picked all the worst parts of Ayn Rand, the Bible and the Heritage Foundation’s reading room, he’d be Paul Ryan! Quirky, young and clearly trying to fill a larger man’s suit——the rightest of Republicans love Paul Ryan.

Well they kind of love him. Both Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann are guilty pleasures for Republicans. They like listening to them beat up on President Obama and spout their cheery condemnations of liberalism, but they don’t want to admit it too loudly lest they get stuck defending ALL their ideas. Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll but now she’s not even invited to introduce anyone, let alone speak, at the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Obama tried to campaign against the Ryan Budget plan this past spring since the House GOP voted for it, but that was declared out-of-bounds. Now? It’s in play and Republican politicians are not thrilled about explaining their vote to give future senior citizens coupons for chemotherapy.

Bachmann and Ryan also share the distinction of being ineffective lawmakers. According to ThatsMyCongress.com, in her nearly six years in office “Bachmann has passed three rhetorical bills with no force of law, and one amendment that asks an Inspector General to conduct inspections.” Paul Ryan has been an incumbent for twice that time and has only introduced two bills that have become law: One renaming a post office in his home town, the other changing how arrows are taxed (how very 21st century).

Bachmann at least gets to distance herself from the Republican Congressional blank check given to the big-spending Bush administration. Under Ryan’s allegedly hawkish eye, his party started two unpaid-for wars, cut taxes during said wars, grew the government, exploded the national debt and then bailed out unregulated banks with taxpayer money. Paul Ryan voted yes for all of it and doesn’t ask for a correction when he’s called a small government conservative.

Both Bachmann and Ryan are also at the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to gay rights and reproductive freedoms. They both have consistently voted for any anti-abortion/anti-contraception bills that came before them. Ditto with expanding martial rights to same sex couples. Ryan, with all his libertarian billing, has voted to take away liberties from his fellow citizens. He is the government he’s warned us about: Freedom is for corporations, and regulations are for our private lives.

If Ryan is now the Republican mainstream, Bachmann is now the Republican mainstream. If Ryan is getting the full embrace of his party——Bachmann should be getting that same welcome into the fray.

Or in the case of Republicans in 2012, the fringe.

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The GOP Wants Fewer People to Vote for Them

August 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore

The Republican primary has been over for months now but it’s hard to tell. The presumptive nominee (I’ll get to stop writing that phrase in a couple of weeks … hopefully), Mitt Romney, is still campaigning like he’s trying to convince his own party he’s Mr. Right, Mr. Right-Enough—or in his case Mr. Right…Now.

“What America is not is a collective where we all work in a kibbutz,” Romney said at a fundraiser in Chicago this week. “Instead it’s individuals pursuing their dreams and building successful enterprises which employ others and they become inspired as they see what has happened in the place they work and go off and start their own enterprises.”

America, not a collective: Not a place where people work together, according to Romney. Just a place where bosses are untethered by the shackles of pensions, environmental concerns or worker safety regulations so they can create magical towers of tax-free enterprise which “employs others.”

Willard M. Romney, the Everyman.

Romney is not trying to be popular; he’s running for president on the Republican ticket. He’s still trying to get Republicans to like him and Republicans now make up less than 35 percent of Americans. Reaching outside of their “big tent,” Romney spoke at an National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) event, and after being booed by the crowd he explained it was because the attendees at the NAACP event want free stuff. He loves free stuff (like tax-free!) but finds it distasteful in people not clever enough to borrow money from their parents for college.

Romney’s international tour was of a whopping three countries. Notably at least one didn’t boo him. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, “Don’t forget Poland!”

Romney doesn’t appear to be trying to win the support of the majority of Americans (or the world for that matter). He appears to be playing for the affections of a few key shareholders. Romney is a niche candidate of a tiny percent of Americans who think working for a living describes what your money does for you.

Let’s take stock of the groups Republicans are no longer attempting to appeal to: Wage earners. Women in their child-bearing years. People with pre-existing conditions. Unions. Public workers. The unemployed. Monogamous gay couples. The under-employed. Moderate Republicans. Muslims. Latinos. Oh and independent voters. We’re not going to see a “Romney Democrats” group pop up before November, save maybe a political wonk’s Halloween party.

Romney is nominee no one really likes. Fewer people will vote for Mitt. The only chance for a mediocre candidate to win the majority of votes is for fewer votes to be counted. Voter ID laws have become vogue in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina and Indiana. All of a sudden the Grand Old Party is concerned about voter fraud, even though the Republican National Lawyer Association can only point to 311 cases in the last decade. Other estimates put the number in the tens.

Way more Americans have won gold medals than have voted fraudulently. So Republicans must “fix” this non-problem (in places which just so happen to swing states/counties/districts) by making it as difficult as possible to cast a ballot.

On ABC’s This Week, Washington Post columnist George Will called early voting “deplorable” because it interferes with campaigning. The horror! You know what interferes with voting? Having a j-o-b. Early voting is the easiest way for blue-collar workers to be able to have their vote counted. Less early voting, fewer people who earn a paycheck at the polls. And that’s deplorable if you’re a Republican in the 2012 election cycle.

Republicans are working very hard to get fewer votes. Instead of stacking the deck, they’re just trying to disenfranchise all the cards who disagree with them (you know, the majority of the country). It’s a reasonable strategy as their presumptive nominee (gah!) brands himself as the small government/voting bloc candidate who likes being able to fire people.

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Olympics Represent the Best of Our Team Efforts

July 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of AdamKR

It’s hard to get excited about the Winter Olympics. Watching elite athletes do elite sports is not on the same level of human drama that plays out at the Summer Games. Face it – you have to be pretty well off to even discover an aptitude for skiing. The winter games are mostly watching privileged people be better at something you can’t afford to try. Plus if you qualify for the Winter Olympics you are more than likely from an industrialized nation with a history of human rights (something about snow ensures basic government functioning).

In short: Curling isn’t the only reason the Winter Olympics are lame.

While only 82 countries participated in the 2010 games in Vancouver, every nation save three (South Sudan, Kosovo and Vatican City) will be competing in the 2012 games in London. It’s truly a global event. It’s also the first time every nation will have sent a female athlete. Saudi Arabia, where women can barely vote (let alone drive), is sending two female athletes to the games for the first time. Qatar and Brunei (also with spotty women’s suffrage) have women representing them as well this year.

The Summer Olympics are not just about seeing who throws farther than other people who can throw far. The Summer Olympics are a metaphor for what we idealize as the American Dream. Our impenetrable Puritan values: Hard work has a pay off. It’s the pageantry of the best of the best and how they got there. Sure, it’s sportsmanship, but for Americans the summer games is an opportunity for us to romanticize individualism.

Americans, after all, see ourselves as pioneers—as homesteaders—people who in our mythology can handle a hurdle race or two.

For us, Olympian rags-to-riches tales are what America is based on: Pulling on your bootstraps until you find yourself on the center rostrum.

Last week, President Obama botched paraphrasing an Elizabeth Warren line, “No one in this country got rich on his own,” and ending up saying (if you scrub all context) no one built their own business. The right-wing has been quick to refute this gaffe with a collective “did too!” The theme (at least) was clear: Success is a group effort.

Every Olympian represents an army of people supporting, nurturing and encouraging ability. No one gets to the Olympics on their own. No matter how naturally gifted—they’re on their way to London because people helped them get there. “People” meaning communities, parents and yes, governments.

I was raised in foster care. The alleged nanny state was my actual nanny. People will argue with me that I was raised by “people” and not the government. Which is like saying you don’t need electricity to light your home because you have a lamp. I know there was a mass of people (many employed by the state) investing their time and energy into my wellbeing. I showed up and did the work but I could not have done it all by myself. I had help. Tons.

That’s what the president was talking about: infrastructure. Our collective investment in our country.

When I watch the Olympics I see how the world treats its young people. I see their hope for the future on a balance beam. I see politics. I see progress. I see individuals representing the best of us—and all we can accomplish. I see the opposite of isolationism and selfishness. But mostly I see that truly American story of coming from behind and going for the gold.

Go team!

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Expanding Waistlines: Shrinking Sodas is a Start

July 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Adam Kerfoot-Roberts

Freedom is under attack! In the largest city of our giant country—the liberty to drink over 16 ounces of sugar syrup is in the crosshairs of the “gubmint.” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed (and will most likely implement) the nation’s first prohibition on over-sized soda at public venues.

Now the AstroTurf outrage over this alleged ban (in reality, a size reduction) is bubbling up! This week a rally brimming with dozens of soda jerks calling themselves the Million Big Gulp March, shook their high-fructose fists at the mayor. The polling reveals a polarizing 50/50 split in support/opposition to the ordinance. Throw in a couple of commercials by the beverage industry saying they’re offering more fewer-calorie choices—and you have pandemonium!

In 1908, New York City was also the first in the country to have an ordinance against public smoking. Sure it only applied to women and was quickly thrown out, but still, a hundred years later eliminating smoking tobacco just about everywhere has cut down American smokers to only 20 percent of adults (most of whom live in West Virginia). When compared to the 45 percent who smoked cigarettes in the 1950s—it’s a success. Was it a knock to the liberties of smokers? Yes. Do we care? Nope.

Because we are not islands and we live in what is referred to as civilization, laws for the greater good while inconveniencing a couple of people are part of the deal. We do this with traffic: Just because stopping for 90 seconds will make some individuals late doesn’t mean we should ditch all stop lights. So unless you’re cutting your own firewood and living off the grid in a Ted Kaczynski-style cabin somewhere—what you do more than likely affects the rest of us. And in the case of smoking cigarettes—fumigates the rest of us. (Full disclosure: I’m an ex-smoker and now I’m unapologetically militant. A cliché I know. Cough. Gag.)

“It’s not the role of government to save us from ourselves,” soda pop libertarians will say. That’s just not true. The government prohibits all kinds of things to “save us from ourselves”: lead paint, toxic children’s toys, asbestos, open sewers, terrorists, Occupy protesters, and swear words without a subscription.

In 1890s New York City, carbolic acid, a nasty neurotoxin with the ability to melt the skin off your face was—inexplicably—the go-to means of suicide in Lower Manhattan. It was easily available over-the-counter at drugstores, “a dime’s worth could kill several people” and it was the most gruesome death imaginable. The city’s coroner at the time, George P. LeBrun, reported 238 suicides in 1899 from carbolic acid. The following year the city’s health department (the same department that will more than likely ban giant sodas at New York movie theaters) made the organic compound frequently used as paint stripper require a doctor’s certificate for purchase. According to LeBrun’s autobiography, the following year the deaths by drinking carbolic acid plummeted to only a “handful of suicides.”

Did it eradicate suicide? Of course not. But was it sensible policy that arguably eased some suffering? Yes. Did it make us “less free?” Hardly.

And when it comes to obesity—we are the fattest generation of one of the fattest countries in the world. If obesity were a virus we’d have fundraisers and celebrity spokespeople drumming up panic. We’d have marches and vigils and Dateline specials. “Will you or your loved ones be next?!” We’d have a death toll counter on CNN. “Fifteen more victims claimed today!” But since it’s just our consuming too much (way too much) and economic forces encourage consuming too much (way too much) we waddle along not half as alarmed as we should be.

Here’s the thing with the obesity epidemic: Doing nothing is not fixing the problem.

Is a soda size ban a cure-all? No. Is it the best policy ever introduced? No. Will it make us all thinner? No. But it is a good start. Or really, a start.

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GOP Boldly Offering Solutions to Our Nation’s Symptoms

June 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Aslan Media

Nothing says leadership more than bravely standing up against a concern that’s not actually a problem.

We’ve had a one-sided battle with Sharia Law in the U.S. No one is fighting for replacing U.S. law with an Islamic moral code, but nonetheless Republicans are heroically fighting against it. Same with aborted fetuses in commercial food stuffs: Not something that’s ever happened but earlier this year Republican freshman Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey had the temerity to introduce a bill to outlaw it.

Republicans love what they call “simple solutions” but it’s really just the easiest possible answer to a trumped up crisis. In short: busy work. America needs to streamline for the challenges of the future so we can remain competitive (blah blah blah). Yet Republican offers are akin to organizing all the paperclips in the office by color and size.

Republicans and bureaucracy are, after all, frenemies. Sure they tell the media they despise bureaucracy, but secretly they love it when it makes them appear to be doing something. Even better if it keeps them from doing anything difficult.

For example: We’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic. It’s the number two leading cause of preventable death in this country. The Center for Disease Control estimates 112,000 American deaths a year due to obesity, which is down from their previous estimate of 365,000 deaths from poor nutrition and physical inactivity. The CDC reports in 2008 Americans forked over $147 billion in medical costs on obesity. We’re dying and going broke from being too fat.

But what are Republicans trying to warn us against? Terrorism. China. Russia. Obamacare. ACORN. The New Black Panthers. The Fed. All of which cumulatively killed no Americans last year.

It’s (ironically) lazy to try to and scare Americans about some elusive menace in order to avoid the reality that we’ve become the proverbial elephants in our own living rooms.

Illegal immigration? Republicans say to secure the border, build a fence and arrest anyone who even looks illegal. Mitt Romney said Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 should be a model for the nation, which would be something if Mexicans were still coming into the U.S. They’re not. Immigration from Mexico is now net zero. That is actually a way bigger problem than undocumented workers (whom we love in boom times for a way to circumvent the minimum wage and exploit a non-litigious underclass). It’s the fact we are no longer an attractive enough country to motivate Mexicans to come here.

But as we saw last week with the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s law, governor Jan Brewer‘s just doubled down on a non-problem, “We cannot forget that we are here today because the federal government has failed the American people regarding immigration policy, has failed to protect its citizens, has failed to preserve the rule of law and has failed to secure our borders.”

For a party that likes to peddle free market and common sense, they sure get a lot of traction ginning up irrational fears.

Our energy plan is stuck firmly in the last century, but that’s not the point the presumptive Republican nominee decided to make. In March, Mitt Romney told Fox News that President Obama “has done everything in his power to make it harder for us to get oil and natural gas in this country, driving up the price of those commodities in the case of gasoline.” Gas prices were the thing Republicans were going to fix by paying attention to them!

With little fanfare, gas prices are down now, by the way. Production has increased overall under the Obama administration. Republicans managed to sound the alarm and assign blame for a symptom while steadfastly avoiding the cause entirely.

Think I’m way off here? Remember this is the party that in the wake of September 11th—an attack by citizens of Saudi Arabia, organized in Afghanistan by a leader hanging out in Lebanon—decided to invade (wait for it) Iraq.

Because things indirectly involved with real problems hate us for our freedoms.

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Relax ‘Mitt’, Just Be Yourself

June 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore

Mitt Romney‘s off-the-cuff comments are starting to seem like Barack Obama’s bowling: Not good. Kind of spectacularly bad. Kitsch on a kind day.

Romney keeps on rolling gutter balls in front of the cameras: “The trees are the right height.” “I like being able to fire people.” “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” “I’m Mitt Romney—and yes Wolf, that’s also my first name.”

Normally the adage “a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth” applies. On the Jay Leno show, Obama famously compared his bowling skills to those in the Special Olympics. Many, including myself, were offended by the remark (mainly because the Special Olympics athletes are far better bowlers than Mr. Obama). The President apologized profusely for the statement.

But Romney’s greatest gaffes are less accidental nuggets of candor (like, “I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.”) and more what you’d call disquieting sound bites of misfired pandering. Moments that can be summed up by the phrase “cheesy grits.”

Yes, he told a crowd in Mississippi during the primary, he had “cheesy grits” (as opposed to cheese grits) for breakfast and he was learning how to say, “ya’ll.” He would have been better off saying sweet tea (a diabetic coma-inducing regional syrup served over ice) is best with Splenda and he was learning how to talk … real … slow.

(Rick Santorum won Mississippi, by the way.)

Yes, when Romney attempts to show how in touch he is with Americans, he ends up displaying exactly how in touch he is with Americans. Meaning: Not at all.

This week, minutes after marveling at the 10-year-old touch screen technology at a Wawa in Quakertown, Romney was still stuck on regional sandwiches when he got to Cornwall, Pennsylvania. “By the way, where do you get your hoagies here?” he asked the crowd of supporters. “Do you get them at Wawas? Is that where you get them? No? Do you get them at Sheetz? Where do you get them?” According to reports the crowd booed until Governor Tom Corbett offered that the locals got their sandwiches at “delis.”

Here’s the thing: For a man whose book is titled “No Apology,” Mitt’s awkward Rand McNally riffing looks like he’s apologizing for not being from there. And in the case of Michigan (where he actually is from) not being enough like those who are from there. “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.” He’s telling us who he is by making it clear what he’s not: A man of the people … unless those “people” are corporations, my friends.

According to Moody’s Analytics, the unemployment rate would actually be a percentage point lower if the government employed as many people as we did in 2009. It’s a time when government IS shrinking—teachers and cops are being laid off and Mitt’s hoagie haven Pennsylvania lost 5,400 government jobs just this year. Mitt also does his best to seem obtuse. “[Obama] says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Who could have guessed a rich man running for a government job would have the chutzpah (pronounced choots-paw if your last name is Bachmann) to stand up against more firefighters and teachers?

One minute Romney is touting his business experience and wealth as a qualification to be president—the next minute he’s trying to appear like he’s not (as Jon Stewart observed) the guy who just fired your dad.

President Obama should not bowl. Ever. And Romney, well, he should stop trying to relate to blue-collar living and just be the stuffy, privileged, Ivy League, over-educated, French-speaking, affluent Republican he is.

Mitt, if that is your real name (it isn’t), just be yourself.

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