|
Ebola Tales: Maine Judge Cuts Baby in Half, Arizona Panics, and Washington Has No Act to Get Together |
 |
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=20877"><span class="small">William Boardman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
|
|
Thursday, 06 November 2014 07:40 |
|
Boardman writes: "No judge in his right mind is going to do the simplest right thing and say healthy people can't be quarantined no matter how much public hysteria public officials drum up."
A protester in front of the White House calling for a travel ban from West Africa. (photo: Allison Shelley/Getty Images)
Ebola Tales: Maine Judge Cuts Baby in Half, Arizona Panics, and Washington Has No Act to Get Together
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
06 November 14
“The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola. The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational. However, whether that fear is rational or not, it is present and it is real. [Nurse Kaci Hickox’s] actions at this point, as a health care professional, need to demonstrate her full understanding of human nature and the real fear that exists. She should guide herself accordingly.”
~ Chief Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere, Maine District Court, conclusion in his October 31 Order Pending Hearing
 he best argument for quarantining healthy people, as Judge LaVerdiere acknowledges, is that the mere fact of their being anywhere near Ebola sufferers makes other people, like the governors of Maine, New Jersey, and New York, scared out of their wits crazy (or lets them seize an opportunity for extreme demagoguery, or both). Yes, real fear exists, as the judge notes, and that fear is clearly “not entirely rational,” a serious understatement, but that’s the judicial mind at work. No judge in his right mind is going to do the simplest right thing and say healthy people can’t be quarantined no matter how much public hysteria public officials drum up. But he might find a reasonable answer that looks like compromise.
Judge LaVerdiere’s decision gives the impression of cutting the baby in half. The reality is that he did not accommodate himself to the hysterics of the Maine Public Health Department and Governor Paul LaPage. He ruled explicitly that Maine has not met its burden of proof, that Maine had not shown by clear and convincing evidence that Nurse Hickox was a public health threat. The judge wrote that Nurse Hickox, who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, “currently does not show any symptoms of Ebola and is therefore not infectious.” [emphasis in original]
Nurse Hickox has, at all relevant times, behaved as a responsible health professional. She has self-monitored, following the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines for “Direct Active Monitoring,” a protocol designed to allow health workers possibly exposed to Ebola to watch out for symptoms and act accordingly if any appear. (In New York City, Dr. Craig Spencer followed that protocol, realized he was infected, went into treatment, and as of November 4, was improving and in stable condition.)
Constitutional freedom weighed against institutional panic
Given the reality of the case before him – hysterical state vs. responsible nurse – the judge entered a temporary order on October 31 “maintaining the status quo”: requiring Nurse Hickox to continue doing what she had been doing all along. He granted none of the more draconian measures sought by the state. His decision reflected a balance of competing interests, as he noted: the nurse’s “freedom, as guaranteed by the U.S. and Maine Constitutions” as weighed against the rather hyperbolically stated “public’s right to be protected from the potential severe harm posed by transmission of this devastating disease.”
Having upheld both state and national constitutions, the judge issued a final order on November 3, affirming an agreement between the now calmed-down parties. This order waived any further hearing, “absent emergency circumstance,” and lifted all court orders effective at 11:59 p.m. on November 10. Sanity had prevailed, but not without a fight by the state on the side of irrationality.
In his temporary order, Judge LaVerdiere put the case in perspective this way:
… we would not be here today unless [Nurse Hickox] generously, kindly and with compassion lent her skills to aid, comfort, and care for individuals stricken with a terrible disease. We need to remember as we go through this matter that we owe her and all professionals who give of themselves in this way a debt of gratitude.
A Republican Tea-Party favorite, Governor LePage was less generous, as is his wont. Apparently unable to distinguish between collaboration and blind obedience, LePage said of Nurse Hickox: “Despite our best effort to work collaboratively with this individual, she has refused to cooperate with us.” The governor trashed the court, saying falsely that the “judge has eased restrictions with this ruling.” At another point, on the campaign trail, LePage said, pretty much rejecting any judgment but his own:
We don’t know what we don’t know about Ebola… [Nurse Hickox] has violated every promise she has made so far, so I can't trust her. I don’t trust her. And I don’t trust that we know enough about this disease to be so callous.
Politico calls LePage “America’s craziest governor.” The governor has acknowledged that only 60% of Maine’s public school students are proficient in English and math, a condition about which he said: “If you want a good education, go to an academy. If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck – you can go to the public school.” On November 4, Maine re-elected Le Page with 47% of the vote in a three-way race.
Meanwhile, panic flares from Arizona to the Defense Department
Michael Petzer is the pastor of the Living Hope Family Church in Tucson, Arizona, and he does not have Ebola or any Ebola symptoms – not that any of that protected him from police knocking on his door at 2 in the morning on Sunday, October 26, for a “welfare check.”
Late last summer, Petzer went to Zambia for about 10 days to train missionaries there. He returned to Tucson on September 6. Almost eight weeks later, Tucson police officers came to his door at 2 a.m. They stood some distance away, not wearing any protective clothing, and wanted to know if he had Ebola. They were following up on a report from the University of Arizona Medical Center. The medical center was reporting that a patient there had said the pastor had Ebola.
The patient, a woman in Petzer’s church, was at the hospital with what she called Ebola symptoms, although she was apparently not sick with the virus. She had reported that her pastor had come back from Africa on September 6. Hospital privacy rules prevent Petzer from knowing what basis the woman had for saying he had Ebola, or how she might have caught it from him.
Zambia does not have an Ebola outbreak. Zambia is about 2,500 miles from the countries that have Ebola outbreaks. The African continent is about three times the size of the continental United States. Petzer was not amused by the incident:
I think this is hysteria, and a zero understanding of geography…. I am now in a country that has had Ebola. I traveled from a non-infected country to one (United States) where there are people in quarantine. I think this is an issue of public ignorance and not an issue of public health. People hear Africa, and everyone thinks “Ebola.” Most Americans do not have a clue that Africa is a large continent and not a country. People have to stop the hysteria of it all.
The hysteria of it all shows up in national polling from October 30 to November 1 that found 71% of all Americans in favor of a state-mandated quarantine for health workers like Kaci Hickox – people who have treated Ebola patients but have no symptoms of Ebola and are therefore not contagious. The poll question apparently did not include the relevant constitutional issue, clearly articulated in Maine by Judge LaVerdiere.
The basic choice: constitutional freedom or mandatory quarantine?
Asked to choose between freedom under the Constitution and a mandatory quarantine, 91% of Tea Party supporters chose quarantine, as did 85% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats. These findings tend to support the perception that, while American fascist tendencies are widespread, they’re increasingly concentrated on the political right.
Similarly, “only” about 65% of those 18-34 years old choose quarantine over the Constitution, while 90% of seniors favor quarantine. Likewise, 63% of college-educated Americans choose quarantine, compared to 80% of those with a high school education or less.
The embrace of mandatory quarantine as a solution for Ebola is rooted in ignorance of the virus and a failure to realize that quarantines tend to make things worse. The New England Journal of Medicine makes the case that mandatory quarantines are “not scientifically based,” that they are “unfair and unwise and will impede essential efforts to stop these awful outbreaks….” Also acknowledging the balancing act required for instituting rational quarantines, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned against “unnecessarily” restricting the movement of health workers or others:
The best way to stop this virus is to stop the virus at its source rather than limiting, restricting the movement of people or trade … particularly when there are some unnecessarily extra restrictions and discriminations against health workers. They are extraordinary people who are giving of themselves, they are risking their own lives.
When it comes to a coherent national policy on quarantines relating to Ebola, there isn’t one. The White House has kind of let it be known that it sort of agrees with the scientific and medical consensus, and the president has sent more than 1,000 U.S. troops to build hospitals and medical infrastructure in the Ebola zone, but medical personnel there continue to be overwhelmingly volunteers. A serious government program to fight Ebola seems unlikely any time soon, if ever. Meanwhile, President Obama, while leading the American non-effort, indulges in counter-factual rhetoric like this on October 30:
America in the end is not defined by fear. That's not who we are. America is defined by possibility. And when we see a problem and we see a challenge, then we fix it. We don't just react based on our fears. We react based on facts and judgment and making smart decisions. That's how we have built this country and sustained this country and protected this country. That's why America has defined progress -- because we're not afraid when challenges come up.
Actually, the record suggests most Americans ARE defined by fear
The mixed message from the administration is illustrated by the Pentagon decision to institute exactly the kinds of quarantines the White House is calling inappropriate for civilian Ebola medical workers. Even though military personnel don’t treat Ebola patients in West Africa, some of them do handle contaminated blood samples in labs which presumably have stringent safety protocols.
On October 27, the U.S. Army, acting on its own authority, had already ordered the 21-day quarantine of a general and eleven other soldiers returning from West Africa. For unexplained reasons, the Army ordered the quarantine at a base near Venice, Italy, which hardly made the Italians happy and certainly showed no great courage on the part of the Americans. Military officials provided only general assurances about the symptom-free health of the 12 quarantined, nothing about any specific risk or blood test results.
Two days later, in similarly contradictory manner, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s action was even less consistent with White House confidence. Following fear-drenched polling results, he ordered that every single U.S. soldier returning from Africa be quarantined for 21 days, regardless of any soldier’s specific circumstances or lack of contact with the virus. The quarantine order replaced the Pentagon’s previous protocol of monitoring, as recommended by the CDC. With that amazingly timid decision, Hagel fell right in step with those frightened, anti-constitutional majorities of furthest right, oldest, and least educated Americans.
The United States may eventually end up leading the fight against Ebola in a constructive manner, but that’s not happening now. The U.S. may be doing more than a lot of countries, including Russia, India, and Japan, or African countries with a fraction of American resources. But the American performance remains one of exceptional narcissism, where the one fatal case in Dallas looms larger in public consciousness than the thousands and thousands of dead and dying Africans.
For leadership among nations, the place to look is Cuba. No other country has sent as many health professionals to fight Ebola as Cuba. The second largest medical contingent comes from Doctors Without Borders. Cuba has a population of 11 million to the U.S. 320 million, but with 83,000 doctors, Cuba has one of the highest ratios of doctors-to-population in the world. Cuba’s doctors provide Cubans with free health care at a world class level. And most of the time there are also 50,000 Cuban doctors working in needy regions of some thirty other countries. Cuba’s medical response to the world in general – and to Ebola in particular – would be admirable from any nation.
But the United States, the self-adoring “one indispensable nation in world affairs,” doesn’t do admiration. With an unjustifiable U.S. embargo that was first imposed in 1960, what the indispensable U.S. does for the admirable Cuba is a quarantine that’s every bit as arbitrary and fearful as Ebola quarantines.
We do not live in a rational culture.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
 |
|
Gerrymandering Rigged the 2014 Elections to Republicans' Advantage |
|
|
Thursday, 06 November 2014 07:36 |
|
Fang writes: "Republicans won on the weakness of Democratic candidates, a poor resource allocation strategy by Democratic party leaders."
Gerrymandering helped the GOP to pick up seats. (photo: Chris O'Meara/AP)
Gerrymandering Rigged the 2014 Elections to Republicans' Advantage
By Lee Fang, Moyers & Company
06 November 14
 n the midterm elections, Republicans appear to have won their largest House majority since the Hoover administration. Republicans won on the weakness of Democratic candidates, a poor resource allocation strategy by Democratic party leaders, particularly DCCC chair Steve Israel, and an election narrative that did little to inspire base Democratic voters. That being said, in many ways, the game was rigged from the start. The GOP benefitted from the most egregious gerrymandering in American history.
As Rolling Stone reported, GOP donors plowed cash into state legislative efforts in 2010 for the very purpose of redrawing congressional lines. In the following year, as the tea party wave brought hundreds of Republicans into office, newly empowered Republican governors and state legislatures carved congressional districts for maximum partisan advantage. Democrats attempted this too, but only in two states: Maryland and Illinois. For the GOP however, strictly partisan gerrymandering prevailed in Ohio, Pennsylvania Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Tennessee and beyond.
Here’s an example from the election last night. In Pennsylvania, one state in which the GOP drew the congressional districts in a brazenly partisan way, Democratic candidates collected 44 percent of the vote, yet Democratic candidates won only 5 House seats out of 18. In other words, Democrats secured only 27 percent of Pennsylvania’s congressional seats despite winning nearly half of the votes. See the graph below:
A similar dynamic played in North Carolina, another state in which GOP control in 2011 created intensely partisan congressional boundaries. In the 2014 midterm elections, Democrats in North Carolina secured only three out of 13 seats (23 percent of NC’s congressional delegation) even though Democratic candidates in that state won about 44 percent of the vote:
In 2012, the first congressional election after the last round of gerrymandering, Democratic House candidates won 50.59 percent of the vote — or 1.37 million more votes than Republican candidates — yet secured only 201 seats in Congress, compared to 234 seats for Republicans. The House of Representatives, the “people’s house,” no longer requires the most votes for power.
As the results from this year roll in, we see a similar dynamic. Republican gerrymandering means Democratic voters are packed tightly into single districts, while Republicans are spread out in such a way to translate into the most congressional seats for the GOP.
There are a lot of structural issues that influence congressional elections, from voter ID requirements to early voting access. But what does it matter if you’ve been packed into a district in which your vote can’t change the composition of Congress.
|
|
|
Was Senator Warner Not Blue Enough for Virginia's Democrats? |
|
|
Thursday, 06 November 2014 07:24 |
|
Portnoy and Weiner report: "Six years ago, Democrat Mark R. Warner won all but six of Virginia's 133 cities and counties in a landslide election that earned him his first term in the U.S. Senate."
Virginia Senator Mark Warner. (photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Was Senator Warner Not Blue Enough for Virginia's Democrats?
By Jenna Portnoy and Rachel Weiner, The Washington Post
06 November 14
 ix years ago, Democrat Mark R. Warner won all but six of Virginia’s 133 cities and counties in a landslide election that earned him his first term in the U.S. Senate.
On Tuesday, Warner’s victory map was starkly different: a sea of red across the state’s rural parts but enough deep blue speckled through Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads to push him — barely — across the finish line.
Warner and his allies attributed his narrow win, which Republican Ed Gillespie still may challenge, to a vastly different national mood that allowed Republicans to take control of the Senate largely by tying their opponents to the unpopular policies of President Obama.
But what is also clear from that margin — and from the final weeks of the campaign — is that Warner’s operation didn’t really adapt to the partisan reality of the new mood. A self-described “radical centrist” who prided himself on his appeal among Republicans and independents, Warner steadfastly continued to court those voters despite strong evidence that their tolerance for Democrats had dramatically waned.
Warner also may have missed out on a new advantage for politicians with D’s after their names in Virginia’s changing demographic landscape.
By positioning himself as a moderate, he may have missed a chance to gin up more enthusiasm within the state’s expanding Democratic base, earning fewer votes in such deep-blue communities as Arlington County and Alexandria than left-of-Warner Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) did a year ago.
All of it has left some to wonder whether Warner would have won bigger if he had eschewed the middle and embraced the left, and whether the winning path for moderates that Warner forged during his own bid for governor 13 years ago is becoming extinct.
“I think if you look at the returns around the country .?.?. it raises questions about just how successful the bipartisanship brand really is,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said Tuesday after easily winning a fourth term in Northern Virginia’s 11th Congressional District by talking about women’s rights, immigration reform and climate change — and less about working with Republicans.
“We all say we want it, but that’s not how we’re voting tonight,” Connolly said. “It’s not how we voted in 2010, and so I wish there were more of a reward for Warner’s brand. I know he’s sincere. I know that’s how he wants to govern, but look at who’s getting elected tonight — Tom Cotton, a bipartisan? I don’t think so. Mitch McConnell [the Senate’s presumed next majority leader] getting reelected, a bipartisan? I don’t think so.”
With all but one precinct reporting, Warner’s margin of victory settled at nearly 17,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast in his race for a second term against Gillespie, according to results compiled by the Associated Press. Warner held 49.2 percent of the vote, just slightly ahead of Gillespie’s 48.4 percent.
Warner declared victory over Gillespie late Tuesday, but the contest was so close that Gillespie declined to concede. Gillespie may ask for a recount once the votes are certified by state election officials, a process that election officials expect to complete Nov. 24.
“We owe it to the voters of Virginia to respect the canvassing process that is underway to get an official result,” Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, said Wednesday. “We will be watching the results closely so that we can ensure Virginians have confidence in the accuracy of the results.”
In Virginia, the loser can ask for a recount if the margin is less than 1 percent of the total number of votes cast — which it is, so far, in the Senate race. But the state would pay for the recount only if the margin falls below one-half of 1 percent of the votes cast — a threshold that the current results do not meet.
Marc Erik Elias, an election attorney working for the Warner campaign, said a recount would be unprecedented, and probably unsuccessful, given the senator’s current lead. Like the Gillespie campaign, Warner’s team is monitoring the canvassing process across the state.
In Fairfax County, the state’s largest jurisdiction and where 1 in 7 votes were cast, Warner was ahead by about 53,000 votes, election officials said Wednesday. Volunteers from both parties began a canvass of results that is expected to last until Friday afternoon. By the end of Wednesday, Warner had gained about 500 votes after a few errors were found in four precincts, officials said.
The playbook that allowed Warner to dominate the commonwealth’s old electoral map barely worked Tuesday in Virginia, where some once-blue, union-friendly counties are now deep red — and vote-rich Northern Virginia is the place that delivers Democrats their wins.
That’s how McAuliffe did it last year — and how Sen. Timothy M. Kaine did it the year before.
They also did it by throwing out more partisan rhetoric to jazz up Democratic voters — something some Warner confidants suggested that he do, too.
“I was an advocate of him introducing more base red-meat topics, and he resisted because he is still speaking to the ‘radical centrist’ voter,” longtime adviser Ellen Qualls, who helped Warner prepare for debates, said before the election. “I wanted him to talk a lot more about personhood and birth control than he actually does.”
Instead, aside from a few debate references, Warner helped Gillespie stay away from such divisive issues as abortion and same-sex marriage. Warner’s TV commercials were silent on those issues, too.
“My path has been very different from Terry’s or Tim’s or others’,” Warner said in an interview with The Washington Post before the election. “To the annoyance of some of my so-called staff, I’m going to Abingdon and Russell County now because Southwest Virginia gave me a start, and I’m not going to cede one part.”
The counties in that region voted for Gillespie, sometimes by more than 30 points over Warner. Kaine, also a former governor, noted the slim margin with a little self-deprecating humor while introducing Warner to his election night crowd: “So the results are in, and we won! This is like a Tim Kaine election night.”
Warner has given no indication that he plans to change course in the newly Republican-controlled Senate, either. If anything, he expects to have more room to reach bipartisan accord now.
“I’m going to stay focused on that, because that has to be the promise if this country is going to stay the kind of country that I think it should stay — that you shouldn’t be kind of geographically challenged, you should have choice and opportunity everywhere,” he said.
He has made no secret of his disdain for the culture of gridlock on Capitol Hill. Asked last weekend whether McConnell (R-Ky.) could make life in the Senate more rewarding, Warner shared a recent conversation with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).
“Bob Corker’s a dear friend of mine. He has been in the middle of everything the last few years. He said, ‘Warner, I know you want the Democrats to win, but who knows what kind of .?.?. ’?” Warner said, trailing off.
Prodded for more, Warner stood, raised his arms and let loose a tirade against the kind of partisanship that he says would never fly in the business world.
“I think there are enough of us in both parties who realize that this process that one side puts up an ideological bill and the other side filibusters and it’s rinse and repeat and we never get to debate .?.?. ” he said. “I don’t want this job to vote on deputy secretaries and ambassadors. If you want the job, you’ve got to wrestle with the big problems, and that means that those of us who want to do something, [we have] to be willing to shake things up no matter who’s in charge.”
|
|
American Politicians Are a Bigger Threat to Democracy Than ISIS |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33264"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME</span></a>
|
|
Wednesday, 05 November 2014 12:45 |
|
"The election season highlights not our dedicated patriots vying to improve the country, but the greedy villains who are subtly but devastatingly destroying the democratic process like a creeping and relentless rust."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: unknown)
American Politicians Are a Bigger Threat to Democracy Than ISIS
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME
05 November 14
The lying campaign ads, shady voter ID laws and sanctioned dishonesty should be illegal—and those complicit should be arrested
he upcoming mid-term elections should inspire a swell of patriotic pride in our hearts as we Americans dutifully cast our precious votes to reshape our national priorities and values. This is the American democratic ideal in action that we’ve been promoting around the world as a model for all oppressed nations to emulate. “Abandon your monarchies, overthrow your plutarchies, eliminate your dictatorships and join hands with us as we give power to the people,” we encourage. And we believe in that credo so much that we sometimes give guns and bombs to the people to help them take that power. After all, that’s how we did it back in 1775.
That’s why our election days should be an international advertisement for the glorious success of democracy. The aromatic sizzle that sells the hearty steak. The action-packed trailer that lures you to the blockbuster movie. But in reality it’s more like the aggressive perfume sprayers in department stores that deaden your senses with a cloud of acrid stench leaving you blinded and dazed.
The election season highlights not our dedicated patriots vying to improve the country, but the greedy villains who are subtly but devastatingly destroying the democratic process like a creeping and relentless rust. In addition to hunting those home-grown terrorists sneaking over to Syria to join ISIS, we should also be rooting out the saboteurs amongst us who are doing greater damage. While the culprits are pointing and shouting, “Hey, look over there! We’re under attack by Ebola and ISIS,” they are brutally clubbing the baby seal of the democratic principle.
This is the democratic ideal we so love: an informed population weighs the positions of those running for political office, then selects, through majority, the person they think will best represent them in government. It’s so beautiful in its simplicity and sincerity that it’s no wonder those hungry for freedom worldwide would want to embrace it. But here in America that ideal is facing the same fate as an extra in The Walking Dead who says, “I’m going to go on night patrol alone. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
We can’t keep touting our political system as a model for the world while tolerating the worst kind of bad actors whose actions slowly grind away our system. We shouldn’t just shrug it off with cynical acceptance, “That’s politics.” It reminds me of that line from a Brenda Shaughnessy poem, “It’s like having a bad boyfriend in a good band.” The good band is the democratic system; the bad boyfriend is the abusive politician willing to compromise that system to satisfy his own lust for power.
The two most egregious examples of this betrayal are in misleading political ads and in partisan lawmaking that is meant to obstruct fair voting practices. The first attempts to misinform the public, inhibiting its ability to make an informed choice. The second attempts to obstruct eligible voters from casting their ballot because they might not vote the way those in power want them to vote.
There’s no shortage of examples of political ads that lie, but one of the most memorable came from the Mitt Romney presidential campaign in 2011 in which they showed a clip of Barack Obama in his 2008 campaign against McCain saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” The lie is that Romney’s people edited the original film which was Obama saying, “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’” The second lie came when Romney defended the ad, saying that there was “no hidden effort” to mislead voters. What other purpose was there?
That spirit of lying to the public to undermine democracy continues in these midterm elections. The Democrats and Republicans have spent about $50 million dollars, with Democrats spending nearly twice that of Republicans, over the last nine months in ads that mention the dreaded “m” word—Medicare. The focus of the ads is to scare senior citizens by portraying Republicans as anxious to snatch away their Medicare benefits. Some Democratic ads accused Republicans of wanting to “end the Medicare guarantee,” or of causing prescription drugs for seniors to rise as much as $1,700. These claims are reactions to Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to significantly change Medicare. And, while I may not agree with his plan, the Democrats have deliberately misrepresented it in order to scare seniors into voting Democrat.
A conservative advocacy group, Crossroads GPS, spent $3.5 million on ads falsely depicting Colorado Sen. Mark Udall as soft of ISIS (or ISIL). Their TV ads depict Udall as saying, “ISIL does not present an imminent threat to this nation.” Then they show a woman who is the mother of five and a Marine who says she’s worried about her children’s future and safety in light of this statement. No need to worry, because Udall’s complete quote included, “But if we don’t respond to the threat it represents, they will be a threat to this country.” So, if that’s what worried this Marine mother, no need. Udall actually agrees with you. We’ll await your correction.
A candidate’s stance on abortion is the easy litmus test for many voters. So, distorting an opponent’s position is a simple way to sway the vote. Some Democrats have been doing just that. Republican House candidate Barbara Comstock from Virginia has been accused in an ad by Democratic nominee John Foust of wanting to make abortion illegal, “even in cases of rape and incest.” But Comstock previously and publically announced her position: “I do support a life of the mother and rape and incest exception for abortion.” At least four other Democratic ads across the country also lie about opponents’ positions on abortion.
The recent push by the GOP in many states to force a form of voter ID as well as reduce voting hours has rightfully been described by many as a modern version of the poll tax, which was declared unconstitutional in 1966. The requirements for photo IDs are meant to create a hardship for the poor and minorities (of those eligible voters without IDs, 25 percent are black, 16 percent are Hispanic, and only 9 percent are white), who are mostly Democrats, because they would have to obtain documentation such as birth certificates that can cost as much as $75 for travel and paperwork. Student IDs are not accepted, so students would also have to pay to vote. Poll analyst Nate Silver determined that ID laws could reduce voter turnout by 2.4 percent, a margin that might sway close races toward Republicans. U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, said that such ID laws exist only to “discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”
The same problem exists when the voting hours are reduced because wage-workers and single parents have less time to vote. And that’s the point, however un-American and anti-democracy: to keep voters away who may vote against you. This deliberate act to sabotage the democratic election process is worse than anything ISIS could do and yet we not only permit it, we vote people who support it into positions of power.
Proponents of the voter ID law often admit that the studies prove voter fraud is extremely rare. So, they counter by saying, as did Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia Pat Mullins, and Secretary of State of New Mexico Dianna Duran, “One is too many.” Would they agree that “one is too many” when discussing innocents who might have been executed by the death penalty? Would they agree that “one is too many” when advocates of gun control site statistics of children accidentally killed by guns at home? Does “one is too many” only apply when restricting the votes of the poor and minorities?
Ironically, much of the battle over the Second Amendment right to bear arms is the fear that someone will take over the country, remove our freedoms, and we will not be able to fight back. But that’s what’s happening now. And we are already armed with the vote, which many don’t use. It’s more cinematic (and a lot easier) to wave a gun rather than read the speeches and voting records of candidates. But standing around with a gun won’t keep our freedoms as much as voting for someone who isn’t manipulating our passions with lies. I would like to blame us, the voting public, for not being more diligent, but it’s unreasonable for us to have to research every thing that every candidate says. And clearly, we can’t count on the candidates’ personal integrity.
We need to do two things to stabilize the listing ship of democracy. First, scrape off the barnacles. In this case, the barnacles are those who would pass laws deliberately restricting voters from voting. We have to join together on principle and vote out such sinister people, even if these voting restrictions benefit your party. Because this isn’t about giving your party more power, it’s about having a party that supports the democratic ideals of the Constitution. It reminds me of Joe and Theresa Giudice, cast members of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, who are both going to prison for fraud. They often proclaim “family is everything” and “we do everything for the family.” But their crimes hurt others, and others’ families, all so they could live in a mansion and buy expensive furs and jewelry. The family in politics should be the country, not the political party. Win because you’re right, not because you’re the better liar.
Sixteen states criminalize making false political statements. Only sixteen. Worse, a federal judge struck down Ohio’s law as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. The judge felt having the government decide what was true or false might create a situation in which the government could harass critics. That decision very likely will cause a domino effect of removing those laws from other states, leaving Americans with no legal safeguards against, to echo Al Franken, “lies and the lying liars who tell them.”
What should be do to protect democracy against these saboteurs from within? We certainly shouldn’t be doing away with these laws against false political ads; we should be enacting more such laws and enforcing them more diligently. These laws should include punishments that range from assessing huge fines capable of crippling a campaign to prison. Do those punishments really seem too steep for someone destroying the democratic process?
Some may say my outrage shows political naiveté or hyperbole. But I don’t think it’s possible for a black man who has lived in America for 67 years to be politically naïve. Instead, of spouting grimly sophisticated cynicism of pundits, I still believe that the inherent goodness of the process can defeat the greed of the politically ambitious and ethically vacuous.
Maybe I’m just saying that even one lying political ad is “one too many.”
|
|
merican voters proved this week that when Congress fails to get something done, the people have the means to do it themselves. Direct democracy through statewide ballot initiatives has proven to be much more effective and more satisfying than waiting for a deadlocked Congress to catch up to the will of the people.
