Suicidal Tendencies

This post is a bit of a departure from the majority of my other posts. This is about suicide.

In the past two days, I've heard two very disturbing stories involving suicide.

In the first one, a prominent banking lawyer at an international law firm was found dead at the foot of a 150' cliff, with his daughter's teddy bear perched at the top of the cliff, hours after allegations of "inappropriate behavior" at his law firm's Christmas party.

In the second one, I just learned that a family friend killed himself in the past week.

These are both truly devastating stories. I understand that everyone has his/her demons in this world; I have struggled with depression myself. However, to anyone reading this, please remember that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Life gets better. I feel as though I am living proof of that.

So, in closing, and I say this with as much sincerity as I have, if you feel alone and are thinking of ending your life . . . you're not alone; don't. Comment here. Call me. Let's go get a beer or a coffee and be friends. Come have dinner with me or sing songs or do anything except kill yourself.

I know that many people have stated these things much more eloquently than me. Nonetheless, if you are feeling alone, you're not. You have friends and people who care about you, even if you barely ever hear from them. You have impacted people's lives and you matter.

Back at It

During the Obama years, I was continually scolded by my Republican friends who would say that "Bush is gone" and "the current economy is Obama's responsibility." "If Obama didn't want to be in charge, he shouldn't have run."

Generally, these scoldings would come after I point out such inconvenient truths as:

• W, not Obama or Clinton, was president on 9/11
• W inherited a budget surplus and left trillion dollar deficits to his successor
• W's successor was Obama . . . he had trillion dollar deficits on his first day in office

I also thought that it was the worst idea imaginable to demand austerity during a recession. 

Did we learn nothing from the Great Depression? 

I argue with my "conservative" (i.e. "Republican") friends all the time about what ended the Great Depression. I insist it was a combination of the New Deal and WWII; my Republican friends refuse to credit FDR or government with success, ever insist that it was solely WWII. 

Whether I'm right or they are, however, it is clear that it was government spending that brought this country out of the Great Depression. With that in mind, I was incredulous that they would then demand that the government cut, not increase, spending during a recession. I could go on and on about Keynesian theory, but I'll save that for another day.

Today, I want to talk about bad faith, cynical argumentation. I always want to impute good faith to my counterparts in any argument, particularly one about our great nation. However, when I saw profligate spending and tax cutting for 8 years, from 2001 - 2009, a HUGE recession in early 2009, and subsequent demands to cut spending thereafter, I couldn't help but question the good faith of the demands for spending cuts. 

If only there was a way for me to figure out whether the concerns over deficits were sincere or not. I wonder what would happen if the people who were demanding that spending be cut during a recession (i.e. 2009-2013 or so) were given full power during a fairly strong economy (say, in 2016 or so). Would they cut spending, raise taxes, and close the spending deficit?  

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 20 years, I think you know the answer to that:

the real test came after 2016. A complete cynic might have expected economists who denounced budget deficits and easy money under a Democrat to suddenly reverse position under a Republican president.

And that total cynic would have been exactly right. After years of hysteria about the evils of debt, establishment Republican economists enthusiastically endorsed a budget-busting tax cut. After denouncing easy-money policies when unemployment was sky-high, some echoed Trump’s demands for low interest rates with unemployment under 4 percent — and the rest remained conspicuously silent.

Huh. Well, you  know what they say: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I think the real problem, for at least a generation, is that now nobody will take anyone's deficit concerns seriously.

Where's the tea party? Either it was a reaction to a black president and its participants are now walking around in red "Make America Great Again" hats or they have disappeared from the political scene, fully aware that their ideals have been sold out.

SINO (Shutdown In Name Only)

Am I supposed to care about the latest (3rd in 2018, for the record) "shutdown" of the U.S. Government? Is all of this drama and blame game supposed to change my mind about substantive policy in this country?

I don't . . . and it doesn't.

For starters, the only reason I care about the "shutdown" is that it pisses me off that a bunch of politicians decide they want to have confrontational tactics to please their base; when such tactics result in real people being laid off; when such tactics underscore an already incessant notion that "public servants" are not admirable figures striving to better our society but instead "beaurocrats" to be derided, degraded, and discarded.

I think that if our politicians want to have a temper tantrum and shut down the government, then this "partial" shit has to stop. STOP making it convenient to throw a monkey wrench in the works. If we're shutting down the government, then lets shut it down. Stop sending SS checks. Stop making medicare payments. Stop paying the military (except those on active duty in a combat zone). Stop the customs office. Stop immigration services. Stop oversight of ports. These are easy.

I think the question is how far we want to go with this mechanism.

Do we shut down law enforcement? Do we stop the overnight lending at the fed?

Do we shut down courts?

What about prisons?

Anyway, I don't have all of those answers, but I adamantly believe that "shutdowns" should actually SHUT DOWN the government, at least in the main.

As to the second part of my initial inquiry: does this change my mind one iota with respect to domestic policy? Resoundingly not! I don't take philosophical guidance from bumper stickers and intellectual toddlers. To convince me to change my mind on substantive matters, one must show a measure of maturity and understanding of the issue before I engage in any sort of debate on the merits.

California Fires

I tend to think of some, but not all, of the wildfire problems in California in the same vein as I do the hurricane problems in FL. "Don't you kind of ask for these problems?" For example, if you live in Malibu, didn't you kind of ask for this? If you live on the coast in FL, didn't you kind of ask for the hurricane?

Now, we see reports of private fire fighting forces rushing in to aid the wealthy landowners in parts of California, while the less-wealthy residents of interior California are essentially homeless. I recently read a review of a book entitled "Let Malibu Burn." The basic point was that the broader, less-fortunate public, should not have to spend one cent of public money to rebuild mansions on sites that will inevitably burn every 20 years or so.

I think the same thing holds true for Malibu Mansions and Miami Mansions. You chose to live there. You can handle the consequences. I find it endlessly frustrating that people tend to embrace libertarian "every man for himself" ideals right up to the point that they need help from the broader public. I find this particularly frustrating when the well-to-do embrace that ideal as to poor people's healthcare but reject it as to their own mansions.

Jam for Jay

By every account I've heard, Jay Koontz was a wonderful man. He died too young as a result of leukemia. His widow Linda has ever since hosted a concert at the Firefighters' Union Hall on Mass. Ave. entitled Jam for Jay as a fundraiser for leukemia and lymphoma research. It is a good event for a good cause. You can bring your own picnic and booze, if you're into that kind of thing.

I play in the band.

If you want to have some fun and donate money (if you can) to a good cause, please come out and join tonight at 7:00. As I said, it is on Mass. Ave., just southwest of College and across the street from the Mass. Ave. Pub. The Firefighters' Union Hall.

Economic Development Question

I hear often about "economic development" plans from localities that are essentially subsidizing private projects via tax dollars, either directly by backing bonds or indirectly by giving tax deferrals. Either way, these subsidies amount to millions of dollars spent by localities in furtherance of private industry.

Two examples of taxpayer-subsidized projects come to mind: Lucas Oil Stadium and the Wilshaw development. I have said before that if the Town of Speedway wants public parking, it should just build a parking garage instead of borrowing the money to build one, lending that money to a developer, then leasing the garage to the developer in exchange for revenue from the garage. It's a rube goldberg device.

I also hear justification for Lucas Oil Stadium in the form of "look at how many jobs it creates" with all of the hotel, restaurant, convention, etc., traffic created by the facility.

I suppose my big question is this: Why don't we just directly invest in those jobs by doing things like hiring teachers? Paying for their health insurance? Hiring construction workers to build better roads? (the NW corner of 465 comes to mind, but that's just because I commute past that area every day).

In a nutshell, it appears that there is a bipartisan consensus that government spending to create jobs is OK. In that instance, why settle for low-wage ALICE ("asset limited income constrained employed") jobs? Why not go for good middle-class jobs with benefits? It seems that we could do so if we cut out the middle man, i.e. Jim Irsay or Loftus/Robinson.

Just a thought.

Election Eve Plea to the Baby Boomers

Our politics are different. I get it. I am a liberal progressive. You are staunchly conservative. I get it.

However, please think about your children, grandchildren, and parents when you pull the lever tomorrow. Remember that your parents stormed the beach in Normandy to defeat fascism. Remember that they stood down both communism and fascism in their lifetimes. Remember that you were raised in an era where what was best for the country dominated political discussion, not what would best stick it to the other side.

Remember that you were raised in an era when the "fairness doctrine" forced users of the public airwaves to provide equal time to opposing political viewpoints; as opposed to now, where you can listen to the radio in Indiana all day and, with the exception of Lake Co. where Chicago stations are available, you will never hear a spirited defense of liberalism; rather, you just listen to straw men being knocked down, day in and day out.

Remember that you were raised in an era when how well the working class was doing was more important than how well the financial markets were doing; we now live in a state that recently passed a Right to Work law.

Remember that you were raised in an era that had considerably less national wealth than now, yet managed to provide more and better public services. We now live in an era where college costs tens of thousands of dollars per year and cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are looming (to get the debt under control following the $1.5T tax-cutting orgy that has reduced my taxes by approximately $50).

Remember that, from George Washington through Jimmy Carter, we built up a national debt of $1T. That number is now nearly $22T. (And no, it wasn't all Obama's doing, either).

Remember that your kids had to incur debt approaching a mortgage to get that college education that you financed with a summer job. Remember that your kids have another mortgage payment to pay for health insurance, whereas when you had young kids health insurance was approximately as costly as county income taxes. Remember that your children, for all of their faults, are raising your grandchildren. Remember that your grandchildren will also need healthcare and an education, both of which are becoming increasingly unaffordable.

Remember that your generation was given much by its forebears; and its forebears was given much by theirs.

Remember, as we all do, that Bill Clinton lied when he claimed "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Recall that Barack Obama needlessly exaggerated when he said "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." (He should have qualified that with "For 90% of those affected" but the opportunity to do that has past). Recall, also, that these lies stick out because they were anomalous. Recall that, as of Friday, Donald Trump averaged 30 false or misleading claims per day

Recall that no previous president in your lifetime has gleefully promised to lock up his political opponents. No previous president in your lifetime has publicly declared that the media is the "enemy of the people."

Remember that the world as it is now is a result of your lifetime of choices, just as it used to be the way it was because of your parents' choices.

You did not vote for the policies that led to Vietnam or the Great Depression, but you did vote for the policies that led to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Great Recession.

If you like the way the world has changed since the "good old days," then keep voting the way you have since the "good old days." If you think that your grandchildren are getting a worse deal than you did, perhaps you think about changing your voting behavior.

America will be here longer than you and/or I will be. When you vote, please think about the world you intend to leave behind.

On Halloween

I don't like Halloween, and I'm not quite sure why. One would think that it's right in my wheelhouse: Pagan celebration? Check. Creepy stuff? Yes. Occult? Roger, Roger. Celebration of villainy? For sure!

Getting away from the theme of the holiday itself, I also think that the rituals of Halloween are, themselves, positive. Kids going through the neighborhood, collecting candy from benevolent elders who are keeping an eye on the neighborhood to try to keep it as safe as possible? Count me in.

Unfortunately, I feel like Halloween in my neighborhood is underperforming. A minority of houses pass out candy, and I believe that's deleterious to the neighborhood. I fully understand that the neighborhood is teeming with trick-or-treaters who don't live here on Halloween. I guess I view it as a positive that they want to come to my neighborhood on this holiday. This is the destination. I hope I'm a good host. Nonetheless, numerous people keep their lights out and don't answer the door. It's a bummer.

Keeping to the point, thought. . . I just don't like Halloween. Probably because of the makeup and costumes. Is there a Grinch for Halloween? Unfortunately, I think that "he is I and I am him."

What Might Have Been . . .

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (Photos via Library of Congress)

To be specific, Sandy, will you marry me this summer?

— William H. Rehnquist, then a law student at Stanford Law, in a letter where he proposed to his then classmate, Sandra Day. Day turned town Rehnquist’s proposal and later married a different classmate, John O’Connor. Rehnquist and O’Connor later served on the high court together, and remained friends their entire lives.

HT: Above the Law 

Quibbling

Donald Trump is 78.3% down the path he’s been following from failed real estate investor/non-stop grifter/reality TV star to fascist dictator of the United States of America. To quibble over whether any of the possible Democratic candidates who could throw a roadblock into that path would be a better president than any other seems like trying to pick the most stylish lifeboat on the Titanic.

Sometimes all you can do is just tip your cap.

"Standing"

I wrote this for the Speedway Town Talk, and I figured I'd post the un-edited version here:

I was approached recently[1] by a guy who “almost” hurt himself when slipping in a store, and another guy who was cut off by a truck driver “who could’ve killed someone.” Of course, in my line of work, the first question they asked me was whether they could bring a lawsuit.

                The answer is, generally[2], “No. You can’t.” My reason? “You don’t have standing.” The logical next question is, “What is standing? What does that mean?”

                Well, the answer is simple and infinitely complicated. Having standing means that you’re not asking the court to decide a hypothetical question. It means that you have actually been wronged and, at least assuming you can prove your allegations, are entitled to and can expect redress for your injury.

It means that the guy who almost hurt himself when he slipped in the store hasn’t been wronged and isn’t entitled to anything by the court; the guy who was cut off by the trucker wasn’t killed or hurt in any way . . . it’s not his fight. The doctrine of standing has nothing to do with the actual “merits” of the case. It doesn’t decide whether the store where the guy slipped was negligent; it doesn’t address whether the trucker was indeed driving like a maniac. It just asks whether there is an actual controversy to be decided by the courts.

                To have standing, one must generally demonstrate three things: (1) the Plaintiff suffered an “injury in fact,” i.e. a concrete, discernable injury, as opposed to a hypothetical or conjectural one; (2) the injury noted in element #1 is fairly traceable to some conduct of the defendant; and (3) a favorable judgment in court would fairly address the injury. See the late Justice Scalia’s opinion in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife if you are interested in more reading on the matter.

                As a fine (yet absurd) example, I can’t sue Satan (yes … the actual Prince of Darkness) for enticing Adam to eat the apple and thereby harming humanity, of which I am a member. Even if the Supreme Court of the U.S. sides with me, my injury is “non-justiciable.” There’s nothing they can do.

---

[1] Which is to say, “In my lifetime.”

[2] As always, this is not legal advice, as the world offers infinite circumstances that are open to interpretation.

I would like to point out that one of the reasons I write about standing is the overwhelming desire by so many people to insert themselves into a controversy even though it's not their controversy. I wrote recently about people trying to drive the new pet store in Speedway out of existence. It's not their controversy. I hear about people who want to do "something" about the way Zore's drivers drive. It's not your controversy.

Bottom line: if you don't have standing, then butt out.

Lives v. Livelihoods

I play in a few rock n' roll bands for charity. One of the bands has a part-time member who is a bona fide professional musician. Other than the varying talent levels, what is the difference between myself and the bona fide professional musician? I will only play music that I like. The pro will play whatever he gets paid to play.

I presume this is because music is my love (and possibly/probably his as well) but it is his livelihood. If he doesn't play what people pay him to play, people don't pay him; he doesn't earn his living. If I don't, I simply go back to practicing law, which I was going to do anyway.

When it comes to law, I take plenty of cases I don't particularly love, because it's my job.

I have noticed that a lot of people have made a sport of bashing the Speedway Animal House. Full disclosure, I am not an animal lover. However, I think that too many people are applying their own sense of morality, attributable to their own love of animals and pets, to the business practices of Speedway Animal House.

I don't like mushrooms, "eggs" that come in a milk carton "pre-scrambled," canned gravy, or paper-thin bacon. That's why I don't eat at Charlie Brown's anymore. I eat at Flap Jacks on 10th Street, which I find to be a much superior choice. I don't go out of my way to bash Charlie Browns for the type of food they sell. Maybe somebody likes it?

I don't like "solid state" amps. I don't bash every guitar store on earth for carrying them. I just don't buy them.

My bottom line is that people need to leave the Speedway Animal House the hell alone if they don't like it. If you  don't like a business' practices, don't shop there. Don't expect a business owner to necessarily care as much about your passion as you do; a business exists to make money, not push anyone's moral crusade. Assuredly there are tons of better targets for our moral protests in the world of corporate America (oil and other chemical companies polluting our air, water, and ground; Big Pharma actively pushing and marketing opioids to the masses, to say nothing of Big Tobacco's track record; arms manufacturers selling their wares to dictators . . . just to name a few). Leave the local business alone; if people don't want to shop there, they won't. If they do, then the proprietors of Speedway Animal House are entitled to carry forth with their legal business.

If you have nothing better to do than drive a locally owned business underwater, you need to find a new hobby. Pardon my rant.

Brett Kavanaugh - Where We Are

Either reader of this blog knows my feelings on Donald Trump, movement conservatism, and the national Republican party. It will come as no surprise that I oppose Brett Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court.

I also believe that whether he is ultimately confirmed or if it is somebody else on Donald Trump's infamous list of Federalist Society Reactionaries, the legal outcomes will be the same.

So, I can't help but ask why the numerous defenses of Judge Kavanaugh from the right? Regardless of whether Kavanaugh or someone else on the list is confirmed, we can be assured that this 5-vote conservative majority will:

• refuse to find any burden, whatsoever, to be "undue" under the Casey test;
• will likely continue to create exceptions to, if not wholly repeal, the exclusionary rule;
• will hamstring the ability of administrative agencies to participate in rule-making and adjudication, effectively rendering them toothless advisory boards;
• continue to use the 1st amendment as protection against pretty much any meaningful regulation of either the economy or political spending; and
• elevate the 2nd Amendment to the level of sacrosanct and essentially (to the extent it has not already been done) read out the part about "a well-regulated militia."

All of these are longtime conservative policy goals. All of these goals would be advanced by pretty much any one of the Federalist Society judges, as these judges have been groomed in conservative ideology for decades.

So, why the defense of Brett Kavanaugh?

I don't know. I hear people say that he is an innocent man who has been slurred, but I have a few points to add to that:

1. This is not a criminal investigation. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" and "presumed innocent" are fine phrases when we're talking about depriving someone of his freedom. They have no place in what is a job interview for a lifetime, exceedingly powerful, position. Nobody on the right demanded that Hillary Clinton be "presumed innocent" of all of the charges they hurled at her (BENGHAZI!!! EMAILS!!!). I don't recall Donald Trump presuming that Barack Obama was born in the United States. On a personal level, if I was looking to hire a babysitter and heard a rumor that a particular babysitter liked to get drunk on the job and steal from the houses at which she babysat, I wouldn't be looking for corroborating evidence, giving a presumption of innocence, or demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The rumor would suffice for me to look elsewhere. My babysitter does not have the power to interpret the U.S. Constitution and determine the breadth of my rights for the remainder of his/her life. A Supreme Court Justice does.
2. In litigation, there are numerous presumptions that we can make based on testimony. A generally known principle in criminal litigation is that a false exculpatory answer, when proven to be false, is pretty strong evidence of the accused's knowledge of his own guilt. Judge Kavanaugh made some fairly ludicrous statements: Beach Week Ralph Club refers to his weak stomach; Renate alumnius [sic] had no sexual connotations, even though Renate Dolphin (the self same Renate) is insulted by the reference; Devil's Triangle is a drinking game (that nobody has ever heard of) and not a sexual reference (that is fairly common). The list goes on and on, but these statements really stretch credulity, and he offers them as exculpatory. While I am not entirely convinced that he is lying, I have significant misgivings about it.
3. Similarly, while a polygraph is not strong evidence of the truth of a statement, it is strong evidence of the speaker's belief in the truth of such statement. Dr. Ford took a polygraph. The results do not demonstrate that her statements were true, but they demonstrate that she believed them to be true. Has Judge Kavanaugh been subjected to a polygraph?
4. Dr. Ford repeatedly requested an investigation into her allegations. Brett Kavanaugh said he would "do whatever the (Republican-controlled judiciary) committee wanted." If he is so innocent of these charges, why is he not demanding an investigation into them? It says a lot to me that when two people are making mutually exclusive assertions, and one of them wants the matter investigated and the other doesn't.

I could go on, but I'm pretty sure the point is clear. 

I also note the defenses of Judge Kavanaugh. Some say "he didn't do it," but given Dr. Ford's credible testimony, Kavanaugh's defenders have a difficult time simply saying she's lying. So, they come up with a series of defenses:

• It actually happened, but Dr. Ford is mistaken about who did it;
• Even if it did happen as Dr. Ford says, it was a long time ago and we should forgive his behavior;
• Even if it did happen, he never actually raped her so it doesn't really matter.

I am not particularly convinced by any of these rationalizations. 

On Abortion

I generally try to stay away from discussing abortion because those with whom I disagree are not persuadable, nor am I.

I am pro-choice. I believe Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. I believe that Planned Parenthood v. Casey was a disingenuous roll back of Roe v. Wade. I believe that the coming conservative majority of the Supreme Court will not have the guts to explicitly overturn Roe v. Wade or Casey. Rather, I believe they will spinelessly re-affirm both precedents while never ever finding a burden on abortion that is "undue."

With that said, I say this to my pro-life friends (who also happen to style themselves as "small-government conservatives"): A government that has the power to force you to refrain from an abortion likewise has the power to force you to have one. Just look at China's one-child policy. Is that what we want?

Insult or Injury - Part 2

Tabletop Joe is no friend of Senator Mike Young's politics. This much is clear. And like most people, Tabletop Joe doesn't care to be lied to.

Mike Young likes to lie to me or, at the very least, communicate with me in bad faith. My lone reader will recall my recent rant about Mike Young and his track record on education. Well, this morning, Mr. Career Politician who got his law school paid for by the public and has spent his life currying favors for his donors Young sent me another message, this time touting the new policy that will allow for the use of public money to put metal detectors in schools. Nevermind the reason why the metal detectors are necessary, right?

Well, that inspired me to look up some advocacy groups' "scoring" of Senator Worthless Young. My research found:

• A grade of D from the Indiana Coalition for Public Education in 2016; and
• An award for Excellence from the American Conservative Union in 2016 (which scored positively, among other things, Sen. Young's votes to allow guns in the capital and school corporations to hire unlicensed teachers).

There is plenty more, but I note that Sen. Young brags about "protecting schools" while doing nothing whatsoever to curtail the epidemic of gun violence and undercutting the quality of the teachers in the classroom. 

I voted for Phil Webster in 2016 and would do so again in a heartbeat. I know Coach Webster personally, worked with him at Decatur Central, and have the utmost respect for him. Mike Young? Not so much.

Hearing Mike Young tout his record on education is like listening to Tipper Gore express her affection for the first amendment. 

Philosophical Question

This:

Is the Constitution a charter of self-government that allows the people’s elected representatives to try to find reasonable institutional solutions for the varied problems of the world? Or is it a charter for property owners that allows them to craft a state that’s well-armed and capable enough to defend their rights but incapacitated to govern the economy in any way?

Never Forget

It is no secret that I am a lawyer. Insert joke here.

That said, I have an enormous affection and respect for  the judiciary. It hurts me to my soul what is invariably going to happen to the Supreme Court.  

It was bad when they refused to so much as consider Merrick Garland.

It was bad when they eliminated the filibuster so that 51 senators, making it possible for senators representing less than 19% of the American population to put someone on the highest court in the land, for life, regardless of what the other 81% of Americans think. (And this doesn't even take into account the fact that most of those senators were likely elected with approximately 55-60% of the popular vote in the state, rendering the 19% more like a well-connected 10-11%, but I digress).

Now, we live in a world where it is highly doubtful whether the U.S. Senate will, in my lifetime, ever confirm a Supreme Court nominee from the other party. Thanks Mitch McConnell.

We also live in a world where, whether it is Kavanaugh or someone else nominated, 4 out of 9 Supreme Court seats are occupied by justices who were appointed by presidents entering office after having received fewer votes than their opponents.

We also live in a world where the Senate Majority/President is desperately trying to look like they give a damn about the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh without allowing these allegations to even slightly influence their votes. Can you say, "Gleichschritt?"

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, after all. After all, this:

That's all bad enough. Now, consider this:

Over the weekend, Dr. Ford reached a tentative deal to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Most of her other requests were denied, as apparently Senate Republicans feel no particular need to respect the wishes of a mere woman. Republicans are going to make her testify first, when she’d asked to testify second. Republicans refused to call other witnesses who Ford claims have first-hand knowledge of the attack (more on that collection of heroes later). And Republicans are currently on the hunt for a woman, any woman, to do the attack job on Ford for them, so they don’t have to face the “optics” of attacking a potential survivor of sexual assault.

And Republicans are already indicating that nothing Ford says will matter to them in the least. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said: “What am I supposed to do, go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation?”

I highly suggest you read either the linked article or one of the numerous articles available not only detailing the allegations against Kavanaugh, but also addressing the way the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Republican leadership (ahem, a bunch of old white men, ahem) has decided to handle this. It is shameful, and everytime I think we've reached rock bottom, we just keep on digging.

My Annual Rant

As N. Carolina cleans up from Hurricane Florence, I suppose it is time for my annual rant about flood insurance.

Can someone explain to me why it is that tax money is used to subsidize flood insurance:
1. On pieces of real estate that the natural ecosystem requires to dampen the impact of hurricanes, erosion, etc.
2. On pieces of real estate that the vast majority of tax payers can't afford to ever buy.

I went to the Florida pan handle on vacation a few years ago; not exactly a luxury vacation spot, I might add, but it was very nice for my middle-class tastes. I noticed that there were some houses in Seaside, FL that look as though they would fit in in many newer neighborhoods in Indianapolis. Of course, a 1,300 sq. ft. condo on the beach sells for $300,000+ down there; the cheapest single-family house I could find for sale down there on Zillow was $819,000. Based on the old adage that you shouldn't carry debt more than 3X your annual income, we can safely assume that whoever buys this house makes nearly $300,000 a year, presuming this is a primary residence. If it's a second, vacation, home, we can probably assume that our buyer makes not less than $600,000/year. In the alternative, our buyer has this amount in cash sitting around, and we can only speculate as to where s/he got it.

My point is that for all the talk about "socialism" when it comes to stuff that, you know, regular people need . . . stuff like healthcare and education, the government never seems to have the money and people pitch a fit about it.

On the other hand, when it comes to socializing the risk to which the wealthy are exposed, socialism is never even considered.

It reminds me of the old saying about "Rugged individualism for thee (poor, worker); socialism for me (wealthy investment banker)."

By all means, let's subsidize insurance for the priciest homes in America, while more than a half million of our fellow citizens, and more than 100,000 children, sit homeless.

Makes you want to scream.

Insult or Injury?

I was a public school teacher for the better part of a decade.

I left teaching to become a lawyer. People often ask me why, and I've settled on a fairly simple answer: a profession should be rewarding, either personally or financially. Teaching wasn't.

It wasn't personally rewarding for me. I could enumerate specific reasons, but this is not long-form writing . . . it would take too long. Simply put, teaching ceased to be personally rewarding because seemingly everyone, from the President to the Governor to my students' parents to my students themselves, expected me to care more about my students than any of them, including their own parents and indeed themselves. The old meme about "Welcome to teaching, where the pay sucks and everything is your fault" rings very true.

As to the finances, I'm fairly certain plenty has been written about that already. I tend to hear people who've never taught talk about how easy teachers have it; that's a crock of $hit. Anyone making such a claim is hereby challenged to (1) get licensed; (2) teach every day for a year; (3) live on a teaching salary for a year; and (4) continue talking about how easy teaching is.

As I've noted before, I am a civil litigator. I have tried cases that could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in judgments against my clients, bankrupting their businesses and ruining their lives. Particularly when weighed against the annual income, the total stress of litigating doesn't outweigh the total stress of teaching by much.

Anyway, this is all a lead-up to the "insult to injury" email I got from Sen. Do-Nothing Government-Funded-Lawyer/Lobbyist Michael Young. Sen. Young, having voted to hamstring teachers' ability to collectively bargain for better wages, having voted to make school funding a statewide issue (so that it can be underfunded), having voted to wrench local control away from schools, now has the brass to send an email to me about Scholarships for Future Educators.

How about this Sen. Young? Maybe, instead of throwing paltry scholarships at prospective educators, you treat current educators with the same respect you would treat opposing counsel? Maybe you acknowledge that their jobs are difficult and valuable? Perhaps you acknowledge that teaching is not a hobby but a profession, and that requires actually paying people. Maybe you can acknowledge that for decades, society has been getting teachers at a cut rate because their labor is undervalued as "womens' work" as opposed to the "manly" work of construction or factory work (both of which pay better, I might add, and construction allows its seasonally laid off employees to collect unemployment; teaching? not so much).

Simply put Sen. Young, perhaps you could acknowledge that there is a large swath of society that actually makes money by working instead of trading off connections to do stuff like be a lobbyist, get elected to the state legislature, or get your law school tuition paid.l

Best quote in a long time

This:

 if you take on the job of steering the American economy, your performance will be judged based on whether or not you steered it to prosperity — not whether you steered it better than your least informed critics would have.

Interesting Tit-for-tat Hypothetical

It seems rather clear to me that GOP lawmakers have made a bargain with President Trump:

• On the one hand, they will look the other way with respect to his considerable personal corruption and that of his administration and campaign (see: Trump Hotel D.C., Emoluments Clause, Pornstar Payoffs, Profiteering from the Presidency as demonstrated by the financial information we know about Ivanka/Jared, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, et al)
• On the other hand, he give the GOP establishment the policy that it wants: tax cuts, conservative judges . . . the rest of the stuff can be forgiven so long as its not too egregious or costs them elections

Given the probable, though by no means certain, takeover of the House of Representatives later this year, I wonder if they too are willing to accept this kind of Faustian bargain. Allow Trump to continue to marinate in his swam in exchange for more money to social programs and cuts to the military?

Something to think about.

The Tragedy of Student Loans

Part the millionth about how college students are essentially being screwed out of an opportunity to make a better life for themselves (and spare me the anecdotal evidence about film studies majors and rock climbing walls).

Well, the top student lender watchdog of the federal government (the guy whose job it is to make sure that student debtors' rights aren't violated by powerful financial institutions) just resigned from his job.

Why, you ask?

Well, he makes three major points about the leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the agency for which he worked, now led by Mick Mulvaney):

• Leadership of the agency has undercut enforcement of the law
• Leadership of the agency has undermined the agency's independence
• Leadership of the agency actively shields bad actors from scrutiny

Now, I have a selfish interest in how the student debt industry operates, as I am a student debtor. I certainly hope that my parents (who paid for their entire respective educations with less than $10,000) care. I hope that my neighbors care, and I hope that the owner of Dawson's and the Union Jack care. After all, every dime that I send to an out-of-state student lender is a dime that I can't spend locally, and that hurts the local economy.

Anyway, if you're interested, here is the letter.

Never Overlook Progress

Speedway has come a long way in recent years. While it is very easy to point out shortcomings and lament imperfections, I was reading through some old case archives and came across this:

A man was sentenced Wednesday to 85 years in prison for killing and robbing a guest at a motel where he worked.

Joseph Pryor had been convicted of murder and robbery in the October 2005 death of James Santelli in the Super 8 Motel in Speedway.

Police said Pryor, a maintenance worker at the motel, used a wooden coat hanger to stab Santelli, 45, of Palatine, Ill. A wooden coat hanger was found sticking out of Santelli's neck, authorities said.

Pryor admitted to stealing cash and tools from Santelli, a construction worker, police said. Pryor tried to cover the crime by pouring Listerine over evidence and sold the tools to a pawnshop, police said.

I note this particular matter because the civil suit that followed this crime wound up setting a rather important precedent in Indiana law.

May Mr. Santelli rest in peace, and may Mr. Prior find forgiveness some day. However, may Speedway work diligently to ensure that it never again becomes a home to dodgy "hooker hotels" that wind up having these kinds of violent crimes therein.

Worth Acknowledging

I hear the "Manafort and Cohen's crimes had nothing to do with Trump or Russia" defense already. Let's just acknowledge the following (hat tip to Matt Yglesias):

Mueller has a broad but still finite mandate to investigate matters related to Russia’s intervention in the 2016 campaign, Trumpworld figures’ possible involvement in the meddling, and the circumstances surrounding former FBI Director James Comey’s firing.

Mueller used that mandate to successfully prosecute Paul Manafort for crimes that, though related to work for Russia, do not appear to directly relate to the 2016 campaign. The strategy, evidently, is to try to create pressure on Manafort to cooperate with the investigation and implicate others — potentially including Trump.

But unlike former independent counsel Ken Starr (or his former lieutenant and current Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh), Mueller is not operating as an all-purpose roving anti-Trump ombudsman who just looks under random rocks and tries to find dirt on Trump. Consequently, when he uncovered evidence that looked bad for Cohen but had nothing to do with Russia, he passed it off to ordinary prosecutors. 

 This is an excellent point. Let's not forget that Ken Starr started off investigating a shady land deal in Arkansas and wound up investigating Bill/Monica hanky panky.

As a final note, let's not forget this (in light of the upcoming election):

The key thing to remember about the Russia investigation is it exists not because it’s the only aspect of Trump’s conduct worth investigating, but because it’s the only worthwhile investigation that congressional Republicans were willing to pursue.

Republicans run the House and Senate. The only way that any investigation will ever go anywhere is if congress authorizes it. The reason there is no investigation into Trump's campaign finance, previous business dealings, alleged sexual harassment, etc., is because those controlling congress won't authorize the investigation. 

Verizon & Wildfires - A Cautionary Tale re. Net Neutrality

I can't help but wryly recall those times when I was told that industry would self regulate better than the government could, and attempts to interfere with the "free market" would invariably backfire. "That which governs least governs best."

Fast forward to today, where I read this story about Verizon purposely "throttling" or "slowing down" the firefighters' data plans because they had "gone over their limit."

OK.

It seems to me that Verizon just "self regulated." No doubt Verizon profits from each GB of data it sells; why else would it be in business? That said, am I naive in thinking that, to the degree that functional (or actual) monopolies are granted and/or tolerated, is it too much to ask that the monopolists provide their services, in a very limited set of circumstances, at either a reduced rate of profit or free from profits? Wouldn't a wildfire that is literally consuming one's state fall within such limited set of circumstances?

Frankly, while I am inclined to make a specific policy point about regulations and their relation to business, I think that this simply illustrates a much larger point.

I know that Verizon could (and did) do this with or without the repeal of net neutrality rules. This is not  a post about the specifics of net neutrality. Rather, I write to repeat the obvious but glorious point, made on NPR on Wednesday, that when push comes to shove, corporate America is going to act in its own interests. If doing so at the public expense is what it takes, then so be it, I guess.

One final note: since the "shareholder revolution" of the 1980s, corporate America's singular interest is profit.

Facts, Pesky Little Things

"Truth isn't truth!"

In light of this weekend's utterly amazing disregard for actual facts, I thought I'd do a bit of research on what "facts" are being debated in the current race for a seat from IN in the federal Senate.

Note, this is simply me regurgitating what I've read, but I will source the conclusions:

• Joe Donnelly says that Mike Braun has supported two proposals and a lawsuit to end health insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. MOSTLY TRUE
• Joe Donnelly states that 43 of his legislative proposals have become law, including 21 since Donald Trump took office. MOSTLY TRUE
• Senate Leadership Fund (a Republican Super PAC) says, "Sen. Donnelly's family got caught outsourcing jobs to Mexico, and 'Mexico Joe' profited $80,000. MOSTLY FALSE

The remainder of the quotes I saw "adjudicated" as above were from the primary. I have less than zero interest in discussing Todd Rokita.

Additionally, PolitiFact did a primer on Mike Braun's business practices. Note, this is not a partisan hit job on him but rather an analysis as to the claims being made by the Donnelly people. You can read the whole thing here. A few notable quotes:

Braun is the CEO and owner of Meyer Distributing, an auto parts distribution company, and Meyer Logistics, a trucking company, based in Jasper, Ind.

The U.S. Labor Department found Meyer Distributing violated the Fair Labor Standards Act 26 times. The violations were related to unpaid overtime work for 25 employees between December 2008 and December 2010. Meyer Distributing had to pay $39,402 in back wages. The company settled one lawsuit with a fired employee in 2009 related to the same issue.

I would point out that these back wages settlements amounted to a bit more than $1,500/worker. While this may not be much money to a multi-state trucking tycoon who can dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into his own political campaign, $1,500 may have been the difference between making bills for a quarter and losing the home for some of Mr. Braun's employees. I know no more than the allegation and the settlement, so I won't discuss the merits of the case. I do know that lawsuits like these often settle for one reason or another, and the settlement does not make Mr. Braun or his company guilty. 

Nonetheless, when you brand yourself the "champion of the little guy," it's a bad look to be stiffing your employees to the tune of 2-3 weeks' pay (maybe more, given their low wages).

Another point hit on in the piece was Donnelly's accusations about distributing parts made in China. I guess my point is: who cares? Most everything that gets sold has component parts made elsewhere. It's a modern economy.

What I do care about more than the original location of Mr. Braun's company's products is his legislative voting record. I found this to be interesting:

As a state legislator, Braun voted against an amendment that allowed local governments to take back property tax incentives from companies that relocate outside Indiana.

So, I may be thinking about this wrong, but my impression of this bill is that if, say, the Town of Speedway gives Allison Transmission tax incentives to stay where it is, and the incentives last 10 years, then Allison should at least be obligated not to relocate to Illinois or Ecuador for 10 years. Apparently Mr. Braun, as indicated by his own voting record, feels otherwise. Campaign rhetoric can spin one way or the other; the funny thing about votes is they speak for themselves. As I've argued during depositions (with a slight variation for the present circumstances), "We will stipulate that Mr. Braun's vote means what Mr. Braun's vote means."

There's also this about Joe Donnelly:

Braun rebutted with Donnelly’s own record. Donnelly profited from a family arts and crafts business that relied on cheap Mexican labor to produce dye for ink pads. Import Genius recorded 35 import shipments from China for the company between 2008 and 2018. Panjiva, a similar import tracking company, found 31 shipment imports since 2011.

Domila McFarlane, a manager at Panjiva, noted the company had likely received further shipments by air, but U.S. data only looks at maritime shipments.

Donnelly sold his stocks in the company following the AP report on ties to Mexico in July 2017. 

Apparently inscrutable behavior in search of politics is the new norm; either that, or utilizing a modern import/export system as designed is just what business people do. Perhaps the takeaway here is not that business actions in self interest are inherently good or evil but rather that the system we design to influence and/or regulate those decisions needs to be improved.

We could certainly go on, but then again, can't we always?

Healthcare - A Personal Frustration

My reader knows that I lament the state of American healthcare on this blog often. I recently had an episode that neatly encapsulates so many of the problems. Don't mind if I share . . .

Let me preface this by saying that I have a 3-year-old daughter, and I am still trying to clear my debt owed for her birth in January 2015.

Anyway, a few months ago, my wife received a phone call from a collections agency insisting that we owed $120 for a doctor's visit. My wife insisted otherwise and explained the basis for her opinion, to no avail. Collectors continued calling, and we eventually sent the check for $120, only to have it promptly sent back to us because we didn't owe it.

Just think about this for a moment: my family was threatened with financial detriment, repeatedly, over a bill that we didn't owe. How many "man hours" went into making this determination? How much labor was spent by the doctor and health insurance company to figure this out? Is it any wonder that American healthcare is monumentally inefficient?

How much of my wife's time was spent (without compensation) trying to explain to these people how their own books were supposed to work? Is it any wonder that people have lost faith in American healthcare? Not because of the actual healthcare workers, mind you, but because of the business practices of the organizations that employ them.

It is episodes such as this that frustrate me to no end. Generally, when I purchase a good or service, I know what I'm purchasing and how much it will cost. Contrarily, with healthcare, I just get a bill and am expected to pay it, no questions asked.

To anyone who defends this current system, I say to you: "You owe me $120; pay up or else!"

One (of many) Problems with Vouchers

A beloved commenter recently suggested that perhaps those who send their children to Catholic schools should get a property tax break, since they are paying for their own private school tuition and not utilizing the public schools. This, of course, presupposes that the parents of private school children are not being subsidized by the public, which we know not to be the case. See: Indiana Voucher Program.

While I can nit-pick about whether the public currently subsidizes religious schools (by vouchers, not to mention tax abatements, etc.), I think my bigger problem is the fundamental misunderstanding of the term "public."

If I don't use the public park, do I get a tax break?

If I don't drive on the public streets very much, do I get a tax break?

If I don't ever call the police, do I get a tax break?

If I don't have children, period, do I get a tax break?

The answer to all four of those questions is a resounding NO. Why should I get a tax break if I don't use the park. It's still there for me, and the choice not to use it is mine. I would say the same thing as to the public streets. Just because I don't drive on them (and no, they're not funded entirely by gasoline taxes, and even if they were, I still buy gasoline for my lawnmower) doesn't mean that I'm not on the hook to pay for them.

Why do people continually view education so differently from public safety? 

For the record, I've never, in my entire life, required the services (to take a few random examples) of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, the Indiana Horse Racing Commission, the IN Office of Tourism Development, or the IN Dept. of Veterans Affairs, yet I still get to pay taxes to support their budgets, don't I? Why do people rail on and on about public schools yet utterly forget about essentially everything else that our government does?

If I want to protect my own home with a .45 magnum, can I just buy one, show my proof of purchase to the state and federal governments, and get my tax money refunded that would otherwise support the military and the police? For some reason, I doubt it.

Milquetoast Joe Donnelly

To parrot what Sheila Kennedy wrote the other day, I think that Joe Donnelly is a horrible centrist sellout. I think that so many of his positions are cowardly, and I rank him down with Evan Bayh as a finger-in-the-air politico.

I will vote for him anyway, even if I have to hold my nose.

In light of that preface, I turn to a different but related topic: whether he should vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

I think that he should not.

I actually wrote to the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette recently about this. My point, then and now, is that there is not a single Republican out there who is (a) aware of who Brett Kavanaugh is AND (b) will be swayed to vote for Joe Donnelly and against Mike Braun. Contrarily, I believe that there are plenty of progressives (whether they count themselves as Democrats or not) who will stay home if Sen. Donnelly votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. After all, if Sen. Donnelly votes like a Republican when it counts, why bother to campaign/canvass/fundraise for him? Why not just let the few remaining governing positions in Indiana go to Republicans if all of the Indiana Democrats are going to act like Republicans when the rubber hits the road anyway?

In light of that, I present this from Abdul Hakeem Shabaz (he used to be "Abdul in the Morning" but I think the plug got pulled on that):

A new poll of the U.S. Senate race gives Democrat Joe Donnelly a 12-point lead over Republican Mike Braun, but it changes depending on whether he votes to confirm Brett Cavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The poll of more than 1,400 likely voters, conducted by The Trafalgar Group, gives Donnelly a lead of 50.8 to 38.6 over Braun.  Ten percent are undecided.

However, that lead drops to 39.4 to 38.5 if Donnelly votes for the confirmation.  And if Donnelly votes against the confirmation,  his lead only drops to 45-38.

The number of undecided voters also grows to 22 percent if Donnelly votes yes; 16 percent if he votes no.

The poll was taken from July 31 to August 7.

It has a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percent.

Of course, a poll taken 3+ months before an election, combined with $3, is worth approximately $3 (ask Hillary Clinton). Nonetheless, I note that Sen. Donnelly's lead over Mike Braun drops more if he votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh than if he votes not to. (I also note that Abdul mis-spells Kavanaugh's name, but who really cares?)

So, to that end, Sen. Donnelly, I implore you to vote against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. I don't like that Supreme Court nominations are political. That doesn't mean that they aren't. Senators often have to take tough votes; sometimes right before an election. It seems to me that someone who represents me in a legislature should be willing to vote his conscience, even if it costs him an election.

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude (N): pleasure derived from another's misfortune

What gives me schadenfreude? This:

In court filings and public statements, the NRA says that a campaign by Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and the state’s Department of Financial Services has cost it “tens of millions of dollars” and left it scrambling to find basic banking services and essential corporate liability coverage. Cuomo’s reaction has been gleeful. He has called on other states to follow his lead in putting firms on notice of the risks of working with the NRA, and says he’ll send “thoughts and prayers” if the gun group does actually suffer the downfall it says it fears.

While I am generally not a fan of Andrew "Milquetoast" Cuomo, I can't help but chuckle at his "thoughts and prayers" comment, as countless Americans have only gotten "thoughts and prayers" when their loved ones are slaughtered by [checks notes] "bad guys with guns." 

Hard Cases & Bad Law

If someone wants to worship God in accordance with Catholic beliefs, no problem.

If someone wants to marry a person of the same sex in accordance with his/her affection and preference, no problem.

If someone wants to run a company in accordance with his/her religious values, no problem.

The problems arise when these three situations (and countless others) intersect. For example, if the Catholic works at a law firm and refuses to do work on a divorce case, what then? If a Catholic owns a child care center and does not want his/her employees to publicly "flaunt" their homosexuality, does that mean that all employees have to live in "the closet" or risk losing their jobs?

This is the genesis of the phrase, "Hard cases make bad laws." For example, we certainly have the right to wear t-shirts with statements on them, but does a student have the right to wear a "Bong Hits for Jesus" t-shirt, to school? The Supreme Court said yes, but does that mean that the student should wear that shirt?

I ramble all of this in light of a story I read recently in the Indianapolis Star. Here are some excerpts:

Students, parents and alumni are rallying behind a Roncalli High School guidance counselor who they say may be fired after administrators found out she was married to a woman.

The south-side Catholic school and Archdiocese of Indianapolis defended their position regarding Shelly Fitzgerald after her supporters began criticizing the school on social media over the weekend.

"As role models for students, the personal conduct of every teacher, guidance counselor and administrator and staff member, both at school and away from school, must convey and be supportive of the teachings of the Catholic Church," Roncalli officials posted on the school's official Facebook page Sunday night.

This has implications galore. For starters, if the counselor can't be fired, is that not an infringement on Roncalli's First Amendment rights? If the counselor can be fired, isn't that an infringement on the counselor's 14th Amendment substantive due process rights, particularly given that Roncalli receives public money?

As the title says, hard cases make bad laws. I don't think that the guidance counselor should be fired, as a function of what is right and wrong. I'm not sure as to whether the counselor can be fired, as a function of what is legal.

I would, however, advise Roncalli to tread lightly. While Indiana, presently, is shoveling public money to religious schools, the political worm always turns, particularly when you taunt fate and encourage the worm to turn. How many more schools doing something like this would eventually result in a revolt against the idea of giving our tax money to schools that aren't accountable to our constitution? If religious institutions can't follow our laws, in accordance with their stated religious mission, perhaps we shouldn't expect them to . . . perhaps we shouldn't fund them.

Of course, on the other hand, if Roncalli is forced to hire and retain employees who it sees as antithetical to its mission, how long before it and other schools like it turn their back on voucher programs and essentially say, "There are too many strings attached. We'll go back to the old way of doing things."

Again, hard cases make bad laws. When you mix the public and private sectors, it is really important to properly delineate between those functions that are governmental functions (and thus subject to all of the laws, regulations, and (yes) the Constitution, and those functions that are non-governmental.