Politics – Shortwoman.com

A Few Words about Aaron Ford

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

I first met Aaron Ford in what must have been 2012. He literally knocked on my door to ask for my vote! I told him as long as he had a D behind his name, don’t worry I was voting for him. I had the door halfway closed when he said “WAIT! It’s a primary!” Then we talked for a bit.

Since then, he has risen through Nevada politics like a warm ice cream scoop. Now he’s our state Attorney General. Meanwhile, I moved out of the old neighborhood by the Greek Orthodox Church, but work down the street.

This week, he announced that he’s running for Governor. Just as in 2012, he has a primary fight ahead of him. To be sure, he has had his share of controversy. It looks like the state Republicans are going to fall back on calling him a radical, for doing such outlandish things as looking out for the people of Nevada. People and organizations I respect support him, and I think there’s an extremely chance I will do exactly what I did in 2012: vote for him in the primary. His views and political positions are much closer to my own than any Republican candidate.

But a warning both to Mr Ford and the Democratic Party: We The People are tired of business as usual, of being told that policies that would benefit us are “too radical” and “will never pass.” We The People are tired of being told to “Be reasonable.” That’s why the Democratic Party has been losing. Hillary told us to be reasonable and lost. Sisolak told us to be reasonable and lost. We The People are tired of the Pelosis and Schumers of the world telling us we mustn’t make the other side mad, we must negotiate with people whose idea of negotiation is “do what we want or else.” We The People want bold change that clearly benefits us now and for the future. Democrats win when they do what the voters want, not when they do what the elite donors want. Don’t be afraid to Dare Greatly and Boldly Go.

In closing: It is of great concern that today’s labor statistics report was awful, with previous months being revised sharply downward. And there are logical reasons for the decline; it’s not an aberration or “rigged” numbers. It is of even greater concern that Mr. Trump’s reaction was to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This act calls into question future government statistics: are they true, or doctored to appease the President? I predict that private data — such as payroll data from ADP and Paychex — will become much more important to economists. The President does not control their analysts’ jobs.

Son of Evil

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

A number of years ago I wrote about Evil:

“It was enough to know that The Joker™ was trying to bury Gotham City under six feet of strawberry jam because he was Evil…. We grew up, and found that the Joker was also criminally insane….

When your world-view is that somebody or some group is simply evil, there is no room for negotiations.”

Unfortunately we’ve reached the point where we are talking about even larger groups of people being “Evil.” It’s not just terrorists. Or criminals. Or immigrants. It’s an entire political party. This is a deterioration from merely thinking members of the other party are stupid. Even more dangerously, people in power are implying that if you don’t espouse certain political viewpoints, there’s something wrong with you. And when someone in power thinks there’s something wrong with you, there is the potential for “doing something about it.”

Let me be clear. A person using language that implies that the other party is evil, demons, or similar, can’t be reasoned with. And that is dangerous for all of us.

The Founding Fathers thought certain things were so important they put them in the First Amendment before anything else: We The People have freedom of speech, religion, of the press, to peaceably assemble, and even to access the courts. If you want to believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster freed us from the menace of piracy on the high seas, so be it. But when religion clashes with our other freedoms, things get messy. You don’t have the right to tell others what to worship, revile, or read. And you certainly don’t have the right to endanger others because of your beliefs.

Do not use good and evil in political rhetoric. It leads to people being imprisoned or executed.

Richard Nixon: Notorious Liberal

Now I do know what you’re thinking: Liberal? Wasn’t Nixon a conservative Republican? And, ya know, kind of disgraced in the Watergate scandal? Are we talking about the same Richard Nixon? Dear reader, that illustrates just how far the standards have moved in the last 50 years.

Nixon wanted to be a uniting force in the United States. Hmm, sounds like a big tent Democrat kind of idea.

Sure, he expanded the Vietnam War. He also got us out of Vietnam and made attempts to bring POWs home. And when he was done with that he ended the draft. Hmm, sounds like a weak Democrat kind of idea. Oh yeah, and then he opened relations with China.

During his entire presidency he issued 364 executive orders. Heck, the current president is on track to do that before Memorial Day. Slacker.

He signed the EPA into law. Hmm, a liberal tree-hugger.

And get a load of this list of liberal policies Nixon either enacted or tried to enact:

Despite expectations from some observers that Nixon would be a “do-nothing” president, his administration undertook a number of important reforms in welfare policy, civil rights, law enforcement, the environment, and other areas. Nixon’s proposed Family Assistance Program (FAP), intended to replace the service-oriented Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), would have provided working and nonworking poor families with a guaranteed annual income—though Nixon preferred to call it a “negative income tax.” Although the measure was defeated in the Senate, its failure helped to generate support for incremental legislation incorporating similar ideas—such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which provided a guaranteed income to the elderly, the blind, and the disabled; and automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security recipients—and it also prompted the expansion and improvement of existing programs, such as food stamps and health insurance for low-income families. In the area of civil rights, Nixon’s administration instituted so-called “set aside” policies to reserve a certain percentage of jobs for minorities on federally funded construction projects—the first “affirmative action” program. Although Nixon opposed school busing and delayed taking action on desegregation until federal court orders forced his hand, his administration drastically reduced the percentage of African American students attending all-black schools. In addition, funding for many federal civil rights agencies, in particular the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), was substantially increased while Nixon was in office. In response to pressure from consumer and environmental groups, Nixon proposed legislation that created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His revenue-sharing program, called “New Federalism,” provided state and local governments with billions of federal tax dollars.

Expanding Social Security and Welfare?? Worker safety initiatives?? Desegretation and gasp Affirmative Action??? This little list does omit various healthcare initiatives such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, an attempt at true universal health care, creating HMOs, and Medicare coverage for dialysis as well as kidney transplant. Typical “tax and spend liberal” ideals!

And to top it all off, he had the temerity to only have one wife — and be faithful to her!

So yes. We have moved so far to the right that conservative Richard Nixon is — by modern standards — more liberal than Barack Obama.

Extraordinary Claims

That’s Carl Sagan. The guy from whom most of Generation X learned about space. A precursor to Neil deGrasse Tyson if you like. One of Mr. Sagan’s famous quotes is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Let’s just say that there’s an election coming up. Party A is running Candidate A. Party B is running Candidate B.

Imagine if you will, that Candidate A claims that Candidate B will, oh, I don’t know, institute a death penalty for jaywalking (notwithstanding that jaywalking in some places can be deadly without judicial action). Wow, that’s pretty extreme. Now you might be having one of several reactions: maybe “wow that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”; maybe “well it doesn’t surprise me that Party B would run someone with that kind of plan” or “well I always knew something was off about Candidate B”; and just maybe, you think “that’s kind of weird, maybe I should look into that a little further.”

If you thought the last thing, congratulations! You noticed an extraordinary claim and are at least looking for evidence, preferably the extraordinary kind.

You’ve got another week until Election Day. Go ahead and use that extraordinary brain of yours! Find out if Jewish Space Lasers or government hurricane control satellites are real. Learn what political parties and their candidates really think about guns instead of what their opponents claim they think. Take a read through Project 2025. Peek at the actual voting record and positions of your elected officials. Read about the Federal Reserve (from an actual reputable site, please). Learn how many houses sell in your area in a typical month and how many are available right now; come to your own conclusions about why housing costs what it does. Learn what an ectopic pregnancy, and read for just a few minutes about fatal birth defects (ah, you won’t want to spend a lot of time on that because it’s extremely sad and can be upsetting).

You’ll notice I’m not feeding you links. And you know I love links! I hope you’ll spend time on some relatively neutral sites like Wikipedia. When you go to the websites of the political parties, pay attention to what they want and ignore what they claim the other guys want. Don’t pay any attention to celebrities; they’re not running for anything. That includes the people on certain TV channels that claim to present news. If a candidate has a giant gap between what they say and what they do, pay attention to what they do.

When you are done, maybe you’ll be firmly convinced your initial opinion was correct. Maybe you’ll be looking for more information still. And just maybe you’ll have changed your mind about a thing or two. Whatever you decide, remember that what you do on your ballot is your business alone. It doesn’t have to align with your family or the sign in the yard, just with your heart. Whatever you learn, do the right thing.

Immigration Roundup

When the COVID Public Health Emergency ended, some immigration policies also ended. I’ve written multiple times about immigration both legal and undocumented in the past, with a focus on the broken system and why none of the “reform” ideas being floated are good ideas. But since Mr. Biden has a long rich history of disfiguring reform initiatives, he’s probably exactly where he wants to be.

Here’s one of my early efforts from 2007, where I look at the issues and the stakeholders.

By 2009, we had crazy machines to replace undocumented farm workers.

In 2014 we noticed the Children’s Crusade Redux at the border.

Oh, let’s not forget Chris Christie in 2015 wanting FedEx style tracking of visa holders.

in 2018 I brought you commentary on the Dreamers and a comprehensive post on the topic that I think still largely stands true. Real reform still must include a radical lifting of immigration caps, hiring a lot of staff to process people who want to be here legally, simplifying forms so someone with a grade school education and little knowledge of English can fill them out, and severe penalties for employers that don’t follow the law. Spoiler alert, we won’t be getting any of that.

What we will get? Another heaping helping of Joe Biden as Democratic nominee for President whether we like it or not.

A few thoughts on Voting

It’s that time of year again! If you are in a state that does early voting like Nevada, get moving! If you are in a state where you must vote on Election Day, make a plan! Just for fun, here’s some actual data on American voters.

This time of year also brings out some perennial ideas about how and when we should vote. Let’s look at a few of them:

Election Day as a National Holiday. Sounds like a great idea, everybody has the day off, everybody can get their butts to the polling place. Clearly this idea was hatched and is supported by people in nice little Monday through Friday jobs who never worked someplace that was open Christmas. This will not help people who work at airports, railroads, hotels, restaurants, firehouses, or hospitals. That includes the 4.2 million Registered Nurses nationwide, a highly educated and largely female block of voters who often work twelve hour shifts. If I were conspiracy minded (I like to think I’m not), I’d suspect this idea is meant to disenfranchise all those people whose jobs can’t shut down for Christmas and Election Day.

Online Voting. I know, you’d think that in a world where I can pay my bills, order almost any legal product online, have news of the world at my fingertips, hold a videoconference with colleagues in other time zones, and make friends on almost any continent, voting online should be a no-brainer. Still, many consider it a “huge risk” with “security concerns.” Really no idea why it’s ok for me to spend thousands of dollars online but not okay to cast one vote. That’s above my pay grade.

Voter ID. Many people think you should have to show valid identification to vote. I’ll support that on two conditions: the state must issue an appropriate ID completely free of charge; the agency issuing those IDs must be open from early morning until 10 at night, at least 6 days a week and preferably seven, with sufficient staffing at all times to handle all applicants in a prompt manner. That way people who work long hours and people with very tight budgets can get their ID. Otherwise, it sure looks like an attempt to make sure only the “right people” can vote.

Early Voting. For the record, we do this in Nevada and I freaking love it. There’s polling places all over town in convenient places like shopping malls and supermarkets, computer linked to prevent voting in more than one location. It helps people with hectic schedules and/or medical needs. Because there’s many locations and the voting load is spread out, there’s rarely a big line to go vote — handy for both convenience and limiting the spread of things like influenza (yes, it’s flu season). Only someone who “wants to control who is able to vote” would possibly be against it.

Vote By Mail and/or Absentee Ballots. Yes, vote by mail has always been a thing for people who physically can’t get to the polling place, either because they are hospitalized, or because they are deployed in our military. Saying no to vote by mail is saying you don’t want our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen voting. Go on, say it, I dare you. Yes, there are potential security concerns. That doesn’t change the necessity. During the pandemic, Nevada also made it possible for every registered voter to vote by mail. As an added benefit, voters are able to research their candidates and ballot questions well before voting.

Did the CDC Contradict Itself?

Officially, the CDC says the definition of “fully vaccinated” is not changing. Here’s a source that is unlikely to go away — the CDC likes to “keep its website up to date” ~~and get rid of what it said previously~~. But here’s what they say about post-exposure quarantine for health care workers (note that I’m adding an image from their site because it will someday “be updated” ~~and disappear~~):

Sure looks like unless you’re boosted, you might as well not be vaccinated under this guidance.

For right now, the official guidance on how long people who get COVID should stay home is here. This headline puts it succinctly: it meets corporate needs. I get that it’s hard to run an airline or a hospital when much of your staff is sick. Having them come to work while sick and make your remaining staff sick is not the answer. Nurses are concerned, and we’re the ones that make hospital care possible.

I have bent over backwards to both follow what the CDC says, do what they say, and not speak ill of them. My patience wears thin.

Reminder: Omicron may not make you as sick, but it is very easy to transmit. There are millions of new cases; between lack of hospital beds and sick hospital staff that can’t take care of patients, it’s a mess. Keep your hands clean and your mask up over your nose where it belongs. Stay safe out there.

Why the Vaccine Mandate Does Not Violate the Tenth Amendment

For your reference, here’s the announcement, and here’s the Tenth Amendment.

The mandate is broken into three big pieces, which will be addressed individually: government employees, health care workers, and employees of large employers.

Government Employees:

The Federal Government is acting as an employer, not as the government. The courts have long held that it’s ok for an employer to say “no smoking” or “we don’t cover birth control pills.” The courts have also said it’s ok to have requirements for a job. Schools — a specialized “employer” — have required certain vaccines since before I was a small child. That ship has sailed.

Health Care Workers:

The Feds are using their authority under the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services Conditions of Participation. They are in essence saying “If you want our money, you must do these things.” Since at least 99% of hospitals receive money from Medicare, Medicaid, or both, effectively all hospitals will be finding ways to comply with this rule once the actual rules are finalized (it’s already a done deal in some states like California). This is another case where the courts spoke years ago and the ship has long since sailed.

There are a few places that think they can legislate or make executive orders to make this go away. Florida’s governor appears to be backing down about a half step, only vowing to fight the mandate for businesses. Texas’s governor not so much. There are teams of hospital lawyers girding up for battle, because hospitals want to get paid and federal regulations overrule states.

The one aspect of this I find interesting is that the mandate as announced (no word on implementation yet) does not appear to have a loophole to regularly test employees that have legitimate medical contraindications to the vaccine. I do have a horse in this race. My building could lose employees if there’s not a loophole. However I’m the sucker who is going to be running a lot of COVID tests if there is.

Large Employers:

Here’s where stuff gets interesting. The rule would require employers with 100 or more employers to mandate vaccines. And there’s a testing loophole. This falls under OSHA. Fun thing about the law creating OSHA, the OSH Act. There’s a part of it called Section 18 that allows states to have their own OSHA rules. There’s your Tenth Amendment compliance right there. Done. However, those rules have to be at least as strong as the federal rules. You can have your state rules, but only if those state rules also include stuff like the vaccine mandate.

The Vaccine Mandate doesn’t violate the Tenth Amendment, stop saying it does.

The Actual “Far Left” Agenda

There’s been a great deal of scare talk about the “far left” and how they’ll create chaos and turn everything evil in this country. I thought I’d share what I believe the actual left stands for. I think you’ll find it not so terrifying. Heck, you might even agree with some of these points.

Getting health care shouldn’t cause bankruptcy.

Full time work should earn a living wage. Particularly for “essential workers,” now that we can agree who they are.

Infrastructure — things like safe drinking water, school buildings, roads, and bridges that won’t fall down — is important and we really need to spend money on it.

Police departments don’t need tanks. They don’t need rubber bullets. Defunding means no tank and rubber bullet money. They need to knock and announce themselves before trying to bust your door down. And they should refrain from shooting black people and dogs under the pretext of being scared.

We only have the one planet and we should try to take better care of it. Heck, even Jesus would want us to do that.

Speaking of What Would Jesus Do: don’t want an abortion or a gay marriage? Don’t have one. Want to prevent abortions? Advocate for better access to birth control, birth defect prevention, and rape prevention.

Almost nobody actually seriously wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens! Yeah, there’s a few crackpots among the left (and among the right too). We do want responsible gun ownership by people who follow and respect both the law and safety rules. That specifically excludes most of the nuts out there showing off or even aiming their weapons in public.

The rule of law is important. Lawmakers who actually work for their constituents are important.

Nobody wants anarchy. Trust me on this. I hope you find this guide helpful.