Who is the Real Criminal?

It’s prime time opening night at the Republican National Convention and a quaint, well dressed, possibly fragile, seventy-something woman is helped to the podium.  There she begins to deliver a heart-exposed recounting of the death of her son, which soon evolved into a spewing of vitriol…like a homeless person who starts with a soft plea for a touch of generosity and ends with unloading her AK-47 across a line of bank tellers.

Patricia Smith appeared by all accounts to be displaying her true feelings.  It was this quality of genuineness that makes the accounting of her words all the more serious and revealing.  Commentators who likely disagreed with her entire story only reacted with compassion and sympathy rather than criticism.

Unfortunately they were at a loss for words, which a sad commentary in itself.

At the end of her heated moment on a National stage, Mrs. Smith began a theme that remained as one of the few constants across the remainder of the Convention: that Hillary Clinton was personally and totally responsible for her son Sean’s death, and, as such, is a criminal and should be in prison.

Picked up by Chris Christy the next night, the crowd, adorned in their stars and bars, began to chant “lock her up”, several times interrupting Christy, leaving him only to smile and nod his head encouragingly.

There was a mob feeling about it, like the old fashioned, pre-lynching enthusiasm we’ve all seen in movies that recount a darker past.  Instead of repulsed or angered, I primarily felt embarrassed for our Country, not unlike how I felt when Trump decided to discuss his genitals during a Presidential Debate.

I will not give an account here of the absurdity of Patricia Smith’s claim that anti-Western Islamic extremists were bit players in Hillary Clinton’s conspiracy to have her son murdered.  The wasted resources of the Federal Government over four years of investigations have already done that. What I want to discuss is the real crime itself, as displayed Monday night.

 A mother likely shattered by the sudden and violent death of her son has the potential of being as unmolded clay.  Any of us would be desperate to seek answers to explain what is impossible to understand in a state of intense grief.  Although true of any parent losing a child, the national attention, the reporters, the cameras, and more must have made the intense need for reason and rationality more acute.

Every set of parents of the 20 first-graders murdered at Sandy Hook must have gone through it. Despite a simple explanation of insanity, most have sought accountability to explain how such psychosis can manifest itself into such tragedy.

Patricia Smith showed clearly Monday night that not only had she sought accountability for her son’s death but that she is wholly tormented by what she has concluded.  That was also undoubtedly the reason she was recruited to the podium. 

Who gave her the tools of her torment?  She did not independently arrive at a set of conclusions that the longest, most expensive, most driven Republican Congressional investigation in the history of this Country couldn’t obtain.  She was fed a scenario for purposes unrelated to the death of her son.

Just as the House Special Committee to investigate Benghazi was, as publicly admitted by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, created to drive down “Hillary’s numbers”, just as the fictional movie 13 Hours is used as a quasi-historical explanation (most notably by Donald Trump, Jr.), just as Fox Television and talk radio have eliminated any facts regarding Benghazi other than Hillary Clinton being the Secretary of State, so did Patricia Smith become a pawn to use in the Republican’s desire give Clinton to the mob. Lock her up.

The real crime we saw Monday night was the public use of a tortured woman who has been manipulated in such a way as to leave her plagued with sadness and anger for the rest of her days…because she can no longer assimilate the truth. Think about what that must be like. The real criminals were standing behind the stage at the RNC.

The crime committed on this woman is as ethically wrong as any con job, only more so.  Like Christy’s Tuesday night kangaroo court, the crime against Patricia Smith and the rest of the conservative Republican base can only be tried in the public forum and ballot box. Fortunately (and hopefully) that will cause the Republican Party to move to a better place.  Sadly, I doubt there is much hope for Patricia Smith.    

Holy War?

Political contributions are not tax deductable, and they shouldn’t be.  Although in the past there have been short periods which allowed small amounts to be deducted from taxable income these tax rules were soon discarded. The reason is obvious, but frankly the understanding eludes most Americans.

When an item is deductable it effectively joins the general tax-paying public to participate in the contribution. For example, Mitt Romney, who touted his large charitable contributions, gave most of it as a tithe to the Mormon Church.  The hundreds of thousands of dollars he gave to his church reduced his taxes by hundreds of thousands (probably about 40% Federal & State). Therefore the US Taxpayers and the Taxpayers of California essentially contributed to the Mormon Church through a loss in revenue.  Every dollar he gave to the Mormon Church cost him about 60 cents and the Taxpayers 40.

This is one very public way the congressionally driven US Tax Code engages in social policy, no different than milk supports, oil depletions, carbon credits or five thousand other lesser known pork barrel rules. State tax codes are no different.

In 1954 then Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson led a change in the tax law to address political activism by charitable organizations (called 501(c)3 organizations), whose receipt of a contribution allowed the contributor to take an itemized charitable deduction.

Churches in particular had been acting as quasi-political arms of certain candidates and the taxpayer was picking up the tab generated by the contributions of wealthy donors.

The so-called Johnson Amendment became tax law.  It disallowed any 501(c)3 organization from participating in any partisan political activity at threat of losing their tax status.  It has remained, for the obvious reasons, an unquestioned part of our tax law for 62 years, until perhaps…now.

In Donald J(erkhead) Trump’s disjointed and rambling introduction yesterday of Mike Pence as his running mate, he unveiled for the first time (to my knowledge) his new policy to attack the Johnson Amendment if he became President.

I had to get past the humor of ineptness which he obviously had in misunderstanding what he was talking about.  He initially inferred the law was created by Lyndon Johnson as President, then said; “(because of the amendment) you are absolutely shunned, if you’re evangelical…if you want to talk religion, you lose your tax-exempt status.”  Gosh, all those shunned evangelicals.  I wonder what they’ve been talking about all these years.

What Trump probably thinks and what his uninformed listeners hear is that a violation of this tax law somehow leads to Churches paying taxes.  Churches currently can preach politics as much as they want; it’s just that if they do you can’t take an itemized deduction when you give money to them. They’ll still pay no taxes.

What Donald was actually trying to cram into his little pea-brain is an effort, currently championed by Jerry Falwell, Jr., which is making it onto the Republican Platform this go-around.  It is an effort to remove the Johnson Amendment from the US Tax Code.

Of course Trump has no more understanding of the rule than a Kansas chicken plucker, but those like Falwell know that elimination of that rule will not only free them up to start campaigning for Conservative candidates from the pulpit, but it would begin to bring in contribution revenue to these “churches” by the tractor trailer full. 

All of sudden the Koch brothers will become born again (and damn it I thought once was enough!). Why would anyone want to give money to some super PAC when he can give it to the Holy Trump Tower of Babble and get a tax deduction to boot!

Keep in mind that the Johnson Amendment to the US Tax Code affects all 501(c)3 organizations which includes, among other organizations, all schools.  As with Churches, Universities cannot engage in partisan politics (favoring a particular candidate or candidate’s campaign), but like Universities, Churches currently can openly discuss general public issues as they affect their faith.

Trump repeatedly and exclusively addressed this issue of the Johnson Amendment as something he wants to accomplish “for the evangelicals”, he did not mention Churches generally.  He’s right, although he may not know it. 

His motive is support and votes. There’s no question he’s non-religious and has been his whole life.  The Right-Wing Christian Conservative movement is all about money and power. They don’t simply collect funds from their local parish, but their hands are outstretched nationally and internationally. 

They essentially want a Holy War against the Muslim religion as much as the religious nut-jobs in the Middle East and they see Trump as the man to bring it home.

Therein lies why Donald J(erkhead) Trump is the perfect candidate for the Christian Right, even though his history on their favorite social issues (abortion e.g.) and his patent ignorance of Christianity (making Ronald Reagan look like an Apostle) is so contradictory.

We ask American Muslims to speak out against radical jihadists.  Well I’d like to hear moderate American Christian leaders speak out against the efforts of the Republicans and extreme Christian Conservatives to politicize their faith for the same reasons…or are their wallets a bit too close to their Gospels?

The Back Door You Want to Go Through

Conservative pundits like to claim that Obama had a majority in the House and a “super” majority in the Senate when he took office in late January 2009 and, therefore, he could do anything he wanted. That would earn a mostly false from Politifact. 

Due to the six month delay in seating Sen. Al Franken and the illness (and eventual death in Aug 2009) of Ted Kennedy, the Obama Administration only had a couple of short windows in 2009 to get accomplished what 8 Presidents had tried and failed before him, a universal and comprehensive health care law. This had to be done concurrently with keeping the Nation from falling into another Great Depression.

The windows were permanently closed as of January 2010.

Complicate that with 2 Conservative Democratic senators (Nelson of Nebraska and Lieberman of Connecticut), who generally opposed health reform, and a unified Republican Senate which was on record from the very beginning to oppose anything that Obama proposed or supported. Yet a health care bill was signed into law.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (aka Affordable Care Act, ACA), ironically a law conceived by Conservative Republicans (Heritage Foundation in the late 90s), became Obamacare, the scourge for Conservatives for the next 7 years.  Nevertheless, when the smoke cleared the Obama Administration had still failed.

Thanks, in good measure, to good ol’ Joe Lieberman, the only thing truly Progressive and Universal about the ACA was thrown out of the bill in order to get his vote: that was the Public Option. Without it the entire “Affordable” part of the law evaporated.  What was left was a health care insurance reform act which does almost nothing to control health care costs.

It should be a befuddlement to anyone with half a brain why the Republicans didn’t embrace this new law as opposed to spending nearly all their time in Congress over the following 5 years (2011-2016) passing bills to repeal it.  It has funneled more money into the health industry than they could have ever hoped for.

You see, the thing that makes Universal Health Care possible is reasonable and controllable costs. Simply put, Health Care is a service where the demand (for that service) does not drop when the price goes up.  Therefore, the “free market” approach cannot work. The rest of the world has figured this out. It is why we pay multiples more in health care cost for less (and poorer) coverage, as the only developed nation on earth without Universal Health Care.

Recently, and very much belated, Obama announced his support to revisit the ACA to reintroduce the Public Option.  Also, the addition of the Public Option was the compromise reached by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in how the Democrats plan to advance health care reform in 2017. Bernie, in particular, has finally realized that this is the only back door to bring this Country something like Single-Payer Universal Health Care, a path he couldn’t define during his campaign.

If you care anything about Universal Health Care or even just about your wallet, you’ll support those who support the Public Option.  Here is my simplistic explanation on how this back door opens:

Along with the participating private insurers the Federal Government would offer a choice to the public to essentially buy health insurance from the Federal Government instead of from a private insurer. It would be as if (and not far from) opening up Medicare to the general public, but instead of the premiums paid for by the Federal Government as they are with those over 65, the premiums would be paid by the insured.

It is generally no more complicated than that. However, implementation in the face of Conservative opposition would not be uncomplicated.

If the program was successful and enough people joined the Public Option three major things would happen (apart from insurance provided to the poor or destitute). 

First, providers (doctors, hospitals, pharmacy companies, etc) would be loathe to refusing services to those in the program because the loss in business would be too great. Such is already the case with Medicare participants.

Second, if enough people were in the program, combined with existing Medicare participants, the Federal Government would have the leverage to force reductions in cost. That reduction in cost would be reflected in reductions of insurance premiums, as there is no profit incentive. 

Third, in order to remain viable and continue to exist, private insurers would have to reasonably match the Government’s level of premiums and payouts to health care providers. They would generally need to mirror the same restrictions in cost, which would make such costs more consistent and transparent.

Overtime it is reasonable to conceive that the United States health care system could turn into something that resembles the current and successful Japanese universal health care system, a system ironically conceived, developed, and implemented for the Japanese by the United States after WWII. Look it up.

The US health care system continues to be crippled. The ACA got it up out of its wheelchair and on to a walker, but it is still quite sick and it affects every non-wealthy American. Frankly, big business Republicans and inane Conservatives want to keep it that way (or push it back into the wheelchair). It is a sad commentary that so many people that need this Public Option the most continue to shoot themselves in the foot by supporting those Republicans politicians who live in the back pockets of business interests, those that keep the front door locked.

Wise up America, especially the young. If you hear the word “yes” next to the words “public option” then vote for that person. They are opening the backdoor for you to enter a better life.