The Second Amendment

Assumption

One of the grand bargains that made up our country was this: The assumption of the National Debt by the Federal (or central) Government. This was a contentious issue, as the "United States" had borrowed money from several European countries during our Revolutionary War with England and the various states had borrowed from wealthy landowners in those states. Additionally, The Continental Army had not been paid what was due them, and many of the independently-wealthy officers of the army had spent their entire fortunes on equipment and supplies to outfit the troops under them.

The Articles of Confederation
so limited our government
that they were thrown out
and replaced by our current Constitution.

The taxing authority of our Continental Congress was minimal. It was hamstrung by the need for two things: A quorum, which was beginning to become hard to establish, and consensus. representation was haphazard, with each state's delegations consisting of whatever the state wanted to send. Some states, like Virginia, had retired their entire share of the national debt. Others had not paid one penny toward it.  Every time paper money was issued by either the national government or the state governments, it was very quickly devalued.

In 1787, when the Philadelphia Convention was assembled to rewrite our Constitution, the Articles of Confederation causing the nascent United States to be—essentially—ungovernable, one of the proposals had to do with the debt and a means to finance it. Article 6 of our Constitution states:

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

The US national debt in 1790 was $54 million, which would be comparable to a US national debt of $4.1 trillion in 2009 by relative share of GDP. Our actual US national debt in 2009 was about $11.4 trillion, but we were not a brand new, emerging country then.

Alexander Hamilton, our first
Secretary of the Treasury

Once our Constitution was ratified and, upon the initial meeting of the First Congress, secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton proposed a set of interlocking laws to be passed by Congress, the first of which was the assumption of the debts of the states, when they were acting as a national government would act during our Revolutionary War. So, soldiers' pay was to be handled by the new central government. Loans to individuals to raise armies and outfit them as well as loans to individuals who "bought in" to our Revolution and helped with finances.

Hamilton proposed a complete set of policies for handling the debt. All debts were to be paid at face value. The central government would assume all of the debts owed by the states, and it would be financed with new US government bonds paying about 4% interest. The government would not pay back the principal on the bonds, merely the interest, which would be paid by a new tariff and a stiff excise tax on liquor. Since unpaid foreign debt, generally brought with it ships of war from those countries owed, this reduced the risk that foreign governments would go after the new US government for reparations and increased our national security. Since individual states no longer owed this money, no foreign nation could "lop off" a slow-to-pay state and just take it over to retire its debts.  Additionally, Hamilton surmised, this would create credit-worthiness in the United States and, as we began handling this debt, and we would eventually be able to borrow more, both domestically and abroad. Lastly, with federal tax collectors established, these agents would be responsive to and loyal to the central government and not the governments of the states, reducing the temptation of the states to secede from the United States, binding us together more firmly.

Hamilton urged Congress to pass a tax on imports. He also urged an excise tax on liquor.

James Madison blocked Hamilton's
proposal for the federal government

Hamilton's proposals drew sharp criticism from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and House leader James Madison. They were suspicious of the kind of concentration to a central government that Madison's proposals represented. They also feared that speculators would make money from the securities at the expense of those who had actually fought in the Revolutionary War.

Finding Hamilton looking very sick, Jefferson invited him and Madison to dinner at his New York address (New York being the capitol, then) and they agreed to have the permanent seat of the US Capitol located in the South in exchange for Madison's debt assumption plan, on June 20, 1790.

As a result of this, several things happened. A National Bank was established. States were enjoined to balance their budgets. And only the federal government could run a deficit.

This principle worked. The fair faith and credit of the United States of America is worth a lot. we have a great credit rating, despite what Republicans did last year with the debt ceiling, and we always service our debt.

Now, Republicans want to trash this precedent—just as they trashed the precedent of extending the debt ceiling last year. I'm not sure why they thought this was a good idea. Nobody has ever been able to explain this to me. It has been a long-standing tradition that the party out of power complains about what the party in power is doing but, in the end votes to uphold the credit of the United States of America.

So I have to ask, is it a good idea for the federal government to, simply, not assume the debts of the states? If it didn't, we would face the same problems we had before Alexander Hamilton sat down to dinner with Jefferson and Madison. And, I would argue that Article 6 certainly points in the direction of debt assumption. And, by debt assumption I mean, specifically, that the states ought to return to the federal coffers what they cost the federal treasury.

The red states in this map take a larger share of federal
funds than they give back to the federal government.
These states tend to vote Republican.

And the funny thing is, the states that return the least to Washington tend to vote Republican. In fact, Mississippi ($2.47 for every $1) and Alabama ($2.03 for every $1) receive more than twice from the federal government than they send back. I'm quite familiar with living in a region that sends way more into federal and state coffers than they receive. I lived in New York City for 20 years.

So, if what Republicans want to do is have everyone row their own boat, live within their means and all that, they may find themselves on the "outs" when it comes to inbound federal funds, were our government to actually run things like that. I recently ran into a Libertarian-type (who obviously did not think his statement through) who told me that he thought the smallest possible unit of government ought to manage things. While that sounds great on paper, it's absolutely upside-down.

Governor Romney thinks that the states
should handle emergency response,
not FEMA.

As an example, Governor Romney stated that the states ought to handle emergency disaster relief. Perhaps, during his short one-term tenure as Governor of Massachusetts, there was no federal relief for anything in his state. Or, since he was known as Governor Rom-fee, he'd raise fees to provide disaster relief. But the states ought not to be responsible for disasters like that. Generally a hurricane or an earthquake doesn't concern itself with niceties like state borders and frequently crosses state lines, leaving a path of destruction on both sides of a state border.

Living in The State of Steady Habits—a nickname for Connecticut resulting from the strict morals of its inhabitants, who in the colony's earliest days were governed by rigid Blue Laws regulating public morality—I have seen the state perfectly happy to beggar its neighbor. After the Northeast blackout of 2003, a cable was laid under the Long Island Sound to carry electricity to Long Island. Connecticut prevented its use, saying it was built in violation of codes governing undersea cables. Of course, Connecticut didn't write those codes until after the cable was laid.

Additionally, states are notorious for not keeping their "rainy day" funds replenished. Why? Because, in the words of GW Bush, "It's the People's money!" Politicians, especially Republicans, are loath to tax to raise funds for a "rainy day." In fact, one year ago we had a mayoral candidate in my town who ran on the basis of reducing taxes on property by spending the "rainy day" fund the town had amassed. He was winning the election until we had a late October snow storm that gave townspeople a very clear indication of why a "rainy day" fund is important.

The apron of a state road being repaired
with state funds, not town funding.

Another town fact in opposition to my Libertarian friend is that the town is very happy to have lots of state roads running through it. The town is not responsible for their upkeep, for traffic signals, lane markings, sewers or curbs. Since one has to completely replace a road every 30 years, the town revels in the fact that there are a lot of roads for which they have zero fiscal responsibility. And the townspeople are happy to not need to pay for them. Placing the burden of these streets on the town would be a fiscal disaster.

Republicans want to have the federal government get out of the business of funding stuff. And it doesn't make sense. If you don't collect money from the entire country, you give up the large tax base that is nationwide—and helping to support those states who need the money more. I suppose Republicans can call that "Socialist," but they, themselves are the beneficiaries of this practice, just as Representative Paul Ryan was a direct beneficiary of federal largesse during the "stimulus," which he argued against (despite producing letters to the President asking for stimulus spending in his district).

I can see Republican-led Arkansas becoming a complete backwater without the amount of money it gets from federal sources. Just about everything in that state would suffer, from schools to roads and bridges to the overall economy in that state. This kind of "meta-socialism" works very well in the United States, as it has worked since the very beginning of our country, with Hamilton's assumption bill. And, by and large, it's the red states that are receiving most of it.

If Republicans want smaller and smaller units of government managing things, there will be no coordination between states (or towns and cities) and the vast majority of taxes you pay would be local taxes. Your tax burden wouldn't change—it would simply go to more local sources.

What's wrong with that, you ask. State representatives do not work full time for the state. In my state, they have "day jobs" and they're very interested in getting the state's business done so that they can get back to work. On the local level, town councilpersons are made up of volunteers. They tend to never develop the special expertise necessary to plan road building, repairs infrastructure improvements, bridge crossings, schools, public works and so on. Instead, they usually hire people to do that for them. These kinds of administrative tasks, while certainly no problem in their own businesses, are not the kinds of things small town councils should be tasked with. In my town, we have a professional Town Manager and full-time staff with actual expertise that handles these things. But if our town were made to manage all roads going through it, the budget would need to triple. There'd be a taxpayer insurrection.

I think the real reason why Republicans want smaller units of government to handle things is because corporate lobbyists find smaller units of government a pushover. And many states have few laws regarding lobbying. Within a matter of months, big corporations would, under this system, run everything.

I see Republicans wanting to dismantle the social safety net. And now they want to dismantle the connection between the federal government and the states. Of course, they didn't argue for this back when they held majorities in both houses and the Presidency.

Insert sports analogy here....

It is fairly clear that now everyone knows that Mitt Romney's campaign for President has melted down. And all of the Republicans say that Mitt's in charge.

If this is true, then Governor Romney has taken a campaign that he could have won and created a loss from victory. He very neatly avoided all of those prickly details about where he stands on the issues that affect America. He completely evaded those pesky facts, running a campaign was based about as loosely on facts as any campaign I have ever witnessed.

Voter Suppression enthusiast
John Hustead

His henchmen have been busy, too. They were successful, mostly, in 2000 in suppressing voter turnout so that it looked like Bush was winning. As it turns out, when the AP did a recount, Bush actually lost Florida and ought to not have been elected against Al Gore, but he got some help from partisans on the Supreme Court (yes, that's right, Justice Alito, I think you are partisan). Now, they have a multi-state program to suppress voting in Pennsylvania—where older people tend to vote Democratic—Florida—where Hispanic-named people vote Democratic—and Ohio—minorities like early voting and if you limit polling hours and keep the polls closed on weekends, you can run the minority vote out of time.

It looks like the Ohio gambit didn't work, as Secretary of the State John Hustead was embarrassed by the media when he tried to keep polls open for Republican voting counties, while closing the polls for the counties that vote the other way.

So now the blame game happens and it's like blaming a coach for the failure of his quarterback or his center who has fouled out. And Republicans are sniping from the sidelines, doing everything from "distancing themselves" despite similar statements (as in the case of wrestling plutocrat Linda McMahon in Connecticut) to outright disagreement (as in the case of Senator Scott Brown, who is in a very tight race in Massachusetts).

Now you'd expect that with moderate Republicans (scarce as hen's teeth these days). But Conservatives have been falling all over themselves to criticize Romney for statements he made in the Mother Jones tape from a fundraiser. People who "can be relied on," like Ron Paul, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, David Brooks, Rod Dreher, Brink Lindsey, Kathleen Parker, Bruce Bartlett, Peggy Noonan and Bill Kristol have been falling all over themselves criticizing the Romney campaign.

Why is he melting down? They had their act together. Mitt Romney is a very well-disciplined candidate who has been running for President for the last six years. He ought to be a known commodity.

The problem is that Governor Romney has tried to re-define himself as the ultra-conservative candidate his party really wants. And that flies in the face of what he did as Governor in Massachusetts, it flies in the face of statements he made when he was running for Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat and it flies in the  face of everything we used to think Romney was all about.

And that bothers Conservatives. They just don't trust him.

Of course the big trust "whopper" Romney has been telling us has to do with his tax returns. "Just trust me" was a big problem when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts, because he told everyone to trust him that he had been filing as a Massachusetts resident. In fact, he didn't, and had to amend his returns in order to qualify to run for Governor.

When it comes to anything Governor Romney would like to be left private, there is a huge trust issue. He has been proven untrustworthy in the past.

So when does the team quit? I'm figuring it will be after the second debate. The Republican Party hung Bob Dole out to dry in October, 1996 when he was running against Clinton. They decided then that the best strategy would be to try to hang on to the House and Senate. So they withdrew money from the Dole campaign (leaving that in deficit) and went all-out to retain Congress. Senator Dole was not amused.

Romney cannot win debates against President Obama. He didn't do all that well in the debates against Republican opponents and he has a tendency to allow opposing candidates to define him. At the very most, all Romney can hope for is a draw in the debates. And the third debate, on foreign policy is a giveaway. I doubt if the Republican establishment will stick with him that long.

It's anyone's guess as to whether or not the Coach will bench him or let him come out for another run to try to win the next game. This is one team player who simply isn't going to "win one for the Gipper."

Romney Defined

Mitt Romney's job at the Republican National Convention was to define himself. When he started talking about his grandparents and referring to America as a nation of immigrants, he was reminding all of us that we claim is country with all nationalities. An expansive statement.

Then the camera cut to the RNC delegates. Over 90% white.

He had been introduced by a Cuban-American. Despite the fact that Republican policies actively harm them, Florida's Senator Marco Rubio had offered a wonderful speech that encouraged Cuban-Americans to vote Republican. To the extent they do, they find their state is presently purging voter lists of anyone with an Hispanic last name.

Romney spoke of his parents and his father, who obviously did those little things that would please his wife. If you're married and you are not regularly doing things for your spouse, your marriage won't last. For some reason, Romney's story about his father's death reminded me of my friend, John Scagliotti, who was the first Executive Producer of "In the Life," a nationally-airing television newsmagazine covering gay, lesbian and transgendered issues and culture.

When I started editing for the show back in the 1990s, John lost his longtime partner. Mr. Romney wants to forbid gay marriage. It is heartbreaking to lose someone that close, and it is even worse if a hospital won't let you visit your partner, since you are not next-of-kin or family.

Mitt Romney also praised his wife for the great job she did raising their five children. So did my mother. And my mother was not married to a multi-millionaire with bank accounts in Switzerland nd the Caymen Islands. Mrs. Romney has Multiple Sclerosis, which is very sad. My mother died from Leukemia. Both women needed health insurance, but my mother was on Medicare after she retired and her healthcare and insurance was affordable to her because of that. Mr. Romney's running mate would give my mother a coupon and allow insurance companies to deny coverage due to her pre-existing condition.

If you are a multimillionaire and you have MS, you don't live with the fear that you will lose your only home if your insurance company suddenly rescinds their coverage.

Then Romney decided he had defined himself enough, after having defined the people around him and the people who raised him. And he began to talk about President Obama, saying that it would be OK to vote against him if you voted for him four years ago.

He spoke about how we are not better off  than we were four years ago. I don't know about you, but my 401(k) is no longer in the toilet. The stock market hs recovered all of its losses. I am not drawing unemployment and I am a small businessman. While I do see businesses fail, the housing market is beginning to pick up.

A tax increase will not change anything about my small business. I shall continue to operate. I may have to make a couple of additional sales, but under Romney's plan to put the burden of tax increases on the middle class in order to give himself a bigger tax break, I'll need to make at least three more to pay for the Romney increase.

Anyone need a website?

So, the remainder of Mr. Romney's speech was all about trying to define President Obama, not Mitt Romney. I think, going forward, that is going to be a problem. Because President Obama and the Democrats will continue to define Romney. And that is a strategy that, in view of all of the fundamental changes Romney has appeared to make in his outlook, has not worked for Mr. Romney in the past.

This was a golden opportunity, and one that was utterly missed. What remains to be seen is if the Republican Party hangs Mitt out to dry like they did with Bob Dole in October, 1996. Perhaps the SuperPACs will stick with him.

Redefining Romney

Governor Romney hasn't really defined himself. Instead, he has pretty much left that to the experts—namely his opponents.

In his race against a very vulnerable Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, in their debate in October, Senator Kennedy, who looked like he had all but lost the race came out punching:

"I have supported the Roe v. Wade [decision]. I am pro-choice," Kennedy said. "My opponent is multiple choice."

Romney's reply has dogged him ever since:

"My mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that, or be a multiple choice, thank you very much."

In other words, he did then just what he's doing now: Not defining himself. Now I do understand that Mitt Romney is a believer in a minority religion, but heck, so was Kennedy. His brother was our first Catholic President. You can see Romney's first debate, on the C-SPAN website and marvel at how he completely failed to directly answer questions as well as define himself as a person.

As Governor of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, Romney was preceded by three Republican governors. He made a lot of promises when running and then became "Governor No," when he was in office, vetoing vetoed 844 pieces of legislation, with over 700 of those vetoes overridden. One might think it would be a good idea to work with a legislature than to stand against it. He came into office with a 66% approval rating on November 18, 2003 in Massachusetts and, by November 27th, that plummeted to 45% after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the Commonwealth to allow gay marriage and Romney took a hard stand against it.

Remember the statement above, that he will not force his beliefs on others? I guess he decided to allow the Massachusetts Supreme Court to define him. By November, 2006, his approval rating sunk to 34% with a 65% disapproval rating. He did not run for re-election and his successor was a Democrat.

Then it was time to run for office again and I think he's running for President because he knows that is the only way he can match his father's record as a three-term governor. He doesn't really seem to like debating, running, talking to the press or anything about campaigning and he has refused to offer any specific plans for what he plans to do if he becomes President.

Oh, he sais memorable stuff, like "We're going to take this country back," and "Put America back to work," and "Free us from this big government," and "Repeal Obamacare."

I would ask, take the country back from whom, or what? We do have a ballot box and people do go to the polls. It's not as if we invited Russians or Australians in to run this country in our stead. (Please note, I have nothing against either Russians or Australians. These are two countries pretty much on the opposite side of the world from America.) And Republicans ran on "Jobs, jobs, jobs" in 2010 and I have yet to see a single jobs bill come out of the House of Representatives, which they took over then—save the reauthorization of a highway bill.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

And our government under Obama has actually shrunk from the size it grew to under Bush. In fact, one thing that Romney won't say is that Bush grew the government faster than any President in history since the 1960s. Actually Romney won't mention the Bush name. The only reference I have heard him make to him is "Obama's predecessor."

What worries me is that all of the people around Romney in his campaign are all former Bush (II) staffers. Those goons should stay out of the West Wing. They have all ready proven their lack of competence.

And, repealing the Affordable Care Act will bloat the US budget deficit, which is something Romney says he won't do. Those who have teased actual numbers out of Romney's really incomplete proposals suggest that middle income people will pay around $2,000 more annually in federal taxes, while people like Romney who park their money overseas will pay less.

And that last item is something that Democrats have been using to define him—that and his tax return issue, which simply will not go away.

You cannot choose to run for President of the United States and keep your privacy these days. Romney thinks that's possible and I don't think that anyone in the press agrees.

So, in this upcoming Republican National Convention, they're going to try to redefine Romney for the voters. In that Romney's opponents have been doing that since 1994, I wonder if they'll be able to do that.

Security Metrics a scam?

I make websites. I don't accept credit cards and I'm happy to receive your company check.

But some of my websites do accept charges over the Internet and one such was completed two years ago in the fall. I got a telephone call from Security Metrics, saying my website failed their scan and that I had to make sure that I was compliant.

I thought what I was doing was providing a service to my customer, so I complied with their wishes, answered their questions and made an upgrade to some of the code on my web server (please note, I made no changes to the website code, I just upgraded the server to a newer version of database software not used by the website and processing code that was used in the website).

Security Metrics just cold-called one of my clients. They told them that they had to be certified and had to have their website certified as well. My client does not take credit cards over the Internet and, I suppose, will take them by phone, or will swipe them for services rendered. My client is strictly business-to-business and does no retail. They install and service conveyor systems and they're really good.

My client asked me to put a Security Metrics logo on their website with a link that certifies that they are compliant. After immediately complying with my client's wishes, I told them the following:

You are not accepting credit cards over your website. So a website scan is about as useful as hair on a tree branch. You (your company) has passed their questionnaire, so in that you take credit cards by telephone you're doing the right thing and your bank will assign you a low risk. That may result in a lower rate paid for credit cards. It also may not matter.

I believe that, unless you have to pay a higher rate for credit cards due to your bank's insistence that you do, the money paid to Security Metrics is worthless, useless and a complete and utter waste. They have charged me for "compliance" and I don't take credit cards, though some of the companies I do work for do.


I don't like Security Metrics. I think they're just shy of a scam operation. Your relationship with your credit card processing company ought not to be farmed out to a third party.

So what should you do if you're on a website with this logo?

I believe their questionnaire and their scan will tend to indicate that the company in question is safe. But it also may well indicate that the company was easily duped by their sales team, which will charge them an annual fee for no additional security at all, other than that provided by the merchant credit card service company with whom they do business. Far more important on a website that takes credit cards is a current security certificate that encrypts all information passed between itself and a bank. And you can tell whether or not a website is safe by simply looking for the locked padlock symbol on your web browser when you are on a page that accepts payments.

You also want to look at the URL on your browser. (URL means Uniform Resource Locator, which is geek-speak for the website's address). If you are on a secure page, it will begin with "https:" which means the the site is secure. If the security certificate for the website is not secure, your browser will almost always notify you. And you should keep your browser up-to-date and never enter personal information into any website that is not secure.

If you are a company that takes credit cards, using a card-swipe, by telephone or on a website, if you get a call from Security Metrics, ask for their phone number. Then hang up and contact your merchant credit card acceptance company and ask if they have asked Security Metrics to call you. If they have, complain. Tell them that you do not want some unverified third party ascertaining your security for a fee.

The Radical Republican Future of America Part 2

Do you remember the old man begging on the streets of El Salvador? Under the Romney-Ryan plan, that's you, if you are a man, in the United States. Ryan's budget calls for replacing Medicare (as we have it today) with "Medicare," which gives you a stipend—completely at the whim of the political party in power— and not a guaranteed benefit that will care for you in your old age.

After all, insurance companies are really hustling to get older, more infirm people, better health care, aren't they? Answer "yes" to this, and I'd like to move to the planet you're on. Ah, but now the Republicans are calling the Democrats out for having radically cut Medicare—over 700 Billion dollars!

I'm shocked! Democrats, cutting Medicare? How is this possible? This is one of their pet projects—to provide access to medical care for everyone. So what's really being done here? Firstly, Paul Ryan (who proposed a bill in the House of Representatives to end Medicare and change it into a stipend—see below) knows that he cannot get the votes of seniors based on ending Medicare. So, they're very interested in confusing the issue and "re-defining" the Democrats as Big Medicare Cutters. This is despite the CBO's assertions that the $716 billion "cut" to Medicare is actually a savings. Additionally, CNN and the AARP did their own studies and they found the savings over 10 years is based on reducing "gifts" to insurance companies that the Bush Administration built into Medicare Part D (something insurance companies are not happy about) and savings due to decreased waste and fraud. CNN did a fact check on this and I think it will result in Governor Sununu refusing to accept invitations to talk to CNN reporters. He doesn't like being called out on the air. I worked with Soledad O'Brien when she was at NBC and she's a smart cookie.

But we have to cut, right? Frankly, that's false. Republicans want to spread Amnesia Dust all over all Americans who lived through the 1990s, when everyone's taxes increased by a little bit under Clinton and the annual budget showed a surplus in his last year in office. And in the 1990s, we had very low unemployment!

Women in El Salvador have frighteningly low status.
VP candidate Paul Ryan wants American women
to suffer the same.

Here is what Romney's running mate wants: He wants those darned "uppity women" to stop thinking that they can have any of their freedoms. He wants to limit a woman's ability to use contraception. He wants women to go to jail if they have an abortion, just like El Salvador. He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act that gives women equal pay for equal work so, if you are a man married to a woman, the money she brings in will be the same money any man will make for the same work and, if you are a woman, you cannot be forced (either by companies ordering people to not tell anyone else what they earn or by companies that discriminate openly against women) to accept 77¢ for every $1.00 a man makes. He also wants to pass a "Personhood" amendment to the United States Constitution—something that very conservative Mississippi refused to pass.

In essence, he wants to reduce the status of American women to that of women in El Salvador. In the last ten years, the murder of women in El Salvador has increased five-fold. And the level of violence used against the women is higher in those murders than in men. In fact, Paul Ryan voted to redefine rape for American women as only provable if deadly force was used against the woman. If you are a woman, if you are married to a woman, if you know women and have friends who are women, you don't want this person in any position of power. Ever.

Source Data: CBO Historical Tables

Republicans want to cut, cut, cut. They talk about "discretionary spending" as if it were bad. They talk about "entitlements" as if they were not earned and are—thus—a "handout" to lazy people. Here's where "discretionary spending" isn't so "discretionary." The military. The 2009 U.S. military budget accounted for approximately 40% of global arms spending. The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the $106 billions of the military budget of China, and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined. And, according to the GAO, the US Department of Defense has made its financial statements unauditable. When that report came out, Congress "let them slide," ordering the Department of Defense to achieve audit-readiness by 2017.

If the SEC or the IRS ordered a business audit only to be told that the business would be audit-ready "in five years," if they had a question about filings or taxes, the business would be shut down. Look at the table above. It shows Medicare and Medicaid (red) as well as Social Security (green) are taking up 43% of federal spending. But both of those outlays have actual income that is not the general fund. In other words, there is actual income directed at those two programs. And that 43% of our federal budget keeps old men, like the one above in El Salvador, off American streets with a beggar's bowl in front of him. But look at defense spending in blue. it's 20% of our total spending and that doesn't count stuff like nuclear arms research, and other stuff that is hidden from up in the orange "Discretionary" category.

Back in 1990 we were supposed to get a savings from the end of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. We were supposed to end the Cold War. Recently, Governor Romney announced that the Russians is America’s top geopolitical adversary. This actually made Republicans wince. Do we really need this large military?!

The only area where the military is cut these days is on base housing, which is abysmal. I have a friend who has had to submit to a ceiling collapse (she moved out with her infant son) and, most recently, with an improper plumbing installation that may result in another ceiling collapse, an apartment infested with mold or worse (she's hoping that's repaired by the time she gets back from a trip).

So what are we left with? Well, Republicans told us after Katrina that we "couldn't afford to rebuild New Orleans." Of course, the results now are obvious—they don't have that pesky Democratic enclave with all of those voters in New Orleans any more. They've been dispersed throughout the South, where they can't gather together in a nice, big Democratic voting bloc.

While Republicans were doing this, they wrote laws for Iraq that gave every Iraqi a right to healthcare. Essentially, those Republicans who think Americans ought not have a right to see a doctor think Iraqis ought to.

We're left with an infrastructure that there is no interest in repairing or even maintaining. Gee, this takes us right back to El Salvador again. For the most part, roads in Central America are horrible. The Pan-American Highway, which stretches from Canada all the way south to Tierra del Fuego is a "highway" in name only. It's a mud track in parts of Costa Rica and disappears entirely in the Darien region of Panama.

Look carefully at the Central-American road to the left. This is what our streets will look like in just a few years under Republican "leadership." They have consistently voted down all infrastructure bills in the House of Representatives since they took the majority—and remember: They ran on jobs, jobs, jobs in 2010. I still don't see those jobs.

So, America under Republicans looks a whole lot like El Salvador. Beggars on every street corner. Bad roads. A complete inability to rebuild after a natural disaster. Oh, but we'd be different: We would have the most well-funded military of anyone in the world!

When Developing Nations have big militaries, we consider them a threat. Since Republicans want to take America back to Developing Nation status, would we be the threat?

The Radical Republican Future of America - Part 1

Every party, when they initiate a campaign comes up with a game plan that is designed to please their base in the party. In most cases, parties all over the world work to convince voters who are not party faithful of how good their party's ideas will serve everyone.

Within the last two days, Mitt Romney announced that Paul Ryan will be his running mate. This was, presumably, intended to turn out the party faithful in Romney's party, which is currently fractured. That's right, fractured.
The Republican Party decided to attempt to co-opt the TEA Party and has allowed the radicals who run as TEA Party candidates on the Republican ticket. This is really foolish, as TEA Party representatives in Congress have caused considerable discomfort for House Speaker Boehner, as he cannot reliably make deals with either the Senate or the President and hope to keep them. Thus, he cannot hope to govern as long as he's being dictated to by the TEA Party.
Paul Ryan is a collegial, likable guy but, despite that, Democrats in the House of Representatives find that they cannot make deals with Paul Ryan. Ryan's plan for America is best expressed in his budget. Here are the details:

Starting in 2022, the proposal would end the current Medicare program for all Americans born after 1956 and replace it with a new program (still called Medicare) which uses a voucher and would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.

Ryan's plan "replaces" Medicare and still calls what he replaces it with "Medicare." This is specifically meant to confuse people. This plan is not Medicare, make no mistake about it. Medicare was passed, and signed into law by a Republican President, Nixon, who—together with Congress—understood that the elderly were, increasingly, not being covered by traditional insurance at anything near an affordable rate for the Middle Class.

Ryan's "Medicare" is a voucher program. You're supposed to go out on the open market and find some insurance policy. And here's the problem with that:

Medicare is insurance that is not supposed to make money. The Profit Motive has been taken out. Instead, rather than make money off of seniors, we chose to make sure that seniors have dignity in their old age. Ryan says this offers "choice." But when you're 65, you don't want choice. You want security. Medicare as it is provides that.

Similarly, for the poor, Medicaid becomes block grants for the states. States can run their own programs. I can guess what the states will do: They'll funnel Medicaid grants into their "general fund" and spend it. States are strapped for cash, so they'll simply end Medicaid.

And today's Medicare would end for seniors who currently have it. Ryan proposes to re-open the "Donut Hole" created by the Bush Administration in Medicare Part D. So if you're a senior and are enjoying the fact that you're now paying less for drugs you need because of the Affordable Care Act and you're looking forward to 2020 when Medicare Part D's "Donut Hole" closes entirely, there will be no $250 rebate checks like the ones received in 2010 and there will be no more 50 percent discount on brand name drugs.

So Ryan calls this a "path to prosperity?" Not for seniors!

But that's Medicare. Let's talk Social Security.

Social Security, under Ryan's proposal is to end. He says he'll "keep it for those 55 and over," but for everyone below 55, they're out of the pool. Of course Ryan didn't actually suggest that the House of Representatives actually pass the end of Social Security, because he knew that representatives in the House would probably not get re-elected if they did that. Once again, I would refer you back to his new name for Medicare: "Medicare." He doesn't want voting seniors to actually get wind of what he plans for America.

When he says that the 55 and under are "out of the pool," he means it. He has decided that people should trust the big casino that is Wall Street with their "Social Security," which completely ends any security. We're not so foggy on history that we don't remember what happened in 2008, where people lost up to ⅔rds of their retirement savings. But here is the problem: Social Security does more than just pay old people in retirement. It also pays for the disabled. So if you are injured and your injury is permanent to the point where you have to leave the workforce, you get a Social Security Disability check. Every month. So, if you're 32, that security is ended.

But there is more: Social Security sends a check to every child of a veteran who dies in combat. So our brave soldiers sons and daughters receive a Social Security check every month until they are 18 or, if they attend College, until they are out of school. So, Congressman Ryan would ask every soldier serving in Afghanistan today to vote for an end to the security that their children will grow up taken care of, whether or not their parent died while serving their country.

Back when I was in High School, I read "Oliver Twist." This book, written by Charles Dickens, was meant to draw attention to the lives of English youth who were raised in uncaring orphanages and, when old enough, made to work in a workhouse for children. Sent to work for an undertaker, poor Oliver escapes and is recruited by a gang of criminals. Today, we read this book as fiction, not understanding that Dickens, himself, was an orphan and also not understanding the social implications of large quantities of orphans in society. During Dickens' time, many of these orphans were caused by the Napoleonic wars and the wars and rebellions that followed. Ryan's policy to leave orphans of soldiers who die, penniless and at the mercy of distant relatives in many cases is the most cruel piece of his "entitlement reform."

Together, with Social Security gone and Medicare done in, Ryan's plan changes America significantly. It makes America into a new nation. And I've seen nations like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney envision. You see, I have been outside of America. I have been to Latin America, south of Mexico. And the country Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney wants America to most resemble is El Salvador.

Ryan wants to end abortions. El Salvador has done that. In fact, if you are a woman and you have a miscarriage, there is an automatic investigation. You're guilty until proven innocent. You must, somehow, prove that you did not abort your child, else you will be sent to prison for up to 30 years. El Salvador also has no Social Security or Medicare. So if you're a man, look at the photo to the right.

That man is an elderly El Salvadorian man who begs on the street to get enough to eat. You see men like him everywhere in El Salvador because they don't have the social safety net that we have here in the United States. While this may be expected in a developing country, it is simply not what America means to me. I would just as soon my father, who is in his 80s, not need to beg for food on the street. Paul Ryan is, essentially, saying that this is perfectly OK in America. Because, if you trust your entire retirement to the Casino that is Wall Street, this is probable for you. And that's what Ryan wants. That is also what Romney says he wants (today—Romney has been on all sides of every issues, so one has to guess and I believe Romney's choice of a running mate is indicative of what he will want in the future).

Take a good look at that man. You're going to see him on the streets of Romney and Ryan's America. And, while you're looking at him, realize that Ryan and Romney won't ever face that. You see, Paul Ryan will receive a Congressional Pension, with healthcare guaranteed for his lifetime. And Mitt Romney is a billionaire with  Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts.

Corporations and Personhood

To a certain extent I completely understand the concern of those who would pass a so-called "personhood" Amendment to our Constitution, stating that life begins at conception. The reason for that is because I stand in awe of science, to a certain extent.

The original Mercury 7 Astronauts front row, left to right,
Walter H. "Wally" Schirra, Jr., Donald K. "Deke" Slayton,
John H. Glenn, Jr., and Scott Carpenter; back row,
Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom,
and L. Gordon Cooper. Image courtesy of NASA

When I was a child, we believed in science because of the far-reaching NASA programs that were going to, "before this decade is out" go to the moon. I'm quoting President Kennedy here, because he launched this whole concentration in science, suggesting that our schools needed to teach children so that we would blossom as a nation of budding scientists and that would make us great.

Well, we were great. And, to the extent we concentrate on the basic fundamentals of investing in a positive future, we are great and will be great as a nation. Children born in the same generation as I was born believed that science, when diligently applied would solve problems, would end hunger, would cure Polio, would cure cancer and would make life better for everyone. We believed that and our parents sent us to school hoping this would be the future of America—that their children would launch us into a new golden age.

So what happened?

I would argue that we achieved that. Children born in the same era as I was invented the Personal Computer. This took business productivity and put it on steroids. Those computers are now mostly connected to the Internet and send and receive email instead of us writing letters and paying for a stamp for the United States Postal Service to deliver it in three to five days. Today, we drive around in cars that get 30 plus miles per gallon, many of which get more. We consider that "normal," when in the 1960s the average mileage of a passenger car was 14.3 miles per gallon. It's my generation that did that and they used science and engineering to do it.

So what else is science doing? It's finding ways to keep a premature birth alive at an earlier and earlier stage of gestation.  Penn Health indicates that babies can survive as early as 23 weeks, although the survival rate increases by 3-4% per additional day of gestation between 23 and 24 weeks. At 24 weeks though, the chances of having a handicap due to the early birth are 60%. At 26 weeks, that drops to 40%. And at 24 weeks, premature births have a 50% survivability rate. This is well into the second trimester of gestation and full-term babies are usually born at 40 weeks on average. 

Viability was highly questionable when I was growing up if birth happened before 8 months, but I don't think they had the types of neonatal intensive care units that they have today. But in the last 12 years, medical science has hit a wall. Neonatal viability has not increased in the past 12 years at all. 


What the "personhood" people are forgetting about is the spontaneous abortion or the "miscarriage." If you want to insert religion into this, a miscarriage is God's way of saying, "Not this one," or "Not at this time." I have a very good friend who had two miscarriages before she had her first child. My mother had a miscarriage before she gave birth to my older sister (then four subsequent children, including me). 


And the problem then becomes like the legal issues in the Central American country of El Salvador. El Salvador has criminalized abortion. If you are a physician in El Salvador and you perform an abortion, you may be arrested. This is certainly something that certain states in the United States want to do. But if you are a woman in El Salvador who has an abortion, you may face up to 30 years in prison as well. 


The problem arises in the case of a miscarriage. Women in El Salvador are placed under suspicion if they have a miscarriage, either within the country or if traveling outside of the country. Also, The exceptions that tend to exist even in countries where abortion is prohibited—rape, incest, fetal malformation, the life of the mother — don't apply in El Salvador. 


A "personhood" amendment to our Constitution would place all women who had a miscarriage not in a hospital to begin treatment to preserve her health, but in a police station to be questioned as to exactly what she did to cause an abortion.


But we do have an Amendment to our Constitution that, apparently does declare "personhood," though the current recipient is unlikely.


The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, and it gave the federal government ultimate power over the states in respect to the rights of newly freed slaves. The amendment sought to overturn state-level legislation that was being created to limit the liberties of former slaves after the Civil War. The federal government circumvented each one of these laws with one broad brush: Through the 14th Amendment, Congress granted equal protection under the law to every person.


Problem is, in the eyes of the law, corporations are artificial persons and have been so since they were allowed by the Kings of the sixteenth century. When our present Constitution was being considered, Thomas Jefferson suggested explicit language to govern corporate entities, like requiring maximum life spans, be put into the Constitution. This wasn't done.

Southern Pacific Locomotive

The issue of personhood for corporations wasn't really addressed in a court until 1868. A dispute over whether a county has the right to tax a corporation turned out to settle this much larger issue in a very strange way. In Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad, the US Supreme Court decided that only the state that charters a corporation can tax it. This upheld the long-standing custom in America of state governance of corporations, because it's a state that grants a corporation its charter—its license to do business—so taxing devolved onto the state that made the grant.


A former railroad president-cum court reporter named Hartmann claimed that the Supreme Court had ruled that corporations were people. This was later upheld as precedent in Pembina Consolidated Mining and Milling Co. v Pennsylvania. 


Now, all of a sudden there were Supreme Court decisions affirming that corporations are people.


But here is where I have problems: A woman can have a premature birth and that baby can be viable in the late second trimester. This baby can grow up and kill someone and, in many states, be put to death. But nobody can give the death penalty to a corporation. Nobody can jail it. Nobody can confine it. Nobody can stop it from predating on civil society.


Until there is a means by which states can legally kill a corporation, I cannot believe they are people and I cannot believe that they have a right of "freedom of speech," etc. 

"Unconstitutional!"

The current Supreme Court

Recently, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In doing so I think, along with many others on both the right and the left, that Chief Justice Roberts "switched sides."
Frankly, the way the Chief Justice did the switch was to declare the "penalty" for not buying insurance a tax. He also declared the Commerce Clause in the Constitution (which underpins a lot of federal law these days) over-used. In this way, he is asserting states' rights in a manner that could radically alter the way our government works.
But it is this cry that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional (on its face, any way you look at it) by the right that has been bothering me.
To declare that is to suggest that the political party that enacted law is guilty of malfeasance. And that is what worries me. By saying that the Congress (the majority of 535 elected delegates to Washington) and the President did something unconstitutional is to say that every one of them failed, utterly to follow the oath of office they took. It also charges the majority and the President with treason.
While a Vice-President, after leaving office was charged with treason (not committed while in office), nobody has ever charged a President or a majority in Congress with treason since I have been alive (though Senator McCarthy tried).
I have to object. And the declaration that the Affordable Care Act is 'Obamacare' places the charge right in the Presidential office. I don't know about you, but I think this is tantamount to offering disrespect to the office of the President.
Everyone admires Jackie Robinson, the first Black player to play Major League baseball. He was taunted, insulted and reviled simply because he was Black and he dealt with all of that with equanimity, never lashing out and never rising to the bait. I suppose we have another Robinson in our President. He has never declared the opposition racists, even though this suggestion of treasonous acts and a resurgence of claims that he was not born in the US or does not "think like an American" could be seen as such.
"No Drama Obama" was the phrase that described his first campaign. I think it describes his Presidency well. Despite the crass derogation of his actions, a claim of treason, outright lies about his policies, he soldiers on. He does not sing his own praises, he gives others credit and has consistently looked for a middle ground for his policies.
Problem is, the other side isn't playing. They say, "Well, the Senate has not offered to pass a budget in years." Since funding bills must originate in the House, that is hardly the Senate's responsibility. Additionally, it is doubtful that this Senate would pass Congressman Ryan's budget. That budget -- which kills Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of the social safety net in one fell swoop -- is not worth even discussing by moderates.
So I am hopeful that this election will either see the demise of the TEA Party or the end to Republican control in the House. Passing a series of anti-women legislation does not keep the promise to create jobs, which is how Republicans got elected to a House majority. Job growth has stalled and Republicans, who promised jobs, are blaming the President.
I have to ask where is the Republican leadership? If they're the ones who can pass legislation to create jobs, where is the legislation?
In the meantime, the Administration is doing all it can to produce jobs. But if the only legislation out of the House is to stop abortion, it doesn't look like it is going to create any jobs.

The Patch model and why it won't work

I recently ran into a couple of people who are working on AOL's Patch project. Nice people, very intelligent and very pleasant. Patch was building out my state and suddenly stopped in order to follow the Primary Elections, in hopes of gaining ground in the "interesting" Primary states, as the model suggests that they'll get lots of people using Patch if they want to talk politics.

Patch is currently available only in 22 states and the District of Columbia. This is a clear attempt to make AOL relevant to the Internet again, as they were back in the 1990s when you generally got an AOL installation disk in the mail once monthly (especially in certain zipcodes).

Here are the problems I'm having with Patch:

1. They're AOL and they, apparently, think they own the Internet. AOL might have back in the mid 1990s, especially when everyone was using dialup, but now that most people access the Internet using a cable company or a DSL line, AOL has ceased to be relevant as an on-ramp to the Internet.
2. They charge way too much for advertising and they're using the wrong model. Let's face it: Google's Pay-Per-Click model is superior. You can get your message out there consistently using Google's AdWords for a lot less cost than you can with the old, tired "pay per impression" model used by newspapers, magazines and AOL.
3. I question how compelling they will be. Patch fashions itself as local news—literally town-by-town. While that is an admirable concept, their "newsrooms" tend to consist of one person who cannot possibly write sufficient stories to give you a good picture of what is happening in your locality. And a "you make the news" model just does not work. Individuals just won't consistently send in responsibly-written and edited content unless they have a real axe to grind. And if you have an axe to grind, you won't be fair or impartial.

Let me give you an example:

My wife has a business where she advertises on the Internet. Her business website is presently on the top of the search engines due to very good search engine optimization (using keywords within her website and making the content accessible to the web crawlers out there) and she is doing very well in search engine marketing (having a blog, a business Facebook and Twitter account as well as using Google's AdWords to drive hits to her website). She typically spends between $100 and $150 monthly for Google's AdWords which, in her category, is better than most. Certainly more than anyone else in her state is doing.

Google's "Auction" business model works like this: All AdWords (search keyphrases and search words) are up for auction. You can limit your bid or limit your daily cost. My wife chooses the latter. She pays in advance. If her account is running low, she makes a payment. Each advertisement goes to a landing page with a specific message designed to close a sale. The most she has paid in any one day is just shy of $13.00. Her ads are effective. Google does not charge you for advertisement impressions. If someone sees her advertisement online and does not click on it, she pays nothing.

On February 5th, her advertisements received 18,785 impressions. She received 13 clickthroughs. Average cost per click was 95¢ and, since she charges a minimum of $60.00 to a client, if she closed one of those, she's making her money back easily.

Patch counts impressions, but only impressions of Patch.com members. They set their rates in accordance with how many members a particular town or city has. I suppose one could liken that to a newspaper which doesn't count pass-alongs or free copies and just counts actual paid subscribers. Last fall, since they were trying to make a good impression, they offered a special. Their representative was offering October to January for $250 for an advertisement. I figured that was a bargain, as it's lower than what my wife pays for Google's AdWords per month and that the pay-per-impression model might work on the basis of Patch being inexpensive.

But we didn't get things together for an ad and did not sit down with a representative until December. And the price was about $250 monthly, but you could "lock in your ad space" and this would not allow anyone else to advertise there. Generally, if you sign an annual contract with a newspaper or magazine, you can pay for placement like that.

But we thought we would try things out.

I produced an ad. It was my wife's logo with several messages, put together as a GIF file that changed once per second, as I hate ads that flash at you annoyingly. I got the ad over to the representative in late December. And I got a strange email back from her:

Can you provide us with the .swf files for the flash ad?

I wrote her back, telling her it was a GIF ad.

On the 5th of January, she wrote back:

…we usually don't work with animation, so it took my team some time to figure out what to do and tried to use your ad, but we couldn't without making the site go down.

Patch.com would "go down" if there was a GIF image?! The GIF file format was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and its use on the Internet has been widespread. In fact, GIF files have been around since before JPEG files.

But it is possible for servers to have MIME type issues. So I went searching for GIF files on Patch.com. I found a lot of them, but none animated. I also found a lot of PNG files, which may be animated as well, but none of those animated, either. The only animated images were Flash (.SWF) files.

So there was nothing that might cause their site to "go down." And the claim that they "don't work with animation" didn't fit the reality of their website, as there were lots of Flash animation banners on their website. Problem I have with Flash is that it does not display on mobile devices without Flash plugins and the iPhone and the iPad will never have that kind of a plugin. So why should anyone build an animation that won't play back on everything (as GIF will)?

Here's the real issue: My wife had purchased a position that "did not allow" animation. Of course we read through the contract and there was nothing in it that said that. When we talked to the Patch people, they told us that in October 2011 they had made a decision that only certain ad spaces would allow animation. Of course they did not notify us of that fact and the contract we signed said nothing about it.

So, you can see that the folks at Patch.com are not prepared to deal with anyone who actually knows anything about the Internet. They had changed my wife's advertisement to a JPG file, there was no "alt" tag with it and it was given a name that said nothing about her business. This is bad search engine optimization on their website.

We withdrew the ad after two weeks. We had received two clickthroughs in that time. During two weeks, we typically receive 40 to 50 clickthroughs from our Google advertisement at a cost of $40 to $60. Patch.com charged my wife $230.00, then refunded $80.00 because the ad only showed for two weeks, so for two clicks, my wife paid an astonishing $75.00 per click for a Patch ad that disappointed from the outset!

Had we gotten in on the $250 for three months deal, we might have felt a little better about Patch.com but they obviously have the wrong model here. Paying per impression does not work on the Internet. Google is proving that it doesn't work by being so significantly cheaper than anyone else and by only asking for money when your advertisement is actually clicked on.

So, if you are advertising on the Internet, look at your actual statistics and your actual results of the advertisement. If you're not closing anyone from that ad (and aren't getting any clickthroughs to your website), you need to stop wasting your money. I recommend Google's AdWords because you get real, provable results.

It's a shame about Patch, because AOL could have done this right. They could have picked a model that counted actual clicks on an ad and charged accordingly for real results, rather than some theoretical "impression-based model." But they didn't, and I predict AOL will suffer as a result. And the real shame here is that AOL used to be the primary on-ramp to the Internet for most people who had any kind of internet access. They hand-held senior citizens with technical support who could suddenly stay in touch with their grandchildren on a daily basis. And they were the biggest company with an on-line presence.

I don't hope that AOL becomes a footnote in the dustbin of Internet history. Instead, I hope they'll figure out the right way to do business on the Internet as it is today.

Addendum:

We used Patch for three months, June, July and August, 2012. placing advertisements in two towns that are close. We created landing pages for the website so that these ads would trigger a count. The landing pages are definitely primed to close a sale.

In June, we had one page load for each site. In July we had two. In August (and, at this writing we're in the middle of the month), we have had one page load for one of the towns. During the same amount of time, for similar money, we had over 50 page loads from Google's AdWords.

Clearly, Patch greatly overvalues their ads.

Mini-abortions are happening monthly!!!!!

In 1996, Senator Bob Dole ran against Clinton and lost. In 1997, he starred in a series of Viagra ads. Republican lawmakers wanted to require that insurance companies cover Viagra prescriptions and women's groups wondered aloud why it was that insurance companies would pay for Viagra when they were not required to pay for birth control pills.

As a result, more than half of states now require insurance policies that cover other prescription drugs to also cover all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices, as well as related medical services. This includes Arkansas, where Jim Huckabee signed the measure into law. In fact, this was a Republican initiative, started in 1997.

Now, all of a sudden we have the "Life Begins At Fertilization" movement. Rick Santorum is saying that birth control gives people the ability to ignore the consequences of their actions (and here I thought that birth control allowed people to control the consequences of their actions and plan accordingly). All of the Presidential candidates have signed on to this, notwithstanding the fact that this puts them well to the right of the State of Mississippi, whose voters just overwhelmingly struck down a "life begins at conception" amendment to their constitution.

The Birth Control pill does the following: It prevents implantation of a fertilized ovum. That is how it works. Now, I'm not talking about the "Morning After Pill," which is just a stronger dose of the regular Birth Control Pill. Because of this, the Catholic Church has decided to call the pill an "abortifactant."

Nutcase Republicans are leaping on this term asserting, I suppose, that there are millions of "little abortions" being practiced monthly by women. This is why I find Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's little gathering Thursday, February 16th so repugnant. He gathered a group of old men together to discuss women's health. Not one woman was allowed to testify—not even Ann Coulter! Then he compared his work to deny women access to contraception through insurance to the work of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Huh? "Let my people go?"

He styled the hearing a discussion on whether contraception rule violates religious liberty and then only invited people to testify who already believe the rule violates religious liberty. There was no attempt to be fair, no attempt to invite any views not shared by chairman Issa.

If you are a woman, if you know a woman, if you understand anything about women, you'll be horrified by this paternalistic panel.

In El Salvador, if a woman has a miscarriage, she is placed under suspicion of murdering her child. If a woman travels outside of the country and has a miscarriage or (heaven forbid!) an abortion, she is arrested as soon as she returns to the country. For murder.

This is where Rick Santorum and, presumably, every other Republican running for the nomination to be their party's candidate for President wants to take the United States. The Pill will be outlawed. Women will be driven back to the 1950s to the time before The Pill. I'll bet condoms will be taken off the shelves of drugstores. And any woman who worries about "being late" with her period will be labeled a "slut," or worse. The concept of family planning will go out the window.

Please tell me I'm wrong here.