Thanksgiving weekend ponderings

Note:  Began this post on Saturday and I'm finishing it on Monday evening.

Due to all of the construction going on along Wilshire Boulevard once you get west of La Brea, I normally go out of my way to avoid that area.  But on Friday I figured it couldn't be too bad and so I drove that way.  In doing so I drove by a particular building where I got one of my first jobs after leaving the Air Force.  As I did I remembered the last day I worked there, the 29th anniversary of which will pass next week.

I had been hired about six or seven weeks earlier but after only two weeks I started sending out resumes.  In 1987 the salary I'd been hired at was $13,000 annually with a promised automatic bump to $13,500 after six months.  The inflation calculator shows that in today's dollars that's the equivalent of $27,600. 

I landed an interview and was offered a starting salary of $22,000 in December of 1987.  That is a 59% increase.  So I went to see the big boss to give him two weeks notice, as I'd told my new boss I needed to give.  She had been very understanding and told me to give the notice but that if they didn't want it, I could start the next day.  I was covered either way.

My soon to be former boss was apoplectic.  "You made a commitment.  We spent money on advertising to find you.  Now I have to do that again."

My response was "match the salary and I'll stay.  But I can't turn down that kind of money, even if this is important work."

The upshot is that I was told I didn't need to give notice

I'm not sorry about what transpired.  His anger was understandable but inappropriate.  Especially given that he'd been the one to make a point of saying we would not be signing any employment contract, and that I was on probation during that first six months.

Taking the other job was a great decision.


* * *



Donald Trump is leading in the Electoral College vote.  He is losing big in the popular vote.  Apparently winning the presidency isn't enough as he's now made specious allegations that there were millions of illegal votes cast for Hillary Clinton.

In a tweet he wrote " In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally" and there's just no good reason for him to make this claim.  Unless of course his fragile ego can't accept the fact he lost that popular vote.

* * *

The passing of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro took me back to mid 1980.  I was stationed at an Air Force base to the south of Miami and my supervisor was of Cuban descent.  He got me involved in volunteer work for some of the Marielitos, which was the moniker of those who made the journey by boat to Florida when Castro announced they could leave.

I also remember spending a weekend on guard duty outside a building where some of the refugees were being kept. 

He was a brutal dictator and I'm not surprised that some in Cuba are mourning his passing.

* * *

That the mother of the so-called affluenza teen was in court for a status hearing isn't big news, but that she's taken a job as a "bartender in a honky-tonk in Azle" (according to the Dallas Morning News) is interesting.

* * *

Rosie O'Donnell had no business making her remarks about Barron Trump possibly being autistic.  Worse yet, she didn't apologize for them in her "explanation."  That's she has been hit hard by her own child being diagnosed with "High-Functioning Autism" is understandable but doesn't justify her comments or the lack of a real apology.

Her animus toward Donald Trump is also understandable but you don't drag a child into that kind of dispute

* * *

Some have said that Kanye West's hospitalization on a "5150" was faked in order for him to get insurance to pay the costs incurred for canceling his current tour.  I think that speculation is not warranted.  Would a licensed physician risk losing that license by falsifying this kind of thing?  Would someone with the ego of Kanye West voluntarily submit himself to this kind of thing.  I don't think so.

That opinion seems to be reinforced by the fact Mr. West wasn't released from the hospital today as originally planned and there is no estimated date for him to go home.

For once, leave the guy in peace and let him heal.

* * *

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard worked out a settlement where he was going to pay her $7 million and he allegedly wants to pay the money directly to Children's Hospital and to the ACLU to deprive her of the tax deduction.

Seriously?  That's petty as hell.  Especially since she'd have to earn a net income of $14 million in order to use the full deduction amount at once.  Seems more likely he wants the deduction for himself.

* * *

Lisa Rinna posted a selfie on Instagram of her 53 year old body in a bikini given to her by her husband, Harry Hamlin.

Wow!

* * *

The Dodgers need to re-sign Kenley Jansen and Justin Turner (or replace Turner) and they are bumping up against the MLB debt ceiling.  Their exemption was good for five years and now that exemption is going to expire.

Their ability to sign free agents will be negatively impacted.

They have alternatives.  I hope they use them.

* * *

The Chicago Tribune reports that one small school district is spending far more money on taxi services for their special-needs students than other nearby districts combined.

Is something criminal going on?  That remains to be seen.  But what this shows is that oversight is lacking at every level of government.  Lower levels attract less attention and are more easily misused.

Challenging the election results

Here's presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking in October of this year regarding whether or not he will accept the result of the election scheduled to take place in November.

Now the election has taken place and the Green Party nominee, Jill Stein is exercising her legal right to challenge the election results in three of the 50 states.  What does Donald Trump have to say about her doing what he said he reserved the right to do?  In a statement released on Saturday, November 26th,  Trump said this is merely Jill Stein trying to "...fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount. All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes," Trump said.  He went on to add, "this is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing."

Let's look at those margins again (numbers are from Wednesday of this week and may have changed slightly)

He is leading in Michigan by 11,613 votes, which is 0.24% of the total ballots cast.
He is leading in Pennsylvania by 68,236 votes, which is 1.14% of the total ballots cast.
He is leading in Wisconsin by 27,257 votes, which is 0.92% of the total ballots cast.

Those margins may be far larger than the 537 vote victory awarded to George W. Bush in Florida in 2000 but they are small enough to be called into question.

Especially in light of this factoid.  That is a link to a Tweet from someone who shows that vote totals in one Wisconsin county (in three different wards) for the candidates were higher than the number of votes cast, and when revised totals were released, apparently all of the "excess" votes had been taken from Donald Trump's tally.  Is this proof someone stuffed the ballot box?  Of course not.  Is it evidence that further investigation is warranted?  You bet it is.

Meanwhile add this to the list of Trump flip-flops since the election.  The tally is going to be enormous.

The Popular Vote by the Numbers

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is raising money to pay for recounts of the presidential voting in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  It is an interesting notion since she has nothing to gain personally from the recount.  It won't change her dismal 4th place finish in the voting in each of these states.

The margins in each of these states are very narrow.

Michigan - Trump leads by 11,613 votes, which is 0.2% of the total votes cast.
Pennsylvania - Trump leads by 68,236 votes, which is 1.1% of the total votes cast.
Wisconsin - Trump leads by 27,257 votes, which is 0.9% of the total votes cast.

These margins are not comparable to the razor-thin 537 vote victory of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race in Florida.  But they are small enough to make a recount a sensible move.  Of course, were the results to wind up in Hillary Clinton's favor, Donald Trump's attorneys will head directly to court and another presidential election will wind up before a Supreme Court where a majority decision is highly unlikely.

Recounts are not free.  It will cost over $2 million just to file the recount requests for the three states.  Attorney fees and the cost of the actual recounts will push the total expense in excess of $6 million.

While many are pushing for the recounts, the Clinton campaign hasn't commented on the issue yet.  They may be considering their options, but with the deadline to file recount requests coming up early next week, time is short.

The three states in question represent 16, 20 and 10 electoral votes respectively.  All three results would have to go in favor of Hillary Clinton to change the outcome of the electoral college vote, assuming there are no faithless electors.

I'd like to see the recount happen.

* * *

So why is it that Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote has grown to over 2 million votes?  That's easy.  She is leading by 4.4 million votes in California alone.  When you add in the other states with larger populations that she carried by wide margins, New Jersey and New York, that lead grows significantly.  Add back in the margins Donald Trump won by in the states that he carried, and California's large population and strong backing of Hillary Clinton are the reason why she has such a big popular vote lead.

While the framers of our Constitution aren't around to confirm my suspicion, I'm fairly certain they did not imagine a United States where 4% of the states would contain 20% of the total population.  As I pointed out in an earlier blog entry, the Electoral College as constituted today is nowhere near representing the people on a one-person, one-vote basis.  But is it entirely fair to select a president to represent a nation of 50 states when California, the most populous state has a population larger than that of the 21 least populated states?

I believe the answer to that question is yes.  We are supposed to be one country, not an alliance of 50 separate entities.   The rights of the separate states are protected by their equal representation in the Senate, so as to ensure the states with larger populations cannot run roughshod over the lesser populated states in passing legislation.  As one nation, with a Constitution that does not provide a process for secession, we must have one president and that president should be chosen to represent the will of the people.  By a popular vote, not an electoral college.

Two questions were asked of me

On the eve of Thanksgiving I was asked two very different questions by two very different people.  Both were very surprising and on reflection, the answers I gave when asked were not the best I could have given.

The first was "Do you want Donald Trump to fail?"  While my initial reaction was to say "heck yes" but that wasn't what I said.  My answer was "I'd like to see him be a one-term president."  What I wish I'd said was "it depends on how you define failure and success."

Donald Trump has said he wants to bring jobs back to the U.S. and I'd love to see him succeed at doing that.  I'd love to see an economy growing during his tenure in the Oval Office. 

I do not want to see our freedoms eroded.  Donald Trump has said he wants to limit the freedom of the press, to make it easier for the news media to be sued for libel.  I do not want him to succeed at that, so yes, in that area I want to see him fail.

Donald Trump wants to limit civil service protections for government employees.  On the surface that seems like an erosion of rights, but then I think about the so-called "rubber rooms" where teachers who cannot be fired sit all day.  Where they earn their full salary and benefits for doing nothing and I wonder, is that a good thing? 

The point is that there are so many things involved in a presidency that to use words like fail and succeed overall aren't easily handled.  Mr. Trump has disavowed the alt-right and their ilk, but actions speak louder than words.  He claims to believe that Stephen Bannon is not a racist, and he may not be.  But his tenure at Breitbart and the accusations against him are troubling.  So are allegations that Bannon was paid illegally by a PAC while working in the Trump campaign.  Trump's loyalty is admirable, to a point.

In the end, I want America to succeed.  Because, or in spite of whoever is President.

* * *

The other question I was asked occurred as I sat in my car in the parking lot outside the office.   I was eating my fast-food breakfast and minding my own business when a car pulled in next to mine.  The woman driving got out and took some boxes out of her car and put them on my trunk.  I rolled down my window to demand an explanation just as she picked them up off of my car.

"They're my cupcakes" she exclaimed in an attempt at explaining why she had used my car as a resting place rather than my own.  Then she asked me "Why in the world are you eating THAT?"

I sputtered for a moment and then replied politely "I don't see how that is any of your business."  She wished me a good day before walking away.

What I wish I'd said is "who in the world are you to be asking me such a personal question?  You aren't a part of my life.  You aren't friend or family and even they wouldn't dare to invade my privacy like that.  Mind your own F*****g business!!"

When I see someone smoking I don't ask them why they do something that is so bad for them.  It isn't my business.  It is their life, their choice.  I might try to convince a loved one to stop smoking for the benefit of their health, but not at the spur of the moment.  But it is far more likely I would just avoid them when they smoked because their smoke is so bad for my lungs.

My diet is nobody's business but mine.  My doctors get to have some input but even they show respect and concern rather than disdain when they raise the subject.

I'll spend most of my Thanksgiving alone and right now I'm actually looking forward to not being asked any more questions for at least one day.

Saturday night musings

The cast of Hamilton the musical sending a message to Vice-president elect Pence.  In response, Donald Trump tweeted the following:   "The Theater must always be a safe and special place.The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!"

Mr. Soon to be President unless a miracle occurs, they have nothing to apologize for.  Americans have the right to speak out about their elected leadership.  The elected leadership needs to grow a thicker skin.

BTW, the calls to #BoycottHamilton are just dumb.  The show is completely sold out from now through next August.

* * *

But another boycott effort seems to be picking up steam.  When the tape was released of Donald Trump's now infamous "grab them by the pussy" comments, women began to boycott the Ivanka Trump line of shoes and other merchandise. Now Shoes.com has removed her line of footwear from their website.

Shannon Coulter, the first to call for the boycott after that tape was released also reports that Bellacor, a retailer of furniture and interior products has pulled all Trump-signature products from their shelves.

Nordstrom is the target of boycott attempts but they aren't giving in.  I'm conflicted about that because a good friend's product line is on the shelves at Nordstroms and I don't want to see her business suffering because of a boycott.  But I recognize the right of anyone and everyone to vote with their wallets.

* * *

Going back to Trump tweets, here is another, "The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!"

Bull.  You were almost certainly going to lose and lose big.  Then there's the small matter of the $1 million in penalties being paid to the state of New York.  New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, "I am pleased that under the terms of this settlement, every victim will receive restitution and that Donald Trump will pay up to $1 million in penalties to the State of New York for violating state education laws."

You don't pay penalties when you were in the right.  The truth is that Mr. Trump simply could not fight this lawsuit and become the first President-elect in history to be spending time in a courtroom defending himself against a fraud charge before and after his inauguration.  Nor could he risk losing such a lawsuit.

* * *

Is anyone surprised that the "autographed" hats and other items sold with Donald Trump's autograph on his website at exorbitant prices were actually signed with an auto-pen?  I'm not.

* * *

A Gold Star family was flying to claim the body of their fallen son at Dover AFB when their flight from Stockton to Phoenix landed well behind schedule.  The flight attendant, knowing that this family needed to make their connecting flight, asked passengers to remain seated so that a "special military family" could deplane first.  Some of the first-class passengers booed in response to the request.

Now I don't know for sure if the flight attendant's announcement mentioned that this family was a Gold Star family or that they were making a connecting flight to meet the body of their fallen son, but whatever happened, the booing was wrong.  I'd wager heavily that the people who booed never served, and have no children serving.

I've mentioned this before, but I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we deplane but we don't deboat or deship or deauto.  If we deplane for a stopover, when we go back aboard are we replaning?

* * *

Republican member of Congress Darrell Issa is in a close election and is claiming that "Liberals are trying to steal the election" in a fundraising appeal.

Clearly this is a plan to raise funds to pay for a recount, should one be needed.  Nothing wrong with that, until the fact that this is a man whose net worth is in excess of $200 million.

He's a military veteran who knew two years ago about the problem with California Army National Guard personnel being forced to repay bonuses and didn't lift a finger until it made the news.

Casting aspersions and accusations that one side of the political aisle is using illegal aliens to hijack an election in an era of Republican-led efforts at voter suppression is worse than the pot calling the kettle black.

* * *

Everyone who ever wondered about those Health Savings Accounts that employers push along with plans featuring very high deductible amounts should read this piece by Michael Hiltzik.

Post-Election Ponderings on a Friday night

If the days comes after the Trump presidency ends that the Donald decides to write an autobiography of his presidency, the chapter describing who he appointed to Cabinet post and key advisory positions should be titled "White Like Me."  At least that is how it appears with his first five appointments.

Jeff Sessions - Attorney General
Mike Pompeo - Director of the CIA
Reince Priebus - Chief of Staff
Mike Flynn - National Security Advisor
Stephen Bannon - Chief Domestic Policy Advisor

All very conservative white male Republicans.

On Saturday, Donald Trump will meet with Mitt Romney.  Some expect that Romney will be offered the position of Secretary of State in the Trump Cabinet.  Possible.  But I would not be surprised to see Governor Romney offered a position in the Trump White House as the Healthcare Czar.  After all, Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare and given the need to replace Obamacare with something, Trump needs someone knowledgeable in this area to oversee his administration's efforts.  Romney is perfect for this job.

* * *

If Paul Sorvino were the President-elect and he were to have a meeting with Xi Jinping, the President and General Secretary of the People's Republic of China, I can see a justification for the future First Daughter, Mira Sorvino to be there.  She speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

No such justification exists for the presence of Ivanka Trump to be in the room when President-elect Trump met with Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.  Ms Trump does not, to my knowledge, speak Japanese. 

But even if she did, she does not belong in that room.  She is a high-ranking executive in the Trump Organization, an international conglomerate and as such should not be a party to meetings between the President and foreign government officials. 

The allegations of pay for play by Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State are unproven.  They are mere speculation.  The notion that the Trump Children can act as both executives in the Trump Organization and as official participants in meetings with foreign governments is worse, on its face, and in the potential for a conflict of interest.

When it comes to the Trump presidency, the Trump children should neither be seen nor heard in any official capacity, aside from functions like state dinners.  They should stay in the Trump Organization and out of the Oval Office's business.

* * *

I wrote a blog recently on how the electoral college would look if its 538 votes were apportioned among the 50 states solely by population.

Clinton wins the electoral vote, but by a margin of 257 to 254.  The other 37 electoral votes would have been divided up between Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and in Utah, Evan McMullin.

Another piece of the puzzle in determining that the Electoral College does not truly result in the will of the majority.  Or the plurality, which is often the case in countries not mired in a two-party system.

The popular vote should be the determining factor in who becomes President.

The profit in being a not for profit school

This is a list of ten Southern California private schools that I selected from a list obtained from the California Association of Independent School's website.  The search criteria was "West Los Angeles" although they cover a wider area.

They are:

Archer School for Girls

Brentwood School

Buckley School

Chadwick School

Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences

Harvard-Westlake School

Marlborough School

Milken Community School

Wildwood School

Windward School

Each of these schools is a not for profit organization, recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as such under the provisions of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.  Each of them does an annual fundraising drive, commonly known as "Annual Giving" which is marketed as necessary to close the "gap."  That gap refers to the difference between the amount of tuition these schools charge and the amount that they claim it costs them to provide the outstanding education they provide to their students.  My question is how real is the gap given the surpluses these schools recognize year after year?

There is no denying that the education provided is outstanding.  The question is, do they deserve to be labeled as "not for profit" institutions, given certain financial factors.  The notion that not for profits need to break even is a myth.  But when they run million dollar surpluses year in and year out, one begins to wonder why.  Over the years 2012 through 2014, only one of these schools had a deficit and that was for one year only.  The average annual surplus of these schools during that period was:

2012 - $3,771,152
2013 - $4,271,705
2014 - $4,576,092

The range of deficits/surpluses ran the gamut from the one deficit of -$586458 to a surplus of $15,598,509.  Harvard-Westlake's annual average surplus during that period was $9,627,071, with Crossroads running a close second at $7,579,744.

If there is a gap between the cost of tuition and the cost of providing education, are these surpluses the result of fundraising being much more successful each and every year than called for in the initial budget?  I don't believe so.  What's happening is that the amount of that "gap" is being overstated to enable these surpluses to be created.  That's fine, if that was advertised in the annual giving campaign.  It isn't.

Then there is the question of the compensation of those who run these schools.  During that same three year period, the average total compensation of the person at the top of the organization chart at these schools was:

2012 - $482,453
2013 - $595,335
2014 - $548,445

The reason for the "bubble" in the 2013 numbers is that the head of Windward received total compensation that year of $1,479,866.  Compare that to the total compensation of the President of the University of Southern California, which was $1,942,935 that same year.  USC had a budget that year in excess of $4 billion and over 19,000 employees, serving over 40,000 students.  Windward's enrollment is less than 1,000 students and I'm certain they have less than 300 employees in all.

I know that running a private school is not an easy task, and these schools have to pay top salaries to get the top people into those corner offices.  But in some cases, the compensation seems to be excessive, especially since there doesn't seem to be any correlation between compensation and the size and scope of the institution.

And without going into detail, it is worth noting that the average total compensation of the five most highly compensated employees at these ten schools for 2014 was over $300,000 per year.

I'm not advocating these schools lose their not for profit status.  They are doing incredibly important work.  I'm just a bit cynical about that "gap" and what causes it.  How much smaller would that gap be each year if these institutions weren't running multi-million dollar surpluses?  That's my question

Why the Electoral College system just doesn't add up

It is a simple principle.  One person, one vote.  The popular election falls under this standard.  The Electoral College system fails to meet this standard.  The reason is that it doesn't provide for the current number of 538 electoral votes to be divided strictly by the relative population of each state.  That is because each state gets a number of electors based on the number of representatives it has in the House, which varied by population, and by the number of Senators in the U.S. Senate, which is two per state without regard to the state's population.

The bicameral legislative structure of the Congress makes sense in terms of the process of passing laws, to ensure that the smaller states population wise are not steamrolled by the larger states.  The Senate is one of those checks and balances of power within our system and it works.  But when it comes to electing a president, the addition of the number of senators to the calculation is inappropriate.  It gives greater weight to the votes of citizens in the states with the smallest population.

 

State	Population as of 2015		Electoral		Percentage of		Electoral
			Votes		Total Population		Votes as a %
							of population
Alabama	4,858,979		9		1.51%		8
Alaska	738,432		3		0.23%		1
Arizona	6,828,065		11		2.12%		11
Arkansas	2,978,204		6		0.93%		5
California	39,144,818		55		12.18%		66
Colorado	5,456,574		9		1.70%		9
Connecticut	3,590,886		7		1.12%		6
DC	672,228		3		0.21%		1
Delaware	945,934		3		0.29%		2
Florida	20,271,272		29		6.31%		34
Georgia	10,214,860		16		3.18%		17
Hawaii	1,431,603		4		0.45%		2
Idaho	1,654,930		4		0.51%		3
Illinois	12,859,995		20		4.00%		22
Indiana	6,619,680		11		2.06%		11
Iowa	3,123,899		6		0.97%		5
Kansas	2,911,641		6		0.91%		5
Kentucky	4,425,092		8		1.38%		7
Louisiana	4,670,724		8		1.45%		8
Maine	1,329,328		4		0.41%		2
Maryland	6,006,401		10		1.87%		10
Massachusetts	6,794,422		11		2.11%		11
Michigan	9,922,576		16		3.09%		17
Minnesota	5,489,594		10		1.71%		9
Mississippi	2,992,333		6		0.93%		5
Missouri	6,083,672		10		1.89%		10
Montana	1,032,949		3		0.32%		2
Nebraska	1,896,190		5		0.59%		3
Nevada	2,890,845		6		0.90%		5
New Hampshire	1,330,608		4		0.41%		2
New Jersey	8,958,013		14		2.79%		15
New Mexico	2,085,109		5		0.65%		3
New York	19,795,791		29		6.16%		33
North Carolina	10,042,802		15		3.12%		17
North Dakota	756,927		3		0.24%		1
Ohio	11,613,423		18		3.61%		19
Oklahoma	3,911,338		7		1.22%		7
Oregon	4,028,977		7		1.25%		7
Pennsylvania	12,802,503		20		3.98%		21
Rhode Island	1,056,298		4		0.33%		2
South Carolina	4,896,146		9		1.52%		8
South Dakota	858,469		3		0.27%		1
Tennessee	6,600,299		11		2.05%		11
Texas	27,469,114		38		8.55%		46
Utah	2,995,919		6		0.93%		5
Vermont	626,042		3		0.19%		1
Virginia	8,382,993		13		2.61%		14
Washington	7,170,351		12		2.23%		12
West Virginia	1,844,128		5		0.57%		3
Wisconsin	5,771,337		10		1.80%		10
Wyoming	586,107		3		0.18%		1
Total U.S.	321,418,820		538		1		538

Source for population figures - U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division

Now if we recalculated the Electoral College tally based on a truly proportional division of the number of electoral votes without the weighting of the method currently in use, Trump still wins the 2016 election. The change is slight.  Currently under the system in use, Trump leads Clinton 290 to 232 with Michigan leaning toward Trump but still undecided.  Under a system of true proportional voting by state population, Trump would lead 287 to 234 (off by one vote due to rounding, but when Michigan is added in, it becomes Trump 304 to Clinton 234).

That is closer to what the framers of the Constitution were seeking.  A president being elected by a vote of the states based on apportionment of the population of these United States.  Now some of us would prefer a straight-up popular vote.  Either would require an amendment to the Constitution.

My vote is for eliminating the Electoral College.

What is and isn't true

As I drove home from work I was listening to the radio and heard a pundit talking about how inappropriate it is for the Trump transition team to be working to obtain Top Secret security clearances.  It bothered me to hear this because it is wholly inappropriate.  It also turns out, according to a piece in USA Today such a request was never made.

Then there was this headline from a piece from the Huffington Post:

Bernie Sanders Could Replace President Trump With Little-Known Loophole

It isn't true.  It's an attempt by the author of the piece to point out that people on the web don't check things out.  They assume anything they see online is true and feel free to share it.

Given the level of misleading and outright falsehoods we are given online, here is a maxim of the late Ronald Reagan that you might want to adopt as your own

There is a reason that Google and Facebook are working to stop fake news sites from profiting by spreading falsehoods.  Personally I do not mind certain sites.  The Onion doesn't attempt to deceive anyone into thinking it is anything but satire.  Then there are those who are deliberately deceptive about who they are.  The .co domain is that of the nation of Colombia and there's a website out there that is abcnews_dot_com_dot_co (I'm doing that so I will not be posting a link to this fake news site) and one of the "stories" on this bullshit site is that President Obama has ordered an investigation into the election and that a "re-vote" will take place on December 19th.

Anyone who stops to think knows this to be false.  But they click the "share" button and misinformation is spread as more people click and share.  And more misinformation is spread.

* * *

No discussion of misinformation being spread on the web would be complete without looking at the issue of what I'll call truth of political leanings.

People get very upset when there is misinformation about those whose beliefs they share.  Conversely those same people don't care about truth and accuracy when it comes to those with whom they do not share beliefs.  To put it another way, it's okay to say things that range from outright lies to partial truths about those who they don't like.

I can't buy into that.  Hate speech is abhorrent but the answer is not to suppress it.  The same is true about making people we don't like or don't respect look worse than they are simply because of how we feel about them.

To cite an example, I saw a post that claimed Ronald Reagan "refused to even recognize" the AIDS crisis.  That's not entirely true.  He took too long to acknowledge it.  He did not push for increased funding and research to the extent he should have, although he did increase the amount of AIDS funding in each of his budgets after 1982.  And in spite of popular rumor, it was not Surgeon General C. Everett Koop who dragged Reagan into dealing with AIDS, it was the other way around, as President Reagan ordered Koop to investigate and issue a major report on the crisis.

Was it fair to label President Reagan this way?  I don't think so.  I think we should make our criticisms of people truthful to the nth degree.  We should be as concerned that the truth be told about those we disagree with and dislike than when it comes to those we like and agree with.

To paraphrase the maxim about thinking before acting, perhaps what we should do is research before we share.

Post-election analysis and questions

Donald Trump did not win the presidency.

Hillary Clinton lost the presidency.  The simple answer as to why can be found in the popular vote totals. 

In 2012, President Obama received 65,915,795 votes.  Mitt Romney got 60,933,504 votes.  As of today, 11/14/2016, the 2016 popular vote totals showed Hillary Clinton with 61,313,976 and Donald Trump with 60,537,336.  While there are still tens of thousands of ballots that remain uncounted, nearly one week after the election, Secretary Clinton's final tally will be millions short of that of President Obama in 2012.  It should be noted that in 2008, President Obama actually received even more votes with a total that approached 70 million.

No matter how you look at the numbers as a whole, it is clear that the total of Donald Trump will be very close to that of the last two Republican presidential nominees, especially when adjusted for the growth in our nation's population over the last four years.  Meanwhile, the turnout in support of the Democratic nominee fell in 2012 and then dropped through the floor in 2016.  So the simple answer is that Secretary Clinton lost because Democrats chose not to vote.  Not because they switched to the other side of the political aisle and voted for Donald Trump.

Much is being made of the large turnout for Mr. Trump among women, white women in particular and an even more extreme number of white women who aren't college educated.  The problem with buying into that being a major factor is that without those votes, his totals would have been smaller than those of the two prior nominees.  To use a golf metaphor, Trump made par, but he didn't birdie, let alone eagle the vote totals.

It would be a mistake to buy into the "Bernie would have won" simplification of what transpired.  We don't know that he would have won, we don't know what would have happened if he'd chosen to run as an independent and such musings are merely informed speculation.  But we can consider that the actions of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the others in positions of power at the DNC to ensure the nomination went to Secretary Clinton might well be a factor in the reduced turnout.

We can also consider that there may have been a significant impact on the turnout due to the claims of "new email scandal" from FBI Director James Comey.  Congress needs to investigate whether or not he violated the Hatch Act  We won't know if there is a large bloc of voters who were going to go to the polls and vote for Hillary who had a change of heart due to his letter to Congress unless and until significant research is done involving those who did not cast a ballot.

I want to offer another possibility as to why Hillary Clinton lost this election.  It wasn't the issues.  It was simply that Donald Trump was more successful in making this all about Hillary Clinton than Secretary Clinton was able to make it about Mr. Trump.  When one candidate succeeds in making the election a referendum on their opponent, they will almost always triumph.

Along with some changes I suggested for the DNC moving forward in another blog, they need to invest in some detailed research into the non-votes of 2016.  Why did those people stay home, or even worse, skip voting for Secretary Clinton while at the polls casting votes in other contests?  The answer to that question will be critical if the DNC wants to have any hope of winning in the mid-term and next presidential elections.

In the 2020 contest, whoever runs against  Donald Trump must make that contest all about what he does, or doesn't accomplish during the next four years.  Otherwise we will be feeling this post-election nausea at the prospect of a second Trump term.  And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Post election ponderings - Part III

President-elect Donald Trump did an interview with the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. During that interview he said "stop it" when it comes to the racist attacks going on since his election.  Then he turns around and names a known white supremacist/anti-Semite to be one of his top advisors.

Yeah, I'm shaking my head at that one too.  Racism has no place in the Oval Office.  Unless of course you're a president who condones it.  What say you, Mr. Trump?

* * *

He said that gay marriage is a done deal because the Supreme Court has ruled on it.  He also said that he plans to appoint Supreme Court justices who will seek to overturn Roe v Wade.  The dichotomy is obvious.  Why is it that the one issue is a done deal because of a Supreme Court decision, while another Supreme Court decision needs to be overturned?

* * *

It's a good thing that Mr. Trump can't just unilaterally impose his tax proposals on the American people.  Let's look at one specific aspect of his proposed plan.  That involving the elimination of the personal and dependent exemptions.

His proposal is to increase the standard deduction.  But as pointed out in an article published by Forbes (one of the best sources for information on income tax issues) this increase will be more than offset by the elimination of those exemptions for most families.

Currently a single parent with one dependent gets to exempt the first $17,600 of their income from 2016 income tax.  That's the current standard deduction amount for head of household of $9,400 plus two exemptions at $4,100 each.  Trump's plan replaces that with one standard deduction of $15,000 (as stated on his website as opposed to the $15,150 in the Forbes piece), making $2,600 more of this household's income subject to tax.

But if this parent has two kids, they will be taxed on another $4,100 in income that would be exempted under current law.  Imagine what Kate Gosselin would face except that she probably itemizes her deductions.  But even then, under the Trump plan she will pay more due to the loss of those exemptions.

The size of a family needs to be factored in to the calculation of just how much of that family's income is subject to taxation.  Eliminating the exemptions removes that portion of the process and is a major mistake.

Trump's tax plan, especially the proposal to allow those with "pass-through" income to elect to be taxed at a flat rate of 15% would benefit the wealthy (himself included, considering how much of his income probably comes from pass-through sources) more than any other group.

One last thought on the Trump tax plan.  An analysis by the Tax Policy Center shows that tax revenues would shrink by more than $6 trillion during the first decade after the passage of Trump's tax plan.  For those who will cry out that the Tax Policy Center has a liberal bias, let's look at the analysis of the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit with a known conservative bias.  Their report shows an estimated reduction in federal tax revenues during the first decade under the Trump tax plan would be over $10 trillion.

Hopefully Trump's tax plan will be dead on arrival in Congress, to be replaced by more sensible proposals.

* * *

In that interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, Donald Trump was asked if he would accept his presidential salary.  His response was, "Well, I’ve never commented on this, but the answer is no.  think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year. But it’s a—I don’t even know what it is. Do you know what the salary is?"

Actually the first part of his statement was a lie.  He has commented on this, and it was in September of this year.  He said the following at a rally in New Hampshire.  "The first thing I'm going to do is tell you that if I'm elected president, I'm accepting no salary, OK?" Trump said. "That's no big deal for me."

What does it say about someone who uses so much bluster and hyperbole that they cannot remember what they themselves said just two months earlier?  Nothing flattering to be sure.

* * *

Trump also said that his initial round-up and deportation of people here in this country illegally will be limited to those who are "criminals."  If we ignore the criminal act of entering the country in violation of the law, there are less than 900,000 in that pool of illegal immigrants, not the 3 million he described on television.

What he hasn't explained is just how he's going to do this, given the incredible gridlock going on within the immigration courts at present.

* * *

The L.A Times is reporting that "hundreds" of students walked out of school to protest the election of Donald Trump.  That's their right.

But is it smart?  If there were 1,000 such students marked absent today and LAUSD gets $60 per day in average daily attendance revenue from the state, those protesters just cost the district $60,000.

That part of the equation wasn't explained by the administration in their attempts to convince the students to stay in school today.

In a year where the district's annual budget is more than $6 billion, $60,000 is a tiny drop in a great big bucket.  The next time the teachers of these students cannot do something the students want done because of lack of funds, maybe they should consider that tiny drop in that gigantic bucket.  It is missing because of their choice to be truant.