Running into danger

Most of us would like to think that we would perform well in a crisis.  That's natural.  We all see ourselves in the most favorable light in most areas.  I remember the first time I dealt with giving CPR to someone.  The scene was gruesome.  But training kicked in and my partner and I tried to keep a person alive until the paramedics arrived.

That doesn't mean I'd run into a burning building.  Or into a school building where a crazed individual (probably male) is shooting people.  Scot Peterson says he did nothing wrong by taking up a "tactical position" outside the school building where Nikolas Cruz was slaughtering students.  Law enforcement professionals can pass judgment on the actions of Mr. Peterson.

But when Donald J. Trump, a man who claimed to have bone spurs in order to avoid the Vietnam era draft; says he would have run into that building, eyebrows get raised.  Jokes are being made about the fact he probably can't run very far without collapsing due to shortness of breath.  The truth is, he is not someone who would run toward danger.  Witness this.

That is not the behavior of a man who would risk his life to defend others.

* * *

We celebrate first responders for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost is that when most would run from the danger, they run toward it.  They risk their own safety to preserve the lives of others.  It is not something everyone and anyone can do.  It is a choice.

Last month marked the 45th anniversary of the announcement that this nation would no longer draft men into the military.  Our military is an all-volunteer force, although we require men who reach the age of 18 to register for Selective Service...just in case.

Running into danger should be a choice.  But once you make the commitment to that choice, you need to live up to the commitment.

NRA = No Real Answers

I heard the title phrase for this blog during a CNN panel discussion immediately following the unscheduled speech of NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) on Wednesday.

He called for the hardening of schools, describing them as "...virtually wide open, soft targets for anyone bent on mass murder."

He also said, "the elites care not one whit about America's school system and schoolchildren."

He also said, "and you should be anxious, and you should be frightened. If they seize power, if these so-called 'European socialists' take over the House and the Senate, and God forbid they get the White House again, our Americans freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever."

Aside from the fact we should not have to harden schools against men and boys (almost every mass shooter to this point has been male) with assault rifles, it isn't just schools that we have to harden if that is going to be our next move in trying to stop these tragedies.  

That's the Luby's in Killeen Texas.  Maybe this second photo will be more familiar:

That's the truck that 35 year old George Hennard drove through the plate glass window at this particular Luby's before getting out and using two handguns to kill 23 people.  Ten of them were killed with single shots to the head.  Another 27 of the roughly 140 people present were wounded.

So do we harden all restaurants in addition to all schools?  Will that work?

That's the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.  Maybe this second photo will be more familiar:

Or this photo of some of the 26 people who were killed in this church:

So if we follow the twisted pretzel of logic offered by Mr. LaPierre, we have to harden every single public place in our nation and that will prevent mass shootings.  

Welcome to Food Hood, near Killeen Texas.  

That is then Army Major Nidal Hassan, a psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at Fort Hood in 2009.  He is currently awaiting execution on the military's Death Row at the United States Disciplinary Barracks.

Fort Hood is home to tens of thousands of military personnel with access to firearms.  No good guy with a gun prevented the murder of over a dozen people.  In fact, a civilian base police officer named Kimberly Munley engaged Hassan in a gun battle and he shot her three times.  Fortunately, her partner, Mark Todd did better and managed to shoot Hasan.  Otherwise there is no telling how many people he might have murdered.

Did the lessons of this shooting lead to safer conditions on Fort Hood?  

At Fort Hood, about 4.5 years after the Hasan shootings, Army Specialist Ivan Lopez shot and killed 3 other soldiers before taking his own life.  He bought his gun at the same store where Nidal Hassan had bought the gun used in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood.  

I guess even the most hardened targets are vulnerable, aren't they Mr. LaPierre?

* * *

Arming teachers is not the answer either.  A Rand Study showed that highly trained NYPD officers hit their targets only 18% of the time when being fired at by a suspect.  

In a well-lit indoor range, or on a sunny day at an outdoor range, shooting at 25 yards with a handgun, I could shoot expert over and over during my Air Force days.

That is the Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship ribbon.  Mine had a service star to indicate I had shot expert with more than one weapon.  But shooting on the range isn't the same as when someone is shooting back.

When would teachers have time to receive the training needed to even begin to confront armed intruders?  The answer is never.  There is barely enough time to do the work they are required to do in terms of lesson planning, curriculum development, professional development and everything else we ask of our teachers.  

NRA.  No Real Answers.

 

The power of the people

The elected Legislature of the state of Florida refused to even consider a ban on assault weapons.  The same assault weapons that Nikolas Cruz used to take 17 lives at a school in Parkland, FL.  The same weapons that James Snead says that Nikolas had a right to have.  Mr. Snead's opinion is extremely important because it was his home where Nikolas was living after the death of his mother.  Mr. Snead had no problem with Nikolas owning an assault rifle.  He told CBS News, "It is his right to have it" in response to the question "You thought it was fine for a 19 year old to have an AR-15."

That is a key component of the problem right there.  That attitude is why those elected officials in Florida feel it is okay for the State House to vote down a motion to even consider a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines.  There are people in Florida who vote, who think it is their right to allow 19 year olds with a history of mental health issues to legally purchase assault weapons.

Florida is not alone.  Only 7 of the 50 states have any bans on assault weapons.  Two of those 43 states that do not have bans do require more stringent background checks and training requirements for buying assault weapons than for purchasing other firearms.

We can't choose to boycott 43 states on this issue.  It isn't just impractical, it is impossible to do.  But we can choose one state to make an example of.  Florida is the perfect example state.  We should continue to work to ban them on the federal level.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't use Florida as a battleground to show our determination.

I just watched one of the Republicans in the Florida State House who voted against even considering a ban on assault weapons, being interviewed on CNN.  He talked about how raising the age at which one could legally buy and own an assault weapon from 18 to 21, as though that would make a difference.  That's a load of crap.  We give 18 year olds the right to vote. We mandate that they register with the Selective Service and deny them certain benefits if they fail to do so.  Raising the age limit to buy an assault weapon to 21, or 31 or even 61 is not the answer.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, one answer is to require people who want to own assault weapons to become part of the "...well-regulated militia..." mentioned in the original text of the Second Amendment.  Anyone who doesn't undergo the required screenings and training to be part of that militia would be prohibited from owning anything but a handgun or a bolt-action hunting rifle, or a shotgun.  Any handgun or shotgun is more than adequate for defending home and loved ones from intruders.

The thoughts and prayers of politicians and others do nothing to prevent the next mass shooting.  The outcry of Speaker Ryan and others that a knee-jerk reaction is not appropriate is wrong-headed and illogical.  It is a self-serving denial of responsibility for doing their jobs.

#NeverAgain

The National Rifle Associations has every right...

I was on my way home from work on Monday and I listened to the news on my car radio.  There was a story covering the rally held that day in L.A.'s Pershing Square in protest against gun violence.  In the wake of the Parkland, FL school shooting, these protests are again on the upswing.

In addition to the usual sound bites from protestors, the story included remarks from someone who was there counter-demonstrating.  He said:

"The NRA has every right to lobby Congress in support of their agenda."
"Money is speech."

The thing is, he's right on both counts.  Just as individuals can spend money to advance their agendas on the political battlefield, so can corporations.  So can groups of people with shared interests.

* * *

We cannot stop the NRA from lobbying.  That would be contrary to our beliefs in freedom of expression.  But we can use our own right to those same freedoms to overcome their influence.

The NRA has 5 million members.  Coincidentally, their CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre earned a salary of over $5 million in 2015.

Also coincidentally, according to OpenSecretsDotOrg, the NRA spent just over $5.1 million on lobbying activities in 2017.  That was an increase of nearly $2 million over their 2016 lobbying expenditures.

The NRA's spending in Washington, D.C. makes it very influential.  The way to counter their influence is to make it clear to the members of Congress that we will not continue to send those among that membership who bend to the will of the NRA and continue to push legislation that is contrary to our safety.

Their interpretation of the intent of the Founding Fathers who created the Second Amendment is skewed because it ignores the first words of its text.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The people who want to own assault rifles and would own automatic weapons if they were legal are not part of any well regulated militia.  Guns to protect one's home and loved ones are available without having to resort to large-magazine assault weapons.  

If those of us who oppose the NRA agenda to prevent any restrictions on the types of guns Americans can own were to join forces, we could outspend and out-influence them in Washington, D.C.

We need to unite under one banner and make our collective voices heard so that the politicians who have been feeding at the NRA's trough either stop, or are forced from office.

136 Days - Still Too Soon?

136 is the number of days from October 2, 2017 through February 14, 2018.  On October 2nd of last year, the Trump White House said it was too soon to talk about solutions to the problem of mass shootings.

Apparently in the more than one-third of a year since Trump's spokeshole blathered about this, it was still too soon for those conversations to take place.  Now 17 more people are dead.  Murdered with an assault rifle purchased legally.

We don't want your thoughts and prayers.  The politicians who can offer only that tired platitude are far more interested in the money funneled into their coffers by gun manufacturers than the lives lost in these preventable tragedies.

Much is being made of the fact that this man had an AR-15 type assault rifle.  Police say he had "...countless magazines..."  I'm guessing we will get a count of the number of magazines he had at some point.  Suppose for a moment that we could wave a magic wand and make all of the assault weapons not in the hands of military and law enforcement personnel simply vanish.  Would we be any safer?  Probably not.

That's a man holding a pistol.  Not an assault rifle.  He can change clips in just over one-half of one second.  While most of us will never approach that level of speed in changing clips, it doesn't take a long time to eject the spent clip, insert the next one and chanber another round.

The laws we have on the books now did not prevent Nikolas Cruz from legally purchasing the gun he used to take 17 lives on Valentine's Day.

But it is apparently too soon to visit the issue of stopping mass shootings in the mind of the Moron-in-Chief.  It is more important to deport people whose only crime was being brought to the U.S. as children not legally eligible to enter our borders.  It is more important to undo the Affordable Care Act and put more people on the rolls of those without healthcare coverage.  And is clearly more important to push through a tax reform bill that was a massive giveaway for the wealthiest Americans to be paid for by adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

We need to tell every single politician that today is not too soon to talk about fixing this problem.  It would be the ultimate comfort to the families of the victims to know that their loved ones will be the last to die before we finally move to stop such events from happening.

The real tragedy

Back in the day when lawyer jokes were a new thing, one of them went like this:

"If a bus with 40 lawyers on board going over a cliff is a tragedy, what would be a real tragedy?"

"Three empty seats."

After you finish groaning, consider what the real tragedy is in the deaths of Indianapolis Colts linebaker Edwin Jackson and Jeffrey Monroe.  Monroe was the Uber driver transporting Jackson when they were allegedly run over by Manuel Oreggo-Savala.  Oreggo-Savala is a citizen of Guatemala who has been deported twice previously from the United States.

The Moron-In-Chief is trying to make this political by blaming Democrats for being soft on immigration law.  Their deaths are a tragedy.  But the real tragedy is not that they died because someone was in our nation illegally.  The real tragedy is that on average, nearly 29 people die daily as the result of a DUI in this country.

That stat comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  It is based on the 10,497 people who died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2016.

There is no data available to demonstrate that those who are here illegally are involved in a disproportionate number of DUI deaths.  Andrew Thomas Gallo and Manuel Oreggo-Savala have some things in common. While Gallo was born in El Monte, California and is therefore a U.S. citizen, they were both involved in DUI crashes that took the life of a noted athlete.

It had been California Angels (I refuse to refer to them as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, since Anaheim isn't even in Los Angeles County) pitcher Nick Adenhart's first start of the 2009 season on April 9th.  He went six scoreless innings.  Around midnight, he and two others were killed in a crash with Gallo's minivan.  Gallo is currently serving a sentence of 51 years to life in prison.

Gallo's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was nearly three times the legal limit.  Oreggo-Savala is charged with driving with a BAC above .15

Gallo had a previous DUI conviction and was driving on a suspended license on the night he killed three people and seriously injured another.  Oreggo-Savala was convicted of DUI in 2005.

The problem is we don't deal harshly enough with those convicted of DUI in terms of preventing them from becoming repeat offenders.

Meet Danny Lee Bettcher of Minneapolis.  In December of 2014 he was released from prison after serving five years after being convicted of drunk driving for the 27th time.

And yet, this past September, he was arrested for the 28th time for DUI, and he had a valid drivers license at the time.  That's because there is no law in Minnesota to take away a person's drivers license for the rest of their life, no matter how many DUIs they have had.

In June of 2017, Derek Haskayne of Placentia, CA was handed a sentence of four years in state prison by a judge in Santa Ana, CA.  It was his 9th conviction for DUI in a six year period

* * *

We need to make a clear distinction here.  Alcoholism is a disease.  A very difficult disease to deal with.  Alcoholics aren't cured.  They are able to achieve sobriety but it is a lifelong struggle for them to maintain it.  Well and good and I don't fault those who "fall off the wagon"

But they need to be made to not get behind the wheel while impaired.  Anyone who has ever taken a drink and didn't arrange alternate transportation home felt they were not impaired.  It is inconvenient to leave your car at the bar.  You only had a couple of beers.  One hard drink.  Some wine over a long period.

I'm guilty of having thought that way and driven when I was almost certainly over the legal BAC limit.  Then again, other than a class of champagne at my wedding, it's been more than 30 years since I've had an alcoholic beverage.

As I wrote in a blog in September of 2012, there was a time when I was the one who got behind the wheel when I shouldn't have.  I was young and felt myself invincible.  Let me cut and paste an excerpt from that blog.

Heck, while I'm sharing, I'll share the story of why I don't drink alcohol at all anymore.  Next year will be 30 years since I was out late one night, tossing back more than a few and finally somehow driving myself home.  I don't remember driving home, but I woke up the next day in my bed with my undamaged car in the driveway.  That afternoon, while doing the Air Force security police thing, we were following a drunk driver off-base and couldn't stop him (there's a law called the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits military personnel from enforcing law in the civilian jurisdiction except in a time of martial law).  We ended up peeling him from the wall of the building he ran his car into and impacted his face against after he flew through the windshield.  I stopped drinking (with two notable exceptions, dad's 50th birthday and my 2nd wedding) right then and there.

The people saying that the deaths of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Monroe were preventable are right.  Not because Mr. Oreggo-Savala could have been kept out of the country.  They were preventable because we could find a way to keep people who are convicted of DUI from getting back behind the wheel.

Yet another dumb idea from the Moron-in-Chief

"The marching orders were:  I want a parade like the one in France" is what a military official said, on promise of anonymity to the Washington Post.  

Yet another example of the man who will undoubtedly go down in history as the worst president in the history of this nation; is doing something dumb.  He sees a military parade in France on Bastille Day and thinks "what a great idea, we should do that."

Reports are that the parade might be held on Veterans Day.  

Let's compare and contrast Bastille Day with Veterans Day.

Bastille Day celebrates several things, beginning with the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.  That took place on July 14, 1789.  One year later, France held the Fête de la Fédération.  It was not a celebration of the storming of the Bastille, but of the unity of the people of France.  It was also held to symbolize peace itself.  That became the holiday we know today as Bastille Day.

Veterans Day in the U.S. began as Armistice Day.  It was first celebrated on November 11, 1919 when then President Woodrow Wilson issued this message:

ADDRESS TO FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN
The White House, November 11, 1919.

A year ago today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and juster set of international relations. The soldiers and people of the European Allies had fought and endured for more than four years to uphold the barrier of civilization against the aggressions of armed force. We ourselves had been in the conflict something more than a year and a half.

With splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns, we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that at the last our power was a decisive factor in the victory. We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of a great and free people to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which we fought.

Out of this victory there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.

To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.

WOODROW WILSON

Today we celebrate Veterans Day to pay tribute to the men and women who have served in uniform.  We have another holiday, Memorial Day, to pay tribute to those who perished while serving our nation.  We have Armed Forces Day, the third Saturday in May each year.

A celebration to pay tribute to those of us who have served, should not be a display of our nation's military might.  We don't need to do that.  It is very easy to pay tribute to veterans without parading tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue.  

China has a large annual parade of its military.  So do Russia and North Korea.  See anything else those nations have in common?  A lack of freedoms.

A man who boasts about having a bigger nuclear "button" than another world leader who now wants a military parade should concern everyone.  

Aside from the bad message such a parade would send, it would also be a colossal waste of money.  In the year after this fool pushed a tax reform plan through the Congress that will add $1.5 trillion to our national debt over the next decade, a military parade makes no sense from a fiscal standpoint.  This from the man who promised to cut government waste.

Finding profit in creating a not for profit

Amazon
Berkshire Hathaway
JP Morgan Chase & Company

Companies that make a lot of money.  Amazon's profit in the last quarter of 2017 hit an all-time record for the company of $1.9 billion.  Berkshire Hathaway profits in 2016 were up 15% over the previous year.  Last October, JP Morgan Chase reported a quarterly profit of $6.7 billion in addition to surpassing Bank of America as the biggest bank deposit holder in the U.S.

These firms make money by focusing on their bottom line.  So why have they teamed up to form a not for profit venture to deliver healthcare coverage to their employees?  It is an excellent question.
The companies actually established two goals.  Reducing healthcare costs and improving healthcare satisfaction.

Per capita, no nation spends more on healthcare than the U.S., yet we rate dead last in life expectancy among the world's 12 wealthiest nations.  A study published by NPR in 2017 showed that U.S. per capita spending on healthcare was $9,237 in 2014.   Japan's per capita spending on healthcare was $3,816 that year.  U.K. per capita spending on healthcare was $3,749.  Both nations have higher life expectancy rates than the U.S.

But is healthcare spending the sole determinant in life expectancy?  It is not.  The U.S. has the highest rate of obesity on the planet among the 35 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  We rank 12th overall among all nations in the rate of obesity.  Considering the higher risk levels for diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure for those of us who are overweight, that is also a factor in life expectancy.

In 2014, U.S. average life expectancy was 79.1 years.  The obesity rate was 36.2%
In 2014, average life expectancy in the U.K. was 80.9 years.  The obesity rate was 27.8%
In 2014, average life expectancy in Japan was 83.1 years.  The obesity rate was 4.3%

I had an interesting conversation along these lines with someone recently.  This person had worked in a profession where they earned a good salary but the benefits package was nearly non-existent.  Now they work for Trader Joe's.  They raved about the benefits package, which includes a free gym membership.  And that's one factor that will help these three companies work toward their goal of improving employee satisfaction while driving down the cost of caring for those employees.

Wellness.

The healthier the employees are, the less it costs to care for them.  Prevention is always less expensive than restoration.  It is far less expensive to provide a "stop smoking" program for your employees than it is to treat the illnesses that smoking creates/worsens.  Providing exercise opportunities is much cheaper than treating the complications of obesity.

Then there is the fact that by putting employee wellness and satisfaction above the "bottom line" is actually good for the bottom line.  Healthier employees are more productive than unhealthy employees.  It also employs a dictum I wrote about in a 2012 blog.  Take care of the people and they will take care of the mission.

It remains to be seen just how this new venture will try to achieve its two stated goals.  I suspect they are on the right path to success.

Talking Tax Reform - Part VIII

There has been a lot of talk about the limit placed on what's being referred to as the SALT deduction under the Trump Tax Plan.  SALT is an acronym for State And Local Taxes and they go on this part of the tax return.

Starting in 2018, the amount you can deduct on line 8 is being limited to $10,000.  People with high levels of wages living in states with a high tax rate have been able to deduct the state taxes withheld from their pay.

IRS data shows that taxpayers in California, Connecticut and New York have the highest percentage of their residents claiming this deduction.  Kevin de Leon, who is President Pro Tem of the California State Senate has introduced legislation that is an attempt to work around the limitation of this deduction.  The bill, which has passed the Senate, would create a non-profit California Excellence Fund.  Taxpayers who make a charitable contribution to the fund would receive a credit against their state tax liability of 85% of the amount of their donation.

I don't see this working for the same reasons that limit the deduction for other charitable contributions.  If you purchase a ticket to a fundraiser where there is entertainment offered, the price you would have paid for just the entertainment is deducted from the cost of the ticket in calculating the amount you get to deduct as a contribution.  By this logic, if you're going to get a tax credit worth 85% of your donation, then 85% of your donation would not be deductible.

* * *



There is an unintended consequence to this change in the SALT deduction that few have realized just yet.  For 2017, taxpayer can take a deduction for SALT and if they get a refund of some of the state income taxes they paid, that refund becomes taxable income for 2018.  That is to adjust the amount of the 2017 deduction that they were actually entitled to.

The problem arises when someone is being taxed by two different states.  I use this situation when teaching classes on state taxes.  The client lives in California but spent the year on an assignment in another state with an income tax.  Under the concept of taxing income at the source, that state is going to impose their tax on that income, even though the client is a nonresident.  But California is also taxing that income.

To avoid double taxation, California allows the client to claim a credit for taxes paid to the other state.  The employer of this client withheld $25,000 in California income tax during the year.  The employer did not withhold one dime for taxes in the other state.  At the end of the year, the client owes $20,000 to the other state and $20,000 to California.

California gives the client a credit of $20,000 for taxes paid to the other state and the client receives a refund of the entire $25,000 that was withheld.  The client pays $20,000 to the other state.

All of that happened in 2017.  Next year, that $25,000 refund is taxed by the federal government, since it was deducted on the 2017 federal tax return.  The problem is that the client cannot take a full deduction for the $20,000 paid to the other state.

So the client got a deduction for $25,000 in state taxes paid in 2017, pays $20,000 in 2018 to the other state, gets taxed on the entire $25,000 CA refund received in 2018, but can deduct only $10,000 of what was paid to the other state in taxes in 2018.  They will wind up paying federal income tax on $10,000 more than they should have.