WC’s On Sabbatical

WC will be taking a probably undeserved sabbatical from the blog for a few weeks. WC could say that he’s earned it, churning out two and sometimes three blog posts a day since Joe Miller crawled out of his law office and inflicted himself on Alaska’s Body Politic. But that would be a Miller-ism, a half-truth that’s not relevant to the conversation.

Instead, WC is simply taking a break from blogging to do something else. Possibly more productive. While there may be occasional posts, there won’t be many. WC will be back in mid-December.

Happy Thanksgiving from Wickersham's Conscience

For readers who are bored, here’s a list of links to all of WC’s blog posts in the last two years.

[The Archive listing formerly here was deleted. Use the Categories or tags to explore old articles.]

The Right Idea?

Arctic Tern

Arctic Terns famously migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic each year. If you’ve seen them in flight, you know that effortless, buoyant motion that makes them so distinctive. It’s possible to imagine this elegant bird managing such a long migration. Their hovering posture, pictured here, is similarly graceful and beautiful.

When the temperature in interior Alaska plunges below zero, as it is doing right now, WC wonders if Arctic Terns might not have the right idea. Instead of suffering through the cold and dark (and the dark is a far bigger problem for a nature photographer), maybe migrate to some place where there is more light, liquid water and the color green?

Something to think about.

Cleaning Out the In-Box

From the miscellaneous stuff WC gets as email, comments and spam, he offers the following:

If you want really snarky name-calling, invite economists to the party. Paul Krugman does a take down on both economist William Kristol and all of his fellow travelers:

This open letter to Ben Bernanke is a remarkable document, not least for who signed it. Who knew that William Kristol was an expert on monetary policy? And who thought they’d gain credibility by adding someone who declared in 2005 that we needn’t worry about low savings, because Americans were doing fine thanks to rising home prices, then declared in 2007 that there was no reason to worry about the credit market?

A reader calling himself Hieronymus Bosch argues that the lame-duck Congress now convening will be even more crippled than usual. The G.O.P. has found that its strategy of preventing President Obama from accomplishing anything has worked well so far; they’ll intend to keep it up. Bosch asks, “At one point does putting your political party ahead of the country’s survival become treason?”

Is anyone surprised that Lisa Murkowski is dissing Sara Palin as presidential material? Is anyone surprised that Lisa is dissing Sarah? Is anyone else tired of the cat fight?

Mrs. WC got quoted in a national story on Palin’s “surreality” television show. Mrs. WC wasn’t kind. WC supposes that both WC and Mrs. WC are on The Quitter’s Enemies List now. But perhaps not as high up as Andy Borowitz, who says the whole thing is a hoax. He’s right, but not in the sense he means.

Ho, hum. Murkowski passed Miller in counted votes today. WC humbly points out he called this out on November 11. Whatever Mark Twain may have thought, statistics don’t lie. WC will, however, quote “Loyd” from an Anchorage Daily News comment:

“The race is far from over,” DeSoto said.

Either this guy is the ultimate optimist, is paid by the hour, can’t do math, is afraid to break the news to Joe, or is on something. Even my dog is drooling out of happiness for the way things are going. If she can figure it out, DeSoto should be able to get a clue.

Bristol Palin is still a contestant on something called “Dancing with the Stars.” Seriously, does anyone care? [DISCLAIMER: This link may contain nuts.]

Who is Heidi Montag and why is she sending WC emails about her wedding dress?

To all of the obscure Asian companies who want WC’s help collecting a judgment: can’t you dream up a new scam? This con is getting as old and tired as the Nigerians’.

The rest of the stuff is too vulgar for WC’s blog.

The Sloop John B

A very long time ago, WC worked a summer for the University of Alaska Institute of Marine Science, aboard the R/V Acona in the waters off – sometimes a long ways off – Alaska. That summer, the Beach Boys had a hit with “Sloop John B.,” which made it to #3 on the Top 100 list. And “Sloop John B” became an informal soundtrack to a summer in a lubberly boat in rough water. To this day, WC can’t hear the song without thinking of icy-cold, Gulf of Alaska waters splashing over him.

But it wasn’t until very recently that WC learned that “Sloop John B.” wasn’t written by the Beach Boys. The earliest printed reference to the song appears to be in a 1907 Richard Le Gallienne novel, Pieces of Eight. In the novel, one of the characters refers to “a quaint little Nassau ditty,” called “The John B. Sails.”

Come on the sloop John B.
My grandfather and me,
Round Nassau town we did roam;
Drinking all night, ve got in a fight,

Ve feel so break-up, ve vant to go home.

Chorus

So h’ist up the John B. sails,

See how the mainsail set,

Send for the captain—shore, let us go home,

Let me go home, let me go home,

I feel so break-up, I vant to go home.

The first mate he got drunk,

Break up the people trunk,

Constable come aboard, take him away;

Mr. John—stone, leave us alone,

I feel so break-up, I vant to go home.

Chorus
So h’ist up the John B. sails, 

 

Carl Sandburg included it in his 1927 collection of folksongs, The American Songbag, as “The John B. Sails.” He said that he collected it from a John and Evelyn McCutchen who told him, “Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau.” Which suggests the song was around a long time before Gallienne picked it up. Sandburg added another verse:

De poor cook he got fits,
Tro’ ‘way all de grits,
Den he took an’ eat up all o’ my corn!
Lemme go home, I want to go home!
Dis is de worst trip since I been born!

Alan Lomax, in about 1935, recorded a Nassau version, which he transcribed as:

So h’ist up the John B. ‘s sail,
See how the mains’l's set,
Send for the captain ashore,
Le’ we go home

Chorus:
Le’ we go home,
Le’ we go home,
I feel so break up,
Le’ we go home.

The cap’n an’ the mate got drunk,
They broke up the people’s trunk,
Send for the captain ashore,
Le’ we go home . . . (Chorus)

The cook took runnin’ fits
An’ broke up all my grips,
Send for the captain ashore
Le’ we go home . . . (Chorus)

In 1958, The Kingston Trio recorded the song as a downbeat folk song, anglicized a bit but mostly intact. Some other day, WC will have to post an entry on the Kingston Trio and their legacy, but for now WC will simply say that the Kingston Trio version seems to have been the best known one until Al Jardine sat down at the piano and played the song for Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ dictator leader. The song went into the Brian Wilson machine and emerged in 1966 as the version of the song the world knows today.

Despite the songs deep roots, writing credit for the Beach Boys’ version went to Brian Wilson and Tony Asher. It came out on the album “Pet Sounds” in 1966. Most critics regard “Pet Sounds” as one of the finest rock and roll albums ever released.

Oddly enough, despite being a hit, the album and the song itself wasn’t released on on CD until 1990.

What Price Democracy?

In the fallout from the 2010 election, it’s easy to lose sight of one of the important lessons: you can’t always buy your own way to a major political seat (ask Meg Whitman), but you don’t need to. It much easier to persuade American voters to give it to you.

Like televangelists selling salvation, the super-rich have managed to persuade the average American voter that the best way for the average Joe to get a little prosperity is for the average Joe to give money to the super-rich’s candidates. It’s a lie, of course, but it’s a lie the majority of voters bought in November 2010.

Let’s recap. As of 2007, the latest date for which WC can find data, the wealthiest 1% of Americans controlled 23.5% of the nation’s pre-tax money. Back when Ronald Reagan was president, that wealthiest 1% – the super-rich – commanded 9% of the nation’s pre-tax money.

Apparently you don’t get super-rich by parting with any part of your money (WC wouldn’t know). So the super-rich are irredeemably opposed to paying a higher percentage of their obscene income as income tax. They want the Bush tax cuts made permanent. And they’ve sold that idea to American voters. It’s not clear to WC whether the idea is just the taxes are bad, or that the super-rich will be grateful, or if it’s simply a political version of “Find the Lady.” But it worked.

It’s all the more amazing because you’d think even the average Joe would realize that there are two parts to balancing the budget: increase revenue and decrease spending. By ruling out increasing revenue, even from those who could easily afford it, the Republicans and their voters will insure the deficit is much, much harder to manage.

But what’s happened is that for the last 20 years or so politicians in all political parties – including most recently the Tea Party wannabes – have engaged in a kind of bidding war for the campaign contributions of the super-rich. “Give me money and I’ll lower your taxes.” The result today is that the super-rich commonly pay a lower tax rate than the janitors who clean their offices.

It’s not based on logic. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ranks the extension of any Bush tax cuts, let alone those to the wealthiest Americans, as the least effective of 11 possible policy options for increasing employment. It’s based on greed.

As things stand now, President Obama will apparently cave on the issue, extending the tax cuts for the super-rich. The spending-side cuts, in the absence of matching revenue increases, will have to be that much more severe. Social security, apparently, will be deferred until the average American is 69, not 62. Not to balance the 2037 social security deficit. No, it will be done for the greed of the super-rich.

Paul Krugman woodsheds President Obama for backing away from this fight.

WC has to agree.

Gulls & Terns; Terns & Gulls

All birds are wonderful, but if there is a single  family of birds that WC likes best, it’s the Larids, the gulls and terns. In Interior Alaska, we see them only seasonally, but many hang around coastal Alaska all year. Here’s a selection of gulls and terns.

Heerman's Gull

Heerman’s Gull is casual in Alaska. It’s not here often. But the adults are among the handsomest of the North American gulls. The smoky grey color is even lovelier live than it appears here.

Arctic Tern

The Arctic Tern breeds in Interior Alaska, and winters off of Antarctica. It is famously the bird that migrates the furthest each year. Graceful, elegant and possessed of an effortless flight, they are extraordinary.

Bonaparte's Gull

Another gull that breeds in Interior Alaska, the Bonaparte’s Gull hunts mostly from the water, where it floats like a bathtub toy. Its call is a squeaky toy’s sound, too.

Sabine's Gull

Sabine’s Gull is uncommon in Interior Alaska; it breeds along the west coast of the state. It’s swooping, buoyant flight is distinctive and lovely.

American Herring Gull

The Herring Gull is the largest gull commonly in Interior Alaska, distinctive for its very large bill and pinkish legs. We only see breeding adults and hatch year juveniles here, but the Herring Gull is a very tough bird to identify in its many sub-adult plumages.

Mew Gull

By far the commonest gull in Interior Alaska, the Mew Gull breeds in the boreal forest.

With all of these gulls and terns of the Interior, miles from tidewater, perhaps you can see why birders cringe when folks call them “seagulls.”

Why Joe Miller Has Lost – Updated

Update for Results through November 12:

Murkowski’s unchallenged ballots are now up to 90% of total ballots cast. That would take the write-in candidate to 83,681 votes, against Miller’s 82,180, with some 72% of the precincts counted.

Absentee ballots aren’t all tallied yet, but unless they are statistically aberrational, they won’t affect the outcome. Bottom line: Murkowski wins, even without a single contested ballot.

You can smell the sleazy hand of Floyd Brown in the latest claims and lawsuits. They aren’t going to make any difference either, although they will have the potential to drag the process out.

Update for results through November 11:

Murkowski continues to hold an unchallenged 89.78% of the write-in votes, as statistics would predict, with a little less half of the total write-in votes counted. Today’s percentage is actually slightly higher, which translates into a handful of additional votes.

WC will say it again: despite ridiculously lousy excuses for challenges to write-in ballots and sudden, unsupported claims of voter fraud, Miller has lost.

And, gentle readers, when a candidate starts touting talk radio hosts as authority for anything, the candidate knows he has lost. Call it Wickersham’s Law.

---

 

Original Post

The unofficial election results as of November 10 have “Write-In” getting 92,979 votes to Joe Miller’s 82,180. Absentee ballots are still coming in.

As of 6:30 PM on Wednesday, the Division of Elections had counted about 20% of those write-in ballots. Assuming the ballots counted so far are  statistically random selection, Miller has lost the election. Here’s why:

About 89% of the ballots are in favor of Lisa Murkowski and are not challenged by Joe Miller’s election watchers.

89% x 92,979 = 82,751 uncontested votes

Even if Joe Miller were to win every single disputed ballot – including the ones he is challenging because they say “Murkowski, Lisa” instead of “Lisa Murkowski” – he still loses by more than 500 votes, a landslide in Alaska’s infamously close election contests.

And Miller’s not going to win on many of his contested write-in ballots. Voter intent is the key, not a twisted, absolutist view of the law. The view is particularly reprehensible in a state where Alaska Native voters have limited English skills, triggering, on the one hand, federal laws designed to protect those votes, and, on the other, a certain racist tinge to Miller’s tactics. Miller, after all, knows those Alaska Native votes are heavily weighted against him.

Miller’s options are either to object to more ballots for even flimsier reasons (“That “i” isn’t crossed.”), lie to himself about the unlikely chance that the first 20% isn’t statistically random, or go home and figure out how to pay his $100,000 in credit card bills. We already know Joe Miller will lie to his colleagues; it’s even easier for him to lie to himself.

WC will update this post for daily results as they come in.

Dead Miller Campaign Starts to Draw Flies

WC believes that in any fair political system, the Joe Miller Senate campaign is dead. Sure, it can be hard to tell. Decades ago, when WC was a young pup. he was coming down French Pete Creek Trail in the Oregon Cascades and stepped on a big timber rattler, breaking its spine just behind the head. The snake thrashed around for a while afterwards, but it was dead. The dead snake that was Joe Miller’s political campaign continues to thrash around, too.

And dead critters attract flies, and one of the nastier species has arrived in Juneau: Floyd Brown. Here’s some quotes about Joe Miller’s latest “consultant”:

• Salon.com magazine: “He has given conservatism a rank smell for two decades –and if there is a racist odor to the coming general election campaign, it is likely to emanate from his vicinity.” (April 25, 2008)

• Mary Matalin: “I’m not a big fan of Floyd Brown…He gave us the Willie Horton ads that the Republican Party has had to eat for two election cycles now.”

• USA Today: “[Brown has] established himself as one of the nation’s dirtiest political strategists.”

• George Stephanopoulos: “Floyd Brown is a slimy thug for hire.”

In addition to the infamous Willie Brown attack ad, he’s given us Hillary: The Movie, a pay-per-call number to listen to misleadingly edited Bill Clinton telephone calls with Genifer Flowers and, of course, Citizens United. That’s the group and the case that gave corporations the right to secretly spend as much money as they want in political campaigns, without accountability or reporting.

And what was Floyd Brown’s first contribution to the Miller campaign’s efforts to avoid the inevitable? To raise unsupported, unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. WC won’t presume to speak for other Alaskans here, but WC knows some of the local election officials, and they are, to a person, scrupulously honest. Attacking their integrity, accusing them of complicity in supposed cheating, is simply evil. And, in the long term, could have a terrible impact on the Alaska election process. No one wants to sign up to be called names.

Shame on Joe Miller for bringing this thug to Alaska. Shame on local media for treating any of Brown’s unsupported, unsubstantiated claims as newsworthy. And shame on Brown for bringing his slime to Alaska.

California’s Primary Experiment

Unnoticed in the fury over Whitman versus Boxer, and Fiorina versus Brown, and all of the other expensive madness that is California politics, was the passage of Proposition 14 back in June. Under this new open primary system, voters will no longer be limited to choosing among candidates from their own parties. Proposition 14 will put the top two vote-getters in primary races for congressional, state legislative and statewide offices. Regardless of political party. A mano-mano, face-off in the general election.

No Democratic primary. No closed Republican primary. Just a primary, with the two highest vote-getters moving to the general election. In Alaska where unaffiliated voters greatly outnumber either political party, this system might make a lot of sense.

The new California voter initiative doesn’t take effect until 2012. But WC notes if such a rule were in place in Alaska, the U.S. Senate race would have pitted Lisa Murkowski against Joe Miller, straight up. No write-in campaigns, no stupid objections to write-in ballots; no Joe Miller at the end of the day.

Of course, no Scott McAdams, either.

But it will be interesting to watch how California’s experiment works out.

Why Joe Miller Has Lost

Update for results through November 11:

Murkowski continues to hold an unchallenged 89.78% of the write-in votes, as statistics would predict, with a little less half of the total write-in votes counted. Today’s percentage is actually slightly higher, which translates into a handful of additional votes.

WC will say it again: despite ridiculously lousy excuses for challenges to write-in ballots and sudden, unsupported claims of voter fraud, Miller has lost.

And, gentle readers, when a candidate starts touting talk radio hosts as authority for anything, the candidate knows he has lost. Call it Wickersham’s Law.

---

 

The unofficial election results as of November 10 have “Write-In” getting 92,979 votes to Joe Miller’s 82,180. Absentee ballots are still coming in.

As of 6:30 PM on Wednesday, the Division of Elections had counted about 20% of those write-in ballots. Assuming the ballots counted so far are  statistically random selection, Miller has lost the election. Here’s why:

About 89% of the ballots are in favor of Lisa Murkowski and are not challenged by Joe Miller’s election watchers.

89% x 92,979 = 82,751 uncontested votes

Even if Joe Miller were to win every single disputed ballot – including the ones he is challenging because they say “Murkowski, Lisa” instead of “Lisa Murkowski” – he still loses by more than 500 votes, a landslide in Alaska’s infamously close election contests.

And Miller’s not going to win on many of his contested write-in ballots. Voter intent is the key, not a twisted, absolutist view of the law. The view is particularly reprehensible in a state where Alaska Native voters have limited English skills, triggering, on the one hand, federal laws designed to protect those votes, and, on the other, a certain racist tinge to Miller’s tactics. Miller, after all, knows those Alaska Native votes are heavily weighted against him.

Miller’s options are either to object to more ballots for even flimsier reasons (“That “i” isn’t crossed.”), lie to himself about the unlikely chance that the first 20% isn’t statistically random, or go home and figure out how to pay his $100,000 in credit card bills. We already know Joe Miller will lie to his colleagues; it’s even easier for him to lie to himself.

WC will update this post for daily results as they come in.

Advice for Sudeep Reddy

Caribou Barbie is sharing her ignorance of economics via Facebook. (It’s really sad that she can’t manage a blog, but Alaskans’ expectations of the Quitter are about at the level of Facebook anyway.)  Because Palin is involved, it’s a muddle, but WC will strive to tease out the details for his readers. And offer a moral to the story. And advice to Wall Street Journal reporter Sudeep Reddy.

The Queen of Darkness gave a speech – for a given definition of  ”speech” – to a trade-association convention in Phoenix, in which she criticized Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s plans for the Fed’s purchase of US Treasury bonds. The speech was long on tirade and short on economics, butt Palin argued that the Fed’s efforts are inflationary:

All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher.

[Digression #1: The comments to this National Review piece are much better than Palin's speech. Consider this observation: "It is a sad day for conservatives when the National Review, whose pages were once graced with the editorial pen of a towering intellect, William F Buckley, accepts Sara[sic] Palin as an commentator on anything, much less the subject of economics where she is woefully out of her depth.”]

Wall Street Journal reporter Sudeep Reddy responded, noting,

Grocery prices haven’t risen all that significantly, in fact. The consumer price index’s measure of food and beverages for the first nine months of this year showed average annual inflation of less than 0.6%, the slowest pace on record (since theLabor Department started keeping this measure in 1968). Even if you pick a single snapshot — say, September’s year-over-year increase in prices — that was just 1.4%, far better than the 6% annual increase for food prices recorded in September 2008.

The overall consumer price index was up 1.1% in September from a year earlier. Apart from September 2009 (when prices were down 1.3%), that was the slowest annual inflation rate for September since the early 1960s. That’s not strong evidence to argue about rising prices today.

The Queen of Darkness couldn’t let that go by, of course. She responded on Facebook,

That’s odd, because just last Thursday, November 4, I read an article in Mr. Reddy’s own Wall Street Journal titled “Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices: Packagers and Supermarkets Pressured to Pass Along Rising Costs, Even as Consumers Pinch Pennies.”

The article noted that “an inflationary tide is beginning to ripple through America’s supermarkets and restaurants…Prices of staples including milk, beef, coffee, cocoa and sugar have risen sharply in recent months.”

Now I realize I’m just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like me can read the newspaper. I’m surprised a prestigious reporter for the Wall Street Journal doesn’t.

[Digression #2: WC had to wash his ears out with strong soap after that "humble folks like me" line. But WC's readers should read a sampling of the comments to the Facebook post to get an idea what Palin's supporters are thinking - for a given definition of "thinking."]

Reporter Reddy demonstrated that while she may subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, the Quitter doesn’t read it very carefully. He pointed out the article said,

A broad measure of food prices from the Labor Department shows prices rose at an average annual rate of less than 0.6% in the first nine months of the year. September’s increase in food prices — 1.4% for food and beverages at an annual rate — was low by historical standards.(In fact, the lowest average annual inflation rate on record was 1.4%, in 1992.) Commerce Department inflation data show a similarly slow year-over-year increase for food prices, 1.3%.

There may be some price pressure at the wholesale level, but in a time of weak demand, that doesn’t translate to higher prices. And, in any event, we’re talking abut retail prices now, not in the future. Palin was simply wrong.

As of this date, the ex-Governor has not attempted a riposte.

So what have WC and his readers learned from this little exchange?

1. Caribou Barbie’s in the shallow end of the Econ 101 pool.

2. It doesn’t matter how silly Palin’s claims may be, her followers will lap it up.

3. Sudeep Reddy needs to follow Jack Coghill‘s advice to WC 20 years ago: “Never get in a pissing contest with a skunk.”

Favorite Webcomics: The Oatmeal

Matthew Inman’s drawing skills over at The Oatmeal are actually worse than WC’s; and WC didn’t think that was possible. Probably WC’s 7th grade art instructor would be surprised, too. But Inman’s imagination is pretty amazing. Here’s an example of his dead-on sense of humor:

The Oatmeal - I Hate Your Email Sig

WC doesn’t have the nerve to copy one of his actual cartoons; you’ll have to visit the site to experience those.

Just a Banana Republic?

It’s the image we are given in Junior High School. The Latin American country – the Banana Republic – with the poor living in squalor next door to the ultra-wealthy aristocrat. Mercedes limousines driving past begging children. Shocking income disparity is a hallmark of Banana Republics, after all. So it came as a shock to WC to learn that when it comes to income disparity, the United States is a leader.

Warning: Strong policy wonkishness follows.

There is an excellent article over on Slate and a terrific set of graphics. WC has lifted freely from those sources, and strongly recommends them. But for those who want the simplified version, consider the following chart:

Income of the Top One Percent by Country – Sources: Anthony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Chart by Catherine Mulbrandon of VisualizingEconomics.com.

So in the United States the wealthiest 1% of Americans control an amazing 17% of the national income. It’s on a par with Argentina. That’s surprising and depressing to WC. As it turns out, the top one-tenth of a percent (0.1%) control 8% of the wealth. One thousandth of the country’s population controls almost one-tenth of U.S. wealth.

Let’s look at this another way.

Source: Larry M. Bartels. Chart by Catherine Mulbrandon of VisualizingEconomics.com.

From bottom to top, this chart shows who’s gotten richer under Democratic and Republican presidents. Starting at the bottom, you can see that under Democratic Presidents, the poorest 20% of the population has gotten a 2.6% boost; under Republican presidents, the poorest have gotten a pitiful 0.4%. By contrast, the richest five percent have gotten a 2.1% boot from Demo Prezes; and a statistically equivalent 1.9% from Repub CICs. The Democratic presidents, between 1948 and 2005, have lifted everyone’s income; the Republican, mostly the rich.

Income Share Ratios Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Census Bureau. Chart by Catherine Mulbrandon of VisualizingEconomics.com.

In 1979, the top 20% of incomes made 8 times as much as the bottom 20%; in 2007, the ratio has climbed to 14 times as much. The middle 20% has slipped as well, but not as dramatically.

What WC doesn’t understand is why the bottom half of the country isn’t out on the streets, lynching the plutocrats. Income disparity has reached these levels once before in our country’s history. Stay with WC for one more graph:

The Top 10% Income Share, 1917-2008 Source: Thomas Piketty and Emmanual Saez

Just before the Great Depression, as this chart shows, the wealthiest 10% of the U.S. population controlled half the nation’s wealth. And it was pretty ugly. We’re there again, and yet the masses were persuaded to vote for Republicans last week, even though history is crystal clear on how that’s going to work out.

Partly it’s the American story of upward social mobility: “Only in America.” But the truth, again, is just the opposite. The sad conclusion is that “Mobility in earnings across pairs of fathers and sons is particularly low in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, while mobility is higher in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada.”

All of this puts Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy and the generous support of the plutocrats for TeaBaggers in a whole new light. Not a very favorable light, either. Nothing about the recent election caries any promise of solving the wealth disparity any time soon. If WC were inclined to pessimism, he’d be pretty depressed. The voters have bought into the bait and switch. We’re going to get the government we deserve.

Tired of Joe?

Joe Miller’s incessant whining is really starting to grate on WC. And WC is talking about the post-election sniveling, not all the nonsense that came before.

For example, whining that he wasn’t give time to ramp up staff to keep an eye on the evil Division of Election’s officials. If, in his arrogance, he was so certain he was going to defeat Murkowski that he didn’t do any contingency planning, then he needs to get used to the smell of chicken manure, because the birds have come home. If it wasn’t arrogance, then it was a complete failure of contingency planning. And, again, it carries its own punishment.

For example, whining that the Division of Elections didn’t give him notice of events. It’s clear now that it was his failure to investigate his obligations as a candidate, including his obligation to provide contact information for a single person to serve as his liaison to the Division. If he would step away from the mirror for just a moment, Candidate Miller would possibly appreciate that it is impossible for the Division to know who to contact, and unreasonable for them to be forced to guess. And any questions about the reasonableness of that requirement are washed away by the flood of his Dan Fagan-inspired allies who named themselves as write-in candidates.

For example, he’s whined about “electioneering” by supposed federal contractors and Native corporations. But he hasn’t disavowed Dan Fagan’s stunt,

Finally, Candidate “Write-in” leads him by more than 13,000 votes. Sure, he is counting on absentee voters and his dubious connection to the military, but absentee voters have rarely deviated by more than 25% from the regular voting ratios. Miller’s drawing to an inside straight with three of the cards he needs face up on the table.

Worst, his post-election studio assumes the voters are massively incompetent. That’s pretty cynical, isn’t it? Granted, this is politics we are talking about, but in the best case he needs, what, at least 10,000 people to be unable to spell “Murkowski”? That’s his strategy, right? WC would wish Miller good luck, but he wouldn’t mean it.

But at least stop whining. It’s unbecoming a senator wannabee, at best, and borderline paranoiac, at worst.

A Machine Gun to a Knife Fight

You can cut down a tree – a small tree, anyway – with a semi-automatic weapon. It’s a matter of patience, lots and lots of bullets, and little regard for the environment. For certain of WC’s politically conservative buddies, it must have some kind of internal gratification that offsets the waste of money and the consequences of pumping pounds of poisonous lead into the environment. But it’s not a very effective way of cutting down a tree.

But that’s what the Recording Industry Association of America – the RIAA – has been doing the last 4-5 years. They’ve spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers, filing 35,000 plus lawsuits against folks who they accuse of swapping songs on-line. The RIAA has sued teenagers, dead folks, housewives, college students and small businesses. All because the RIAA was afraid that someone, somewhere might not be paying for a song.

As WC has said before, he’s all in favor of hiring lawyers, especially paying the lawyers you hire. But a little arithmetic might suggest that RIAA’s war on its customers doesn’t pencil out.

First, there’s the premise that someone who downloads a song illegally would have bought the song at full price. Since Bill Gates whined about folks pirating Microsoft BASIC back at the dawn of time (1976 in Computer Years), that premise has been doubtful. WC has never seen a statistically sound study that supports the premise. There’s some pretty good work that suggests there is no statistical correlation between folks who download songs and lost sales.

But if you get by that unproven assumption, there’s the second problem of cost effectiveness. WC would bet a designer coffee at River City Deli that the RIAA has spent far more on lawyers than its members have lost in sales to piracy.

Not to mention the collateral damage. There are 35,000 plus people who have likely sworn they will never, ever buy music from the recording industry again. And likely they have a significant number of friends who are similarly annoyed.

None of which will stop the RIAA from taking its arsenal of lawyers to the next tree, of course. A sensible industry might ask itself its distribution model was flawed. But anyone with common sense doesn’t try to cut down trees with a semi-automatic weapon.

Baseball Madness: Hall of Fame Flushed Down Toilet

Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown sold the remaining slivers of their tiny, black souls to the Devil today and put George Steinbrenner on the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee Ballot.

That’s right, the same convicted felon, thug and alleged human being, who at one point in his sordid stewardship of the New York Yankees hired a private detective to spy on Dave Winfield. George Steinbrenner wasn’t fit to lick the dirt off of Dave Winfield’s cleats. He already has a brass plaque at Yankee Stadium that three times the size of any real baseball players. He has to taint the Hall of Fame, too?

And now he could be in the Hall of Fame? Why doesn’t the Hall of Fame just hang a big sign on the door, “We’ve Sold Out” and give the keys to someone with a sense of decency?

For non-baseball fans (and WC understands there are folks who don’t follow this stuff). Admission into the Baseball Hall of Fame is probably the greatest honor a player can receive. It says that you work is so good that you are one of the handful of players in a decade who baseball will choose to immortalize.

There are two ways to get in: you can get picked by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America if 75% of the votes have your name on the ballot. If you aren’t selected within a certain time under complicated rules (this is baseball, after all), you fall of the ballot.

The other way is to get picked by the Veteran’s Committee. The rules for the Veteran’s Committee even more complex, and change every couple of years. But this is the Committee that’s already in hot water with WC way up to their necks for not picking the great Ron Santo.

A cynic would say that the Hall of Fame has long since lost any lingering credibility as a judge of baseball talent. But if George Steinbrenner is elected to that already lame institution, well, WC loses his last inclination to ever visit. WC can visit more interesting convicted felons without leaving town.

Heroes and Villains

Stand or fall I know there
Shall be peace in the valley
And it’s all an affair
Of my life with the heroes and villains

Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done

-Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, “Smile” 1966

As the 2010 midterm elections slowly, slowly totter to an exhausted end, it’s time for WC to total up the heroes and villains of the current edition of  Alaska’s roughest, ugliest unlicensed sport.

Hero
Jim Whitaker, who came forward with the true story of Joe Miller’s adventures at the Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Law. He was pilloried for his trouble, but proven to be right on every ground that mattered.

Villain
Joe Miller, whose arrogance, lies and ignorance nearly – and possibly may yet – have him elected to the U.S. Senate. He set a new low in Alaska politics, passing such unmitigated liars and catastrophes as John Lindauer and Mike Gravel.

Hero
Scott McAdams, who was by far the classiest candidate on the statewide ballot, told the voters the truth, was forthright and refused Big Money from out of state. WC seriously, seriously hopes that McAdams runs again. He’s the best person to enter statewide politics since the late Jay Hammond.

Villain
Sarah Palin, Alaska’s very own Queen of Darkness. When Miller was revealed to have committed the same crimes for which she busted Randy Ruedrich,the affair that made Caribou Barbie a statewide figure, the Quitter hugged and kissed Miller, instead of disavowing him.

Hero
Tony Hopflinger and Alaska Dispatch, who showed us that your principles matter, and that there’s nothing “lamestream” about Alaska media.

Villain
William F. Fulton and his Drop Zone Security Services, who demonstrated that sometimes those who make the most noise about constitutional rights are those who, for a surprising low fee, are willing to shackle someone else’s rights.

Hero
Winston S. Burbank, Acting Superior Court Judge, who came out of retirement, worked hard at an explosively-charged case, reached the right decision and made some of Alaska’s lawyers and judges proud.

WC recognizes that it’s not over. Even though Joe Miller’s chances of beating Murkowski are considerably lower than drawing to an inside straight, the pot is big and Miller, who shouldn’t have even entered the game, has no idea when to fold. So there’s a chance for yet more Heroes and Villains.

Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done

 

Never Expect Gratitude

George W. Bush left office January 20, 2009 with the Dow Jones industrial average off 2,306 points from when he took over: The worst performance in terms of points lost for any U.S. president, ever. The blue chips closed the Friday before inauguration — the last full trading day of Bush’s term — at 8,281, way off of the 10,588 that the index stood at when Bush took office in 2001.

That makes Bush the first president since Richard Nixon to preside over a declining Dow. In percentage terms, Bush’s 21.8 percent Dow drop is the worst showing since the 83.2 percent decline under President Herbert Hoover, whose term included the 1929 stock market crash.

If you had invested $10,000 in NASDAQ on the day Obama was inaugurated, it would have been worth $17,700 on November 2, the day  of the midterm elections. That’s a 77% return in 22 months. With little or no inflation. So much for a “socialist president.” On the evidence, the stock market turned around on Obama’s watch.

Obama saved the U.S. banking system from its own folly. While the first bailout was passed while Bush was still President – something that the majority of Americans seem to have forgotten – the second bailout was reluctantly proposed by Obama’s team. And it worked. The U.S. is expected to break even on its risky bet to stabilize the global free market system. On the evidence, the U.S. banking system was saved – at little cost to the U.S. – on Obama’s watch.

Obama also saved the U.S. auto manufacturing industry. Sure, he could have let capitalism take its toll and cost the midwest an estimated 1 million jobs, and an economic blow that would have echoed through the national economy for years. Instead, Chrysler and GM are making autos profitably today. Some jobs were shed but far, far fewer than would have been lost if both companies had failed. And it appears the U.S. will break even or even make a little money on that investment, as well. So the U.S. auto industry may have been saved, at little if any long term cost to the taxpayers, also on Obama’s watch.

And he even managed a one-time, $165 billion tax cut, that benefit 95% of Americans. Even though the tax cut seems to have escaped the notice of 90% of Americans.

But instead of being hailed as a hero by Big Money, he has been pilloried. And Big Money, taking every advantage of Citizens United, have spent an amazing portion of their new-found profits in attacking Obama and supporting his do-nothing rivals.

WC learned a long time ago never to expect gratitude from those who you  help. But as a display of ingratitude, this has few peers.

And the attacks came in two ways. First, he was pilloried as a far-left socialist. He must be the first far-left socialist in history to invest his political capital in saving capitalism from its own greed. Yet Big Money got away with it.

Second, he was accused of saddling our children with grotesque amounts of debt. Yet anyone who looks seriously at the sources of the deficit has to recognize that Obama’s emergency spending isn’t the biggest cause of the deficit or the national debt.

Whose deficit is it?

The combined TARP and recovery measures were a one-time blip; not immaterial, but not recurring. They are overwhelming less important than the ill-advised Bush tax cuts, or two unfunded land wars in Asia.

The primary tool used by Big Money was FUD — Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. And lies. For example, the lie that health care reform will cost the government billions, when independent, neutral studies make clear it will save the government money. The lie that health care reform was extreme, when it was basically a program proposed by Republicans in the Bush years. The claim that Obama caused the deficit to explode, when it was and is Bush-era tax cuts.

It’s even more amazing the Obama accomplished what he did in face of total obstruction and filibusters from the Republican minority. It was especially bad in the U.S. Senate, where the Republicans were determined to prevent anything from being accomplished, putting their own interests ahead of the nation’s.

And yet the same Big Money that Obama’s administration saved from disaster lied about what he accomplished and did everything it could to defeat him. Amazing. And all those Teabaggers and conservative voters fell for it. There’s some righteous smugness in the rosewood-paneled offices along Wall Street right now.

Grand Jury Secrecy Stood on Its Head

WC is a lawyer. WC cares about the legal system. In many ways, it’s the last, best defense against tyranny. So WC gets pretty worked-up when the legal system is flagrantly abused. A case in point:

Probably everyone can agree that Siobhan Reynolds has been a zealous advocate against prosecution of physicians accused of overprescribing drugs. And many would admit she can be a pain — sorry — in the butt in her exercise of her free speech rights. Her Pain Relief Network purchased a billboard sign proclaiming the innocence of physician under indictment in Kansas City, for example.

But being a headache to prosecutors isn’t a crime. And it certainly isn’t the kind of crime that justifies sealing – denying public access to – all of the records in the case. It doesn’t justify star chamber proceedings. But let’s back up.

In 2007, in United States v. Schneider, the feds indicted Stephen J. Schneider and his wife, Linda K. Schneider, who were accused of illegally distributing prescription painkillers to patients who overdosed on them. In 2008, Tanya J. Treadway, an Ass’t U.S. Attorney, asked the trial judge in the Schneiders’ case to prohibit Siobhan Reynolds, who is not a lawyer and had no formal role in the case, from making “extrajudicial statements.” AUSA Treadway wanted a gag order. U.S. District Judge Monti L. Belot of quite properly denied that request, saying Ms. Treadway was seeking an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. You know; the First Amendment?

That didn’t stop AUSA Treadway. She issued a Grand Jury subpoena to Reynolds. A  subpoena dozens of pages long, with a hundred sub-parts, that sought documents, e-mails, phone records, checks, bank records, credit card receipts, photographs, videos and Facebook postings concerning contacts with dozens of people, including doctors and lawyers, along with information about a billboard supporting the Schneiders and a documentary film that Pain Relief Network had made titled “The Chilling Effect.” Heh.

“It was a nuclear bomb of a subpoena,” Ms. Reynolds told New York Times reporter Adam Liptak “I was viscerally terrorized. I was genuinely physically frightened.”

WC thinks this is obvious, patent prosecutor payback; Ms. Reynolds had annoyed AUSA Treadway, and Treadway was going to make her pay. That’s bad enough.

But the U.S. District Court bought into it, imposing crushing financial sanctions until Reynolds complied. She appealed. WC would love to tell you what the briefs said in the appeal to the 10th Circuit, but he can’t; they are all sealed, they are all secret. Even the 10th Circuit’s decision is secret. Reynolds has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case; even the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court is under seal, with only a redacted version publicly available. As a result, the petition for certiorari looks like this:

Reynolds Brief, p. 8

This is U.S. Supreme Court pleading. You’d think the contents would be a public document. You’d obviously be thinking wrong.

You see, Federal Criminal Rule of Procedure 6 makes nearly everything that happens in grand jury proceedings secret. Ordinarily, that’s probably good; it protects the reputation of a person under investigation, if no basis for a criminal charge is found. (But any criminal defense attorney will tell you that a secret proceeding before a small group of citizens, where the prosecutor chooses what evidence to produce and no one representing the defendant is present an inherently unfair proceedings.)

But AUSA Treadway has taken it further. She’s hiding behind Criminal Rule 6 to pursue a course of vindictive harassment of an activist who annoyed her. And the entire proceedings, Reynolds’ fight to preserve her constitutional right to be a pain in the butt, is kept strictly secret. Reynolds doesn’t want secrecy. Criminal Rule 6 is only protecting AUSA Treadway.

So it’s in the dubious hands of the U.S. Supreme Court now. According to the docket, the court is still deciding whether to accept the petition for certiorari and hear the appeal. WC’s confidence that the Roberts’ court will do anything, let alone the right thing, is low. But it seems to be the last hope.

WC shouldn’t have to say that star chamber proceedings are wrong. Prosecutor harassment of inconvenient activists is wrong. Grand jury secrecy serves no purpose but to conceal prosecutorial misconduct in cases like this. It needs to be stopped.

(There’s a considerable amount of additional information about Siobhan Reynold’s case on the web; you might start here.)

Santa Files Bankruptcy

Santa, in Happier Times

WC was saddened to learn yesterday that Santa has filed bankruptcy. It’s true. One of WC’s less pleasant tasks involves bankruptcy court. WC was reviewing the paperwork in a bankruptcy case and there, in Schedule I, where it asks, “Occupation,” was written in, “Santa.”

Santa's Schedule I

It was medical expenses that did the old boy in. Like a lot of us, he had trouble getting affordable medical insurance, and didn’t qualify for Medicare. When the various laboratories, clinics and radiologists started suing, Santa was left little choice but to file for Chapter 7.

WC asks all of the Teabagger, right wing politicians who are frothing at the mouth over health care reform, to keep Santa’s story in mind. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, in his poem “The Wasteland,” at Part IV:

Oh, you who rail on health care
And act like windbags
Remember Santa, who was once as healthy and happy as you

The bankruptcy trustee reports no decision has been made on the fate of the sleigh or the reindeer.