Home Stretch Not Going Smoothly

Things don't always go well for the end of presidential administrations.  And before you accuse me of being distasteful, no, I am not referring to Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy.  In the modern era alone, LBJ was unable to bring a dignified end to the Viet Nam War, and announced in 1968 that he would refuse to accept his party's nomination to take another run at the presidency.  He added, for effect, "And if elected, I shall not serve."  Tricky Dick was forced to resign under pressure in 1974 when he realized his tenure was on life support following Watergate.  Gerry Ford lost his bid for re-election in '76 mostly due to the voters' refusal to forgive him for pardoning his former boss, Nixon.  Jimmy Carter was humiliated by the Iranians, whose final dagger was releasing American hostages, held captive for well over a year, on the very day the peanut farmer left the White House, January 20, 1981.  George H.W. Bush wanted to serve a second term, but lost by over 200 Electoral College votes to Slick Willie in 1992.  Clinton, the first baby boomer president, brought disgrace to the White House and was impeached by the House Of Representatives in the second half of his second term.  Although acquitted by the Senate, the names "Clinton" and "Lewinsky" shall forever be linked in history.  He is also famous for finger wagging while lying to his constituents.  As for the second Bush, will anyone ever forget his immortal words, "Mission accomplished?"  Only Ronald Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt less than three months into his first of two terms, is an outlier from this group.

So this brings us to the incumbent, President Obama.  How are things going as he heads into the last one hundred or so days in office.?  One does not have to undertake a massive research project to get a feel for the answer.  Yesterday's front page headline in the Star Tribune read, "North Korean [Nuclear] Test A Grave Threat."  Maybe President Dub wasn't too far off when he labeled North Korea and Iran the "axis of evil."  The pajama-clad lunatic running North Korea, Kim Jong Un, is dangerously unpredictable.  And the Iranians enjoy playing war games in the Gulf Of Hormuz, daring our navy to blast them out of the water.  It's hard to imagine our president has many waking hours when the threat posed by those two countries does not weigh heavily on his mind.

Speaking of the Iranians, Obama claims that the $400 million paid by the US to them in January simultaneously with the release of American hostages was merely a coincidence, not ransom.  Hmm.  If so, why cash?  I guess the Swiss banks, which the US usually uses for transactions with countries where we don't have a commercial relationship, were closed that day.

 

Within the last two weeks it has been reported that the US negotiations with the twenty-eight member European Union regarding free trade (the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership, aka TTIP) has gotten nowhere, despite Canada's success at a similar  arrangement with the EU.  Twenty-seven "chapters" of the TTIP have been negotiated between the US and the EU this year.  On how many of those twenty-seven has agreement been reached?  Answer: zero.  A subplot to this news is that the Democrats are the party which is most eager to consummate this deal.  Their stated goal is to put pen to paper by year's end.  Good luck.

 

Also within the last ten days we've learned that Turkey, one of our most important NATO allies, is conducting air strikes on the Kurds in northern Syria.  This is, indeed, strange behavior given the fact that the Kurds' brave battle against ISIS is being militarily backed by US air strikes, intelligence and tactical advisors.  To recap, our supposed ally is killing the people we have chosen to lead the ground fight against ISIS in Syria.  I thought the US was supposed to be the most superior military in the world.  How do we let Turkey get away with this?  Where is our commander-in-chief?  Turkey's leaders, perhaps a bit paranoid, think the US was behind the failed coup which rocked their country last month.  Vice President Biden even paid a visit to Turkish President Recep Erdogan to assure him that we were not behind the coup.  That was the wrong primary topic and the wrong primary message.  It's hard to imagine President Reagan dispatching an underling for that purpose.  Biden's message should have been, "Stop bombing our guys or we won't send you another nickel."

 

It is commonly believed that Obama's legacy will greatly hinge on the continued success of Obamacare.  That national health plan almost terminated out of the shoot when the legality of a key element of the plan, mandatory purchase of insurance by individuals who may not otherwise have desired to buy it, was challenged.  The plan has managed to survive for the time being, notwithstanding a thumbs down vote by the swing voter on the US Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Usually Kennedy's vote determines the outcome of every case decided by a divided court.  However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps not wanting to go down in history as the man whose court killed Obamacare, surprisingly sided with the liberal wing and voted for the constitutional  permissibility of mandatory insurance.  Still, warning flags are out for the future longevity of the president's health coverage plan, which has generally met with disapproval by small businesses.  Spikes in insurance premiums are prevalent, making it hard for the plan's supporters to assert that it benefits the middle class.  Some families, upon finding out about their skyrocketing premiums, are opting to pay the government-imposed fine rather than re-up for the following year.  Several insurers are bailing after losing millions of dollars.  If Donald Trump becomes the next president, putting an end to Obamacare will be high on his list.  No wonder the prez is making time to campaign for Hillary.

 

Two of President Obama's personal decisions made in August have also been severely criticized by his political opponents.  First, while old folks, the infirm and a variety of household pets were being rescued off of rooftops in severely flooded Baton Rogue, Louisiana and its environs, the president was playing golf near Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Days later, when he finally showed up to survey the disaster area, he said, "I guarantee ya, when help arrives those flood victims won't care if the provider is a Democrat or a Republican."  Well, yes, that's true; and ice cream has no bones.  But...

 

Secondly, when given the option to have his future presidential library built in either of two Chicago South Side neighborhoods,  the impoverished Washington Park, which desperately could use an infusion of dollars, or Jackson Park, a relatively upscale area along the Lake Michigan shore, the Chicagoan chose the latter.  As the Republicans were quick to point out, there is a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

 

While we're on Chicago, the Windy City is on a course to be the scene of over 800 homicides this calendar year.  As of September 1, more murders had been committed in Chicago, the nation's third largest city, than in New York (largest) and Los Angeles (second largest) combined.  Who is running the show in the City Of Big Shoulders?  It's Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was picked by Obama eight years ago to be his first Chief of Staff.  Is it fair to link the president with the failed mayor?  I would say "no," but then again who claims politics is fair?  Emanuel's time at Obama's right hand were often, shall we say, less than pleasant, and there were not a whole lot of insiders who were sorry to see him leave for his current position.

 

What about the president's secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton?  Even the FBI Director, James Comey, who was appointed by Obama, called Clinton's intentional security lapses "extremely careless."  Yet, in a head-scratching conclusion, after laying out the facts regarding Clinton's disregard for the law which arguably imperiled (among others) our military, he chose not to charge her with a crime.  My take:  Just as was the case with the aforementioned Chief Justice Roberts, Comey did not want to be the guy who would be responsible for such a major impact on the course of history, i.e., the withdrawal of a major party's presidential nominee from the November ballots.  With President Harry Truman, who, by the way, was a Democrat, the buck stopped at his desk.  Does that platitude hold water with the Obama administration?  And since I'm asking that question, how have the veterans, especially those depending on the Veterans' Administration for their medical needs, been faring under the Obama regime?

 

Perhaps trumping -- no pun intended -- all other issues is the question of how President Obama performed as commander-in-chief.  I believe it was in the Washington Post where I read that when Obama took office the United States was at war in nine countries, meaning that's how many countries in which we either had ground troops (including special forces) stationed in the line of fire or we were supplying air support to allies' ground troops.  That number has grown to fourteen during the last eight years, a reflection of how violent and dangerous the world has become.  That growth is also a reflection of how important the role of commander-in-chief of our military has become.

 

As a sports fan, I can't help but notice how a pitcher will usually put his glove to his mouth so that lip readers can't decipher what he's saying to his catcher.  Same thing in football, where the coaches use their play sheet as a shield to obscure what they are saying into their headset microphone.  If that is smart protocol for something as unimportant as baseball or football, why is it not so important when the lives of thousands of American troops are at stake?  Here is what Commander-in-Chief Obama said on October 21, 2011:  "I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.  After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over." Unbelievably, two and a-half years later, Obama made the same mistake when, on May 26, 2014, he announced that he would order the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  Nothing like tipping your hand!  Many foreign affairs experts attribute the rise of ISIS in Iraq, if not the emboldened continued presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to Obama's disclosures.  The bad guys lied in the weeds until the US presence was drastically diminished, then having only the woefully inept local national armies to deal with.  There is an old saying that the reason we study history is so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.  Of course, Obama comes from a background of constitutional law and community organizing, not military strategy.  Still, I thought he, too, was a sports fan who twice should have known better.

 

We have seen how the pressure of holding the office of president has aged the men who have served in that capacity, especially those who were in the job for eight years.  Part of it has to do with the natural aging process.  Even butchers, bakers and candlestick makers will look older in the present than they did eight years ago.  But as noted above, going into the home stretch of a presidential term is not a cake walk, and the Obama administration will be no exception.  The president, who already looks weary, might be in for an unpleasant final act.  His record is almost complete for the historians to judge.  Unfortunately for Obama, the Clinton-Trump campaign, particularly the debates, is likely to revisit many of the topics covered in this post.  The tenor of the campaign continues to be one of the nastiest ever.  Many verbal darts will be thrown Obama's way.  The outcome in November will impact Obama's legacy because, as is true with each presidential election, the November vote will be to some extent a public referendum on the Obama presidency.   I'm sure the president is looking forward to the day when he can hand over the reigns to his successor, whoever that may be, and retire to the serene confines of Chicago's South Side.  If Hillary currently commands a fee of $250,000 for private speaking engagements, what do you think a former president will get?

Out Of The Mouths Of Presidents

Today Simon & Schuster is releasing the new book by the forty-fifth president of the United States.  I am sure you know the author to whom I am referring.  To mark this momentous book world occasion, I've decided to write this "interactive" post.

Whenever the subjects of presidential administrations and presidential politics are broached, I tend to think of famous quotations uttered (sometimes allegedly) by US presidents and other celebrities from the annals of American history.   I have always been fascinated by famous quotes.  They play a big part of our nation's legacy.  One of the ironic things about movie quotes is that some of the most famous ones were never actually uttered on screen.  For example, despite popular belief, in Casablanca neither Humphrey Bogart nor Ingrid Bergman ever says "Play it again, Sam."  Bergman does say, "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake..."  Likewise, impressionists of Cary Grant are fond of using "Judy, Judy, Judy!"  In fact, Grant never spoke those words in any of his dozens of films, even though it does sound like something one of his characters would have said.  The same might be true of historical quotes.  Did Paul Revere ever literally proclaim, "The British are coming"?

During my eleven years of teaching, I created hundreds of tests and quizzes for my students.  I almost never used pre-fab tests, preferring instead to write my own to fit my expectations for the kids.  (In all humility, I also figured I was better at it than the guys and gals at Scott Foresman, Houghton Mifflin, or wherever.) Math tests and quizzes were the easiest to draft, and by far the easiest to grade.  I particularly enjoyed composing literature tests on novels which the students read together as a class.  A typical test would have the following sections: (i) straight forward fact questions, to get at the who, what, where, etc.; (ii) matching quotes which were peculiar to or identified with certain characters with those characters; (iii) matching descriptions of characters to those characters; (iv) rearranging a series of four or five (or more) events into chronological order; and of course, (v) a couple of essay questions to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Momma Cuandito is a volunteer at Fashions On Main Street (aka Learning In Style), a school run by the Sisters Of St. Joseph for immigrant adults.  The primary focus is on English, math and computer skills.  The teachers at Fashions periodically assist the students in preparing for citizenship tests.  I have seen many of the questions, and believe me, the average American-born adult, including yours truly, would not want to take the citizenship test that our government requires of our immigrants.  The test is replete with obscure dates, rules, laws and other minutia.

 

As hard as it is to believe, the US Department Of Homeland Security has not, to this point, asked me to create a revised test for citizenship.  However, I expect that news of my fame as a Test Creator Extraordianaire will eventually trickle over to Washington, DC, and at that point the request for my help will be forthcoming.  In anticipation of that day, and recalling my years as a Boy Scout during which we were trained to always be prepared, I have already written a rough draft of a section of the test, concentrating on famous quotes from American presidents (keeping in mind the caveat discussed in the second paragraph above).  It seems to me that any immigrant aspiring to become a US citizen should be able to match most of the following quotes with the persons who said them.  My test is much easier (read: fairer) than what's currently being used, and I am the epitome of fairness.  I'm pretty confident that most of the readers of this blog will achieve a perfect score of 16.

 

One of the many (?) benefits of reading my blog is that you get an advanced peek at that portion of my test. Actually, come to think of it, the NSA has probably already covertly tapped into my computer, and the patriotic spies are reading this as I type.  Good luck to those of you proceeding to take the test.  By the way, it's pass/fail, with a score of 10 correct being the line of demarcation.

 

JOHNNY ROCK'S CITIZENSHIP TEST - Oral US History

 

Directions: Match the famous quote with the American president who uttered it.

 

___ 1. "I cannot tell a lie."

 

___ 2. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

 

___ 3. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation..."

 

___ 4. "After all, the chief business of the American people is business."

 

___ 5. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

 

___ 6. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

 

___ 7. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

 

___ 8. "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

 

___ 9. "I am not a crook."

 

___ 10. "I've looked on many women with lust.  I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

 

___ 11. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

 

___ 12. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."

 

___ 13. "Mission accomplished."

 

___ 14. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."

 

___ 15. "What difference at this point does it make?"

 

___ 16. "The buck stops here."

 

***

 

A. Abraham Lincoln

 

B. Barack Obama

 

C. Calvin Coolidge

 

D. Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

E. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 

F. George W. Bush

 

G. George Washington

 

H. Harry S. Truman

 

I.  Hillary Rodham Clinton

 

J. Jimmy Carter

 

K. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

 

L. Lyndon Baines Johnson

 

M. Richard Milhous Nixon

 

N. Ronald Reagan

 

O. Thomas Jefferson

 

P.  William Jefferson Clinton

 

***

 

You may have noticed that the quotes above are placed in chronological order, except for the last one.  As the blogger, I reserve the right to do that for dramatic juxtapositioning.  Outside the context of a blog, I probably would have mixed up the chronology of the quotes.

 

Answers: 1-G; 2-O; 3-A; 4-C; 5-E; 6-D; 7-K; 8-L; 9-M; 10-J; 11-N; 12-P; 13-F; 14-B; 15-I; 16-H

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Was anyone really surprised late last month when the Washington Post reported that our federal government will spend $890,000 on literally -- there's that word again -- nothing? It seems that when federal agencies issue a grant, instead of simply writing a check to the grantee it first establishes a new account within a financial institution. The agency deposits the money into the account, and only then is the money available to the grantee, either in a lump sum or in a series of withdrawals, depending on the terms of the grant. If you were foolish enough to think that the government actually closes the account once the grant funds are depleted, you would be wrong. The bureaucrats are tied up doing other things. Instead, the empty account stays open, the financial institution continues to charge its account maintenance fee, and the government dutifully pays it, month after month. You read that right; our government pays account fees to maintain accounts with a zero balance, never to be replenished again. Where do you think the government gets the money to pay these account maintenance fees?

Exactly four days after the Post broke the news about the empty accounts, the Associated Press wrote a story about the disconnect between what the United States Army generals desire and what Congress decides to give them. The federal government plans to spend $436 million to manufacture upgraded versions of Abrams tanks, the seventy ton behemoths which, in their day, were powerful military weapons but which, in modern warfare, are looked upon as relics. Even the Army's Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, is on record saying that the military strategists would prefer that the money be spent on other types of resources which could be employed in combating today's non-traditional enemies. Apparently the Washington politicians believe that they know more than the generals about what our soldiers need. You don't suppose pork-barrel politics is rearing its ugly head here, do you? Where do you think the government gets the money to pay for these unwanted tanks?

If you don't think bad news come in threes, check this out. Two weeks ago the New York Times uncovered an ongoing policy whereby the CIA has covertly paid "tens of millions of dollars" to the office of Hamid Karzai, the venal President of Afghanistan. This has been going on at least since 2005, and maybe as far back as 2002. His former chief of staff, Khalil Roman, labelled it "ghost money," telling the Times that "it came in secret and it left in secret." Karzai has a reputation of running a corrupt regime, and the scoundrel unabashedly continues to thumb his nose at the country which is primarily responsible not only for his own position but for the freedom of his people from the yoke of the Taliban. You don't suppose any of the tens of millions of dollars ended up in the pockets of Karzai or his cronies, do you? Why was the delivery of CIA cash off the record, whereas conventional foreign aid expenditures are not? When the US finally withdraws our armed forces from Afghanistan, will the ghost money deliveries stop too, and if so, how will that affect the stability of that country? I am not the only one who thinks some of the money has gone to tribal warlords in return for their cooperation with the Afghan central government. When the bribery stops, one might predict that so will the cooperation. Where do you think the CIA gets the money to pay for these ghost bags of cash?

Why stop at three? In 2012, farmers in many parts of the US suffered through the worst drought in years. The federal government, through its taxpayer-subsidized national crop insurance program, paid out $12.7 billion in claims for lost corn and soybeans. No one who is thinking clearly believes that farmers should go without crop insurance, or that some subsidy from the federal government is unwarranted. But according to a recent study by the Environmental Working Group, a national advocacy group that studies health and environmental issues, the farmers were able to cash in on over $6.5 billion of insurance proceeds above and beyond what they should have been compensated. Some farmers realized incomes in excess of what they would have made had there been no drought. Citing a report by University of Iowa agricultural economist Bruce Babcock, the EWG pointed to a couple of factors that came into play, resulting in the largesse. For one, the farmers who benefitted the most had entered into price guarantee contracts which sheltered them from the effects of a poor yield. Second and more importantly, rather than buy merely what Babcock referred to as "plain Jane" crop insurance, the farmers used taxpayer-subsidized premiums for "Cadillac" crop coverage plans which insure against both poor yields and price drops. On May 2, 2013, Star Tribune reporter Jim Spencer quoted University of Minnesota ag economist Bill Lazarus as follows: Subsidizing the most generous [insurance] coverage at higher levels than basic coverage "doesn't make much sense." How did the federal government come up with the extra dough to pay insurance premiums resulting in the farmers receiving more than twice as much as what was needed to make them whole?

Apparently the state of Minnesota is following the federal government's lead when it comes to deciding how to use tax revenue. Earlier this month, the state Senate passed a bill that paves the way for illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition and financial aid for college. The lead in Mark Brunswick's story which appeared on May 2 in the Star Tribune: "Minnesota would become one of the most generous states in the nation toward undocumented college students under a plan approved [May 1] by the state Senate." Silly me; I thought the state was in a deep hole, barely able to rub two nickels together. Doesn't the state currently owe millions of dollars ($860 million, to be exact) in deferred funding to the public schools, and isn't such deferment the reason for our state government being able to claim solvency? Do we not have roads and bridges in this state which are in disrepair due to lack of funding? Aren't legitimate non-profits and state agencies which help the poor unable to fulfill their mission, turning away citizens who need assistance? Some of our public schools have crowded more than forty students in a classroom. Programs like Early Childhood Development are being gutted. Maybe the state could use some of that dough earmarked for the undocumented to aid folks who are actual citizens. Fortunately for me, my own three kids are through with college, and the Bank of Dad has closed up shop. Yet I can't help but wonder what younger parents whose college-age kids receive no financial aid (other than loans which must be repaid) think about the Senate's actions. Not only are they sacrificing to put their own kids through school; they are paying for illegal immigrants' education too.

The Senate's vote is the latest in a relatively recent series of dubious decisions made by state decision makers. Two examples, both having to do with sports, come to mind. When the state legislature passed the stadium bill for the Vikings last year, it calculated that approximately $34 million could be expected to flow into the state coffers annually from electronic pull tabs in bars. Those funds would play an important role in the public subsidy contributed by the state to finance the construction. This year, after the electronic pull tabs have been in operation for several months, we learn after-the-fact that the now-expected annual "take" will only be in the neighborhood of $1.7 million, a far cry from the expected $34 million. How could the projections have been so far off? It turns out that the data relied upon by the finance committees of the legislature was provided by people in the gaming industry, or in other words, the entities which had the most to gain by the passage of the new law authorizing electronic pull tabs in the state. Have you ever met a car salesman who didn't think you needed a new car? I guess our fearless legislators have, or else they're extremely naive.

The second example was the decision by Gopher athletic director Norwood Teague to cave to football head coach Jerry Kill's request to pay $800,000 to North Carolina in return for canceling two future games against the very mediocre Tar Heels. Is the U's athletic department so flush with cash that they can burn that kind of money to chicken out of two games they should be playing to legitimize their otherwise pathetic out-of-conference schedule?  Kill wanted to replace North Carolina with a patsie. What really knocked me over was when Teague, just a few months removed from his North Carolina decision, decided to schedule the Gophers to play Texas Christian University twice. TCU's program is much more accomplished than NC's. My long range prediction is that the Gophs will lose both games to the Horned Frogs, whereas they could have won both meetings against the Heels. You have to wonder if the Gopher boosters believe that their hard earned money is in good hands with Norwood.

Arguably, this all ends up in the age-old debate. Does the government (and in my last example, a state institution) need more tax revenue, or might it just be possible to take a harder look at how existing revenues are spent? Are our government (and institution) leaders already making good use of the money they extract from us? If the answer is not "yes," how can jacking up taxes be justified? How can the taxpayers have confidence that their money will be used wisely? Before we throw new money after problems, let's ask our leaders to do a better job.

Mountain State Is Key To Uphill Climb

The national media tells us there are nine battleground states for tomorrow's presidential election.  They are New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida along the east coast; Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa in the Midwest; and Colorado and Nevada in the mountains.  According to the New York Times, North Carolina and Nevada are not all that close, with The Tar Heel State leaning toward Governor Romney, and The Silver State picking President Obama.  The other forty-one states and the District of Columbia apparently are already spoken for.  I wonder if that is how the campaign directors view it.  Why did the Democrats send Bill Clinton to St. Cloud two days before the election?  Why did the Twin Cities get a visit from Paul Ryan?  Could it be that The Gopher State is still in play?  I am also hearing from my crack research team of three (me, myself and I) that Pennsylvania, which has not voted Republican since 1988, is not a gimme for the Prez.

One of the interesting things about the lay of the land is that five of those so-called battleground states, plus Pennsylvania, are in the Eastern Time Zone.  Their polling places will close mid-evening Minnesota Time, meaning that we might have a pretty good idea before the Ten O'Clock Snooze (as WCCO news legend Dave Moore used to say) whether there will be a changing of the guard in the White House.  One election historical nugget we have heard over and over is that no Republican has ever been elected President without taking Ohio.  In fact, assuming the forty-one "non-battleground" states (including Minnesota and Pennsylvania) go as predicted, if President Obama wins both Florida and Ohio that will put him over the requisite 270 Electoral Votes.

Can Romney win without Ohio?  For the sake of discussion, let's say Obama wins in Ohio but Romney triumphs in Florida.  With the seven remaining battleground states still up for grabs, there are 128 possible combinations, and Obama wins under a whopping 116 of them.  Is it unreasonable to think that North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire, all of which voted blue in 2008, might turn red this time?  Since the Reagan Landslide in 1984 there have been six presidential elections.  North Carolina and Virginia voted Republican in every one of them except the last one (2008).  New Hampshire has only gone red two out of those six elections (1988 and 2000), but the Republicans are crossing their fingers that the voters in the Granite State will support the candidate who has a residence there, viz., Mitt Romney.

If (again, for the sake of discussion) we give North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire to Romney, where does that leave us?  First, to be fair, let's give Nevada to the Democrats, as the Times is predicting.  (After all, any populace which would re-elect Harry Reid to the Senate in 2010 for a third term is probably not going to abandon his ship.)  Now we are down to three battleground states (Wisconsin, Iowa and Colorado), with 8 corresponding possibilities.  Here they are:

1. WI-R; IA-R; CO-R. Romney wins.
2. WI-R; IA-R; CO-D. Obama wins.
3. WI-R; IA-D; CO-R. Romney wins.
4. WI-R; IA-D; CO-D. Obama wins.
5. WI-D; IA-R; CO-R. Obama wins.
6. WI-D; IA-R; CO-D. Obama wins.
7. WI-D; IA-D; CO-R. Obama wins.
8. WI-D; IA-D; CO-D. Obama wins.

If you are supporting the President, you have to feel pretty good about your chances.  He wins under six of the eight scenarios.

Romney needs Wisconsin (see # 5 above), the state that voted to keep their current Republican governor, Scott Walker, in office after a hotly contested recall effort.  Although Paul Ryan is their native son, Wisconsin has voted Democrat in all of the six presidential elections since the Reagan Landslide.  Romney also needs Colorado (see # 2 above), a state that has proven to be unpredictable and independent-minded in recent years.  In 2008, Wisconsin and Colorado gave Obama 56% and 54% of their votes, respectively.  Most of the campaign pre-election talk has been about Ohio and Florida, but Wisconsin and Colorado will be the center of attention if the early results from the Eastern Time Zone hot spots are not dispositive of the issue.

You may be well advised to keep your favorite pizza delivery business on speed dial. It could be a two dinner night. Let's hope there are no hanging chads.

Roger The Dodger

In my June 2 post about the John Edwards trial ("Three Defendants Will Walk"), I predicted that both Roger Clemens and George Zimmerman would be found not guilty of the charges they face in their high profile cases, and promised to write briefly about them. The Clemens case went to the jury yesterday afternoon, so I'm trying to get this out before they come back with a verdict. The Zimmerman trial, for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, probably won't start until next year.

Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball, has been charged with lying under oath to the US Congress in 2008 when he testified that he did not use steroids or permit himself to be injected with human growth hormone ("HGH") in violation of civil laws and baseball rules. After conducting 235 interviews with 179 different people, the US attorneys have found themselves in the unenviable position of having to rely on just one key witness, Brian McNamee, to prove their perjury and obstruction of justice allegations. McNamee was the strength and conditioning coach for the Boston Red Sox, Clemens' team at the time of most of the alleged events. McNamee claims that not only did he inject Clemens, at Clemens' request, with HGH, but that he has saved the vials and needles over the last six years. Clemens' DNA is on those items.

One of the long-standing strategies of litigation attorneys is that they want to make their own witnesses appear to be not just truthful but likable as well. The first follows from the second, as it's much easier to believe a likable person. This is particularly true in jury cases, which the Clemens case happens to be. In that regard, McNamee presents a double-barrelled challenge for the prosecution. Even one of the prosecutors, Gilberto Guerrero, admitted to the jury in his closing argument that McNamee was an unsavory character - - all the more likely, Guerrero said, to be the type of guy to supply drugs to the pitcher. If I were the prosecutor, I would not want to pin my hopes of wining the case on the testimony of a low life like McNamee.

Coincidentally, Clemens has been called a low life himself, and more than once. Several years ago, when the charges first surfaced and McNamee was talking to reporters, Clemens "outed" his wife Debbie by telling the scribes that any steroid and HGH McNamee administered were given by McNamee via injection to Debbie (not Roger) to "help her get ready" for a Sports Illustrated swimwear photo shoot. That was information the Rocket Man need not have shared. Clemens was also the protagonist in a famous bat throwing incident in Game 1 of the 2000 World Series when, while pitching for the Yankees, he threw a chunk of a shattered bat in the direction of the Mets Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza as Piazza was running to first. Incidentally, Piazza's career batting average against Clemens at the time of the incident was a whopping .578! Coincidence? Clemens, whose fast ball reached 100 miles per hour, also was known as a bean baller, something that did not ingratiate himself with either his opponents or his teammates.  Well-publicized rumors of a ten year affair with B-list country singer Mindy McCready hasn't helped the Rocket's rep either.  From what I have read, Roger The Dodger is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. That is not his fault. But acting like a dipstick is.

McNamee is not the only witness problem the prosecution had to work around. Andy Petitte, a Yankee teammate and one of Clemens' best friends, gave testimony during a congressional hearing that Clemens admitted to Petitte that he used HGH. But during the present trial Clemens' defense counsel, the superb Rusty Hardin, got Petitte to recant his former testimony, saying that "maybe he misunderstood" what his buddy had told him.

In my post about the Edwards case I wrote that there were common threads running between the Edwards and Clemens cases. Both involve (arguably) despicable defendants who are represented by excellent trial lawyers. In both cases, the star witness for the prosecution is a contemptible former friend of the defendant - - Andrew Young in the Edwards case, and Brian McNamee in the Clemens case. Edwards' daughter Cate faithfully stood by her unfaithful father throughout the trial. Debbie Clemens, along with the couple's four sons, did the same for Rocket, even though he "threw her under the bus." How much of that is window dressing for the eyes of the jurors? Both defendants, if found guilty, would likely be handed prison sentences which would put them away for the remainder of their lives. (Clemens faces thirty years if convicted on all counts.) Jurors are human, so this is likely to weigh on their minds during deliberation.

As in any criminal trial, the burden of proof which the prosecution must meet is "beyond a reasonable doubt" (contrasted with the standard of proof in a civil trial of merely "a preponderance of the evidence"). In both the Edwards and Clemens trials, their defense counsel chose not to call either man to take the stand to testify on his own behalf. Although this could play negatively with the jury ("Why didn't he testify?"), the strategy is the proper non-move if (If!) the defense team is confident that the prosecution did not meet that extremely difficult and lofty burden of proof. Andy Petitte was a weak witness. Brian McNamee came across as a rat. Roger Clemens was a World Series champion and will probably be in the Hall of Fame some day. This is America. Game over. I predict Clemens walks.

Three Defendants Will Walk

There are three high profile cases which have been in the national news during the past several weeks. The first to reach a conclusion was the federal case against former US senator and presidential aspirant John Edwards. Three days ago, Edwards was acquitted of one of the six counts brought against him for corruption, and due to a deadlocked jury, a mistrial was declared with respect to the other five counts. The other two cases to which I'm referring are the federal perjury case against former Boston Red Sox pitcher, Roger Clemens, and the widely watched second degree murder case against George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.

You are going to have to trust me on this, when I state that I knew two weeks ago that Edwards was going to get his big win. Unfortunately, I was unable to document my bold prediction here on The Quentin Chronicle due to commitments involving my expiring two year term as the President (aka Glorified Bookkeeper) of the Broken Arrow Condominium Association in Hayward, Wisconsin. Before I run out of time (or excuses) regarding the Clemens and Zimmerman trials, I am going on record here and now by predicting that neither of those defendants will be found guilty of the felonies with which they are charged.

The Edwards case was not all that tough to predict, starting with the fact that the prosecution's theory of the case was poorly conceived. In order to prevail, the prosecution would have to convince a twelve person jury that they all had the ability, not to mention the legal right, to read Edwards' mind and then come to the conclusion that he orchestrated an outlandish coverup of contributions in an aggregate amount approaching $1 million. The prosecution must have believed that the jurors would not be able to get past the sordid scumminess of Edwards' personal life and would therefore reject Edwards' position that the controversial donations made in 2007 and 2008 were not meant for his campaign, but instead were used in an effort to hide his affair and resultant love child from his terminally ill wife. Ironically, it was that very scumminess that made Edwards' story more believable. In other words, the worse his personal situation was four or five years ago, the more money he needed to achieve his goal of hiding things from his wife.

The prosecution's star witness, former Edwards' aide Andrew Young, was absolutely skewered by the Edwards defense team. This did not go unnoticed by the jury. Once the jury learned that (i) Young wrote a tell-all book about his days working for Edwards (and thereby calling into question the character of Young), and (ii) most of the allegedly illegal contributions ended up in Young's - - not Edwards' - - bank account, the prosecution probably realized too late that they had placed their bet on the wrong horse. Young came off the witness stand looking almost (almost!) as much of a low life as the defendant.

John Edwards made his millions as a trial lawyer before he became a politician. You can be confident that the legal team he put together was the best money can buy. When the defense rested its case two weeks ago without even calling a single witness, there were some sharp legal beagles who made that collective decision, including Edwards himself. Even with Edwards' devoted daughter Cate available to be called to testify on behalf of her father, defense counsel did not need her as they correctly calculated that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges. That is when I knew that the fat lady had sung.

While it is true that the prosecution could still re-try Edwards on the five counts which ended in mistrial, that is very unlikely to happen, and as coincidence would have it, there are at least five reasons why. First, the campaign finance laws have changed, thanks to the US Supreme Court's recent ruling allowing PACs to make unlimited campaign contributions. Thus, the charges against Edwards for receiving illegal campaign contributions would be brought under obsolete statutory law. This would make it easier for defense counsel if a new trial took place. Under today's current law, a PAC could make the same amount of contributions that Edwards received from individuals in 2007 and 2008, and there would be no cry of foul play. Second, the judge ruled in favor of the prosecution in almost every motion brought before and during trial (including motions to allow salacious evidence which many judges would not have permitted on the grounds of irrelevancy), and still they did not get a single favorable verdict out of six counts. If there were a new trial, there would be a different judge and the prosecution might lose some of those same motions. Third, trials are expensive, and as noted above, many legal observers thought that the Feds should never have brought the recently concluded case to trial in the first place. Would a re-trial be good use of taxpayers' money? Fourth, the prosecution would still have to rely on Andrew Young, who has already proven to be a poor witness. And fifth, a post-trial poll of the twelve jurors found that no more than four of them were willing to find Edwards guilty on any single count. That data is likely predictive of how a future, albeit different, jury would rule.

In the near future I plan to post (more briefly) about the Clemens and Zimmerman cases. There are a few common threads linking them to the Edwards case, and it is my opinion that the respective prosecutors have a difficult row to hoe. As the Edwards case showed us, there is a difference between being a creep and being a felon.

Corporations As Quasi-Peeps?

It appears that the November presidential election is set: Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama.  The Republicans will try to make the election about the President's first term record.  Did he deliver on what he promised when he ran successfully four years ago?  The Dems will try to cast Romney as a super rich guy who is out of touch with mainstream America.  So far the three sound bites which the Obama strategists like to play the most are (i) Romney proposing a wager of $10,000 to Governor Rick Perry during a Republican candidates' debate, (ii) Romney telling a Michigan audience that his wife, Ann, drives "a couple of Cadillacs," and (iii) Romney asserting to an Iowa State Fair crowd that "corporations are people."  The first two of these are clearly gaffes, particularly the second blurb.  (The first blurb was, I think, said in jest, so although it was an ill-advised bit it should not signal his political death knell.)  He could not have picked a state worse than down-on-its-luck Michigan to utter the Cadillac factoid.  But was he really so off-base with his "corporations are people" proclamation?  I have a feeling that a good chunk of those pointing the finger at Romney on that one, especially Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, know little about corporations.  Schultz pounced on Romney as if he were a lunatic.  His statement was a "shocking admission" of misplaced priorities, she said. Upon hearing Schultz' accusation, one would have thought he was guilty of unwittingly whispering a secret to the head of a communist nation over a live microphone!   Her take on corporations, and the take of others who castigated Romney for his "people are corporations" statement, stops with the inalienable truth that corporations are, in fact, inanimate objects.  True enough.   But let's look a little closer.

Although the last couple of decades have introduced some hybrid forms of business formations, such as limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships, the three base types of business formations are sole proprietorship, partnership (aka general partnership) and corporation.  In a nutshell, a sole proprietorship is owned by a single person (as the name implies), and a partnership is owned by two or more persons who are each almost always jointly and severally liable for each others' debts.  A corporation, on the other hand, is owned by one or more persons, and the individual monetary liability of each such person is limited to that person's investment in the company.  If you invest $100 in a corporation and the corporation goes belly up, your $100 might vanish into thin air, but (unlike a sole proprietorship or a partnership) you will never be held accountable as an investor to kick in more money to help pay the corporation's obligations.

A person who invests in a corporation is called a shareholder, so named because a share of stock is what the corporation gives to that investor as proof of her ownership.  So, a corporation is owned by shareholders, the overwhelming majority of whom are people, sometimes thousands of them.  A corporation employs people, and with that comes not only a salary but also benefits such as health care, sick leave and retirement programs.  A corporation produces goods or services which are used by people, sometimes out of necessity.  Many corporations are what's commonly referred to as "good corporate citizens," because they sponsor the efforts of local non-profits, they donate money to non-profits, they organize and encourage their employees to participate in activities (e.g., paint-a-thons, Habitat For Humanity projects) which benefit their communities, they establish foundations (looked upon as a "charitable arm" of the company), they provide expertise among the civic leaders, and they often help establish the face of the city in which they're located.  If a corporation does well, the shareholders are rewarded with an increase in the value of their shares, and maybe even dividends (a form of profit sharing).

Corporations are the lifeblood of the economy of their communities, and it's not only because they provide jobs and their employees spend their wages as buyers of goods and services.  The corporations themselves are also buyers.  A corporation which sells goods gets its raw materials or inventory from other businesses.  In order to keep their own operations going, corporations are customers of public utilities, security personnel, insurance providers, food vendors, maintenance workers and other types of companies in the area.  Also let's not forget that corporations pay taxes.
    

The word "corporation" carries with it an almost immediate negative connotation, kind of like the word "dentist."  But could you really live your life without them?  The food you eat, the clothes on your back, the car or bike you use for transportation, the television you watch, that i-phone which seems like an appendage on your ear, that beer you inhale.  Almost all of those things are brought to you by corporations.  Do you participate in a 401(k), 403(b) or pension program?  If so, there is little doubt that through those programs you are invested in mutual funds which, in turn, invest in corporations.
   

Corporations are owned by people, led by people as officers and board members, operated by people as employees, and benefit people directly and indirectly.  Romney was technically incorrect in saying that corporations are people, but think about it.  Was he really out of touch on that one?  I'll bet you ten thousand pennies he wasn't!   

The Case Of The Clawback Crusader

While our country awaits the decision of the US Supreme Court in the so-called Obamacare case, there is another fascinating legal battle going on right here in Minnesota.

Imagine that you are the pastor of a medium size congregation on the outskirts of the Twin Cities metro area. Every year the population of your town is increasing, and with that trend comes a growth spurt for your congregation and the need to expand your facilities. You and your parishioners pray that you will find the means to make that expansion happen, and soon thereafter a donor comes forward with a six or seven figure check. Plans are drawn, a new addition (perhaps a community center where seniors can gather, or a pre-school and day care facility) is constructed, and your building is no longer overcrowded. You feel blessed, and lucky. But, several years later you learn that the donor was a major Ponzi scheme operator, and that the funds he gave you were tainted. Now the government wants you to return that money. Since the money is already spent, in the form of bricks and mortar, that just might be kind of hard to do.

In a different scenario, imagine that years ago you invested most of your life's savings with that same Ponzi schemer, thinking that not only would your money be safe but that you would earn a decent return on your investment. Now your money, along with funds entrusted with that schemer in good faith by hundreds of other innocent people like yourself, has vanished. The money that all of you thought was being invested was actually spent either to support the extremely lavish personal life style of the Ponzi artist, or to pay off people who unwittingly invested before you did.

The two situations described above are not uncommon in the aftermath of the Tom Petters scandal which rocked Minnesota when it first came to light four years ago. By way of background, a Ponzi scheme entails an investment of funds by an initial group of innocent people who are led to believe that the person with whom they are investing will, in turn, reinvest their funds on the individuals' behalf. But instead of making those investments that the Ponzi artist has described to the individuals, he uses the money for other purposes, such as funding his own personal expenses or putting the money in a different investment vehicle than the one promised. Meanwhile, the artist concocts phony statements which look like the real McCoy to the unsavvy investors, with those statements showing a much more handsome rate of return than those people could get anywhere else. Hardly any of the original investors ask to cash out, because they have been led to believe, via verbal assurances and the phony statements, that they are making money hand over fist. In the unlikely event that an original investor does want out, the funds for liquidation come from a second wave of innocent investors. In other words, the first investors are being paid with the seed money invested by the second investors, and so on down the line.

In the Petters' racket, he created phony statements showing investment in goods which, he said, were being sold as inventory to big box retailers such as Best Buy. By the time his accomplice, Deanna Coleman, ratted on him to the US Attorney's office, Petters' Ponzi scheme had resulted in $3.65 billion (that's with a "b") worth of investments made by unsuspecting individuals going down in flames. There was no contract with any retailer. Petters was found guilty and was sentenced to fifty years (compared to Coleman's slap on the wrist of a one year sentence). Petters' companies were forced into bankruptcy, which is under the jurisdiction of the federal court. The court has appointed Doug Kelley, whom I have dubbed "the Clawback Crusader," as the trustee in bankruptcy.

As in any bankruptcy, the job of the trustee is to try to make the pot of dough for the unsecured creditors of the bankrupt debtor as large as possible. One of the tools available to the trustee is the clawback procedure. In a clawback, the trustee forces the recipients of so-called "ill gotten gains" from the debtor to return the money to the court, via the trustee. The theory behind the clawbacks is this: the money obtained in good faith by the unsuspecting party (such as the congregation in my first scenario above) from the bad guy was not his to give in the first place. As cold as that seems, Kelley's argument is that permitting the non-profit recipients to keep the money donated to them by Petters would be unfair to the folks who got screwed by Petters, such as the investors in my second scenario above. Kelley estimates that the amount of money he's targeting for clawbacks is $425 million! At the end of the day (if you can stand that cliche), either the congregation will have to somehow find a way to give the Petters donation back, or the original investors will be left out in the cold, with none of their investments salvaged.

This week, the Minnesota state legislature passed a bill giving the non-profits a huge break. Under the newly passed law, non-profits would only be subject to the trustee's clawback with respect to those funds received from the debtor (in this case, Petters) within two years of the clawback demand. Any funds received further in the past could be kept. (The old law was a six year statute of limitations.) Governor Dayton signed the bill into law, over the dramatic objections of Kelley. Kelley has yet to announce if he will appeal.

The new law obviously works to the severe detriment of the investors. The money which trustee Kelley will be able to recoup for them under the clawback will be significantly less, because Petters made almost all of his donations to the non-profits more than two (but less than six) years ago. Most of those donations were subject to the clawback under the old law, but not under the new one. Conversely, many of the non-profits, such as Minnesota Teen Challenge, Big Brothers And Big Sisters Of The Twin Cities, and the College Of St. Benedict, praised Dayton and the legislature. For now, they can breathe a sigh of relief.

The fact that I was a not a bankruptcy lawyer does not stop me from making a prediction here. If Kelley appeals, I believe he has a better than even chance of getting the new law overturned on the grounds of it being unconstitutional. In my view, the investors have a better claim to those funds than do the non-profits, notwithstanding the fact that the non-profits have long-since spent the money. Additionally, I question whether Minnesota lawmakers can pass such a law retroactively. The rules of the game (reducing the statute of limitations from six years to two) should not be changed after the horse is already out the barn door. Finally, the Bankruptcy Code is a federal law, and if a conflict is deemed to exist between federal and state law, the bigger boys are going to prevail.

Whether or not my prediction proves accurate, this is a very sorry state of affairs. It is impossible for both the non-profits and the investors to win. They are both victims, but one of them will be the much bigger loser.

The Day That Never Was

Time zone boundaries are usually set in sparsely populated areas in order to minimize the inconvenience and confusion that would result if people who lived or worked near each other were not operating on the same time of day. For example, in Indiana the boundary separating Eastern and Central time zones runs through the corn fields between the Gary metropolitan area and the mighty metropolis of South Bend. In North Dakota, the boundary line between Central and Mountain time zones is placed in the barren scruff of western North Dakota ranch land, far from any pocket of civilization. The same principle applies with the International Date Line ("IDL"), which is located in the far reaches of the western Pacific Ocean. Hardly anybody lives near the IDL. The IDL zig zags though the Pacific, rather than being drawn as a straight longitudinal line, in order to accommodate Pacific islanders' economic and political preferences. Most of the time it makes little difference to the rest of the world which side of the zig zag any particular Pacific island nation chooses.

When a ship or a plane crosses the IDL traveling from west to east, it finds itself in a day which has already occurred, going from the current time west of the line to an earlier time of the same day on the east side, in effect repeating a day (i.e., an extra day). Conversely, when moving from east to west, a traveler goes from today immediately into tomorrow, in effect losing a day. For example, if a person took off in a plane from Honolulu (which is east of the IDL) at 6:00 a.m. on a Wednesday and ten hours later landed in Melbourne, Australia (west of the IDL), the time in Honolulu would be 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, but it would be 7:a.m. Thursday in Melbourne.

The country of Samoa is situated in the southwestern Pacific, just twenty miles to the east of the IDL. Ever since 1892 the Samoans have elected to align their country with North America and South America. That decision was mostly a result of the Samoans transacting most of their business with the US instead of with Asian nations and Australia. But times have changed. These days, the Samoans find themselves carrying on much more business with the Pacific Rim countries than anywhere else, including the US. Due to the vagaries of the IDL, Samoa is only two hours behind the Pacific time zone in the US, compared to being a whopping twenty-one hours behind most of Australia. If the effect of two day weekends (i.e., non-business days) is taken into account, the Samoans were sometimes losing two or three days in their dealings with their trade partners to their west. As a result of all the foregoing, Asian and Aussie lobbyists finally persuaded the Samoan government to cut tradition and place themselves west of the IDL.

The upshot of the Samoans' decision is that Friday, December 30, 2011 turned out to be the "Day That Never Was" in Samoa. When Samoans went to bed on Thursday night, December 29, and woke up the next morning, it was Saturday, December 31.

I found the story of how a country could eradicate an entire day from its existence to be fascinating. What if we in the US could do that after the fact? What day might we choose? September 11, 2001 immediately comes to mind. Perhaps December 7, 1941, the "date that will live in infamy."

Wiping out an entire day in advance is a luxury only those living near the IDL will ever have the privilege of experiencing. It is something the Samoans can tell their grandchildren about. I hope, for their sake, it was the right move. If it were up to me, I would have preferred to eliminate a Monday instead of a Friday, the best day of the week.