Gabby Giffords Shooting, 10 Warning Signs: What's the Price of Violent Rhetoric and Imagery

The tragic shooting on January 8th in Tucson, Arizona which critically injured U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and killed six other people surely will change the nature of our democracy. There certainly were warning signs that elected officials could be threatened by violence as indicated by events over the 2-3 years.

1. Fox News Commentator Liz Trotta in May 2008, in a moment of mispronunciation, suggested that someone "knock off Osama, no Obama. Well, both if we could." This is the earliest expression of hatred towards Barack Obama that I can recall.
2. In October 2008, Sarah Palin accused Obama of "Pallin' around with terrorists who targeted their own country" after reading an article in The New York Times. There was no truth to this, but this apparently brought White Supremecists out of hiding and led to a spike in death threats against Obama during the final weeks of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.
3. In June 2009, Joyce Thomann, the President of the Republican Women of Anne Arundel County club in Maryland wrote a hate-filled rant posted online comparing Obama with Hitler. She stated that both Obama and Hitler took on political adversaries with "blitzkreig" ways.
4. A woman at a June 2009 town hall for Delaware Congressmen Mike Castle brought up the issue of her birth certificate and then pointed out her view that President Obama is not an American citizen and was a citizen of Kenya, instead. When she pointed that out, many people in the room actually applauded her. It took about three weeks before this incident made headlines, but once it did, the YouTube video of this incident went viral. When Castle, a moderate Republican, affirmed that Obama is a citizen of the U.S., the crowd booed him. This incident led to chaotic scenes at town halls all across the nation as angry people not only spoke out against a wrongfully perceived government takeover of healthcare, but also Obama's birthplace.
5. In March 2010 after the passage of healthcare reform, Sarah Palin sent a public message through her Twitter account saying "Don't retreat, Instead - RELOAD."
6. In January 2010, Nevada Senatorial candidate Sharron Angle sugessted "that people will be looking to those Second Amendment remedies" and that "the first week we need to do is take Harry Reid out." This tape surface in June 2010, sparking immediate outrage.
7. At a July 4th celebration in 2010, Joyce Kaufman campaigned for former Iraq veteran Allen West, a House candidate for the 22nd District in Florida. She said there, "if ballots don't work, bullets will."
8. Rich Iott, the U.S. Republican House candidate in Ohio's 9th Congressional District, participated in Nazi re-enactments, as revealed in October 2010. (1) He later lost in the general election for this seat.
9. After Democrat Bob Filner defeated Tea Party backed Republican Nick Popaditch to win the U.S. House seat for California's 51st Congressional District in the 2010 general election, a violent incident broke out as Popaditch led about 100 of his supporters against Filner. At least one person was punched in the face. Popaditch'smob shoved and spat on Filner before police broke up this incident.(2)
10. Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for New York Governor in 2010, lost to Democrat Andrew Cuomo. At his concession speech on November 2nd he said, "I have a message for Andrew Cuomo, the next governor of New York, "I've always said my baseball bat is a metaphor for the people who want to take their government back. But this isn't my bat after all. As our next governor, you can grab this handle and bring the people with you to Albany. Or you can leave it untouched and run the risk of having it wielded against you, because make no mistake: You have not heard the last of Carl Paladino." (3)

By no means, is this an exhaustive list of violent rhetoric and imagery that has made the news within the last three years. The people that hold not just the views, but the mindset, of the most radical elements of the Tea Party need to realize this anti-government culture can can capture the minds of mentally unstable individuals, who ultimately carry out senseless acts of violence. They help create the culture that breeds hatred of elected officials and weakens gun control laws. This could weaken our democracy as more money surely will be spent by our elected officials to protect themselves, their families, and their staffers. In a nation that needs to create quality jobs, especially in manufacturing and the development of clean energy, this will further slow the economic recovery in our nation. Every dollar we have to spend on things like the security of our elected officials is one less dollar that we can invest in making the United States energy-independent. Yes, there really is a price that all Americans pay for the extreme political views and tolerance of violence of just a few individuals with delusional fantasies. While it may be hard to measure, one would hope that people would educate themselves about what is really happening in America and come up with constructive ideas and solutions to move America forward.

Footnotes:
1. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/
2. http://www.southwesterncollegesun.com/news/sun-tv-bob-filner-harassed-at-golden-hall-by-challenger-1.1744755 and http://libertypundits.net/article/nick-popaditch-for-congress-tea-party-rally-9182010/
3. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/11/with-baseball-bat-in-hand-defeated-new-yorker-promises-you-have-not-heard-the-last-of-carl-paladino-.html

Coal Plant Construction Costs - Additional Data

A $2.65 billion coal gasification project in Indiana created 1,000 construction jobs. This works out to $2.65 million per job, more than twice the average amount it takes to create one win power job. While it will create 200 plant jobs and 300 mining jobs after completion of construction, compared to 4-6 operating and maintenance jobs from the Western Maryland wind farm, it has a lot more expense than the upkeep of the wind farm. The energy that comes from the wind farm is going to produce steady rates for end users of this energy or electricity. As a renewable, sustainable source, it will never run out and not pollute the air or water. As a result, wind farms have lower opearting costs than coal plants. The only problems with wind are when the wind does not blow, the need to scale up wind power by installing thousands of wind mills, and repairing wind mills damaged by storms. But, the second of these problems is offset by high unemployment, meaning there are people who want jobs and are ready to contribute to the wind farm building boom. The final of these three problems may become more noticeable once offshore wind farms are built. While the coal project may appear to create more jobs, it depends on the way you look at it. The problem with these jobs are that they are needed to clean up the environmental damage from mining coal, burning it cleanly for power, and disposing of coal ash waste in a safe way. The jobs from wind power contribute more to generating power for electricity.

2. http://www.buildingindianablog.com/2010/12/17/coal-gasification-project-to-generate-1000-construction-jobs/

Obama Tax Cut Deal - Good Plan or Bad Plan?

President Obama has a tax deal plan in place for a two-year extension of the Bush Tax Cuts. He cut a deal last week with soon-to-be Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell to extend the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001 and 2003. The deal would extend all the tax rates that Bush established, including the 35% top rate on all income above $250,000 for the next two years. Without this deal, the Bush tax cuts would have expired and the top rate would go back to 39.6 %, where it was when Bill Clinton was President.

Included in this plan is an extension of unemployment insurance for 13 months, tax credits for renewable energy, and a payroll tax cut for employees. The estate reverts back to 35% on estates above $5 million after it was exempt for 2010. In 2009, the estate tax was 45% on all estates above $3.5 million.

Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will step down to House Minority Leader on January 5th when the 112th Congress gets sworn in and the GOP becomes the majority. While this tax deal will irritate Progressives and some Tea Partiers for completely different reasons, this just may have saved Obama's Presidency. A $1 trillion-plus National Deficit is not healthy for the American economy because it forces us to borrow more from China. But, Obama escapes the politically untenable position of allowing tax increases, even small ones, to occur on the ever-shrinking middle class. Or the expiration of unemployment benefits with high unemployment. If unemployment remains above 5.0% through January 2012, the GOP House will be on the hook for extending unemployment benefits during an election season. If they do not, they run the risk of losing the House back to Democrats.

This all but ensures a second term for Obama because Progressives surely aren't going to vote for any Republican or Tea Party candidate for President in 2012 since he is going to be the most left-leaning candidate on the ballot. The Republicans figure to run either Sarah Palin, Mitch Romney, or Mike Huckabee against him. None of these Republicans appears to have the ability or widespread popularity to beat him in a national contest. His re-election will also help protect vulnerable Congressional Democrats in 2012.

Offshore Wind for Maryland: Windfall or Blowing Money Away?

I attended a conference Saturday December 4th in Annapolis about the potential of offshore wind power in Maryland. Chesapeake Climate Action Network put it together to show the huge benefits that it could have for this state.

Compared to wind energy, coal costs more per equal amounts of investment in power capacity. Constellation Energy says that it has invested $875 million to upgrade its Brandon Shores coal-fired power plant in northeast Anne Arundel County to meet Maryland's tough clean air laws by using new scrubbers. Constellation also said that this investment created 2,000 union jobs for three years. That works out to an average of $437,500 per job, or $145,833 per job per year. That seems very expensive compared to wind energy. By comparison, Constellation also has a $125 million investment to build a 28-turbine wind farm in Western Maryland to provide 70 Megawatts (MW) of power. This investment will create 110-120 jobs, with 4-6 annual operating and maintenance jobs upon completion. The Brandon Shores plant has a capacity of about 1,300 MW. To get about 1,300 MW of power from wind energy using this project as an example would require an investment of about $2.32 billion and create well over 2,200 jobs.

Would a coal plant would cost more than this? According to Synapse Energy, for one Ohio utility, the construction costs of a 960 MW coal-fired power plant in Ohio more than doubled from about $1.25 billion in October 2005 to almost $3 billion in January 2008. This was due to worldwide competition for raw materials and plant design construction, especially from China and India. (1)

Construction costs aside, one cannot forget the enormous environmental and health costs that coal wrecks on human beings. It pollutes both the water, requiring governments to spend tax dollars to clean it, and the air, driving up healthcare costs by causing asthma and many other ailments such as cancer. Local governments, especially at the state level, can and do pass laws requiring utilities to upgrade their equipment to protect the environment. They do so to make sure the corporate utility's power plants, especially coal-fired ones, comply with environmental goals desired by their commmunities.

Maryland has a choice: do we continue to destroy Appalachian Mountains to meet our energy needs or do we build offshore wind farms to power our lives? We should choose the latter because it will provide environmental benefits, improve the health of Marylanders, and create more good jobs, making it a win-win.

1. http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downloads/SynapsePaper.2008-07.0.Coal-Plant-Construction-Costs.A0021.pdf

2. http://www.buildingindianablog.com/2010/12/17/coal-gasification-project-to-generate-1000-construction-jobs/

Christmas Approaching: What do the Red Kettles Represent

With the Christmas season approaching, big malls and shopping center will be packed with people searching for gifts for family and friends. Sometimes, you may run into a Red Kettle, run by the Salvation Army, known worldwide for "Doing the Most Good" to help those in need. Is this the truth?

Having worked as a regional accountant for seven weeks in October-November 2008 at one of their regions, I have a unique view into what the Salvation Army stands for. They let me go after I tried to use some professional judgment in getting my work done that went against their rules. My following comments are not meant as a bitter ex-employee, but rather as insights that can only be provided someone who has worked there and wants people to know what they are giving their money to. Obviously, a current employee would be foolish to criticize this organization while working there. Everyday I worked there, I was busy with accounting work entering transactions into their accounting software program as part of a new system with more standardized procedures. It actually appears that the Red Kettle is symbolic of administrative waste, bigotry towards gays, and environmental ignorance. There are lots of other charities, large and small, that deserve donations because they do great work to help the poor without these problems.

First, the administrative waste is striking. The following article shows that the Salvation Army has paid the price for putting together such a sophisticated accounting system.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/06/salvation-army-receives-f_n_413792.html) Someone gave them a $25,000 fake check to one of their locations in South Carolina during last year's Christmas season. Its regional accounting system, in its complexity, resembles that of a multi-national corporation with billions of dollars per year in revenues. There were weekly required 10 percent support service checks from each service location to the Divisional Headquarters. Their financial statements contained other administrative costs, of which I had no time to discover their size, total cost, or proper classification. Within the first 3-4 weeks of working there, I could see massive inefficiencies in this system, which required an astounding amount of data re-entry. But, with all the work I had to do within the frame of very tight deadlines, I did not get a chance to use my strengths in finding and correcting these inefficiencies, such as individual bank accounts for each location. With each of its general ledger account numbers broken into four different parts comprising a total of 15 digits each, it easily has millions, if not billions, of different account number combinations. All for a region that takes in about $20 million in annual donations. It even has 40-50 different account codes for mail appeals, one of many ways it takes in donations. By contrast, some for-profit companies that I have worked for have a general ledger with only two parts to each account number for a total seven digits each. This was sufficient even for companies over $200 million in revenue.

The bigotry towards gays, the second thing these kettles represent, is perhaps the most offensive thing about this organization. While the Salvation Army is best known as a charity that helps homeless people and drug addicts, it is also an evangelical church with clear, hardened views on a number of issues. It has been known on occasion to deny assistance to gay people who are poor. It has also chosen to shut down its operations if it is required by local laws and regulations to provide benefits to domestic partners.

Environmental ignorance, the third part of what one is contributing to by dropping change into these kettles, maybe the most confusing part of all. With 17 different locations providing services to people in need throughout West Virginia, it would seem likely that they would hear about stories of people's water being polluted by mountaintop removal coal mining. After running searches at The Salvation Army's USA web site on global warming, climate change, mountaintop removal, and coal, I got no results. It seems like their National Commanders, Officers, and Soldiers have spent so much time reading the Bible and twisting passages to their preferences when they should be responding to crises caused by climate change.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to know about The Salvation Army is that the political views of its leaders do not necessarily reflect on the staff that work there. After running a search on OpenSecrets.org on it, I discovered that most of the donations by individuals who work there went to Democratic candidates. The one donation made by an executive listed on the site was to Jeff Perry, a Massachusetts Republican House candidate who lost on November 2nd.

What Your Stomach says about the Economy

I have battled stomach indigestion problems for nearly 15 years, trying many different remedies until I discovered the apparent cause of my problem just over two months ago. Originally diagnosed as GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease), I tried many different remedies. At my first appointment with a doctor to figure out the solution to this problem, I received a prescription for Zantac.

Twice this year, I received prescriptions for Prevacid, and two different anitbiotics with the second Prevacid prescription. My doctor gave me these prescriptions to deal with a positive H.Pylori bacteria test that I got both times he tested me for it this year. However, the antibiotics left me feeling sick, dehydrated, and tired. He also diagnosed me with a Vitamin B12 deficiency, which likely caused me to experience occasional numbness and tingling in my arms and legs. I experienced these symptoms on a daily basis this year and they seemd to be getting worse.

I stumbled upon my the cause of all these in the first or second week of September while walking to a small nearby grocer. After feeling miseable all day long with all of the aforementioned symptoms, I noticed that I was feeling much better all-around while walking there. At that moment, I knew I had to figure out why I suddenly felt better. I then realized that I just ate a gluten-free, wheat-free frozen pasta dinner an hour beforehand and have been occasionally eating this food due its light, never too heavy taste for about 2-3 years. Until this year, I thought gluten-free had something to do with diabetes. I learned this year that gluten is the protein in wheat, which more and more people now have trouble digesting. Intolerance to gluten is often referred to as Celiac's Disease, which doctors usually confirm through a combination of endoscopies and blood tests.

Multi-national pharmaceutical companies do not want you to know about Celiac disease because it affects their bottom line. Pharmaceutical companies such as make enormous profits selling drugs to cover up the symptoms of GERD. GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Zantac, made a profit of the equivalent of $9.1 billion from revenues of about $45.5 billion (U.S. $). Takeda Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Prevacid, also makes enormous profits. For the year ended March 31, 2010, it made a profit at the equivalent of $3.2 billion from revenues of about $15.76 billion (U.S. $). Food manufacturers such as Monasanto make enormous profits selling genetically-modified food. This explains why we should refer to the U.S. healthcare system as a disease maintenance system, not a true healthcare system.

Evan Bayh's Comments on Bush Tax Cuts

Evan Bayh, Indiana's retiring Senator, made comments on September 17th that ending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest of Americans will hurt the economic recovery. He said that the wealthy "make most of the hiring and investing decisions" and that "we should want them to do more hiring and investing" to stimulate the economy. I totally disagree with this premise. Just because they have more money does not mean that are smarter investors than the person that has no savings in the bank. Having a job in today's job market is not about skills, expertise, or work ethic. It is about having the right friends in the right places. It some cases, it is even about being able to strip away at the definition of theft and redefine it as smart business decisions.

These are things that the current Congress will have to consider before they leave office. The new Congress, with the House likely to be controlled by Republicans, is even less likely to end the Bush tax cuts.