Category: Government

Wall Street Democrats Question Hillary Clinton’s Views on Job Creation

(p. B1) “Hillary said what?”
That was the question whispered among some of Wall Street’s most prominent Democratic supporters over the weekend after Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on the campaign trail for Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts.
“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Mrs. Clinton said on Friday in Boston.

For the full commentary, see:
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN. “Wall St. Wonders About Hillary Clinton.” The New York Times (Tues., OCTOBER 28, 2014): B1 & B6.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date OCTOBER 27, 2014, and has the title “Hillary Clinton’s Comment on Jobs Raises Eyebrows on Wall St.”)

In Defense of the “Degar-Andish”

(p. C9) “The Lonely War” begins by retelling a lesson from Ms. Fathi’s mother, imparted on the first day of third grade. “If anyone asks you whether your parents support the revolution, you must say, ‘Yes, they do.'”
. . .
As the Islamic dress code became obligatory, Ms. Fathi and her sister, Goli, faced the tyranny of a “morality” teacher at school who tried to mold them into ideal Muslim girls.
The author remained steadfastly critical through it all. “To feel human,” she writes, “we needed to retake control of our minds as well as our bodies. We waged the war on both fronts.”
. . .
Defying a ban on covering the protests any further, Ms. Fathi was under surveillance at her home and tailed by government agents; her life was threatened. She, her husband and two children left Iran in June 2009.
. . .
Her portraits of the women’s rights activists Faezeh Hashemi and Shahla Sherkat make for fascinating reading. So do her accounts of other courageous Iranian women like the lawyers Mehrangiz Kar and Shirin Ebadi (the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2003), who made legal challenges against discriminatory laws against women, and publishers like Shahla Lahiji who dared to print the work of those branded as “degar-andish,” literally, “those who think differently.”

For the full review, see:
NAHID MOZAFFARI. “Books of The Times; Portrait of Iran, Where Revolution Is Ideological and the Costs Are Human.” The New York Times (Thurs., Jan. 1, 2015): C9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date DEC. 31, 2014.)

The book under review is:
Fathi, Nazila. The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran. New York: Basic Books, 2014.

Free Market Tour Guide Challenges Savannah’s Attack on Free Speech

(p. A25) SAVANNAH, Ga. — Especially when she sips French onion soup at a restaurant that was featured in the Julia Roberts movie “Something to Talk About,” Michelle Freenor is an irrepressible tour guide.
She rattles off the history of Methodism in this city, as well as tidbits about William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea. She discusses the canopy of Spanish moss that hangs above Savannah’s streets, whether “Jingle Bells” was actually composed here, and just how haunted one of the country’s largest historic landmark districts might be.
But Ms. Freenor has also emerged in recent weeks in a new role: plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that could reshape Savannah’s lucrative and potent tourism industry. Backed by a nonprofit law firm with libertarian leanings, Ms. Freenor and three others, including her husband, are challenging the Savannah ordinance that requires tour guides to hold licenses and pass regular academic and medical examinations.
“It’s the free market that made us successful, not the City of Savannah,” said Ms. Freenor, 43. “You shouldn’t have to pass a test to be able to tell people where the best ice cream in Savannah is.”
. . .
“What tour guides do is talk for a living,” said Robert Johnson, one of Ms. Freenor’s lawyers. “They’re just like stand-up comedians, journalists or novelists. And in this country, you don’t need a license from the government to be able to talk.”

For the full story, see:
ALAN BLINDER. “Lawsuit May Reshape Tourist Industry in History-Rich Savannah.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., DEC. 21, 2014): A25 & A31.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 20, 2014. The online version says that the New York paper version of the article started on p. 28. It does not say on what page of that edition, the article continued. My page numbers are from the National Edition, which I usually receive.)

High Costs of Public Sector Unions

(p. A11) . . . the costs of public-sector unions are great. “The byproduct of political management of the economy is waste,” the author notes. Second, pension and benefit obligations weigh down our cities. Trash disposal in Chicago costs $231 per ton, versus $74 in non-union Dallas. Increasingly, such a burden is fatal. When Detroit declared bankruptcy in 2013, a full half of the city’s$18.2 billion long-term debt was owed for employee pensions and health benefits. Even before the next downturn, other cities and some states will find themselves faltering because of similarly massive obligations.
There is something grotesque about public workers fighting for benefits whose provision will hurt the public. Citizens who vote Democratic may choose not to acknowledge the perversity out of party loyalty. But over the years a few well-known Democrats have sided against the public-sector unions. “The process of collective bargaining as usually understood cannot be transplanted into the public service,” a Democratic politician once declared. His name? Franklin Roosevelt.

For the full review, see:
AMITY SHLAES. “BOOKSHELF; Public Unions vs. the Public; Pension and benefit obligations weigh down our cities. Trash disposal in Chicago costs $231 per ton, versus $74 in non-union Dallas.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Jan. 16, 2015): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 15, 2015.)

The book under review is:
DiSalvo, Daniel. Government against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Mandated Health Treatment Regulations Are Often Reversed

(p. A25) After spending nearly two decades in medicine, I am still amazed by how spare the evidence is on which we doctors base our medical decisions. Treatment guidelines, often accompanied by a de facto mandate, are frequently reversed.
Only a few years ago, for example, beta-blocker drugs were routinely recommended for almost all patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. Since then, research has shown that these drugs may significantly increase the risk of stroke at the time of surgery. I remember colleagues questioning the beta-blocker recommendation for certain patients and being admonished for not being “evidence-based.” I shudder to think how many patients were left disabled by strokes because of the blanket adoption of this standard.
What is in vogue today is often discarded tomorrow. Hormone replacement therapy for women after menopause is an example of a once widely implemented treatment that we have now largely abandoned. In September, in response to new research, the American College of Cardiology revoked a major recommendation on heart-attack treatment. “Science is not static but rather constantly evolving,” said its president, Patrick T. O’Gara, in explaining the decision.
. . .
Instead of being allowed to deliver “patient-centered” care, many physicians feel they are being co-opted by regulations. Some feel pressured to prescribe “mandated” treatment, even to frail older adults who may not benefit. Guidelines are supposed to assist and advise. But all too often, recommended care in certain situations becomes mandated care in all situations.

For the full commentary, see:
SANDEEP JAUHAR. “Don’t Homogenize Health Care.” The New York Times (Thurs., DEC. 11, 2014): A25.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 10, 2014.)

Congress Appropriates Funds to Test Concussion Theory of Rain

(p. 190) the first century A.D., when the Greek moralist Plutarch came up with the notion that rain followed military battles. Napoleon believed as much and fired cannons and guns at the sky to muddy up the ground between him and his attackers. Civil War veterans who wallowed in cold slop believed that ceaseless, close-range artillery fire had opened up the skies. In the late 1890s, as the first nesters started to dig their toeholds on the dry side of the one hundredth meridian, Congress had appropriated money to test the concussion theory in Texas. The tests were done by a man named Dyrenforth. He tried mightily, with government auditors looking over (p. 191) his shoulder, but Dyrenforth could not force a drop from the hot skies of Texas. From then on, he was called “Dry-Henceforth.”
Government-sponsored failure didn’t stop others from trying. A man who called himself “the moisture accelerator,” Charles M. Hatfield, roamed the plains around the turn of the century. A Colonel Sanders of rainmaking, Hatfield had a secret mixture of ingredients that could be sent to the sky by machine. In the age before the widespread use of the telephone, it was hard to catch up with the moisture accelerator after he had fleeced a town and moved on.

Source:
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Police Unions Make It Harder to Get Rid of Bad Cops

(p. A29) A small percentage of cops commit most of the abuses. A study by WNYC News in New York found that, since 2009, 40 percent of the “resisting arrest” charges were filed by just 5 percent of New York Police Department officers. In other words, most officers rarely get in a confrontation that leads to that charge, but a few officers often get in violent confrontations.
But it’s very hard to remove the bad apples from the force. Trying to protect their members, unions have weakened accountability. The investigation process is softer on police than it would be on anyone else. In parts of the country, contract rules stipulate that officers get a 48-hour cooling-off period before having to respond to questions. They have access to the names and testimony of their accusers. They can be questioned only by one person at a time. They can’t be threatened with disciplinary action during questioning.
More seriously, cops who are punished can be reinstated through a secretive appeals process that favors job retention over public safety. In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has a riveting piece with egregious stories of cops who have returned to the force after clear incompetence. Hector Jimenez was an Oakland, Calif., cop who shot and killed an unarmed 20-year-old man in 2007. Seven months later, he killed another unarmed man, shooting him in the back three times while he ran away. The city paid damages. Jimenez was fired. But he appealed through his union and was reinstated with back pay.

For the full commentary, see:
David Brooks. “The Union Future.” The New York Times (Fri., DEC. 19, 2014): A29.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 18, 2014. )

The Federal Government’s “Arrogance on a Grand Scale” Encouraged the Dust Bowl

(p. 126) In the last years of the wheat boom, Bennett had become increasingly frustrated at how the government seemed to be encouraging an exploitive farming binge. He went directly after his old employer, the Department of Agriculture, for misleading people. Farmers on the Great Plains were working against nature, he thundered in speeches across the country; they were asking for trouble. Even in the late 1920s, before anyone else sounded an alarm, Bennett said people had sown the seeds of an epic disaster. The government continued to insist, through official bulletins , that soil was the one “resource that cannot be exhausted.” To Bennett, it was arrogance on a grand scale.
“I didn’t know so much costly misinformation could be put into a single brief sentence,” he said.

Source:
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Justice on the Plains

(p. 71) “What are you doing here?” the judge asked again.
“I cannot talk,” Ehrlich answered, in his hybrid English-German. “This guard will stab my heart out.”
“You talk to me,” Judge Alexander told him. “Now what are you people here for? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Pit-schur.”
“What’s that? A picture?”
“Yah.”
An officer produced the picture that Ehrlich kept in his house–Kaiser Wilhelm and his family in formal pose.
“That’s a beautiful picture,” the judge said, then turned to the police. “Is that all you got against these people?”
“They’re pro-German. They’re hurting the war effort. Spies, for all we know.”
The judge turned to the Germans from the Volga. “How many of you are supporting America in the war?” All hands went up.
Ehrlich reached into his pocket and produced two hundred dollars’ worth of government stamps issued to support the war effort . A friend produced war bonds. The judge looked at the sheriff and asked him how many of his officers had war bonds or stamps. None.
(p. 72) “Take these people home,” the judge said. “If anything happens to them, I’ll hold you responsible .” They drove back in the freezing predawn darkness and released the men to their families at sunrise. A daylong party followed.

Source:
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)

How the Federal Government Caused the High Plains Dust Bowl

(p. 50) People were pouring into town, taking up rooms at the Crystal Hotel– suitcase farmers who had no intention of ever settling there. They wanted only to rent out a tractor and a piece of ground for a few days, drop some winter wheat into the fresh-turned fold, and come back next summer for the payoff. It was a game of chance called “trying to hit a crop.” One suitcase farmer broke thirty-two thousand acres in southeast Kansas in 1921. Four years later, he plowed twice that amount. The banks seldom said no. After Congress passed the Federal Farm Loan Act in 1916, every town with a well and a sheriff had itself a farmland bank — an institution! — offering forty-year loans at six percent interest. Borrow five thousand dollars and payments were less than thirty-five dollars a month. Any man with a John Deere and a half-section could cover that nut. If it was hubris, or “tempting fate” as some of the church ladies said, well, the United (p. 51) States government did not see it that way. The government had already issued its official view of the rapid churning of ancient prairie sod.
“The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possesses,” the Federal Bureau of Soils proclaimed as the grasslands were transformed. “It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted, that cannot be used up.”

Source:
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.