What do you want for Christmas this year? Most American workers would like a higher salary for the new year, followed by better health insurance, a better work/life balance, a new employer and more vacation time. When you add up the numbers, aBankrate Money Pulse survey indicated that a quarter of [...]
Reported by Forbes.com 5 hours ago.
What's The Best Tax-Free Gift Employers Can Offer Employees This Holiday Season?
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3 challenges Louisiana could face in Medicaid expansion
Health care advocates are eager to see Medicaid expansion get off the ground in 2016, sometime after Gov. elect John Bel Edwards' Jan. 11 inauguration. The new governor has said Medicaid expansion -- which would provide health insurance for more...
Reported by nola.com 6 hours ago.
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The Country Is Moving Left
It might not seem so in the middle of a day's news cycle, especially with that news always being about Donald Trump, but 2015 marked a year of change in a progressive direction. And the country is solidly behind this move.
*Progressive Victories In 2015*
The country is moving in a progressive direction. In November, OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath wrote in Progressive Victories from Maine to Washington Inspire Hope,Off-year elections are almost never good for progressives, and 2015 is no exception. But this off-year election held some surprising victories for progressives in Maine, Ohio, Washington and elsewhere that could lay the foundation for more victories to come.Heath cited Seattle's "Democracy Vouchers" - "designed to loosen the grip of the 'donor' class"; Ohio's Issue One that banned political gerrymandering; Maine's Question 1 that strengthened the state's system of publicly funding elections. Heath wrote,The wins in Seattle, Maine, and Ohio are game-changing victories for democracy. Each represents an impressive effort by state and local activists and coalitions, and will no doubt inspire more Americans to take action. Each shows what people-powered movements can do.The Democratic primaries reflect this progressive direction. If you were one of the 9 people who watched Saturday's near-secret Democratic debate (the debate schedule was set up to try to avoid people tuning in, and the ratings reflect that) you saw a solid, substance-filled progressive discussion of the country's problems offering progressive solutions. If you take a look at CAF's Candidate Scorecard you'll see the Democratic candidates by and large line up with a progressive agenda that would be unheard of in previous election cycles. That's progress.
Speaking of progress, Think Progress cites The 7 Most Important Progressive Victories Of 2015:
1) A growing number of workers are earning more - thanks to local and state progressive-pushed initiatives to raise the minimum wage and new overtime rules.
2) Same-sex marriage is legal. People can marry who they want now.
3) Health insurance, The Supreme Court didn't back conservative efforts to kill Obamacare.(So now we push on toward a public option or Medicare-for-All.)
4) Some states have been able to push out gerrymandering, and a few places were able to pass measures fighting back against money in politics.
5) The world finally came together to begin to fight climate change. (Even if the timing has been compared to starting your Christmas shopping an hour before the stores close on Christmas Eve,) President Obama has introduced his Clean Power Plan.
6) Successfully replacing No Child Left Behind and historic graduation rates.
7) Historic Iran nuclear deal.
That's Think Progress' list. There are many other good examples of progressive progress in 2015.
*Progressives Seeing Public Support Instead Of Public Backlash*
Take a look at the polling numbers at the Populist Majority website. The polls show that the public supports the progressive position on many, many issues. Money in politics, education, trade, inequality, Social Security and Medicare, taking on the big banks, you name it, across the board the public sees things the way progressives, not conservatives and their corporate/billionaire funders do.
Peter Beinart writes about the country's leftward shift at The Atlantic, in Why America Is Moving Left. He writes that in the 60s and 70s "leftist" ideas faced a popular backlash, but now the country is embracing the ideas of a new progressive movement.
Beinart cites the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement compared to the country's reaction to the militancy of the 60s and 70s, how the inequality situation dominates economic discussion, how LGBT rights are now mainstream, and writes about the differences between today's Democrats and those of the previous decade, "In the Senate, Bush's 2001 tax cut passed with 12 Democratic votes; the Iraq War was authorized with 29. As the calamitous consequences of these votes became clear, the revolt against them destroyed the Democratic Party's centrist wing."
As Beinart sees it, Howard Dean began the revolt of the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party," the blogger movement grew and Daily Kos emerged as a leading Democratic voice, Huffington Post came along, MSNBC hired a few liberals, and George W. Bush made conservatives look like idiots. (That has only gotten worse.)
And then Obama and his Wall Street tilt led to Occupy, which "injected economic inequality into the American political debate","Given the militant opposition Obama faced from Republicans in Congress, it's unclear whether he could have used the financial crisis to dramatically curtail Wall Street's power. What is clear is that he did not. ... 40 percent of the Occupy activists had worked on the 2008 presidential campaign, mostly for Obama. Many of them had hoped that, as president, he would bring fundamental change. Now the collapse of that hope had led them to challenge Wall Street directly."Occupy led to Elizabeth Warren's election, Warren's voice helped propel the Sanders candidacy. And Sanders has pushed Clinton left,"All of this has shaped the Clinton campaign's response to Sanders. At the first Democratic debate, she noted that, unlike him, she favors "rein[ing] in the excesses of capitalism" rather than abandoning it altogether. But the only specific policy difference she highlighted was gun control, on which she attacked him from the left."Blake Fleetwood, writing at the Huffington Post, echoes this view, in The Democratic Debate Steals Occupy Wall Street Rhetoric,Today, all of the three democratic candidates are singing the same song: That economic inequality, the 30-year downward spiral of the middle class and the corruption of the campaign finance laws -- OWS's main themes -- are the most important domestic threats to the American way of life.
... At the Saturday night debate, the same key OWS words, were repeated over and over by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley -- "rigged political system", "super-wealthy", "tax on Wall Street."
[. . .] Indeed, these tax-the-rich ideas and the decline of middle class prosperity have recently come to influence the presidential political debate in even the Republican party...*But Republican/Corporate/Billionaire Money Brings Power*
There's a 'but.' But money has pushed Republicans into power in the states, and the resulting GOP state gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement has locked them in in the House. So even though Democrats got more votes for Congress than Republicans, Republicans dominate the House and can prevent votes on things that would pass. Beinart again,"Congressional redistricting, felon disenfranchisement, and the obliteration of campaign-finance laws all help insulate politicians from the views of ordinary people, and generally empower the right."Yes, there's that. A progressive country with a Congress elected by "dark money" and vote-rigging, insulated from the views of ordinary people.
The public might be moving left, but The Money isn't, and so far The Money talks. So federal policies aren't moving anywhere. If enough people walk to the polls in 2016, we can change that.
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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.
*Progressive Victories In 2015*
The country is moving in a progressive direction. In November, OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath wrote in Progressive Victories from Maine to Washington Inspire Hope,Off-year elections are almost never good for progressives, and 2015 is no exception. But this off-year election held some surprising victories for progressives in Maine, Ohio, Washington and elsewhere that could lay the foundation for more victories to come.Heath cited Seattle's "Democracy Vouchers" - "designed to loosen the grip of the 'donor' class"; Ohio's Issue One that banned political gerrymandering; Maine's Question 1 that strengthened the state's system of publicly funding elections. Heath wrote,The wins in Seattle, Maine, and Ohio are game-changing victories for democracy. Each represents an impressive effort by state and local activists and coalitions, and will no doubt inspire more Americans to take action. Each shows what people-powered movements can do.The Democratic primaries reflect this progressive direction. If you were one of the 9 people who watched Saturday's near-secret Democratic debate (the debate schedule was set up to try to avoid people tuning in, and the ratings reflect that) you saw a solid, substance-filled progressive discussion of the country's problems offering progressive solutions. If you take a look at CAF's Candidate Scorecard you'll see the Democratic candidates by and large line up with a progressive agenda that would be unheard of in previous election cycles. That's progress.
Speaking of progress, Think Progress cites The 7 Most Important Progressive Victories Of 2015:
1) A growing number of workers are earning more - thanks to local and state progressive-pushed initiatives to raise the minimum wage and new overtime rules.
2) Same-sex marriage is legal. People can marry who they want now.
3) Health insurance, The Supreme Court didn't back conservative efforts to kill Obamacare.(So now we push on toward a public option or Medicare-for-All.)
4) Some states have been able to push out gerrymandering, and a few places were able to pass measures fighting back against money in politics.
5) The world finally came together to begin to fight climate change. (Even if the timing has been compared to starting your Christmas shopping an hour before the stores close on Christmas Eve,) President Obama has introduced his Clean Power Plan.
6) Successfully replacing No Child Left Behind and historic graduation rates.
7) Historic Iran nuclear deal.
That's Think Progress' list. There are many other good examples of progressive progress in 2015.
*Progressives Seeing Public Support Instead Of Public Backlash*
Take a look at the polling numbers at the Populist Majority website. The polls show that the public supports the progressive position on many, many issues. Money in politics, education, trade, inequality, Social Security and Medicare, taking on the big banks, you name it, across the board the public sees things the way progressives, not conservatives and their corporate/billionaire funders do.
Peter Beinart writes about the country's leftward shift at The Atlantic, in Why America Is Moving Left. He writes that in the 60s and 70s "leftist" ideas faced a popular backlash, but now the country is embracing the ideas of a new progressive movement.
Beinart cites the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement compared to the country's reaction to the militancy of the 60s and 70s, how the inequality situation dominates economic discussion, how LGBT rights are now mainstream, and writes about the differences between today's Democrats and those of the previous decade, "In the Senate, Bush's 2001 tax cut passed with 12 Democratic votes; the Iraq War was authorized with 29. As the calamitous consequences of these votes became clear, the revolt against them destroyed the Democratic Party's centrist wing."
As Beinart sees it, Howard Dean began the revolt of the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party," the blogger movement grew and Daily Kos emerged as a leading Democratic voice, Huffington Post came along, MSNBC hired a few liberals, and George W. Bush made conservatives look like idiots. (That has only gotten worse.)
And then Obama and his Wall Street tilt led to Occupy, which "injected economic inequality into the American political debate","Given the militant opposition Obama faced from Republicans in Congress, it's unclear whether he could have used the financial crisis to dramatically curtail Wall Street's power. What is clear is that he did not. ... 40 percent of the Occupy activists had worked on the 2008 presidential campaign, mostly for Obama. Many of them had hoped that, as president, he would bring fundamental change. Now the collapse of that hope had led them to challenge Wall Street directly."Occupy led to Elizabeth Warren's election, Warren's voice helped propel the Sanders candidacy. And Sanders has pushed Clinton left,"All of this has shaped the Clinton campaign's response to Sanders. At the first Democratic debate, she noted that, unlike him, she favors "rein[ing] in the excesses of capitalism" rather than abandoning it altogether. But the only specific policy difference she highlighted was gun control, on which she attacked him from the left."Blake Fleetwood, writing at the Huffington Post, echoes this view, in The Democratic Debate Steals Occupy Wall Street Rhetoric,Today, all of the three democratic candidates are singing the same song: That economic inequality, the 30-year downward spiral of the middle class and the corruption of the campaign finance laws -- OWS's main themes -- are the most important domestic threats to the American way of life.
... At the Saturday night debate, the same key OWS words, were repeated over and over by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley -- "rigged political system", "super-wealthy", "tax on Wall Street."
[. . .] Indeed, these tax-the-rich ideas and the decline of middle class prosperity have recently come to influence the presidential political debate in even the Republican party...*But Republican/Corporate/Billionaire Money Brings Power*
There's a 'but.' But money has pushed Republicans into power in the states, and the resulting GOP state gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement has locked them in in the House. So even though Democrats got more votes for Congress than Republicans, Republicans dominate the House and can prevent votes on things that would pass. Beinart again,"Congressional redistricting, felon disenfranchisement, and the obliteration of campaign-finance laws all help insulate politicians from the views of ordinary people, and generally empower the right."Yes, there's that. A progressive country with a Congress elected by "dark money" and vote-rigging, insulated from the views of ordinary people.
The public might be moving left, but The Money isn't, and so far The Money talks. So federal policies aren't moving anywhere. If enough people walk to the polls in 2016, we can change that.
-------
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.
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Creditors are questioning San Bernardino's $159 million plan to beef up its police force
REUTERS/Mike Blake(Reuters) - The bankrupt California city of San Bernardino won praise from bondholders on Wednesday for its handling earlier this month of the massacre that killed 14 people, but at the first significant court hearing since the attack, creditors questioned a plan to increase spending to bolster the police force.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Meredith Jury also praised the city for its handling of the shooting by a married couple.
Creditors were concerned with their treatment in San Bernardino's proposed plan to exit Chapter 9 protection.
Bondholders questioned the city's plan to spend $159 million over 20 years to increase police staffing, improve technology and replace aging vehicles, and another $24 million set aside as a bankruptcy reserve.
Representing EEPK, the Luxembourg-based bank and the city's second-largest creditor, Vince Marriott said the plan was "completely opaque," and the city needed "to explain in more detail what it is, what it is for, and how it is calculated."
San Bernardino has proposed to pay a penny on the dollar on nearly $50 million in pension obligation bonds held by EEPK.
The city's police force has fallen from about 350 sworn officers in 2009 to 290 today. The city has also slashed police pensions and overtime and wants to introduce a salary cap.
The city said that more than half of the police department's squad vehicles require replacement, with many having been driven beyond 100,000 miles as a result of deferred maintenance. And outdated technology is not capable of dealing with the region's increased crime, the city said.
City officials have described San Bernardino, with a population of 205,000 and located 65 miles east of Los Angeles, as one of the most thinly policed U.S. cities of its size. Residents worry that their city is not safe, and the number of homicides this year has reached 40, near the 42 investigated last year.
In May, San Bernardino proposed a plan to exit bankruptcy, called a plan of adjustment, that would virtually eliminate retiree health insurance costs, and outsource its fire, emergency response and trash services.
At the same time, the city would pay its largest creditor, the state pension fund CalPERS, in full, an approach taken in the recent bankruptcies of Detroit, Michigan and Stockton, California.
San Bernardino declared bankruptcy in 2012 with a $45 million deficit. Along with Detroit and Stockton, its bankruptcy has been closely watched by the $3.6 trillion U.S. municipal bond market.
The case is In Re: City of San Bernardino, California, Case No. 6:12-BK-28006-MJ in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California.
(Editing by Leslie Adler) Reported by Business Insider 2 hours ago.
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My 2015 'McLaughlin Awards' [Part 2]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
[Part 1 of this column ran last week, just in case you missed it.]
Before we begin with this week's awards, we have a few odds and ends to get out of the way first. Last week's list had the "Best Photo Op" category, and we missed a few that deserve mentioning. There was the image of South Carolina's official flag being flown at half-staff after the Charleston shooting, with the Confederate flag in the foreground, flying at the top of its pole.
In a more positive light was the photo of the White House lit up in the colors of the rainbow flag, after the Supreme Court decision was announced which guaranteed marriage equality. That was a pretty good photo op, and deserves mention.
On purely amusing grounds, Ted Cruz pretending to audition for The Simpsons deserves some sort of mention, especially him quoting (while twirling, of course) Kang and Kodos: "Forwards, not backwards! Upwards not downwards! And always twirling, twirling for freedom!"
There was a headline from Huffington Post blogger Paul Ollinger which would have won "Funniest Headline," if the category actually existed. It measures one corporation's success on a very unusual yardstick. The title, as all outstanding headlines should, really speaks for itself: "Apple's $178 Billion In Cash Would Buy SO MUCH WEED." Heh. Hats off to Paul for that one!
OK, that's enough old business, let's get on with the remaining 2016 best and worst awards. One warning: it's a very long column, so we encourage readers to pace themselves.
* Destined For Political Stardom*Um... Deez Nuts? Or maybe Limberbutt McCubbins?
Nah, that'd be too easy. Heh.
Destined For Political Stardom is a category to shine a light on the up-and-comers in the political world, of course, and we have to just note that last year's winner Gavin Newsom is indeed striving for higher office next year as he makes a run for California governor.
On the Republican side, Paul Ryan is certainly a contender, and will likely be a major force in the 2020 Republican nomination fight (assuming Hillary wins next year, of course). Hillary Clinton could certainly be a qualifier in this category, despite her not being exactly an up-and-comer, since it certainly now seems like she's about to skate into the White House. Of course, things could change fast, but "political stardom" certainly can be defined as "winning the presidency," so she's got a better-than-average chance.
But we're going to expand our horizons, here, and predict that John Bel Edwards is this year's winner of Destined For Political Stardom, after defeating the heavily-favored Senator David Vitter in the Louisiana governor's race. Edwards is a Southern, pro-life Democrat, but any Democrat in Louisiana these days is a rare breed, so he's worth watching. For this year, and for giving Democrats a win in a race they never thought they'd even be competitive in, Edwards deserves the Destined For Political Stardom prize this year.
* Destined For Political Oblivion*Plenty to choose from in this category, this year. Since the Republicans fielded so many presidential candidates, there were more to choose from on the GOP side, of course. Scott Walker, once the Great Midwest Hope of the party, crashed and burned early on in the nomination race. Perhaps it was his suggestion of also building a wall across the U.S./Canadian border? We'll never know for sure....
Bobby Jindal was one of the first to try the "full-frontal attack on Trump" strategy, and one of the first to crash and burn as a direct result (the other was Rick Perry). Carly Fiorina, who rode the "I can viciously attack Hillary Clinton better than anyone else, because I am female" pony just about as far as she could. Ben Carson also deserves mention, because he (for some reason) spiked way upwards in the polls -- this one's still inexplicable to us, because he's always been so obviously and completely unhinged, but then we don't exactly vote in the Republican primaries.
Over on the Democratic side, we have both Jim "I killed a guy in 'Nam" Webb, and Lincoln Chafee. Oh, and the million bucks (of other people's money) that Lawrence Lessig spent on riding his poly-sci hobbyhorse, can't forget that.
Outside the presidential race, we had the ex-Speaker of the House John Boehner, who will now have all the time in the world to smoke cigars, play golf, and reminisce about what might have been, as well as David Vitter, who (after losing to John Bel Edwards) announced he'd be stepping down from his Senate seat.
But the big winner of the Destined For Political Oblivion award this year was the House member from California Kevin McCarthy, who was (for a time) the anointed successor to Boehner to lead the House.
McCarthy had it in the bag. He really did. He was supposed to be the magic glue which would hold together all the various GOP factions and lead them into some sort of Promised Land, right up until he uttered the worst "Kinsley" gaffe of the year (defined as "inadvertently speaking an inconvenient truth in Washington"), in a television interview:
Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.
Oh, Kevin, didn't anyone tell you that you weren't supposed to admit this sort of stuff in public? This one quote not only sunk his prospective speakership, it also may have sunk his entire political career. And that's pretty much the definition of political oblivion, isn't it?
* Best Political Theater*You could take the big-picture view here, and award this to Bernie Sanders's campaign, because it certainly is the best political theater we've seen in a while. Or you could go micro, and give it to the Jamaican senate, for passing a marijuana decriminalization bill on Bob Marley's birthday.
In other marijuana political theater, we had a Drug Enforcement Agency spokesperson testify that it would be dangerous to legalize marijuana because it would lead to (we are definitely not making this up) stoned bunny rabbits. No, seriously.
Elena Kagan indulged in a bit of theatrics in an opinion written about a "Spider-Man" case. In it, she used the phrases: "[I]n this world, with great power there must also come -- great responsibility," and "The parties set no end date for royalties, apparently contemplating that they would continue for as long as kids want to imitate Spider-Man (by doing whatever a spider can)." Points for style, Justice Kagan!
The folks that registered CarlyFiorina.org, and then filled it up with 30,000 frowny-faces, to represent all the people Carly laid off? Priceless! Or you could take the high road and award Best Political Theater to Pope Francis I, for his address to Congress (which, if his own statements can be believed, spurred John Boehner to step down).
The fracas over John Boehner stepping down was pretty good theater for Democrats, all around. For a while there it seemed like nobody wanted the job, which is a pretty astounding plot twist indeed.
We have two runners-up for Best Political Theater this year. The first goes to Missouri legislator Stacey Newman, for the bill she introduced in response to the terrorist attacks in Southern California. From the story about Newman's bill:
State Rep. Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis) has pre-filed a bill for the state legislature's 2016 session that would require buyers to wait 72 hours to make a gun purchase, which they would only be able to do at a store at least 120 miles from their home. Women in the state must wait 72 hours before they can get an abortion and the 120-mile restriction is intended to draw attention to the long distances that women must travel to have one.
. . .
Under Newman's bill, the gun purchaser would be required to tour an emergency trauma center between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on a weekend when firearms victims are present and meet with at least two families affected by gun violence as well as two people who have officiated the funerals of minors who were shot dead.
Now that's an impressive act of political theater, combining two issues in a very poignant manner!
Our second runner-up award goes to the John Kasich campaign, for making the best anti-Trump ad we've yet seen. Here is the text of the ad, which is obviously an homage to a very famous World War II statement:
You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims should register with their government, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says he's going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says it's okay to rough up black protesters, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you're not one. But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you. And you better hope there's someone left to help you.
But the real Best Political Theater this year was pretty obviously the Black Lives Matter movement. It appeared on the scene early in the year, and has since become a major protest movement, taken seriously by all Democratic presidential candidates. Their tactics were debated (shouting down politicians at rallies), but they certainly were effective at getting their issue talked about and addressed in some fashion or another by Democrats. Republicans, for the most part, could afford to ignore the movement entirely, but that may not be true in the general election (we'll see). For being so effective at getting their message out, and for creating a movement which spread like wildfire, Black Lives Matter was the Best Political Theater of the year.
* Worst Political Theater*There were far too many of these to choose from, so we're just going to list them all before handing out the award.
The Planned Parenthood videos.
Donald Trump's entire campaign.
The Baltimore riots.
Netanyahu's speech to Congress.
A gyrocopter landing near the Capitol in protest of something or another.
Pamela Geller's art exhibit of cartoons insulting Mohammed.
That last one almost won the prize, we should add. But there was one that was even worse. In California, a man filed a ballot initiative called the "Sodomite Suppression Act," which read, in part:
Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.
It further states that, should the state government fail to properly act, the citizens of the state could take it upon themselves to go around shooting gay people in the head, without fear of any legal penalty for doing so. When we heard about it, we called it "absolutely breathtaking in its medievalism." Thankfully, the state attorney general ruled that it wouldn't be allowed on the ballot due to its seriously unconstitutional nature, but the fact that it was even proposed makes it the absolute Worst Political Theater of 2016.
* Worst Political Scandal*Unfortunately, a category with plenty to choose from, as usual. The biggest scandal involving a politician this year was likely the revelation by former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert that he had molested young boys while coaching a wrestling team and had recently been paying out a lot of blackmail money to keep the story under wraps. However, Hastert's been out of politics for a while and the nature of the scandal really had nothing to do with politics at all. Likewise, Bill Cosby's scandal continued to metastasize, but he doesn't have much to do with politics at all.
The Drug Enforcement Agency was in a class by itself this year, what with sex parties (with bonuses handed out afterwards), and a truly disgraceful case involving a stolen truck. These two stories merely scratch the surface, we should add, which is why Michele Leonhart had to step down from heading the agency this year.
We considered the Republican senators' letter to Iran to be pretty scandalous, but we've already handed out an award for that one. Likewise the scandal over the Planned Parenthood videos, which has been noted elsewhere.
There were other scandals that didn't really rise to the yearly-award level, including David Petraeus, the exit of Oregon's governor under a pretty dark cloud, and that recent kerfluffle between the Democratic National Committee and Bernie Sanders. Hillary's emails were in a category by themselves, the category of "scandals" as opposed to scandals. That pretty much sums it up, in fact. A particularly outrageous scandal was the fact that the Pentagon paid professional sports at least 6.8 million taxpayer dollars so they would celebrate the military at their games. That one was disturbing on multiple levels, really. From local politics, a Democratic officeholder in California's state government, Leland Yee, pled guilty to not only extortion and accepting bribes but also "gun-running," which is truly in a category by itself.
We know readers hate this, but we are going to have to award a three-way tie for Worst Political Scandal this year, because we find it impossible to choose from between them. They're all bad, and they all deserve calling out.
The first was the swamp of corruption known as Albany, New York. Federal agents have been arresting and indicting multiple major players from both parties in the New York state government all year long, for all sorts of sleazy arrangements and shenanigans. Now, New York isn't usually the first place people think of as leading in local government corruption (there are plenty of others that spring to mind more easily, from New Orleans to Chicago, or perhaps the state of New Jersey). But Albany very quietly has accommodated more than its fair share of state government corruption over the past few decades (remember Eliot Spitzer?). So we have to lump all the indictments and investigations into the generic label "Albany" and hand them one of our Worst Political Scandal awards this year.
Our second award goes to Rahm Emanuel, who conveniently fought in court to keep a video of a black man being shot by police out of the public's eye for long enough for Rahm to be re-elected. That's downright shameful, but it's entirely expected when you consider that Rahm Emanuel was behind it. Rahm is the modern personification of "Chicago-style politics," in fact. But to delay the release of evidence of a police officer committing a crime merely to further your own political ambitions certainly takes things to a new level, even for Rahm. Worst Political Scandal -- not the video itself, but the 13-month delay so Rahm could continue being mayor.
And our final Worst Political Scandal goes to an organization which used to be one of the most trusted and admired in America, but which now is no more than a punchline to a raunchy joke: the Secret Service. The agency seems to have been run for the past decade or so as a frat party. The most recent scandal -- only one of too many to list, sadly -- involved an agent trying to convince what he thought was an underage girl to have sex with him while on guard at the White House. The Secret Service obviously has a long way to go to gain any shred of respect from the public, and we only hope that this rebuilding begins quickly, so the constant pipeline of scandals which the Secret Service has been spewing (for far too long now) is soon shut down for good.
* Most Underreported Story*There were many of these to choose from, as the mainstream corporate media all but ignored stories they didn't think would help them sell ads. Overtime pay was vastly expanded by President Obama this year, updating standards that hadn't been adjusted in decades. The old standard was so low that most employers could essentially require 50 or 60 hours of work per week without having to pay a dime extra ("salary" instead of "hourly pay"). The new standard bans this for anyone making less than just over $50,000. This was done with the stroke of Obama's pen, and it was a welcome change to weekly paychecks for millions, and yet the story got barely a mention on the evening news.
The economy continued to get better during 2016, which was also woefully underreported. The unemployment rate hit five percent -- half of the peak which happened at the depths of the Great Recession (in Obama's first year in office), and the media mostly just yawned. This is nothing really new, as the media always prefers stories of economic disaster over "things are getting better."
The coalition against the Islamic State made solid progress throughout 2016, reclaiming territory and shutting down Islamic State supply lines to the cities they still hold. Nobody's claiming victory yet, but 2016 was a marked shift from 2015 -- instead of the Islamic State expanding quickly, the expansion was not only halted but turned back, in both Iraq and Syria. Somehow the media turned a blind eye to all of this news, though.
Saudi Arabia publicly flogged a blogger for writing things the government didn't like, and it got pretty much zero coverage in the mainstream media.
But the real Most Underreported Story of the year is an easy pick: the Bernie Sanders campaign. Earlier in the year, statistics showed that the three broadcast networks devoted a total of 504 minutes to the presidential campaign. Of this total, 145 minutes covered Trump, 165 minutes for Hillary Clinton and her emails, and a whopping eight minutes for Bernie. Jeb Bush never got close to the polling numbers Bernie regularly has been getting (to say nothing of the huge crowds Bernie pulls), but Bush managed to get 43 minutes of coverage. More recent figures show this bias has continued -- Republicans with little-to-no chance of winning holding only a few percentage points of support get multiple times the coverage Bernie Sanders has gotten, even though he's supported by about a third of Democrats.
Even when he does get covered, the stories almost never mention any of his actual political positions, choosing to treat Bernie as a joke instead. One of the first articles the Washington Post wrote about Bernie called him a "humorless aging hippie peacenik Socialist from Brooklyn," and gasped: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) could be our first socialist hippie president." Sanders does call himself a Democratic Socialist, but I've never heard him use the word hippie.
Bernie Sanders has tapped into real concerns Democratic voters have, and he has more detailed plans than pretty much any other candidate in the race -- from either party. Media types (those that style themselves "journalists") always complain about how there are too many shallow horserace stories and not enough emphasis on policy ideas, but when a man comes along with policy ideas that crowds of people are loudly supporting, they just shrug and choose to ignore it. Bernie Sanders's campaign was without doubt the Most Underreported Story of the year.
* Most Overreported Story*We began 2016 with "It snows in wintertime!" as the clear frontrunner for the Most Overreported Story, but that quickly faded. Benghazi was a contender for a while, even though no actual new scandal was uncovered. Hillary's emails ate up a big chunk of the summer, along with the inane "Hillary Is Toast" storyline that accompanied it (with actual calls for her to just quit her presidential race, based on nothing more than that's what the Washington insiders' cocktail party chatter had agreed should be done).
But, and we truly do regret this, the Most Overreported Story of the year was "Will Joe Biden Run Or Not?" Now, we remain neutral on how much of this should be blamed on Joe and how much of it should be blamed on a bored political media in the summertime, but whosever fault it was, it got far too much attention and took far too long to resolve. I've never seen such a frenzy before over a candidate who is not an actual candidate. Pretty much every Democratic poll threw Biden's name into the list, just to see what the public thought. When else has that happened, for months at a time? What other politician has gotten that much free polling without even announcing a candidacy? Perhaps there have been others, but the will-Joe-run story was still easily the Most Overreported Story of the year.
* Biggest Government Waste*Well, there was that blimp that got loose and terrorized Maryland and Pennsylvania... that seemed like a giant waste of a whole bunch of money.
The federal War On Weed continues to consume zillions of dollars, even after Congress tried to use the power of the purse to zero the budget out (at least, in states with legal marijuana, medical or recreational). Sooner or later the choice will become obvious: lots of tax dollars flowing in versus lots of tax dollars flowing out fighting a pointless and unwinnable war on a plant.
But this year's winner was the Benghazi committee in the House, which has now spent five million dollars to investigate something that seven other groups have fully investigated. Their startling conclusion, after blowing five million smackeroos? Hillary Clinton had an aide called Sidney Blumenthal. That's it. That's the sum total the American people got for this entirely political attempt at a hit job on a Democrat running for president. Easily this year's Biggest Government Waste.
* Best Government Dollar Spent*Sometimes we just punt on this column and give the Best Government Dollar Spent award to something like the National Park system. Sometimes we make a serious statement with the award (if we were so inclined this year, we'd give it to Planned Parenthood's funding). Sometimes we just get downright silly, by (for instance) awarding it to something like "the money spent to restore the name Denali to America's highest peak."
This year we're going to go extra-silly with large serving of snark, and award Best Government Dollar Spent on the "Jade Helm 15" military exercise. This absolutely banal military training event somehow acquired the proportion of the biggest and most official paranoid conspiracy theory of the decade, as dark warnings were uttered across the Southwest over the government's real plans. These included taking over the "hostile territory" of Texas, under the orders of President Obama, and then sending all conservatives to concentration camps. Tunnels under empty Wal-Mart stores were somehow insidiously involved. The occupation of Red America was about to begin! Ahhhh! Run for the hills!
Now, normally, paranoiacs would be laughed at and dismissed by sober politicians, but in this case the governor of Texas actually proposed using his own National Guard to keep an eye on the U.S. military exercise, just in case.
For the sheer entertainment value of watching a large swath of the country freak out about absolutely nothing -- and wind up looking as looney as the tinfoil hat crowd by doing so -- the Jade Helm 15 exercise was easily the Best Government Dollar Spent this year.
* Boldest Political Tactic*We have two winners in this category this year.
The first is obvious: Donald Trump's xenophobia. This wasn't just some minor part of his campaign, after all, it was the absolute bedrock foundation of Trump's run. In his campaign announcement he used terms like "criminals" and "rapists" to describe the Mexicans coming into America. His one shining policy idea is to build a "big, beautiful wall" across our southern border, and somehow make Mexico pay for it. Trump seamlessly shifted gears after the recent terrorism, saying he'd essentially shut America down to any Muslim wishing to enter. His brilliant vetting process would be to ask each visitor to America "Are you Muslim?" and then not let in the ones who respond "Yes." No, really -- that's his plan. This is somehow supposed to shine a light on how flawed our regular vetting process is, which is a real head-scratcher when you think about it.
Poke all the fun you want (and we do want to, and have been poking lots of fun over the year), but Trump is tapping a deeply disturbing nativist vein in American politics, which other Republicans have been scrambling to either denounce or jump on board with. Trump's campaign would not have been so successful, to put this another way, without being centered on xenophobia. It was an incredibly bold tactic to try, which is why it gets a Boldest Political Tactic award.
Our other Boldest Political Tactic award goes to President Barack Obama. Obama did an extraordinary job of stealing the "honeymoon" period from the Republican Congress at the start of 2016, and rather than Congress setting the agenda, they had to settle for following Obama's agenda instead. The most brilliant tactic during this period -- the one we're handing the award to -- was to rig the congressional vote on the Iran nuclear deal. Months before the deal was finalized, Obama got the Republican House and the Republican Senate to agree to hold one single vote that had to get an astronomically-high veto-proof majority to stop the deal.
Congress, amazingly, went along with this plan. What this acquiescence meant was that when the plan was finalized and announced, all Obama had to do was get 34 senators to support him -- which he easily did. Obama -- with the Republicans' own approval -- absolutely rigged the Iran deal vote so it was near-impossible for him to lose it.
It was an incredibly bold tactic and it worked like a charm. For pulling this one off, President Obama wins his own Boldest Political Tactic award.
* Best Idea*There were many good ideas up for consideration this year, including:
Free college -- Obama's call in his State Of The Union address for free community college and Bernie Sanders's unequivocal call for all state universities to be free as well.
Scrap the Social Security cap, and make it a true flat tax on all wage-earners, instead of the most regressive tax possible.
Obama's commutation of a record number of drug sentences.
The Iran nuclear deal, and opening up Cuba.
Two ideas stood out, but we judged that one of them was more important. Up until this year (it may have started earlier, but this year is when it began to be talked about in earnest among politicians), the most marijuana advocates have hoped for was a "rescheduling" of marijuana, down from Schedule I to perhaps Schedule II. The most optimistic called for it to go down to Schedule III. But, not unlike how the cries for gay marriage rights superceded the calls for domestic partnerships, this year a clear and rational plan was seriously considered: not just "rescheduling" marijuana down, but "descheduling" it all together. Remove it from the banned drugs list once and for all!
This makes perfect sense, when you think about where marijuana should reside in the federal pantheon of agencies. We have an agency who shares regulation for two other recreational substances, after all. It's right there in the name: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. All we need to do is stick "Cannabis" or "Marijuana" in there somewhere. This would make far better sense than treating marijuana any other way. Over half the states have legalized medical marijuana of some type or another. Four states and DC have legalized recreational use -- a number which could double (or even triple) next year, when voters in many other states are going to get a chance to weigh in. The time has come for the feds to admit defeat and start thinking rationally about marijuana. One presidential candidate (Bernie, of course) is even touting the idea in his speeches.
But, good as that idea is, there's another that is still better. The Best Idea of 2016 (again, it started earlier, but it really proved itself this year) was "putting cameras on cops." Cameras don't lie. Sometimes citizens lie, and sometimes police officers lie, but cameras don't. Video evidence of exactly what happens in an altercation have become an absolute necessity. Videos have shown the public exactly what takes place in contested situations. All cops should wear cameras all the time, with allowable exceptions very narrowly defined (for personal breaks and confidential informants only, perhaps).
We as a society are already in the digital age, in a big way. Policing is catching up. It should soon be unacceptable for any police officer to be doing normal duties without recording evidence of what is happening, all across this country. A lot of conflicts will be avoided as a direct result.
Cameras on cops really came into its own this year, which is why we're calling it the Best Idea of 2016.
* Worst Idea*There was a bumper crop of bad ideas in 2016, beginning with pretty much anything Trump proposed ("ban all Muslims" would have to take the cake, there).
Congress refusing to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force for the war against the Islamic State was a monumentally bad idea.
Requiring Americans to upgrade their credit cards to add a computer chip, but then falling short of reaching the international standard for such cards (which, I might add, have existed in Europe for a quarter century already, with PINs) was an incredibly stupid idea.
Keystone XL was a pretty bad idea that finally died in 2016.
John Kasich's idea to beam broadcasts featuring America's "Judeo-Christian values" into the Middle East, to solve terrorism, was a profoundly idiotic idea, for so many reasons.
The Ohio marijuana initiative -- which would have legalized recreational marijuana, but also created an oligopoly of only 10 farms allowed to grow it for the entire state -- tried to hijack the movement for clean legalization, but failed.
But the real Worst Idea of 2016 was Jeb Bush's campaign plan. It wasn't supposed to be this way, you can almost hear Jeb telling himself these days. Bush raised a mountain of campaign cash very early on, which was supposed to clear the field of competitors and hand him an easy path to the nomination. Political pundits everywhere were writing about how inevitable a "Bush versus Clinton" campaign would be. Unfortunately, no matter how many silver spoons you cram in Bush's mouth, he was still a terrible campaigner who was far out of touch with the mood of his own party (Bush hasn't run for office in a long time, it's worth pointing out). In another year, in another election cycle, Bush's campaign plan might have been a brilliant one and might have overcome the flaws of the candidate. Not this time, though, which is why Bush's campaign plan was easily the Worst Idea of 2016.
* Sorry To See You Go*We've always wanted a companion award for "NOT sorry to see you go," which we would give this year to either outgoing Education Secretary Arne Duncan, or to Michele Leonhart, former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Not sorry to see either leave their post this year.
Of course, there are two meanings to this, one professional and one funereal. Notable deaths this year in the political world included Beau Biden, Jim Wright, Julian Bond, and Mario Cuomo. In the non-political world, we lost Yogi Berra, B. B. King, and Wes Craven. We'll personally miss more than all of these both Grace Lee "Yeoman Rand" Whitney, and Leonard "Mister Spock" Nimoy, both icons of the original Star Trek series. Oh, and the guy that came up with the Pet Rock, too.
Career-wise, we will miss Eric Holder (who started rather weak as Attorney General, at least on the marijuana issue, but ended his term in a much better place), Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer. A lot of people are missing Jon Stewart on late-night television, as well.
The one remaining Sorry To See You Go candidate was the Iowa Straw Poll, just because it was such a nakedly corrupt event, where Republican candidates poured money into the practice of the outright buying of votes. It finally collapsed this year of its own corrupt weight, but we have to say we will indeed miss all the fun.
* 15 Minutes Of Fame*Since the very category celebrates brevity, we're just going to provide a short list of all those who achieved their 15 Minutes Of Fame over the course of the year:
Kim Davis (county clerk who refused to marry gays),
The boy who put together a clock that was treated as a bomb, for some reason,
The three Americans who bravely prevented a terrorist attack on a French train,
Pamela Gellar, who provoked a terrorist attack with a public exhibition of Mohammed cartoons,
Rachel Dolezal, who was not actually black,
Joyce Mitchell, who helped two prisoners escape in New York,
Run Warren Run, a political group that took a long time to take Elizabeth Warren at her own word that she wasn't interested,
Carly Fiorina,
Ben Carson,
Scott Walker,
Rick Perry,
Bobby Jindal,
Jim Webb,
Lincoln Chafee,
and Kevin McCarthy, who did not wind up being speaker of the House.
* Best Spin*
This one is pretty easy this year. Republicans everywhere have been patting themselves on the back -- in a big way -- over how they are now the party of diversity. No, really! That's what they tell each other, honest!
Their rationale (or spin) goes something like this: "Just look who's on the stage of the Republican debates. We've got a black man, a woman, and two Hispanics! The Democrats just have old white people. We're obviously better at diversity than Democrats."
This all will be revealed as ethereal political spin next November, when (especially if Donald Trump is the nominee) the election results will show record levels of support from all minority groups for the Democratic candidate.
Still, until the results are in, the Best Spin award clearly goes to the GOP's delusion that they're better on diversity because of their presidential slate. Putting diverse candidates up isn't the same as actually supporting policies that would help minorities, in other words.
* Most Honest Person*This one is an easy one, because nobody else really even comes close to Bernie Sanders in the honesty department. Bernie tells you what he believes. On most subjects, he's been standing up for what he believes for decades now.
Whether you love Bernie or hate him, whether you love his ideas or think they're stupid, you still have to admit that he presents those ideas honestly. To give just one gigantic example, Bernie refuses to run away from the "socialism" label, because he does believe America would be better with some of the socialistic ideas that work wonders in European countries. An other American presidential candidate would have tried to run away from the label, in an effort to be more "electable." Bernie didn't. He is who he says he is, and in most cases that hasn't changed in a very long time -- mostly because the rest of the country is still catching up with all the progressive policies he supported as a younger man.
Bernie Sanders is -- easily -- the Most Honest Person of 2016.
* Most Overrated*There were four clear candidates for Most Overrated, and all of them were presidential candidates as well. What might be called the "Jon Huntsman Consolation Prize" would have to go to either Martin O'Malley or John Kasich this year. Both men were touted by the inside-the-Beltway types as the "perfect candidate" for the respective parties. O'Malley was going to catch fire for hitting the sweet spot between Hillary's untrustworthiness and Bernie's far-out ideas. Kasich was (as was Huntsman before him) the media's "Here's the type of Republican that should be nominated!" candidate. After all, "He's so moderate and downright sane!" As with Huntsman, this hasn't exactly translated into voter support for either man, much to the disappointment of what might be called the false equivalence gang in the media.
But this year, there were actually two others more deserving of Most Overrated. The first is Jeb! Bush, who was vastly overrated by all. But since we've already given him an award, we're going to instead hand Most Overrated to Scott Walker. Walker was supposed to be the Great Midwestern Hope, a man who had survived a recall election in a blue state who could get the whole country to work with him. Or some such nonsense.
Of course, it didn't work out that way, and Walker crashed and burned very early on (only Rick Perry exited the race before him). Walker crushed a lot of inside-the-Beltway dreams when he announced his campaign was over, but this was largely due to him being the Most Overrated candidate to begin with.
* Most Underrated*Only two names were even in the running for this one. Bernie Sanders was extremely underrated by all, and he continues to be. But his story pales in comparison to the winner's.
Donald Trump was -- easily -- the Most Underrated candidate of the year. His candidacy was laughingly dismissed as a joke by pretty much the entire spectrum of political thought. The Left thought it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard. The Huffington Post even banished him for months to the "Entertainment" page. The Right was angrier (of course), but equally as dismissive. Washington insiders told themselves over and over again that Trump would -- of course! -- explode soon, and that his support was in no way real. Some continue to underestimate him to this day, ignoring pretty much every poll that has been conducted so far.
We thought Trump was a joke when he started off too, we fully admit. But we were a little quicker to realize that something was going on even if everyone inside the Beltway had their head buried in the sand. In July, we wrote an article titled "Thinking The Unthinkable: Donald Trump, GOP Nominee." Since that point, we've been taking him very seriously indeed, and we now think the nomination is basically Trump's for the taking.
But whenever the light dawned that Trump's support wasn't going to magically melt away, it's pretty easy to see that Donald Trump was the Most Underrated candidate of the year.
* Predictions*Finally, we approach the end! As usual, anyone still left reading deserves some sort of award for sheer stamina....
Before making 2016 predictions, we always review our own record to see how we did last time around. Here are our predictions for this year, from last year's column:
We're going to cheat a bit on this first one, because outside of some wonky mathematicians we don't think anyone else has noticed. Next year's "Pi Day" will be the biggest in all history (or, at the very least: "for the next 1,000 years"). Pi Day is celebrated every year on March 14th, because when written in American format, the date becomes "3/14." Now, pi (as you'll recall from school) has a value of 3.141592653. What this means is that in about three months, pi enthusiasts will be celebrating precisely, at around nine-thirty in the morning. Why? Because it will be the grandest Pi Day ever -- 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 in the morning! Woo hoo!
OK, enough silliness. In a more serious vein, the Supreme Court will come down definitively and decisively for marriage equality for all Americans. It will remove the issue from state law and declare that the U.S. Constitution demands equal treatment for all at the altar. Marriage equality rights will then never be taken away, forever. Furthermore, I predict that the response from savvy Republican politicians will be nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, because the party at large has realized what a losing issue it is for them.
Another court prediction: the Supreme Court will toss out the lawsuit against Obamacare that is trying to deny health insurance subsidies to people who live in states that use the federal HealthCare.gov exchange. John Roberts will once again shock conservatives by being the deciding vote in favor of Obamacare.
The Tea Party's center of gravity will shift from the House to the Senate. In the House, they will find themselves with less power as John Boehner rallies the Establishment Republican wing. But over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is going to be run ragged by Tea Party nonsense, as three members of his caucus get busy running for president. As Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz all try to outflank each other on the right, nothing much will be accomplished by the Senate next year.
And finally, my lists of who will and who will not decide to run for president (in no particular order).
Republicans who will run for president: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, John Kasich.
Republicans who will not run for president: Donald Trump (although he'll make a bunch of noise about it first, of course), Michele Bachmann, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Susana Martinez.
Democrats who will run for president: Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Brian Schweitzer.
Democrats who will not run for president: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Howard Dean, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Warner.
Well, that was a little better than last year's score! The Pi Day one doesn't really count, because it wasn't so much a prediction as pointing out an inevitability.
Still, I got the two Supreme Court cases right, although I whiffed badly with that prediction about the House. John Boehner finally got taken down by the unruly Tea Partiers, which is the complete opposite of what I thought would happen. We even got part of it wrong, as another equally fun Pi Day will happen in 2115 -- as it will every 100 years, not every thousand.
I made a total of 30 candidate predictions, both in and out. I got all the Republicans running right except Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. I didn't do so well in the Republicans I thought would sit out, as four of the seven people I named did eventually jump in the race. Democrats who were in was a better category, as only Brian Schweitzer turned out to be a bad pick. And I was perfect in the Democrats out category. All told, a score of 23 right to only seven wrong, which I consider not too bad at all.
OK, enough looking backwards, let's haul out the old crystal ball, dust it off, and try to see the future.
I'm doubling down on a bad prediction made last year, and once again predicting that Paul Ryan will be successful in reining in the Tea Partiers. This will mean Congress begins to function in a much more normal way that it has for the entire Boehner speakership. Ryan will be cut much more slack by the Tea Partiers, and things will get done without all the pointless drama.
The economy will continue to slowly improve, so much so that it becomes a secondary issue (at best) in the presidential campaign. Voters will start caring about other issues more than the economy, in other words.
Sadly, the frequency of mass shootings will not abate, meaning we get a big one every couple of weeks, as some sort of hellish "new normal."
The Islamic State will keep losing ground (in Iraq, especially), and will lose two of their three biggest Iraqi cities (Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi). Ramadi is close to being liberated even now, so this may actually happen in 2015. But the main "capital" of the Islamic State in Syria will not be liberated next year.
Barack Obama will get a big setback next summer, as the Supreme Court rules against his plans to revamp immigration and deportation policy. The conservatives on the court will argue he is overstepping his prosecutorial discretion, and they will decide against Obama.
And I've saved the biggest ones for last: election predictions!
Donald Trump will easily become the Republican presidential nominee, shocking many inside the Beltway. He will name an outsider for his veep choice (Jesse Ventura, maybe?), and the Republican National Convention will be the most interesting in decades, as the party establishment rends its garments and pulls its hair in one way or another.
Hillary Clinton will also skate to her own nomination. She'll pick someone from a swing state to be her running mate (Ohio, or maybe Florida?).
Five states (including, at the very least, California and Maine) will legalize recreational marijuana use by ballot initiative. One other state (Vermont or Rhode Island, most likely) will legalize marijuana through their state legislature.
Democrats will take back the Senate, although their margin will be very thin. Democrats will pick up seats in the House, but they will fail to retake the chamber.
And, lastly, Hillary Clinton becomes President-Elect Clinton, with a landslide in the Electoral College where she gets over 350 (but not as high as 400) out of 538.
OK, that's it for this year! Have a happy new year, everyone. To end in true McLaughlin fashion, we say to all of you:
"Bye-bye!"
*-- Chris Weigant*
If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:
*2015 -- *[Part 1]
*2014 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2013 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2012 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2011 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2010 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2009 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2008 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2007 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2006 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
Chris Weigant blogs at:Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
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[Part 1 of this column ran last week, just in case you missed it.]
Before we begin with this week's awards, we have a few odds and ends to get out of the way first. Last week's list had the "Best Photo Op" category, and we missed a few that deserve mentioning. There was the image of South Carolina's official flag being flown at half-staff after the Charleston shooting, with the Confederate flag in the foreground, flying at the top of its pole.
In a more positive light was the photo of the White House lit up in the colors of the rainbow flag, after the Supreme Court decision was announced which guaranteed marriage equality. That was a pretty good photo op, and deserves mention.
On purely amusing grounds, Ted Cruz pretending to audition for The Simpsons deserves some sort of mention, especially him quoting (while twirling, of course) Kang and Kodos: "Forwards, not backwards! Upwards not downwards! And always twirling, twirling for freedom!"
There was a headline from Huffington Post blogger Paul Ollinger which would have won "Funniest Headline," if the category actually existed. It measures one corporation's success on a very unusual yardstick. The title, as all outstanding headlines should, really speaks for itself: "Apple's $178 Billion In Cash Would Buy SO MUCH WEED." Heh. Hats off to Paul for that one!
OK, that's enough old business, let's get on with the remaining 2016 best and worst awards. One warning: it's a very long column, so we encourage readers to pace themselves.
* Destined For Political Stardom*Um... Deez Nuts? Or maybe Limberbutt McCubbins?
Nah, that'd be too easy. Heh.
Destined For Political Stardom is a category to shine a light on the up-and-comers in the political world, of course, and we have to just note that last year's winner Gavin Newsom is indeed striving for higher office next year as he makes a run for California governor.
On the Republican side, Paul Ryan is certainly a contender, and will likely be a major force in the 2020 Republican nomination fight (assuming Hillary wins next year, of course). Hillary Clinton could certainly be a qualifier in this category, despite her not being exactly an up-and-comer, since it certainly now seems like she's about to skate into the White House. Of course, things could change fast, but "political stardom" certainly can be defined as "winning the presidency," so she's got a better-than-average chance.
But we're going to expand our horizons, here, and predict that John Bel Edwards is this year's winner of Destined For Political Stardom, after defeating the heavily-favored Senator David Vitter in the Louisiana governor's race. Edwards is a Southern, pro-life Democrat, but any Democrat in Louisiana these days is a rare breed, so he's worth watching. For this year, and for giving Democrats a win in a race they never thought they'd even be competitive in, Edwards deserves the Destined For Political Stardom prize this year.
* Destined For Political Oblivion*Plenty to choose from in this category, this year. Since the Republicans fielded so many presidential candidates, there were more to choose from on the GOP side, of course. Scott Walker, once the Great Midwest Hope of the party, crashed and burned early on in the nomination race. Perhaps it was his suggestion of also building a wall across the U.S./Canadian border? We'll never know for sure....
Bobby Jindal was one of the first to try the "full-frontal attack on Trump" strategy, and one of the first to crash and burn as a direct result (the other was Rick Perry). Carly Fiorina, who rode the "I can viciously attack Hillary Clinton better than anyone else, because I am female" pony just about as far as she could. Ben Carson also deserves mention, because he (for some reason) spiked way upwards in the polls -- this one's still inexplicable to us, because he's always been so obviously and completely unhinged, but then we don't exactly vote in the Republican primaries.
Over on the Democratic side, we have both Jim "I killed a guy in 'Nam" Webb, and Lincoln Chafee. Oh, and the million bucks (of other people's money) that Lawrence Lessig spent on riding his poly-sci hobbyhorse, can't forget that.
Outside the presidential race, we had the ex-Speaker of the House John Boehner, who will now have all the time in the world to smoke cigars, play golf, and reminisce about what might have been, as well as David Vitter, who (after losing to John Bel Edwards) announced he'd be stepping down from his Senate seat.
But the big winner of the Destined For Political Oblivion award this year was the House member from California Kevin McCarthy, who was (for a time) the anointed successor to Boehner to lead the House.
McCarthy had it in the bag. He really did. He was supposed to be the magic glue which would hold together all the various GOP factions and lead them into some sort of Promised Land, right up until he uttered the worst "Kinsley" gaffe of the year (defined as "inadvertently speaking an inconvenient truth in Washington"), in a television interview:
Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.
Oh, Kevin, didn't anyone tell you that you weren't supposed to admit this sort of stuff in public? This one quote not only sunk his prospective speakership, it also may have sunk his entire political career. And that's pretty much the definition of political oblivion, isn't it?
* Best Political Theater*You could take the big-picture view here, and award this to Bernie Sanders's campaign, because it certainly is the best political theater we've seen in a while. Or you could go micro, and give it to the Jamaican senate, for passing a marijuana decriminalization bill on Bob Marley's birthday.
In other marijuana political theater, we had a Drug Enforcement Agency spokesperson testify that it would be dangerous to legalize marijuana because it would lead to (we are definitely not making this up) stoned bunny rabbits. No, seriously.
Elena Kagan indulged in a bit of theatrics in an opinion written about a "Spider-Man" case. In it, she used the phrases: "[I]n this world, with great power there must also come -- great responsibility," and "The parties set no end date for royalties, apparently contemplating that they would continue for as long as kids want to imitate Spider-Man (by doing whatever a spider can)." Points for style, Justice Kagan!
The folks that registered CarlyFiorina.org, and then filled it up with 30,000 frowny-faces, to represent all the people Carly laid off? Priceless! Or you could take the high road and award Best Political Theater to Pope Francis I, for his address to Congress (which, if his own statements can be believed, spurred John Boehner to step down).
The fracas over John Boehner stepping down was pretty good theater for Democrats, all around. For a while there it seemed like nobody wanted the job, which is a pretty astounding plot twist indeed.
We have two runners-up for Best Political Theater this year. The first goes to Missouri legislator Stacey Newman, for the bill she introduced in response to the terrorist attacks in Southern California. From the story about Newman's bill:
State Rep. Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis) has pre-filed a bill for the state legislature's 2016 session that would require buyers to wait 72 hours to make a gun purchase, which they would only be able to do at a store at least 120 miles from their home. Women in the state must wait 72 hours before they can get an abortion and the 120-mile restriction is intended to draw attention to the long distances that women must travel to have one.
. . .
Under Newman's bill, the gun purchaser would be required to tour an emergency trauma center between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on a weekend when firearms victims are present and meet with at least two families affected by gun violence as well as two people who have officiated the funerals of minors who were shot dead.
Now that's an impressive act of political theater, combining two issues in a very poignant manner!
Our second runner-up award goes to the John Kasich campaign, for making the best anti-Trump ad we've yet seen. Here is the text of the ad, which is obviously an homage to a very famous World War II statement:
You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims should register with their government, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says he's going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says it's okay to rough up black protesters, because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you're not one. But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you. And you better hope there's someone left to help you.
But the real Best Political Theater this year was pretty obviously the Black Lives Matter movement. It appeared on the scene early in the year, and has since become a major protest movement, taken seriously by all Democratic presidential candidates. Their tactics were debated (shouting down politicians at rallies), but they certainly were effective at getting their issue talked about and addressed in some fashion or another by Democrats. Republicans, for the most part, could afford to ignore the movement entirely, but that may not be true in the general election (we'll see). For being so effective at getting their message out, and for creating a movement which spread like wildfire, Black Lives Matter was the Best Political Theater of the year.
* Worst Political Theater*There were far too many of these to choose from, so we're just going to list them all before handing out the award.
The Planned Parenthood videos.
Donald Trump's entire campaign.
The Baltimore riots.
Netanyahu's speech to Congress.
A gyrocopter landing near the Capitol in protest of something or another.
Pamela Geller's art exhibit of cartoons insulting Mohammed.
That last one almost won the prize, we should add. But there was one that was even worse. In California, a man filed a ballot initiative called the "Sodomite Suppression Act," which read, in part:
Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.
It further states that, should the state government fail to properly act, the citizens of the state could take it upon themselves to go around shooting gay people in the head, without fear of any legal penalty for doing so. When we heard about it, we called it "absolutely breathtaking in its medievalism." Thankfully, the state attorney general ruled that it wouldn't be allowed on the ballot due to its seriously unconstitutional nature, but the fact that it was even proposed makes it the absolute Worst Political Theater of 2016.
* Worst Political Scandal*Unfortunately, a category with plenty to choose from, as usual. The biggest scandal involving a politician this year was likely the revelation by former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert that he had molested young boys while coaching a wrestling team and had recently been paying out a lot of blackmail money to keep the story under wraps. However, Hastert's been out of politics for a while and the nature of the scandal really had nothing to do with politics at all. Likewise, Bill Cosby's scandal continued to metastasize, but he doesn't have much to do with politics at all.
The Drug Enforcement Agency was in a class by itself this year, what with sex parties (with bonuses handed out afterwards), and a truly disgraceful case involving a stolen truck. These two stories merely scratch the surface, we should add, which is why Michele Leonhart had to step down from heading the agency this year.
We considered the Republican senators' letter to Iran to be pretty scandalous, but we've already handed out an award for that one. Likewise the scandal over the Planned Parenthood videos, which has been noted elsewhere.
There were other scandals that didn't really rise to the yearly-award level, including David Petraeus, the exit of Oregon's governor under a pretty dark cloud, and that recent kerfluffle between the Democratic National Committee and Bernie Sanders. Hillary's emails were in a category by themselves, the category of "scandals" as opposed to scandals. That pretty much sums it up, in fact. A particularly outrageous scandal was the fact that the Pentagon paid professional sports at least 6.8 million taxpayer dollars so they would celebrate the military at their games. That one was disturbing on multiple levels, really. From local politics, a Democratic officeholder in California's state government, Leland Yee, pled guilty to not only extortion and accepting bribes but also "gun-running," which is truly in a category by itself.
We know readers hate this, but we are going to have to award a three-way tie for Worst Political Scandal this year, because we find it impossible to choose from between them. They're all bad, and they all deserve calling out.
The first was the swamp of corruption known as Albany, New York. Federal agents have been arresting and indicting multiple major players from both parties in the New York state government all year long, for all sorts of sleazy arrangements and shenanigans. Now, New York isn't usually the first place people think of as leading in local government corruption (there are plenty of others that spring to mind more easily, from New Orleans to Chicago, or perhaps the state of New Jersey). But Albany very quietly has accommodated more than its fair share of state government corruption over the past few decades (remember Eliot Spitzer?). So we have to lump all the indictments and investigations into the generic label "Albany" and hand them one of our Worst Political Scandal awards this year.
Our second award goes to Rahm Emanuel, who conveniently fought in court to keep a video of a black man being shot by police out of the public's eye for long enough for Rahm to be re-elected. That's downright shameful, but it's entirely expected when you consider that Rahm Emanuel was behind it. Rahm is the modern personification of "Chicago-style politics," in fact. But to delay the release of evidence of a police officer committing a crime merely to further your own political ambitions certainly takes things to a new level, even for Rahm. Worst Political Scandal -- not the video itself, but the 13-month delay so Rahm could continue being mayor.
And our final Worst Political Scandal goes to an organization which used to be one of the most trusted and admired in America, but which now is no more than a punchline to a raunchy joke: the Secret Service. The agency seems to have been run for the past decade or so as a frat party. The most recent scandal -- only one of too many to list, sadly -- involved an agent trying to convince what he thought was an underage girl to have sex with him while on guard at the White House. The Secret Service obviously has a long way to go to gain any shred of respect from the public, and we only hope that this rebuilding begins quickly, so the constant pipeline of scandals which the Secret Service has been spewing (for far too long now) is soon shut down for good.
* Most Underreported Story*There were many of these to choose from, as the mainstream corporate media all but ignored stories they didn't think would help them sell ads. Overtime pay was vastly expanded by President Obama this year, updating standards that hadn't been adjusted in decades. The old standard was so low that most employers could essentially require 50 or 60 hours of work per week without having to pay a dime extra ("salary" instead of "hourly pay"). The new standard bans this for anyone making less than just over $50,000. This was done with the stroke of Obama's pen, and it was a welcome change to weekly paychecks for millions, and yet the story got barely a mention on the evening news.
The economy continued to get better during 2016, which was also woefully underreported. The unemployment rate hit five percent -- half of the peak which happened at the depths of the Great Recession (in Obama's first year in office), and the media mostly just yawned. This is nothing really new, as the media always prefers stories of economic disaster over "things are getting better."
The coalition against the Islamic State made solid progress throughout 2016, reclaiming territory and shutting down Islamic State supply lines to the cities they still hold. Nobody's claiming victory yet, but 2016 was a marked shift from 2015 -- instead of the Islamic State expanding quickly, the expansion was not only halted but turned back, in both Iraq and Syria. Somehow the media turned a blind eye to all of this news, though.
Saudi Arabia publicly flogged a blogger for writing things the government didn't like, and it got pretty much zero coverage in the mainstream media.
But the real Most Underreported Story of the year is an easy pick: the Bernie Sanders campaign. Earlier in the year, statistics showed that the three broadcast networks devoted a total of 504 minutes to the presidential campaign. Of this total, 145 minutes covered Trump, 165 minutes for Hillary Clinton and her emails, and a whopping eight minutes for Bernie. Jeb Bush never got close to the polling numbers Bernie regularly has been getting (to say nothing of the huge crowds Bernie pulls), but Bush managed to get 43 minutes of coverage. More recent figures show this bias has continued -- Republicans with little-to-no chance of winning holding only a few percentage points of support get multiple times the coverage Bernie Sanders has gotten, even though he's supported by about a third of Democrats.
Even when he does get covered, the stories almost never mention any of his actual political positions, choosing to treat Bernie as a joke instead. One of the first articles the Washington Post wrote about Bernie called him a "humorless aging hippie peacenik Socialist from Brooklyn," and gasped: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) could be our first socialist hippie president." Sanders does call himself a Democratic Socialist, but I've never heard him use the word hippie.
Bernie Sanders has tapped into real concerns Democratic voters have, and he has more detailed plans than pretty much any other candidate in the race -- from either party. Media types (those that style themselves "journalists") always complain about how there are too many shallow horserace stories and not enough emphasis on policy ideas, but when a man comes along with policy ideas that crowds of people are loudly supporting, they just shrug and choose to ignore it. Bernie Sanders's campaign was without doubt the Most Underreported Story of the year.
* Most Overreported Story*We began 2016 with "It snows in wintertime!" as the clear frontrunner for the Most Overreported Story, but that quickly faded. Benghazi was a contender for a while, even though no actual new scandal was uncovered. Hillary's emails ate up a big chunk of the summer, along with the inane "Hillary Is Toast" storyline that accompanied it (with actual calls for her to just quit her presidential race, based on nothing more than that's what the Washington insiders' cocktail party chatter had agreed should be done).
But, and we truly do regret this, the Most Overreported Story of the year was "Will Joe Biden Run Or Not?" Now, we remain neutral on how much of this should be blamed on Joe and how much of it should be blamed on a bored political media in the summertime, but whosever fault it was, it got far too much attention and took far too long to resolve. I've never seen such a frenzy before over a candidate who is not an actual candidate. Pretty much every Democratic poll threw Biden's name into the list, just to see what the public thought. When else has that happened, for months at a time? What other politician has gotten that much free polling without even announcing a candidacy? Perhaps there have been others, but the will-Joe-run story was still easily the Most Overreported Story of the year.
* Biggest Government Waste*Well, there was that blimp that got loose and terrorized Maryland and Pennsylvania... that seemed like a giant waste of a whole bunch of money.
The federal War On Weed continues to consume zillions of dollars, even after Congress tried to use the power of the purse to zero the budget out (at least, in states with legal marijuana, medical or recreational). Sooner or later the choice will become obvious: lots of tax dollars flowing in versus lots of tax dollars flowing out fighting a pointless and unwinnable war on a plant.
But this year's winner was the Benghazi committee in the House, which has now spent five million dollars to investigate something that seven other groups have fully investigated. Their startling conclusion, after blowing five million smackeroos? Hillary Clinton had an aide called Sidney Blumenthal. That's it. That's the sum total the American people got for this entirely political attempt at a hit job on a Democrat running for president. Easily this year's Biggest Government Waste.
* Best Government Dollar Spent*Sometimes we just punt on this column and give the Best Government Dollar Spent award to something like the National Park system. Sometimes we make a serious statement with the award (if we were so inclined this year, we'd give it to Planned Parenthood's funding). Sometimes we just get downright silly, by (for instance) awarding it to something like "the money spent to restore the name Denali to America's highest peak."
This year we're going to go extra-silly with large serving of snark, and award Best Government Dollar Spent on the "Jade Helm 15" military exercise. This absolutely banal military training event somehow acquired the proportion of the biggest and most official paranoid conspiracy theory of the decade, as dark warnings were uttered across the Southwest over the government's real plans. These included taking over the "hostile territory" of Texas, under the orders of President Obama, and then sending all conservatives to concentration camps. Tunnels under empty Wal-Mart stores were somehow insidiously involved. The occupation of Red America was about to begin! Ahhhh! Run for the hills!
Now, normally, paranoiacs would be laughed at and dismissed by sober politicians, but in this case the governor of Texas actually proposed using his own National Guard to keep an eye on the U.S. military exercise, just in case.
For the sheer entertainment value of watching a large swath of the country freak out about absolutely nothing -- and wind up looking as looney as the tinfoil hat crowd by doing so -- the Jade Helm 15 exercise was easily the Best Government Dollar Spent this year.
* Boldest Political Tactic*We have two winners in this category this year.
The first is obvious: Donald Trump's xenophobia. This wasn't just some minor part of his campaign, after all, it was the absolute bedrock foundation of Trump's run. In his campaign announcement he used terms like "criminals" and "rapists" to describe the Mexicans coming into America. His one shining policy idea is to build a "big, beautiful wall" across our southern border, and somehow make Mexico pay for it. Trump seamlessly shifted gears after the recent terrorism, saying he'd essentially shut America down to any Muslim wishing to enter. His brilliant vetting process would be to ask each visitor to America "Are you Muslim?" and then not let in the ones who respond "Yes." No, really -- that's his plan. This is somehow supposed to shine a light on how flawed our regular vetting process is, which is a real head-scratcher when you think about it.
Poke all the fun you want (and we do want to, and have been poking lots of fun over the year), but Trump is tapping a deeply disturbing nativist vein in American politics, which other Republicans have been scrambling to either denounce or jump on board with. Trump's campaign would not have been so successful, to put this another way, without being centered on xenophobia. It was an incredibly bold tactic to try, which is why it gets a Boldest Political Tactic award.
Our other Boldest Political Tactic award goes to President Barack Obama. Obama did an extraordinary job of stealing the "honeymoon" period from the Republican Congress at the start of 2016, and rather than Congress setting the agenda, they had to settle for following Obama's agenda instead. The most brilliant tactic during this period -- the one we're handing the award to -- was to rig the congressional vote on the Iran nuclear deal. Months before the deal was finalized, Obama got the Republican House and the Republican Senate to agree to hold one single vote that had to get an astronomically-high veto-proof majority to stop the deal.
Congress, amazingly, went along with this plan. What this acquiescence meant was that when the plan was finalized and announced, all Obama had to do was get 34 senators to support him -- which he easily did. Obama -- with the Republicans' own approval -- absolutely rigged the Iran deal vote so it was near-impossible for him to lose it.
It was an incredibly bold tactic and it worked like a charm. For pulling this one off, President Obama wins his own Boldest Political Tactic award.
* Best Idea*There were many good ideas up for consideration this year, including:
Free college -- Obama's call in his State Of The Union address for free community college and Bernie Sanders's unequivocal call for all state universities to be free as well.
Scrap the Social Security cap, and make it a true flat tax on all wage-earners, instead of the most regressive tax possible.
Obama's commutation of a record number of drug sentences.
The Iran nuclear deal, and opening up Cuba.
Two ideas stood out, but we judged that one of them was more important. Up until this year (it may have started earlier, but this year is when it began to be talked about in earnest among politicians), the most marijuana advocates have hoped for was a "rescheduling" of marijuana, down from Schedule I to perhaps Schedule II. The most optimistic called for it to go down to Schedule III. But, not unlike how the cries for gay marriage rights superceded the calls for domestic partnerships, this year a clear and rational plan was seriously considered: not just "rescheduling" marijuana down, but "descheduling" it all together. Remove it from the banned drugs list once and for all!
This makes perfect sense, when you think about where marijuana should reside in the federal pantheon of agencies. We have an agency who shares regulation for two other recreational substances, after all. It's right there in the name: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. All we need to do is stick "Cannabis" or "Marijuana" in there somewhere. This would make far better sense than treating marijuana any other way. Over half the states have legalized medical marijuana of some type or another. Four states and DC have legalized recreational use -- a number which could double (or even triple) next year, when voters in many other states are going to get a chance to weigh in. The time has come for the feds to admit defeat and start thinking rationally about marijuana. One presidential candidate (Bernie, of course) is even touting the idea in his speeches.
But, good as that idea is, there's another that is still better. The Best Idea of 2016 (again, it started earlier, but it really proved itself this year) was "putting cameras on cops." Cameras don't lie. Sometimes citizens lie, and sometimes police officers lie, but cameras don't. Video evidence of exactly what happens in an altercation have become an absolute necessity. Videos have shown the public exactly what takes place in contested situations. All cops should wear cameras all the time, with allowable exceptions very narrowly defined (for personal breaks and confidential informants only, perhaps).
We as a society are already in the digital age, in a big way. Policing is catching up. It should soon be unacceptable for any police officer to be doing normal duties without recording evidence of what is happening, all across this country. A lot of conflicts will be avoided as a direct result.
Cameras on cops really came into its own this year, which is why we're calling it the Best Idea of 2016.
* Worst Idea*There was a bumper crop of bad ideas in 2016, beginning with pretty much anything Trump proposed ("ban all Muslims" would have to take the cake, there).
Congress refusing to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force for the war against the Islamic State was a monumentally bad idea.
Requiring Americans to upgrade their credit cards to add a computer chip, but then falling short of reaching the international standard for such cards (which, I might add, have existed in Europe for a quarter century already, with PINs) was an incredibly stupid idea.
Keystone XL was a pretty bad idea that finally died in 2016.
John Kasich's idea to beam broadcasts featuring America's "Judeo-Christian values" into the Middle East, to solve terrorism, was a profoundly idiotic idea, for so many reasons.
The Ohio marijuana initiative -- which would have legalized recreational marijuana, but also created an oligopoly of only 10 farms allowed to grow it for the entire state -- tried to hijack the movement for clean legalization, but failed.
But the real Worst Idea of 2016 was Jeb Bush's campaign plan. It wasn't supposed to be this way, you can almost hear Jeb telling himself these days. Bush raised a mountain of campaign cash very early on, which was supposed to clear the field of competitors and hand him an easy path to the nomination. Political pundits everywhere were writing about how inevitable a "Bush versus Clinton" campaign would be. Unfortunately, no matter how many silver spoons you cram in Bush's mouth, he was still a terrible campaigner who was far out of touch with the mood of his own party (Bush hasn't run for office in a long time, it's worth pointing out). In another year, in another election cycle, Bush's campaign plan might have been a brilliant one and might have overcome the flaws of the candidate. Not this time, though, which is why Bush's campaign plan was easily the Worst Idea of 2016.
* Sorry To See You Go*We've always wanted a companion award for "NOT sorry to see you go," which we would give this year to either outgoing Education Secretary Arne Duncan, or to Michele Leonhart, former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Not sorry to see either leave their post this year.
Of course, there are two meanings to this, one professional and one funereal. Notable deaths this year in the political world included Beau Biden, Jim Wright, Julian Bond, and Mario Cuomo. In the non-political world, we lost Yogi Berra, B. B. King, and Wes Craven. We'll personally miss more than all of these both Grace Lee "Yeoman Rand" Whitney, and Leonard "Mister Spock" Nimoy, both icons of the original Star Trek series. Oh, and the guy that came up with the Pet Rock, too.
Career-wise, we will miss Eric Holder (who started rather weak as Attorney General, at least on the marijuana issue, but ended his term in a much better place), Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer. A lot of people are missing Jon Stewart on late-night television, as well.
The one remaining Sorry To See You Go candidate was the Iowa Straw Poll, just because it was such a nakedly corrupt event, where Republican candidates poured money into the practice of the outright buying of votes. It finally collapsed this year of its own corrupt weight, but we have to say we will indeed miss all the fun.
* 15 Minutes Of Fame*Since the very category celebrates brevity, we're just going to provide a short list of all those who achieved their 15 Minutes Of Fame over the course of the year:
Kim Davis (county clerk who refused to marry gays),
The boy who put together a clock that was treated as a bomb, for some reason,
The three Americans who bravely prevented a terrorist attack on a French train,
Pamela Gellar, who provoked a terrorist attack with a public exhibition of Mohammed cartoons,
Rachel Dolezal, who was not actually black,
Joyce Mitchell, who helped two prisoners escape in New York,
Run Warren Run, a political group that took a long time to take Elizabeth Warren at her own word that she wasn't interested,
Carly Fiorina,
Ben Carson,
Scott Walker,
Rick Perry,
Bobby Jindal,
Jim Webb,
Lincoln Chafee,
and Kevin McCarthy, who did not wind up being speaker of the House.
* Best Spin*
This one is pretty easy this year. Republicans everywhere have been patting themselves on the back -- in a big way -- over how they are now the party of diversity. No, really! That's what they tell each other, honest!
Their rationale (or spin) goes something like this: "Just look who's on the stage of the Republican debates. We've got a black man, a woman, and two Hispanics! The Democrats just have old white people. We're obviously better at diversity than Democrats."
This all will be revealed as ethereal political spin next November, when (especially if Donald Trump is the nominee) the election results will show record levels of support from all minority groups for the Democratic candidate.
Still, until the results are in, the Best Spin award clearly goes to the GOP's delusion that they're better on diversity because of their presidential slate. Putting diverse candidates up isn't the same as actually supporting policies that would help minorities, in other words.
* Most Honest Person*This one is an easy one, because nobody else really even comes close to Bernie Sanders in the honesty department. Bernie tells you what he believes. On most subjects, he's been standing up for what he believes for decades now.
Whether you love Bernie or hate him, whether you love his ideas or think they're stupid, you still have to admit that he presents those ideas honestly. To give just one gigantic example, Bernie refuses to run away from the "socialism" label, because he does believe America would be better with some of the socialistic ideas that work wonders in European countries. An other American presidential candidate would have tried to run away from the label, in an effort to be more "electable." Bernie didn't. He is who he says he is, and in most cases that hasn't changed in a very long time -- mostly because the rest of the country is still catching up with all the progressive policies he supported as a younger man.
Bernie Sanders is -- easily -- the Most Honest Person of 2016.
* Most Overrated*There were four clear candidates for Most Overrated, and all of them were presidential candidates as well. What might be called the "Jon Huntsman Consolation Prize" would have to go to either Martin O'Malley or John Kasich this year. Both men were touted by the inside-the-Beltway types as the "perfect candidate" for the respective parties. O'Malley was going to catch fire for hitting the sweet spot between Hillary's untrustworthiness and Bernie's far-out ideas. Kasich was (as was Huntsman before him) the media's "Here's the type of Republican that should be nominated!" candidate. After all, "He's so moderate and downright sane!" As with Huntsman, this hasn't exactly translated into voter support for either man, much to the disappointment of what might be called the false equivalence gang in the media.
But this year, there were actually two others more deserving of Most Overrated. The first is Jeb! Bush, who was vastly overrated by all. But since we've already given him an award, we're going to instead hand Most Overrated to Scott Walker. Walker was supposed to be the Great Midwestern Hope, a man who had survived a recall election in a blue state who could get the whole country to work with him. Or some such nonsense.
Of course, it didn't work out that way, and Walker crashed and burned very early on (only Rick Perry exited the race before him). Walker crushed a lot of inside-the-Beltway dreams when he announced his campaign was over, but this was largely due to him being the Most Overrated candidate to begin with.
* Most Underrated*Only two names were even in the running for this one. Bernie Sanders was extremely underrated by all, and he continues to be. But his story pales in comparison to the winner's.
Donald Trump was -- easily -- the Most Underrated candidate of the year. His candidacy was laughingly dismissed as a joke by pretty much the entire spectrum of political thought. The Left thought it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard. The Huffington Post even banished him for months to the "Entertainment" page. The Right was angrier (of course), but equally as dismissive. Washington insiders told themselves over and over again that Trump would -- of course! -- explode soon, and that his support was in no way real. Some continue to underestimate him to this day, ignoring pretty much every poll that has been conducted so far.
We thought Trump was a joke when he started off too, we fully admit. But we were a little quicker to realize that something was going on even if everyone inside the Beltway had their head buried in the sand. In July, we wrote an article titled "Thinking The Unthinkable: Donald Trump, GOP Nominee." Since that point, we've been taking him very seriously indeed, and we now think the nomination is basically Trump's for the taking.
But whenever the light dawned that Trump's support wasn't going to magically melt away, it's pretty easy to see that Donald Trump was the Most Underrated candidate of the year.
* Predictions*Finally, we approach the end! As usual, anyone still left reading deserves some sort of award for sheer stamina....
Before making 2016 predictions, we always review our own record to see how we did last time around. Here are our predictions for this year, from last year's column:
We're going to cheat a bit on this first one, because outside of some wonky mathematicians we don't think anyone else has noticed. Next year's "Pi Day" will be the biggest in all history (or, at the very least: "for the next 1,000 years"). Pi Day is celebrated every year on March 14th, because when written in American format, the date becomes "3/14." Now, pi (as you'll recall from school) has a value of 3.141592653. What this means is that in about three months, pi enthusiasts will be celebrating precisely, at around nine-thirty in the morning. Why? Because it will be the grandest Pi Day ever -- 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 in the morning! Woo hoo!
OK, enough silliness. In a more serious vein, the Supreme Court will come down definitively and decisively for marriage equality for all Americans. It will remove the issue from state law and declare that the U.S. Constitution demands equal treatment for all at the altar. Marriage equality rights will then never be taken away, forever. Furthermore, I predict that the response from savvy Republican politicians will be nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, because the party at large has realized what a losing issue it is for them.
Another court prediction: the Supreme Court will toss out the lawsuit against Obamacare that is trying to deny health insurance subsidies to people who live in states that use the federal HealthCare.gov exchange. John Roberts will once again shock conservatives by being the deciding vote in favor of Obamacare.
The Tea Party's center of gravity will shift from the House to the Senate. In the House, they will find themselves with less power as John Boehner rallies the Establishment Republican wing. But over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is going to be run ragged by Tea Party nonsense, as three members of his caucus get busy running for president. As Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz all try to outflank each other on the right, nothing much will be accomplished by the Senate next year.
And finally, my lists of who will and who will not decide to run for president (in no particular order).
Republicans who will run for president: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, John Kasich.
Republicans who will not run for president: Donald Trump (although he'll make a bunch of noise about it first, of course), Michele Bachmann, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Susana Martinez.
Democrats who will run for president: Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Brian Schweitzer.
Democrats who will not run for president: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Howard Dean, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Warner.
Well, that was a little better than last year's score! The Pi Day one doesn't really count, because it wasn't so much a prediction as pointing out an inevitability.
Still, I got the two Supreme Court cases right, although I whiffed badly with that prediction about the House. John Boehner finally got taken down by the unruly Tea Partiers, which is the complete opposite of what I thought would happen. We even got part of it wrong, as another equally fun Pi Day will happen in 2115 -- as it will every 100 years, not every thousand.
I made a total of 30 candidate predictions, both in and out. I got all the Republicans running right except Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. I didn't do so well in the Republicans I thought would sit out, as four of the seven people I named did eventually jump in the race. Democrats who were in was a better category, as only Brian Schweitzer turned out to be a bad pick. And I was perfect in the Democrats out category. All told, a score of 23 right to only seven wrong, which I consider not too bad at all.
OK, enough looking backwards, let's haul out the old crystal ball, dust it off, and try to see the future.
I'm doubling down on a bad prediction made last year, and once again predicting that Paul Ryan will be successful in reining in the Tea Partiers. This will mean Congress begins to function in a much more normal way that it has for the entire Boehner speakership. Ryan will be cut much more slack by the Tea Partiers, and things will get done without all the pointless drama.
The economy will continue to slowly improve, so much so that it becomes a secondary issue (at best) in the presidential campaign. Voters will start caring about other issues more than the economy, in other words.
Sadly, the frequency of mass shootings will not abate, meaning we get a big one every couple of weeks, as some sort of hellish "new normal."
The Islamic State will keep losing ground (in Iraq, especially), and will lose two of their three biggest Iraqi cities (Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi). Ramadi is close to being liberated even now, so this may actually happen in 2015. But the main "capital" of the Islamic State in Syria will not be liberated next year.
Barack Obama will get a big setback next summer, as the Supreme Court rules against his plans to revamp immigration and deportation policy. The conservatives on the court will argue he is overstepping his prosecutorial discretion, and they will decide against Obama.
And I've saved the biggest ones for last: election predictions!
Donald Trump will easily become the Republican presidential nominee, shocking many inside the Beltway. He will name an outsider for his veep choice (Jesse Ventura, maybe?), and the Republican National Convention will be the most interesting in decades, as the party establishment rends its garments and pulls its hair in one way or another.
Hillary Clinton will also skate to her own nomination. She'll pick someone from a swing state to be her running mate (Ohio, or maybe Florida?).
Five states (including, at the very least, California and Maine) will legalize recreational marijuana use by ballot initiative. One other state (Vermont or Rhode Island, most likely) will legalize marijuana through their state legislature.
Democrats will take back the Senate, although their margin will be very thin. Democrats will pick up seats in the House, but they will fail to retake the chamber.
And, lastly, Hillary Clinton becomes President-Elect Clinton, with a landslide in the Electoral College where she gets over 350 (but not as high as 400) out of 538.
OK, that's it for this year! Have a happy new year, everyone. To end in true McLaughlin fashion, we say to all of you:
"Bye-bye!"
*-- Chris Weigant*
If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:
*2015 -- *[Part 1]
*2014 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2013 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2012 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2011 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2010 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2009 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2008 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2007 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
*2006 -- *[Part 1] [Part 2]
Chris Weigant blogs at:Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.
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Beware This Year's Scams of Christmas
While the concept "forewarned is forearmed" is true for every day of the year, it's particularly true during the holidays. December is the time when most of us focus less on our day jobs and more on family, friends, gift giving and celebration. The holidays are a cause for celebration by scammers, phishers and identity thieves for a very different reason. Because we are their day jobs, our joyful distraction provides them bountiful opportunities to exploit our vulnerabilities for their personal gain.
If you've read this column more than once, you've heard me say it: There is no avoiding "getting got." With a new victim every two seconds, identity-related crimes are a fact of life. Indeed, they are the third certainty in life, right behind death and taxes. Whether it's an old-fashioned identity thief or a trap built by digital sophisticates, the myriad digital scams out there are designed to make each of us a co-conspirator in the theft of our own identity, and there is simply no such thing as being 100% safe.
Here is a shortlist of scams to look out for this holiday season and in the new year.
*1. The Gift Card Scam*
Anyone can do this, and unfortunately too many folks are. Thieves record the numbers on gift cards then call the customer service departments identified on the back of the cards to see if (and when) they have been activated. Like tax-related fraud, this scam succeeds or fails depending on how fast a transaction occurs. As with the speedy filing of a tax return, this scam can be avoided by using a gift card as soon as possible.
*2. Fake Charities
*
The holidays bring out the best in most people and our thoughts turn to helping out those less fortunate. That's why you will find so many appeals for the neediest cases out there. Your job: Make sure the appeal is real. Call the main office of any non-profit organization that approaches you to make sure they actually have one. Go online and poke around. Check with Charity Navigator or the Office of the Attorney General in your state. Make sure you are actually making a difference, rather than just making some fraudster a little richer.
*3. Temporary Holiday Jobs*
Advertised online, these applications are designed to harvest your personally identifiable information and often ask for that skeleton key to your finances, the Social Security number. Remember: It is much wiser to NOT give that number to anyone unless you absolutely have to, and NEVER provide it before you have confirmed that you are dealing with a representative of a real organization looking for prospective employees; have had conversations with actual representatives of that organization; and there is mutual interest in you going to work for them. Never send your information digitally unless you know the recipient uses proper security protocols. (You may not be, so try to be conservative about what you send digitally.)
*4. Phishing Emails*
These can come in the form of sales promotions from brands you know and love (always make sure the URL matches exactly and that you never provide any personal information on any web page unless the URL is secure and starts with "https"). Also check to make sure the sale that caught your eye is advertised on the site when you navigate to it without the aid of a link in whatever promotional email you may receive. Email links should always be considered suspect. Always double-check URLS.
*5. Hotel Scams*
Whether it's the restaurant flyer scam -- where menus to non-existent eateries are shoved under the door in the hope you'll order your own robbery -- or the front desk scam -- where you get a call from "the front desk" soon after check in asking for another credit card number because "the one you provided was rejected" -- be on guard when traveling. Always distrust. Always verify.
*6. E-Cards*
I don't open them unless I already knew it was on the way or I directly contacted the sender to ask if they sent me something. And even then, I don't always click through. Hey, who doesn't appreciate the way a cute or warmly worded message can make you feel? Unfortunately, the desire to feel warm and fuzzy shouldn't trump concern about digital safety and personal security. While I truly appreciate the gesture, I would prefer to avoid downloading malware or ransomware.
*7. Fake Shipping Notifications*
Whether the message is "we are out of stock" coming from a big brand or a notice that a package was received, thieves take advantage of your "what the --" response, betting you will click their malware-laden links in the quest to find out that what you never ordered won't come because you've been had.
*What Can You Do?*
In my new book Swiped (cough... great last minute Christmas gift... cough), I outline the 3 Ms, which are designed to ensure that when the fateful day comes and you fall victim to this or that identity-related or "I can't believe it did that"-related gambit, the damage is contained and resolved. And this time of year, you really have to be vigilant.
The second M stands for monitor. We are in a high season of fraud where monitoring is crucial. That means: Check your credit reports and credit scores as frequently as possible. (You can pull your credit reports for free each year at AnnualCreditReport.com and see your credit scores for free each month on Credit.com.)
You should also review your credit card and financial services accounts every day to make sure every transaction you see is yours. Sign up for transactional alerts from your credit card companies, banks and credit unions. Open all mail from your healthcare providers, since explanations of benefits is often the first indication that someone has tapped into your medical files or health insurance.
The holiday season is busy. You've got your regular to-do list (for instance, all those end-of-month bills) and then the holiday checklist. It's only natural to be a little distracted by it all. But, as I said earlier, with distraction comes vulnerability, and vulnerability is the best present you can give a thief. It is the gift that keeps on giving.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
If you've read this column more than once, you've heard me say it: There is no avoiding "getting got." With a new victim every two seconds, identity-related crimes are a fact of life. Indeed, they are the third certainty in life, right behind death and taxes. Whether it's an old-fashioned identity thief or a trap built by digital sophisticates, the myriad digital scams out there are designed to make each of us a co-conspirator in the theft of our own identity, and there is simply no such thing as being 100% safe.
Here is a shortlist of scams to look out for this holiday season and in the new year.
*1. The Gift Card Scam*
Anyone can do this, and unfortunately too many folks are. Thieves record the numbers on gift cards then call the customer service departments identified on the back of the cards to see if (and when) they have been activated. Like tax-related fraud, this scam succeeds or fails depending on how fast a transaction occurs. As with the speedy filing of a tax return, this scam can be avoided by using a gift card as soon as possible.
*2. Fake Charities
*
The holidays bring out the best in most people and our thoughts turn to helping out those less fortunate. That's why you will find so many appeals for the neediest cases out there. Your job: Make sure the appeal is real. Call the main office of any non-profit organization that approaches you to make sure they actually have one. Go online and poke around. Check with Charity Navigator or the Office of the Attorney General in your state. Make sure you are actually making a difference, rather than just making some fraudster a little richer.
*3. Temporary Holiday Jobs*
Advertised online, these applications are designed to harvest your personally identifiable information and often ask for that skeleton key to your finances, the Social Security number. Remember: It is much wiser to NOT give that number to anyone unless you absolutely have to, and NEVER provide it before you have confirmed that you are dealing with a representative of a real organization looking for prospective employees; have had conversations with actual representatives of that organization; and there is mutual interest in you going to work for them. Never send your information digitally unless you know the recipient uses proper security protocols. (You may not be, so try to be conservative about what you send digitally.)
*4. Phishing Emails*
These can come in the form of sales promotions from brands you know and love (always make sure the URL matches exactly and that you never provide any personal information on any web page unless the URL is secure and starts with "https"). Also check to make sure the sale that caught your eye is advertised on the site when you navigate to it without the aid of a link in whatever promotional email you may receive. Email links should always be considered suspect. Always double-check URLS.
*5. Hotel Scams*
Whether it's the restaurant flyer scam -- where menus to non-existent eateries are shoved under the door in the hope you'll order your own robbery -- or the front desk scam -- where you get a call from "the front desk" soon after check in asking for another credit card number because "the one you provided was rejected" -- be on guard when traveling. Always distrust. Always verify.
*6. E-Cards*
I don't open them unless I already knew it was on the way or I directly contacted the sender to ask if they sent me something. And even then, I don't always click through. Hey, who doesn't appreciate the way a cute or warmly worded message can make you feel? Unfortunately, the desire to feel warm and fuzzy shouldn't trump concern about digital safety and personal security. While I truly appreciate the gesture, I would prefer to avoid downloading malware or ransomware.
*7. Fake Shipping Notifications*
Whether the message is "we are out of stock" coming from a big brand or a notice that a package was received, thieves take advantage of your "what the --" response, betting you will click their malware-laden links in the quest to find out that what you never ordered won't come because you've been had.
*What Can You Do?*
In my new book Swiped (cough... great last minute Christmas gift... cough), I outline the 3 Ms, which are designed to ensure that when the fateful day comes and you fall victim to this or that identity-related or "I can't believe it did that"-related gambit, the damage is contained and resolved. And this time of year, you really have to be vigilant.
The second M stands for monitor. We are in a high season of fraud where monitoring is crucial. That means: Check your credit reports and credit scores as frequently as possible. (You can pull your credit reports for free each year at AnnualCreditReport.com and see your credit scores for free each month on Credit.com.)
You should also review your credit card and financial services accounts every day to make sure every transaction you see is yours. Sign up for transactional alerts from your credit card companies, banks and credit unions. Open all mail from your healthcare providers, since explanations of benefits is often the first indication that someone has tapped into your medical files or health insurance.
The holiday season is busy. You've got your regular to-do list (for instance, all those end-of-month bills) and then the holiday checklist. It's only natural to be a little distracted by it all. But, as I said earlier, with distraction comes vulnerability, and vulnerability is the best present you can give a thief. It is the gift that keeps on giving.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
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NMHIX enrollment hits milestone compared to last year
Last week was the deadline for open enrollment of health care coverage that starts January 1. Before the deadline, more than 44,000 New Mexicans enrolled for insurance for 2016, via the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMHIX) — almost double the enrollment seen this time last year. According to new data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 44,477 people in the state signed up for health insurance. Compared to numbers tallied for December 31, 2014, it's a difference of about…
Reported by bizjournals 14 hours ago.
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HealthCare.gov insurance enrollment up; young adults improve risk pool
More than 8.2 million Americans enrolled in health insurance through the federal HealthCare.gov exchange this year, up from 6.4 million a year ago. That is according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is especially pleased that 2.1 million enrollees were under age 35 — up 1 million from a year ago. “We’re excited about that,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. That’s not only good for these young adults, it also “means a younger risk pool, which contributes to a…
Reported by bizjournals 13 hours ago.
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Judge upholds Surency vision contract for state employees
A judge’s ruling this week in Shawnee County District Court means a new contract for Wichita-based Surency Life & Health Insurance Co. Earlier this year, Surency — a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Dental of Kansas — was awarded the vision benefit contract for the State Employee Health Plan for 2016 through 2018. That plan has some 39,000 enrollees. The existing contract holder, California-based Superior Vision, then sued the state. That lawsuit left state employees in flux waiting to here…
Reported by bizjournals 11 hours ago.
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Ben Carson is blurring the lines between his personal brand and his campaign
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ben Carson's name and face adorn the walls of dozens of schools in the U.S. and a medical school in Nigeria. Mayors have handed him keys to their cities. His charity, founded in 1994, created a national day in his honor each year, celebrated by the children who sit in elementary school reading rooms named after him.All of this is part of a well-honed enterprise that promotes Ben Carson — presidential candidate, political commentator, paid speaker, author, neurosurgeon and champion of children, reading and God.
He has folded into Carson Enterprises his presidential campaign, which has excelled at fundraising, bringing in almost $32 million through the end of September — more than any other 2016 Republican candidate. That fundraising prowess continues, even as his poll numbers decline. His campaign manager Barry Bennett said Thursday they raised about $20 million since the beginning of October, matching their extraordinary summertime pace. Speaking fees over a nearly two-year period raked in $4.3 million. And his nonprofit continues to raise money.
It's hard to see where one Carson stops and another begins.
"I think as people get to know me they'll be able to see exactly who I am," Carson said in an interview with The Associated Press in late October. "I don't worry about that."
These blurred lines are significant. Since he declared his candidacy, Carson has traveled the country for his campaign, to promote his new book, to attend events for his charity and to give paid speeches.
Carson's campaign imposed boundaries to separate his politicking from a two-week publicity tour promoting his latest book. His book tour website also links to his official campaign website. And Carson's book sales benefit significantly from his political rise. Since he declared his candidacy, more than 52,000 copies of versions of his signature book, Gifted Hands, have sold, according to industry statistics from Nielsen BookScan.
REUTERS/Joe SkipperMost political candidates focus only on their campaigns to avoid potential violations, said Lawrence Noble of the Campaign Finance Center, a Washington non-profit group that promotes transparency in politics. For instance, if a candidate is getting paid to speak at an event, he or she has to make sure not to mix that with campaigning, he said. Continuing with paid speeches, book promotion tours and charity events and keeping those separate from the campaign is a challenge.
"It's very difficult to do, and the dangers are high," Noble said.
Carson has continued to give paid speeches since he declared his bid for the presidency, and in some cases, he's had political events around the same time.
Since May when he declared his candidacy, he's been paid to speak at seven events, bringing in between $210,000 and $500,000, according to a financial disclosure he was required by law to file in June. Carson was not required to disclose the exact amounts because the speeches hadn't taken place at the time he filed. When asked about the exact amounts, Carson's spokesman said the campaign would not be providing that information. "Don't see the need beyond what is required by FEC," Doug Watts said in an email, referring to the Federal Election Commission.
What Carson says at these paid speaking events is critical to evaluating whether Carson violated any campaign laws, Noble said. But most of the paid-speaking events are not open to the public.
Another GOP candidate, Carly Fiorina, has been criticized for giving paid speeches after declaring her candidacy. But her campaign told ABC News that the money she earns from the speeches goes directly to charity.
Recently, Carson was paid between $15,001 and $50,000 to speak to a group of young chief executive officers in Cincinnati, but his campaign did not announce his trip, because it was not a public event. The organization, YPO Cincinnati, declined to allow reporters to attend the event.
"By contract with Dr. Carson, this program is closed to all media," said Cindy Petrie, administrator of the YPO Cincinnati chapter.
After the event, however, Carson spoke to the media about reducing poverty, the national debt and terrorism.
And on Sept. 22, in Dayton, Ohio, Carson was paid between $15,001-$50,000 to speak to an anti-abortion group, according to his public financial disclosure. The executive director of the nonprofit that hosted Carson said the group also paid for his travel. Paul Coudron said his organization booked Carson for its annual event a year ago.
"He did have two other events in the area, as a matter of fact, that same day, much to our surprise, actually, when we found that out relatively close to the day of the event," Coudron said. He would not disclose how much the group paid for Carson's travel costs.
The sponsor of the speaking event cannot subsidize campaign travel, Noble said. That could jeopardize the organization's tax-exempt status.
Carson's spokesman, Doug Watts, said that Carson's room and transportation to and from the anti-abortion group's event were covered by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which booked the paid speech. And Carson's travel to and from Dayton was paid for by the campaign.
"We segregate as much as feasible," Watts said.
Carson has been vocal about his anti-abortion position for years and has equated abortion to slavery.
He's made more than $600,000 speaking before 22 other anti-abortion groups in the past 22 months, according to his public financial disclosure.
In 2014 and 2015, Carson has been paid to speak at some political events as well, such as local Republican fundraisers. None of the other major presidential candidates have been paid to speak at similar events, according to an Associated Press review of candidates' public financial disclosures.
Since Carson declared his candidacy for president, he has not been paid to speak by local political organizations. Two of these paid speeches, however, were after he announced a presidential exploratory committee in March. One paid speech was for the Cornell University Young Republicans and another was for a Hays County, Texas, Republican party fundraiser.
This is an ethical "shade of grey," said Jim Thurber, with the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "There's no law against it, no regulation against it, but it's — in my opinion — ethically questionable."
Some of the organizations that have paid Carson to speak have also contributed to his charity, the Carson Scholars Fund. The charity awards $1,000 college scholarships for 4th through 12th graders. It also funds "Ben Carson reading rooms" around the country, spaces where children can read for pleasure, typically with a poster of Carson and quotes from him on the walls.
While Carson has received praise for the Carson Scholars Fund, he started another charity that didn't quite get off the ground. In 2002, Carson started BEN, the Benevolent Endowment Network, a nonprofit to provide financial assistance to patients without health insurance for complex medical procedures, such as neurosurgery for children. The name changed to Angels of the O.R., but there is little evidence in the charity's tax forms that it doled out grants from the money it raised. Some years, the bulk of the money went to pay a consultant. The largest single grant was issued in 2009, $80,000 to the Baltimore Community Foundation, an umbrella organization for charity donors. That year, Carson was on the board of the charity that received the grant as well. One of the original board members, Kurt Schmoke, a former Baltimore mayor, said he never attended a board meeting. The charity recently dissolved.
Carson has also served on a number of boards, including Costco and Kellogg, which have contributed thousands of dollars to his charity.
Carson has taken a leave of absence from the board while he campaigns to be the Republican presidential nominee. But he continues to attend charity-related events. In May, after he declared his candidacy, Carson attended the annual Pittsburgh chapter's banquet, held at Heinz Field. The next day, Carson attended another award ceremony for his charity at Battle Creek Central High School in Michigan. The charity's website posted a picture of him at the event signing a copy of his book for teenagers, You Have A Brain.
The charity did not respond to questions about whether it purchased any of Carson's books for fundraisers or whether it pays for him and his wife to travel to the awards ceremonies.
Carson was president of his charity when the nonprofit spent $21,482 in 2011 to throw him two 60th birthday parties. One of the two parties was billed as a fundraiser. But after the cost of the event, the charity only raised $5,778.
On Nov. 16, some schools around the country celebrated the annual "Ben Carson Reading Day," a day established by the charity while Carson was serving as its president. This year, the charity commissioned a children's book about Carson's life, which sells for $10 on the charity's website. The company that produced the children's book, Main Stay Publishing, promotes it on its website as their latest product for "presidential candidate Ben Carson." Carson's spokesman said there was no coordination with the charity on the children's book.
____
Associated Press writers Jeff Donn in Boston, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Lisa Lerer, Michael Biesecker, Julie Bykowicz, Steve Peoples and researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this story.
NOW WATCH: A self-made billionaire in Texas just gave each of his 1,381 employees a $100,000 bonus Reported by Business Insider 10 hours ago.
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58 Facts About The U.S. Economy From 2015 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,The world didn’t completely fall apart in 2015, but *it is undeniable that an immense amount of damage was done to the U.S. economy*.
This year the middle class continued to deteriorate, more Americans than ever found themselves living in poverty, and the debt bubble that we are living in expanded to absolutely ridiculous proportions. *Toward the end of the year, a new global financial crisis erupted, and it threatens to completely spiral out of control as we enter 2016. *
Over the past six months, I have been repeatedly stressing to my readers that so many of the exact same patterns that immediately preceded the financial crisis of 2008 are happening once again, and trillions of dollars of stock market wealth has already been wiped out globally. *Some of the largest economies on the entire planet such as Brazil and Canada have already plunged into deep recessions, and just about every leading indicator that you can think of is screaming that the U.S. is heading into one. *
*So don’t be fooled by all the happy talk coming from Barack Obama and the mainstream media. * When you look at the cold, hard numbers, they tell a completely different story. The following are 58 facts about the U.S. economy from 2015 that are almost too crazy to believe…
*#1* These days, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. At this point 62 percent of all Americans have less than 1,000 dollars in their savings accounts, and 21 percent of all Americans do not have a savings account at all.
*#2* The lack of saving is especially dramatic when you look at Americans under the age of 55. Incredibly, fewer than 10 percent of all Millennials and only about 16 percent of those that belong to Generation X have 10,000 dollars or more saved up.
*#3* It has been estimated that 43 percent of all American households spend more money than they make each month.
*#4* For the first time ever, middle class Americans now make up a minority of the population. But back in 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle class households.
*#5* According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.
*#6* The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.
*#7* In 1970, the middle class took home approximately 62 percent of all income. Today, that number has plummeted to just 43 percent.
*#8* There are still 900,000 fewer middle class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but our population has gotten significantly larger since that time.
*#9* According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
*#10* For the poorest 20 percent of all Americans, median household wealth declined from negative 905 dollars in 2000 to negative 6,029 dollars in 2011.
*#11* A recent nationwide survey discovered that 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that “the American Dream is dead”.
*#12* Since hitting a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004, the rate of homeownership in the United States has been steadily declining every single year.
*#13* At this point, the U.S. only ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult.
*#14* Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been one of the primary engines that has fueled the growth of the middle class in the United States, but today the level of entrepreneurship in this country is sitting at an all-time low.
*#15* For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened. Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.
*#16* If you can believe it, the 20 wealthiest people in this country now have more money than the poorest 152 million Americans combined.
*#17* The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.
*#18* If you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket, that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of all Americans.
*#19* The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.
*#20* An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.
*#21* According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.
*#22* In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.
*#23* According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.
*#24* 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.
*#25* The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.
*#26* According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.
*#27* Police in New York City have identified 80 separate homeless encampments in the city, and the homeless crisis there has gotten so bad that it is being described as an “epidemic”.
*#28* If you can believe it, more than half of all students in our public schools are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.
*#29* According to a Census Bureau report that was released a while back, 65 percent of all children in the U.S. are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
*#30* According to a report that was published by UNICEF, almost one-third of all children in this country “live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income”.
*#31* When it comes to child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 “wealthy nations” that UNICEF looked at.
*#32* An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.
*#33* 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are being raised by a single parent are living in poverty.
*#34* There are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.4 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”. When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.3 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.
*#35* According to a recent Pew survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.
*#36* 53 percent of all Americans do not even have a minimum three-day supply of nonperishable food and water at home.
*#37* According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the U.S. government was actually using honest numbers the unemployment rate in this nation would be 22.9 percent.
*#38* Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, only about 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
*#39* The labor force participation rate for men has plunged to the lowest level ever recorded.
*#40* Wholesale sales in the U.S. have fallen to the lowest level since the last recession.
*#41* The inventory to sales ratio has risen to the highest level since the last recession. This means that there is a whole lot of unsold inventory that is just sitting around out there and not selling.
*#42* The ISM manufacturing index has fallen for five months in a row.
*#43* Orders for “core” durable goods have fallen for ten months in a row.
*#44* Since March, the amount of stuff being shipped by truck, rail and air inside the United States has been falling every single month on a year over year basis.
*#45* Wal-Mart is projecting that its earnings may fall by as much as 12 percent during the next fiscal year.
*#46* The Business Roundtable’s forecast for business investment in 2016 has dropped to the lowest level that we have seen since the last recession.
*#47* Corporate debt defaults have risen to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession. This is a huge problem because corporate debt in the U.S. has approximately doubled since just before the last financial crisis.
*#48* Holiday sales have gone negative for the first time since the last recession.
*#49* The velocity of money in the United States has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. Not even during the depths of the last recession was it ever this low.
*#50* Barack Obama promised that his program would result in a decline in health insurance premiums by as much as $2,500 per family, but in reality average family premiums have increased by a total of $4,865 since 2008.
*#51* Today, the average U.S. household that has at least one credit card has approximately $15,950 in credit card debt.
*#52* The number of auto loans that exceed 72 months has hit at an all-time high of 29.5 percent.
*#53* According to Dr. Housing Bubble, there have been “nearly 8 million homes lost to foreclosure since the homeownership rate peaked in 2004″.
*#54* One very disturbing study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either currently have medical bill problems or are paying off medical debt. And collection agencies seek to collect unpaid medical bills from about 30 million of us each and every year.
*#55* The total amount of student loan debt in the United States has risen to a whopping 1.2 trillion dollars. If you can believe it, that total has more than doubled over the past decade.
*#56* Right now, there are approximately 40 million Americans that are paying off student loan debt. For many of them, they will keep making payments on this debt until they are senior citizens.
*#57* When you do the math, the federal government is stealing more than 100 million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day.
*#58* An astounding 8.16 trillion dollars has already been added to the U.S. national debt while Barack Obama has been in the White House. That means that it is already guaranteed that we will add an average of more than a trillion dollars a year to the debt during his presidency, and we still have more than a year left to go.
What we have seen so far is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg. About six months ago, I stated that “our problems *will only be just beginning* as we enter 2016″, and I stand by that prediction.
*We are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse that is beginning to accelerate once again.* Our economic infrastructure has been gutted, our middle class is being destroyed, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino in the history of the planet, and our reckless politicians have piled up the biggest mountain of debt the world has ever seen.
*Anyone that believes that everything is “perfectly fine” and that we are going to come out of this “stronger than ever” is just being delusional. * This generation was handed the keys to the finest economic machine of all time, and we wrecked it. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have culminated in a crisis that is now reaching a crescendo, and this nation is in for a shaking unlike anything that it has ever seen before.
*So enjoy the rest of 2015 while you still can.*
*2016 is almost here, and it is going to be quite a year…* Reported by Zero Hedge 6 hours ago.
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Carson's presidential campaign is giving his personal brand a huge boost
Ben Carson's name and face adorn the walls of dozens of schools in the U.S. and a medical school in Nigeria. Mayors have handed him keys to their cities. His charity, founded in 1994, created a national day in his honor each year, celebrated by the children who sit in elementary school reading rooms named after him.All of this is part of a well-honed enterprise that promotes Ben Carson — presidential candidate, political commentator, paid speaker, author, neurosurgeon and champion of children, reading and God.
He has folded into Carson Enterprises his presidential campaign, which has excelled at fundraising, bringing in almost $32 million through the end of September — more than any other 2016 Republican candidate. That fundraising prowess continues, even as his poll numbers decline. His campaign manager Barry Bennett said Thursday they raised about $20 million since the beginning of October, matching their extraordinary summertime pace. Speaking fees over a nearly two-year period raked in $4.3 million. And his nonprofit continues to raise money.
It's hard to see where one Carson stops and another begins.
"I think as people get to know me they'll be able to see exactly who I am," Carson said in an interview with The Associated Press in late October. "I don't worry about that."
These blurred lines are significant. Since he declared his candidacy, Carson has traveled the country for his campaign, to promote his new book, to attend events for his charity and to give paid speeches.
Carson's campaign imposed boundaries to separate his politicking from a two-week publicity tour promoting his latest book. His book tour website also links to his official campaign website. And Carson's book sales benefit significantly from his political rise. Since he declared his candidacy, more than 52,000 copies of versions of his signature book, Gifted Hands, have sold, according to industry statistics from Nielsen BookScan.
Most political candidates focus only on their campaigns to avoid potential violations, said Lawrence Noble of the Campaign Finance Center, a Washington non-profit group that promotes transparency in politics. For instance, if a candidate is getting paid to speak at an event, he or she has to make sure not to mix that with campaigning, he said. Continuing with paid speeches, book promotion tours and charity events and keeping those separate from the campaign is a challenge.
"It's very difficult to do, and the dangers are high," Noble said.
Carson has continued to give paid speeches since he declared his bid for the presidency, and in some cases, he's had political events around the same time.
Since May when he declared his candidacy, he's been paid to speak at seven events, bringing in between $210,000 and $500,000, according to a financial disclosure he was required by law to file in June. Carson was not required to disclose the exact amounts because the speeches hadn't taken place at the time he filed. When asked about the exact amounts, Carson's spokesman said the campaign would not be providing that information. "Don't see the need beyond what is required by FEC," Doug Watts said in an email, referring to the Federal Election Commission.
What Carson says at these paid speaking events is critical to evaluating whether Carson violated any campaign laws, Noble said. But most of the paid-speaking events are not open to the public.
Another GOP candidate, Carly Fiorina, has been criticized for giving paid speeches after declaring her candidacy. But her campaign told ABC News that the money she earns from the speeches goes directly to charity.
Recently, Carson was paid between $15,001 and $50,000 to speak to a group of young chief executive officers in Cincinnati, but his campaign did not announce his trip, because it was not a public event. The organization, YPO Cincinnati, declined to allow reporters to attend the event.
"By contract with Dr. Carson, this program is closed to all media," said Cindy Petrie, administrator of the YPO Cincinnati chapter.
After the event, however, Carson spoke to the media about reducing poverty, the national debt and terrorism.
And on Sept. 22, in Dayton, Ohio, Carson was paid between $15,001-$50,000 to speak to an anti-abortion group, according to his public financial disclosure. The executive director of the nonprofit that hosted Carson said the group also paid for his travel. Paul Coudron said his organization booked Carson for its annual event a year ago.
"He did have two other events in the area, as a matter of fact, that same day, much to our surprise, actually, when we found that out relatively close to the day of the event," Coudron said. He would not disclose how much the group paid for Carson's travel costs.
The sponsor of the speaking event cannot subsidize campaign travel, Noble said. That could jeopardize the organization's tax-exempt status.
Carson's spokesman, Doug Watts, said that Carson's room and transportation to and from the anti-abortion group's event were covered by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which booked the paid speech. And Carson's travel to and from Dayton was paid for by the campaign.
"We segregate as much as feasible," Watts said.
Carson has been vocal about his anti-abortion position for years and has equated abortion to slavery.
He's made more than $600,000 speaking before 22 other anti-abortion groups in the past 22 months, according to his public financial disclosure.
In 2014 and 2015, Carson has been paid to speak at some political events as well, such as local Republican fundraisers. None of the other major presidential candidates have been paid to speak at similar events, according to an Associated Press review of candidates' public financial disclosures.
Since Carson declared his candidacy for president, he has not been paid to speak by local political organizations. Two of these paid speeches, however, were after he announced a presidential exploratory committee in March. One paid speech was for the Cornell University Young Republicans and another was for a Hays County, Texas, Republican party fundraiser.
This is an ethical "shade of grey," said Jim Thurber, with the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "There's no law against it, no regulation against it, but it's — in my opinion — ethically questionable."
Some of the organizations that have paid Carson to speak have also contributed to his charity, the Carson Scholars Fund. The charity awards $1,000 college scholarships for 4th through 12th graders. It also funds "Ben Carson reading rooms" around the country, spaces where children can read for pleasure, typically with a poster of Carson and quotes from him on the walls.
While Carson has received praise for the Carson Scholars Fund, he started another charity that didn't quite get off the ground. In 2002, Carson started BEN, the Benevolent Endowment Network, a nonprofit to provide financial assistance to patients without health insurance for complex medical procedures, such as neurosurgery for children. The name changed to Angels of the O.R., but there is little evidence in the charity's tax forms that it doled out grants from the money it raised. Some years, the bulk of the money went to pay a consultant. The largest single grant was issued in 2009, $80,000 to the Baltimore Community Foundation, an umbrella organization for charity donors. That year, Carson was on the board of the charity that received the grant as well. One of the original board members, Kurt Schmoke, a former Baltimore mayor, said he never attended a board meeting. The charity recently dissolved.
Carson has also served on a number of boards, including Costco and Kellogg, which have contributed thousands of dollars to his charity.
Carson has taken a leave of absence from the board while he campaigns to be the Republican presidential nominee. But he continues to attend charity-related events. In May, after he declared his candidacy, Carson attended the annual Pittsburgh chapter's banquet, held at Heinz Field. The next day, Carson attended another award ceremony for his charity at Battle Creek Central High School in Michigan. The charity's website posted a picture of him at the event signing a copy of his book for teenagers, You Have A Brain.
The charity did not respond to questions about whether it purchased any of Carson's books for fundraisers or whether it pays for him and his wife to travel to the awards ceremonies.
Carson was president of his charity when the nonprofit spent $21,482 in 2011 to throw him two 60th birthday parties. One of the two parties was billed as a fundraiser. But after the cost of the event, the charity only raised $5,778.
On Nov. 16, some schools around the country celebrated the annual "Ben Carson Reading Day," a day established by the charity while Carson was serving as its president. This year, the charity commissioned a children's book about Carson's life, which sells for $10 on the charity's website. The company that produced the children's book, Main Stay Publishing, promotes it on its website as their latest product for "presidential candidate Ben Carson." Carson's spokesman said there was no coordination with the charity on the children's book.
____
Associated Press writers Jeff Donn in Boston, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Lisa Lerer, Michael Biesecker, Julie Bykowicz, Steve Peoples and researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this story.
NOW WATCH: Chilling predictions for what the world will look like in a decade Reported by Business Insider 3 hours ago.
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This Week In WWE Biz: Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg At WrestleMania 32?, Roman Reigns' Reputation, More
This week's WWE biz review examines the potential of Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg at WrestleMania 32, Roman Reigns' backstage reputation, a WrestleMania 33 location update, changes to the Slammy Awards, news on Stephanie McMahon's vicious assaults of Reigns and WWE announcer Tom Phillips as well as look at WWE requiring all performers to have health insurance.
Reported by Forbes.com 2 days ago.
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GOP Split On Obamacare
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Taiwan is facing huge problems in the coming years
Thomson ReutersTAIPEI (Reuters) - Jason Tsai is among the few in Taiwan with excellent English, but two years after graduating from university the highly sought language skill has failed to secure him a well-paying job.
Tsai has been pulling in an average monthly pay of T$15,000 ($455) through part-time work, below the minimum wage of T$22,000 for college graduates and one-fourth of the retirement-pension received by state employees.
"I cannot afford a place of my own with my low income... All I have been able to find were part-time jobs," the 25-year-old said.
The plight of young workers such as Tsai highlights a serious problem for Taiwan which has gone from a young and vibrant Tiger economy to aging and unsteady in just two generations: the working-age population is not growing fast enough, nor earning nearly enough to pay for their parents' retirement.
As Tsai struggles to find a better paying job in a recession-hit economy, a wave of barely middle-aged mostly government employees are racing to retire on generous taxpayer-funded pensions before these are watered down.
To make matters worse, a government policy designed to protect young workers during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis has created a perverse incentive for employers to lock young workers into a minimum wage.
The dissatisfaction among the youth has boiled over into student protests and has become a hot-button issue for voters as Taiwan goes to the polls next month.
Tsai isn't waiting for politicians to come to the rescue, and is instead looking to move to Japan to secure a better job.
A flight of young people in search of greener pastures is the last thing Taiwan needs, especially as its rapidly graying population is diminishing the number of skilled workers required to propel the economy on its next growth phase.
-DEMOGRAPHIC COSTS-
In fact, the alarming drop in Taiwan's fertility rate to less than 1 per woman - among the lowest in the world - from around 1.7 in 2000, has created a major demographic challenge for policymakers.
As more of today's youth transfer the burden of caring for their parents to the state, government resources are getting stretched to breaking point amid spiraling health-insurance and pension costs.
"Reforms need to be carried out soon or state employee pensions will collapse. The government cannot sustain it for long," Wu Chung-cheng, deputy minister of the civil service ministry, told Reuters.
But fears of a political backlash have discouraged lawmakers from watering down a taxpayer-funded generous average monthly retirement pension of T$60,000, even though a flagging economy can no longer sustain these costs.
A look at some of the numbers makes for glum reading.
Public debt burden is now at a record $550 billion, while pension costs are set to rise to an all-time high of 7.37 percent, or T$147.2 billion in 2016, of the total government budget.
Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je has warned that 10 percent of the city’s budget will go into paying city employee pensions in 2016.
And the pressure on finances continues to grow as state employees rush to lock-in the generous pension. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of retired state employees jumped more than 50 percent to 32,000.
The lopsided pension plan is causing resentment among those like Tsai.
"What the state employees have is like a dream that would never come true for our generation," he said.
-YOUTH BURDEN-
Still, the dramatic aging of the population means the government will be forced to act sooner rather than later. Official statistics show those 65 and older are growing faster than in most Asian countries, making up 12 percent of the total population of 23 million in 2014.
By some estimates, one in five Taiwanese will be 65 or older by 2025, an unenviable future for an aging Tiger economy and its younger people.
"As Taiwan's population is aging at a fast rate, it is putting a burden on young people who are already pressured by their low wages," said Wu of the civil service ministry.
"Everybdy knows that these are big problems facing Taiwan."
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) Reported by Business Insider 5 hours ago.
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Obamacare Makes Employer-Based System Even Worse
The cost of employer-based health insurance is continuing to climb. As a result, workers' take-home pay flatlines -- or worse, employers force their staffers to pick up more of the rising healthcare tab.
Reported by Forbes.com 16 hours ago.
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The Sanders-Clinton Spat Over Middle-Class Taxes Is About A Lot More Than Money
One of the most substantive exchanges in the Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 19 occurred when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) challenged Hillary Clinton’s refusal to raise taxes on the middle class to fund paid family leave.
Sanders argued that a modest increase in payroll taxes included in a paid family leave bill he supports would be well worth the additional economic security for American families.
It’s a compelling point: As HuffPost’s Samantha Lachman reported, the FAMILY Act, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), would increase payroll taxes currently used to fund Social Security and Medicare by 0.2 percent, costing the median wage earner an estimated $1.38 a week. That is a small price to pay, the theory goes, for the guarantee of paid time off to care for a newborn or ailing relative.
Sanders hinted at a deeper rationale, however, when he noted that in opposing a middle-class tax hike, Clinton is “disagreeing with FDR and Social Security, LBJ on Medicare.”
He might have added that using payroll taxes to fund social insurance programs is not merely a matter of Democratic Party precedent.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very least, designed Social Security that way because of the enormous political advantages of dedicated payroll taxes. It is a strategy he memorably explained to Luther Gulick, a public administration expert and skeptic of the payroll tax system.
“I guess you're right on the economics, but those taxes were never a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through,” Gulick recalled the president telling him in 1941. “We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
History has vindicated FDR’s vision: Social Security and Medicare’s popularity makes them less vulnerable to the kinds of political attacks routinely launched against means-tested assistance programs like Medicaid and Temporary Aid for Needy Families, the latter of which is a shadow of its former self. Proposing Social Security cuts is considered so lethal to a politician’s career that the program has a well-earned nickname as the “third rail of American politics.”
In fact, support for Social Security is so strong that notoriously tax-averse Americans would be willing to pay more to shore up the program’s finances. Seventy-seven percent of Americans surveyed by the National Academy of Social Insurance in June 2014, including 69 percent of Republicans, agreed that it is “critical that we preserve Social Security benefits for future generations, even if it means increasing the Social Security taxes paid by working Americans.”
By contrast, more than half (51 percent) of Americans think the government “can’t afford to do much more” to aid people living in poverty, according to a September 2014 Pew Research Center poll.
Of course, Social Security is the country’s largest anti-poverty program, lifting 21 million people out of poverty in 2014 alone, according to the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities. It also lessens the poverty of many people -- particularly seniors and people with disabilities -- who remain poor while on benefits, but would otherwise be even poorer. Paying higher payroll taxes to shore up the program, or expand benefits as Sanders has proposed, would amount to the government doing more to help people living in poverty.
But because Social Security is a universal program viewed as providing benefits earned through taxes, Americans can voice support for Social Security in one poll and oppose increasing benefits for the poor elsewhere without realizing the apparent contradiction.Ben Veghte, who runs the National Academy of Social Insurance’s research and policy initiatives, notes that the dedicated nature of the payroll tax is especially important in an era of deep suspicion of government and, more broadly, institutions.
“Part of this is the lack of faith in institutions and Washington,” Veghte said. “People know that if they pay their payroll taxes, it goes to their Social Security and Medicare. There is just a lack of faith that income taxes will be used in their interests.”
Nowhere is that phenomenon more evident than in support for the programs among the ostensibly anti-government activists of the tea party movement.
A 2010 New York Times/CBS poll found that 62 percent of self-described tea party supporters believed “the benefits from government programs such as Social Security and Medicare" are "worth the costs."
In fact, tea party support for payroll taxes underscores the importance of taxpayers believing they have the “legal, moral and political right” to Social Security benefits that FDR hoped to create.
Tea party activists’ professed opposition to “government spending” writ large is really directed at perceived handouts for “freeloaders,” according to a Harvard study of the tea party movement published in March 2011.
Tea party supporters do not view Social Security and Medicare the same way as other government spending, because they believe the pension and health insurance programs provide earned benefits that all workers pay for with taxes.
“I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I do feel like I should some day reap the benefit. I’m not looking for a handout, I’m looking for a pay out for what I’ve paid into,” Nancy, a Massachusetts tea party supporter, told the Harvard researchers.
It also explains the infamous alleged sighting of one or more tea party demonstrators protesting the Affordable Care Act with a sign that said, "Get your government hands off my Medicare." Whether the oft-cited vignette is true or not, as David Frum writes in The Atlantic, it does encapsulate the perception among many Obamacare opponents that by using Medicare savings to fund a new insurance program, President Barack Obama was taking from the deserving -- Medicare beneficiaries -- to provide health care for undeserving freeloaders -- the uninsured.There is also the practical matter of a dedicated tax and benefit structure avoiding the yearly budget fights that have lately been occurring at more frequent increments.
FDR and LBJ wanted to “try to insulate these programs from annual appropriations battles,” Veghte said. “Nobody is going to pay these taxes if you do not know that they are walled off.”
Clinton’s wariness of raising taxes on middle-class earners is not without merit. The flat payroll tax is regressive in that the cost of contributions is felt more significantly by people with lower earnings, whereas income tax rates rise progressively as earnings levels increase.
But the benefits of such a paid family leave program go overwhelmingly to middle- and lower-income people as well, since the costs of care would be felt much more acutely than by upper-income earners in the absence of such a program.
Nobody is going to pay these taxes if you do not know that they are walled off.
Ben Veghte, National Academy of Social Insurance
Similarly, Social Security has a progressive benefit formula that replaces a larger proportion of workers’ pre-retirement earnings the lower down on the income scale they are.
Clinton has yet to lay out the specifics of her paid family leave plan. Her campaign has implied she would fund paid family leave through taxes that apply to the wealthy exclusively. She has promised that she will not raise taxes whatsoever on households with earnings of less than $250,000 a year.
Political considerations aside, the Center for American Progress, which is commonly viewed as an arm of the Democratic Party and has strong ties to the Clinton campaign, maintains that funding paid family leave is eminently doable without increasing middle-class taxes.
The vast majority of countries fund their paid family leave programs through payroll taxes, according to the Center for American Progress. California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, which have state-level family leave programs, do so as well.
Australia is one country that funds family leave through general revenue, rather than a dedicated tax on all workers.
*Also on HuffPost:*
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
Sanders argued that a modest increase in payroll taxes included in a paid family leave bill he supports would be well worth the additional economic security for American families.
It’s a compelling point: As HuffPost’s Samantha Lachman reported, the FAMILY Act, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), would increase payroll taxes currently used to fund Social Security and Medicare by 0.2 percent, costing the median wage earner an estimated $1.38 a week. That is a small price to pay, the theory goes, for the guarantee of paid time off to care for a newborn or ailing relative.
Sanders hinted at a deeper rationale, however, when he noted that in opposing a middle-class tax hike, Clinton is “disagreeing with FDR and Social Security, LBJ on Medicare.”
He might have added that using payroll taxes to fund social insurance programs is not merely a matter of Democratic Party precedent.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very least, designed Social Security that way because of the enormous political advantages of dedicated payroll taxes. It is a strategy he memorably explained to Luther Gulick, a public administration expert and skeptic of the payroll tax system.
“I guess you're right on the economics, but those taxes were never a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through,” Gulick recalled the president telling him in 1941. “We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
History has vindicated FDR’s vision: Social Security and Medicare’s popularity makes them less vulnerable to the kinds of political attacks routinely launched against means-tested assistance programs like Medicaid and Temporary Aid for Needy Families, the latter of which is a shadow of its former self. Proposing Social Security cuts is considered so lethal to a politician’s career that the program has a well-earned nickname as the “third rail of American politics.”
In fact, support for Social Security is so strong that notoriously tax-averse Americans would be willing to pay more to shore up the program’s finances. Seventy-seven percent of Americans surveyed by the National Academy of Social Insurance in June 2014, including 69 percent of Republicans, agreed that it is “critical that we preserve Social Security benefits for future generations, even if it means increasing the Social Security taxes paid by working Americans.”
By contrast, more than half (51 percent) of Americans think the government “can’t afford to do much more” to aid people living in poverty, according to a September 2014 Pew Research Center poll.
Of course, Social Security is the country’s largest anti-poverty program, lifting 21 million people out of poverty in 2014 alone, according to the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities. It also lessens the poverty of many people -- particularly seniors and people with disabilities -- who remain poor while on benefits, but would otherwise be even poorer. Paying higher payroll taxes to shore up the program, or expand benefits as Sanders has proposed, would amount to the government doing more to help people living in poverty.
But because Social Security is a universal program viewed as providing benefits earned through taxes, Americans can voice support for Social Security in one poll and oppose increasing benefits for the poor elsewhere without realizing the apparent contradiction.Ben Veghte, who runs the National Academy of Social Insurance’s research and policy initiatives, notes that the dedicated nature of the payroll tax is especially important in an era of deep suspicion of government and, more broadly, institutions.
“Part of this is the lack of faith in institutions and Washington,” Veghte said. “People know that if they pay their payroll taxes, it goes to their Social Security and Medicare. There is just a lack of faith that income taxes will be used in their interests.”
Nowhere is that phenomenon more evident than in support for the programs among the ostensibly anti-government activists of the tea party movement.
A 2010 New York Times/CBS poll found that 62 percent of self-described tea party supporters believed “the benefits from government programs such as Social Security and Medicare" are "worth the costs."
In fact, tea party support for payroll taxes underscores the importance of taxpayers believing they have the “legal, moral and political right” to Social Security benefits that FDR hoped to create.
Tea party activists’ professed opposition to “government spending” writ large is really directed at perceived handouts for “freeloaders,” according to a Harvard study of the tea party movement published in March 2011.
Tea party supporters do not view Social Security and Medicare the same way as other government spending, because they believe the pension and health insurance programs provide earned benefits that all workers pay for with taxes.
“I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I do feel like I should some day reap the benefit. I’m not looking for a handout, I’m looking for a pay out for what I’ve paid into,” Nancy, a Massachusetts tea party supporter, told the Harvard researchers.
It also explains the infamous alleged sighting of one or more tea party demonstrators protesting the Affordable Care Act with a sign that said, "Get your government hands off my Medicare." Whether the oft-cited vignette is true or not, as David Frum writes in The Atlantic, it does encapsulate the perception among many Obamacare opponents that by using Medicare savings to fund a new insurance program, President Barack Obama was taking from the deserving -- Medicare beneficiaries -- to provide health care for undeserving freeloaders -- the uninsured.There is also the practical matter of a dedicated tax and benefit structure avoiding the yearly budget fights that have lately been occurring at more frequent increments.
FDR and LBJ wanted to “try to insulate these programs from annual appropriations battles,” Veghte said. “Nobody is going to pay these taxes if you do not know that they are walled off.”
Clinton’s wariness of raising taxes on middle-class earners is not without merit. The flat payroll tax is regressive in that the cost of contributions is felt more significantly by people with lower earnings, whereas income tax rates rise progressively as earnings levels increase.
But the benefits of such a paid family leave program go overwhelmingly to middle- and lower-income people as well, since the costs of care would be felt much more acutely than by upper-income earners in the absence of such a program.
Nobody is going to pay these taxes if you do not know that they are walled off.
Ben Veghte, National Academy of Social Insurance
Similarly, Social Security has a progressive benefit formula that replaces a larger proportion of workers’ pre-retirement earnings the lower down on the income scale they are.
Clinton has yet to lay out the specifics of her paid family leave plan. Her campaign has implied she would fund paid family leave through taxes that apply to the wealthy exclusively. She has promised that she will not raise taxes whatsoever on households with earnings of less than $250,000 a year.
Political considerations aside, the Center for American Progress, which is commonly viewed as an arm of the Democratic Party and has strong ties to the Clinton campaign, maintains that funding paid family leave is eminently doable without increasing middle-class taxes.
The vast majority of countries fund their paid family leave programs through payroll taxes, according to the Center for American Progress. California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, which have state-level family leave programs, do so as well.
Australia is one country that funds family leave through general revenue, rather than a dedicated tax on all workers.
*Also on HuffPost:*
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
↧
Reduce Your Health Insurance Costs by Taking These 3 Steps
Some suggestions for the year ahead.
Reported by Motley Fool 12 hours ago.
↧
Most of us are planning for retirement all wrong
Flickr / Parker KnightMost financial advisers and articles on financial planning for retirement start with the topic of the right number for you to save for your next chapter in life.
Often they cite having six to eight times your current salary, and they recommend you only take out 3-4% of current liquid savings each year on which to live. They ask you to estimate your current expenditures and discount it by 20% or so to predict your spending needs in retirement.
I think maybe they, and we, are asking the wrong question.
*We have learned two key things from talking to people who have retired, or are about to:* First, they are trying to better plan for funding needs by decade rather than in a lump sum and, second, to focus on revenue still coming into the household at least through their 60s and 70s. The point is to still bring in income to supplement retirement funds and fund the lifestyle you want.
We should be focused on lifestyle desires, likely longevity of yourself and spouse or partner, and types of expenditures by decade. The real number might be a combination of 10-12 times your current income plus revenue coming in at least during your 60s and 70s, beyond savings.
Sounds daunting, but it’s not if you keep focused on the bringing in revenue side of the equation.
For example, if you are making $75,000 a year, using the 10-12 ratio, you should have $750,000 to $900,000 in savings, social security, and pension income, plus have ways to continue to bring in income. It sounds like a lot, but do a calculation of the value of your pensions and Social Security to add to your savings number and it is obtainable.
Here’s why that number needs to be larger than you might think: Our needs change in retirement … in our 50s, 60s, and 70s. The Boomers are proving to be young at heart, fit, and excited about this next chapter where they have more free time to travel and be with family, as well as engage in hobbies and other for-profit or non-profit activities. In fact, many Boomers (over 57% by the latest USA Today survey) are staying in the workforce, some full time and others part time, because they want to stay relevant, give back, and shore up their savings to maintain a more active lifestyle.
Flickr / Parker Knight
*The 60s*
For example, many retirees spend more in the first decade after they retire because they now have the time to travel, they want to be close to family, they have more time to go out with friends, and they want to continue the lifestyle they had before retirement. They are healthy and want to make the most of their time to travel with loved ones … especially to foreign places, on planned trips, and even to volunteer. They may have sold their family house in the suburbs, but they might have bought a destination vacation home for their family and grandkids as well as a pied-a-terre in the city for their own cultural interests. Their costs and standard of living might well go up. They are still big consumers, but the goods and services desired have changed.
*The 70s and 80s*
However, by the late 70s and early 80s, most retirees are spending time closer to home with family and friends. Maybe they take a planned tour or cruise once or twice a year, but their interests have changed and are more locally focused. During this period, many are thinking about philanthropy — not that they have not been giving before, but this is the period of significant gifts to universities, charities, and even their children. It is also a period of de-acquisitioning: getting rid of stuff, and maybe downsizing to apartments or even retirement communities.
*The 90s ... and 100s*
Then the late 80s to 100-plus (yes, many of the Boomers will be living beyond 100) becomes a time when health issues become predominant and expenditures shift towards supplementing Medicare and health insurance. Many move at this point to a relative’s home or assisted living. One scary AARP statistic is that a couple from the age 65 until death will spend an average of $266,000 beyond Medicare and insurance coverage on health-related expenses. It’s why we are proponents of long term care insurance, especially if you are a woman, or living alone.
Flickr / Parker Knight
Focusing on funding by decade helps you to think about, and plan for, the kinds of things you envision doing during those time periods — to plan out well large purchases, such as houses, and to decide what kind of travel, and how, you want to do. It also means thinking ahead about giving to your favorite non-profits, charities, or even to your family members. By planning, and saving, for specific periods of time and events, you will be better equipped to weather out the unexpected events. For example, if you are planning to stay in your home for your 60s and 70s, do you really think it will fit your needs in your 80s and 90s? If not, the sale of that asset might fund the next twenty years while you live in an apartment or retirement community.
Travel now, while you are healthy and can stand rigorous walks, and plan to take a cruise once a year once you hit 80 ... again, lowering the need for travel funds in those next two decades. Many universities have annuity programs that pay you back each year from the principal you donated, which is a way to save on taxes, as well. The point is that your funding needs will change with age and changed interests, so plan with that perspective.
So how can you continue to bring in revenue?
· Continue to work full or part-time at your current position until your late 60s or early 70s, if possible.
· Find a part-time position in another company or industry.
· Become a consultant or interim executive with a company.
· Look for opportunities in health care, financial services, education, tourism, and consulting, as those fields are less likely to discriminate based on age.
· Turn a hobby, such as photography or baking, into a part-time income.
· Trade out expertise, such as cooking classes or lecturing on how to do something, for cruises and other travel tour opportunities.
· Rent or trade your home when you are away.
· Rent a room in your home or do Airbnb.
· Become a concierge, personal shopper, Uber driver, handyperson ... anything to bring in a little income and keep you occupied.
· Barter what you do well for other things or services you need.
Two trends that will open up more opportunities for Boomers in the future include the fact that many millennials who are starting companies really do not know how to run a business and are looking for “gray hairs” to help them manage the businesses and get them ready for investors, who want mature executives as well; and the fact that as Boomers get older, their needs and interests change, and they are a huge market — 77 million all told.
Who better to create new products and services for them than Boomers themselves?
Our website, www.revolutionary-retirement.com, has many helpful ideas of how to reinvent into new work in this next chapter, as does www.lifereimagined.aarp.org created by AARP.
*Catherine Allen* is the co-author of "The Retirement Boom: An All-Inclusive Guide to Money, Life, and Health in Your Next Chapter, Reboot Your Life, and The Artist’s Way at Work," as well as co-founder of Reboot Partners, LLC, and can be reached at www.rebootbreak.com. She is Chairman and CEO of The Santa Fe Group.
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