THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL,
STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN
CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS
Last December, when Adam Lanza stormed into the Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut, with a rifle and killed twenty children
and six adult staff members, the United States found itself immersed in
debates about gun control. Another flash point occurred this July, when
George Zimmerman, who saw himself as a guardian of his community, was
exonerated in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin,
in Florida. That time, talk turned to stand-your-ground laws and the
proper use of deadly force. The gun debate was refreshed in September by
the shooting deaths of twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard,
apparently at the hands of an IT contractor who was mentally ill.
Such episodes remind Americans that our country as a whole is marked
by staggering levels of deadly violence. Our death rate from assault is
many times higher than that of highly urbanized countries like the
Netherlands or Germany, sparsely populated nations with plenty of
forests and game hunters like Canada, Sweden, Finland, or New Zealand,
and large, populous ones like the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.
State-sponsored violence, too—in the form of capital punishment—sets our
country apart. Last year we executed more than ten times as many
prisoners as other advanced industrialized nations combined—not
surprising given that Japan is the only other such country that allows
the practice. Our violent streak has become almost a part of our
national identity.
What’s less well appreciated is how much the incidence of violence,
like so many salient issues in American life, varies by region. Beyond a
vague awareness that supporters of violent retaliation and easy access
to guns are concentrated in the states of the former Confederacy and, to
a lesser extent, the western interior, most people cannot tell you much
about regional differences on such matters. Our conventional way of
defining regions—dividing the country along state boundaries into a
Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest—masks the
cultural lines along which attitudes toward violence fall. These lines
don’t respect state boundaries. To understand violence or practically
any other divisive issue, you need to understand historical settlement
patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established.
The original North American colonies were settled by people from
distinct regions of the British Isles—and from France, the Netherlands,
and Spain—each with its own religious, political, and ethnographic
traits. For generations, these Euro-American cultures developed in
isolation from one another, consolidating their cherished religious and
political principles and fundamental values, and expanding across the
eastern half of the continent in nearly exclusive settlement bands.
Throughout the colonial period and the Early Republic, they saw
themselves as competitors—for land, capital, and other settlers—and even
as enemies, taking opposing sides in the American Revolution, the War
of 1812, and the Civil War.
There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a
distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence,
as well as everything else, in its own way.
The precise delineation of the eleven nations—which I have explored at length in my latest book, American Nations—is
original to me, but I’m certainly not the first person to observe that
such national divisions exist. Kevin Phillips, a Republican Party
campaign strategist, recognized the boundaries and values of several of
these nations in 1969 and used them to correctly prophesy two decades of
American political development in his politico cult classic The Emerging Republican Majority. Joel Garreau, a Washington Post editor, argued that our continent was divided into rival power blocs in The Nine Nations of North America,
though his ahistorical approach undermined the identification of the
nations. The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Hackett Fischer
detailed the origins and early evolution of four of these nations in his
magisterial Albion’s Seed and later added New France. Russell Shorto described the salient characteristics of New Netherland in The Island at the Center of the World. And the list goes on.
The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many
different types of maps—including maps showing the distribution of
linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of
different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown
of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our
history. Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not
dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves
into like-minded communities, a phenomenon analyzed by Bill Bishop and
Robert Cushing in The Big Sort (2008).
Even waves of immigrants
did not fundamentally alter these nations, because the children and
grandchildren of immigrants assimilated into whichever culture
surrounded them.
Before I describe the nations, I should underscore that my
observations refer to the dominant culture, not the individual
inhabitants, of each region. In every town, city, and state you’ll
likely find a full range of political opinions and social preferences.
Even in the reddest of red counties and bluest of blue ones, twenty to
forty percent of voters cast ballots for the “wrong” team. It isn’t that
residents of one or another nation all think the same, but rather that
they are all embedded within a cultural framework of deep-seated
preferences and attitudes—each of which a person may like or hate, but
has to deal with nonetheless. Because of slavery, the African American
experience has been different from that of other settlers and
immigrants, but it too has varied by nation, as black people confronted
the dominant cultural and institutional norms of each.
The nations are constituted as follows:
YANKEEDOM. Founded on the shores of Massachusetts
Bay by radical Calvinists as a new Zion, Yankeedom has, since the
outset, put great emphasis on perfecting earthly civilization through
social engineering, denial of self for the common good, and assimilation
of outsiders. It has prized education, intellectual achievement,
communal empowerment, and broad citizen participation in politics and
government, the latter seen as the public’s shield against the
machinations of grasping aristocrats and other would-be tyrants. Since
the early Puritans, it has been more comfortable with government
regulation and public-sector social projects than many of the other
nations, who regard the Yankee utopian streak with trepidation.
NEW NETHERLAND. Established by the Dutch at a time
when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western
world, New Netherland has always been a global commercial
culture—materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and
religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of
inquiry and conscience. Like seventeenth-century Amsterdam, it emerged
as a center of publishing, trade, and finance, a magnet for immigrants,
and a refuge for those persecuted by other regional cultures, from
Sephardim in the seventeenth century to gays, feminists, and bohemians
in the early twentieth. Unconcerned with great moral questions, it
nonetheless has found itself in alliance with Yankeedom to defend public
institutions and reject evangelical prescriptions for individual
behavior.
THE MIDLANDS. America’s great swing region was
founded by English Quakers, who believed in humans’ inherent goodness
and welcomed people of many nations and creeds to their utopian colonies
like Pennsylvania on the shores of Delaware Bay. Pluralistic and
organized around the middle class, the Midlands spawned the culture of
Middle America and the Heartland, where ethnic and ideological purity
have never been a priority, government has been seen as an unwelcome
intrusion, and political opinion has been moderate. An ethnic mosaic
from the start—it had a German, rather than British, majority at the
time of the Revolution—it shares the Yankee belief that society should
be organized to benefit ordinary people, though it rejects top-down
government intervention.
TIDEWATER. Built by the younger sons of southern
English gentry in the Chesapeake country and neighboring sections of
Delaware and North Carolina, Tidewater was meant to reproduce the
semifeudal society of the countryside they’d left behind. Standing in
for the peasantry were indentured servants and, later, slaves. Tidewater
places a high value on respect for authority and tradition, and very
little on equality or public participation in politics. It was the most
powerful of the American nations in the eighteenth century, but today it
is in decline, partly because it was cut off from westward expansion by
its boisterous Appalachian neighbors and, more recently, because it has
been eaten away by the expanding federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk.
GREATER APPALACHIA. Founded in the early eighteenth
century by wave upon wave of settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands
of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands,
Appalachia has been lampooned by writers and screenwriters as the home
of hillbillies and rednecks. It transplanted a culture formed in a state
of near constant danger and upheaval, characterized by a warrior ethic
and a commitment to personal sovereignty and individual liberty.
Intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers
alike, Greater Appalachia has shifted alliances depending on who
appeared to be the greatest threat to their freedom. It was with the
Union in the Civil War. Since Reconstruction, and especially since the
upheavals of the 1960's, it has joined with Deep South to counter federal
overrides of local preference.
DEEP SOUTH. Established by English slave lords from
Barbados, Deep South was meant as a West Indies–style slave society.
This nation offered a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the
slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of
the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its caste systems
smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight against expanded
federal powers, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental,
labor, and consumer regulations.
EL NORTE. The oldest of the American nations, El
Norte consists of the borderlands of the Spanish American empire, which
were so far from the seats of power in Mexico City and Madrid that they
evolved their own characteristics. Most Americans are aware of El Norte
as a place apart, where Hispanic language, culture, and societal norms
dominate. But few realize that among Mexicans, norteños have a
reputation for being exceptionally independent, self-sufficient,
adaptable, and focused on work. Long a hotbed of democratic reform and
revolutionary settlement, the region encompasses parts of Mexico that
have tried to secede in order to form independent buffer states between
their mother country and the United States.
THE LEFT COAST. A Chile-shaped nation wedged between
the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade and Coast mountains, the Left Coast
was originally colonized by two groups: New Englanders (merchants,
missionaries, and woodsmen who arrived by sea and dominated the towns)
and Appalachian midwesterners (farmers, prospectors, and fur traders who
generally arrived by wagon and controlled the countryside). Yankee
missionaries tried to make it a “New England on the Pacific,” but were
only partially successful. Left Coast culture is a hybrid of Yankee
utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploration—traits
recognizable in its cultural production, from the Summer of Love to the
iPad. The staunchest ally of Yankeedom, it clashes with Far Western
sections in the interior of its home states.
THE FAR WEST. The other “second-generation” nation,
the Far West occupies the one part of the continent shaped more by
environmental factors than ethnographic ones. High, dry, and remote, the
Far West stopped migrating easterners in their tracks, and most of it
could be made habitable only with the deployment of vast industrial
resources: railroads, heavy mining equipment, ore smelters, dams, and
irrigation systems. As a result, settlement was largely directed by
corporations headquartered in distant New York, Boston, Chicago, or San
Francisco, or by the federal government, which controlled much of the
land. The Far West’s people are often resentful of their dependent
status, feeling that they have been exploited as an internal colony for
the benefit of the seaboard nations. Their senators led the fight
against trusts in the mid-twentieth century. Of late, Far Westerners
have focused their anger on the federal government, rather than their
corporate masters.
NEW FRANCE. Occupying the New Orleans area and southeastern Canada, New France blends the folkways of ancien régime
northern French peasantry with the traditions and values of the
aboriginal people they encountered in northwestern North America. After a
long history of imperial oppression, its people have emerged as
down-to-earth, egalitarian, and consensus driven, among the most liberal
on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and
people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in
the economy. The New French influence is manifest in Canada, where
multiculturalism and negotiated consensus are treasured.
FIRST NATION. First Nation is populated by native
American groups that generally never gave up their land by treaty and
have largely retained cultural practices and knowledge that allow them
to survive in this hostile region on their own terms. The nation is now
reclaiming its sovereignty, having won considerable autonomy in Alaska
and Nunavut and a self-governing nation state in Greenland that stands
on the threshold of full independence. Its territory is huge—far larger
than the continental United States—but its population is less than
300,000, most of whom live in Canada.
If you understand the United States as a patchwork of separate
nations, each with its own origins and prevailing values, you would
hardly expect attitudes toward violence to be uniformly distributed. You
would instead be prepared to discover that some parts of the country
experience more violence, have a greater tolerance for violent solutions
to conflict, and are more protective of the instruments of violence
than other parts of the country. That is exactly what the data on
violence reveal about the modern United States.
Most scholarly research on violence has collected data at the state
level, rather than the county level (where the boundaries of the eleven
nations are delineated). Still, the trends are clear. The same handful
of nations show up again and again at the top and the bottom of
state-level figures on deadly violence, capital punishment, and
promotion of gun ownership.
Consider assault deaths. Kieran Healy, a Duke University sociologist,
broke down the per capita, age-adjusted deadly assault rate for 2010.
In the northeastern states—almost entirely dominated by Yankeedom, New
Netherland, and the Midlands—just over 4 people per 100,000 died in
assaults. By contrast, southern states—largely monopolized by Deep
South, Tidewater, and Greater Appalachia—had a rate of more than 7 per
100,000. The three deadliest states—Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama,
where the rate of killings topped 10 per 100,000—were all in Deep South
territory. Meanwhile, the three safest states—New Hampshire, Maine, and
Minnesota, with rates of about 2 killings per 100,000—were all part of
Yankeedom.
Not surprisingly, black Americans have it worse than whites.
Countrywide, according to Healy, blacks die from assaults at the
bewildering rate of about 20 per 100,000, while the rate for whites is
less than 6. But does that mean racial differences might be skewing the
homicide data for nations with larger African-American populations?
Apparently not. A classic 1993 study by the social psychologist Richard
Nisbett, of the University of Michigan, found that homicide rates in
small predominantly white cities were three times higher in the South
than in New England. Nisbett and a colleague, Andrew Reaves, went on to
show that southern rural counties had white homicide rates more than
four times those of counties in New England, Middle Atlantic, and
Midwestern states.
Stand-your-ground laws are another dividing line between American
nations. Such laws waive a citizen’s duty to try and retreat from a
threatening individual before killing the person. Of the twenty-three
states to pass stand-your-ground laws, only one, New Hampshire, is part
of Yankeedom, and only one, Illinois, is in the Midlands. By contrast,
each of the six Deep South–dominated states has passed such a law, and
almost all the other states with similar laws are in the Far West or
Greater Appalachia.
Comparable schisms show up in the gun control debate. In 2011, after
the mass shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen
others in Tucson, the Pew Research Center asked Americans what was more
important, protecting gun ownership or controlling it. The Yankee
states of New England went for gun control by a margin of sixty-one to
thirty-six, while those in the poll’s “southeast central” region—the
Deep South states of Alabama and Mississippi and the Appalachian states
of Tennessee and Kentucky—supported gun rights by exactly the same
margin. Far Western states backed gun rights by a proportion of
fifty-nine to thirty-eight.
Another revealing moment came this past April, in the wake of the
Newtown school massacre, when the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill to
close loopholes in federal background checks for would-be gun owners. In
the six states dominated by Deep South, the vote was twelve to two
against the measure, and most of the Far West and Appalachia followed
suit. But Yankee New England voted eleven to one in favor, and the
dissenting vote, from Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, was so unpopular in
her home state that it caused an immediate dip in her approval rating.
The pattern for capital punishment laws is equally stark. The states
dominated by Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater, and the Far West
have had a virtual monopoly on capital punishment. They account for
more than ninety-five percent of the 1,343 executions in the United
States since 1976. In the same period, the twelve states definitively
controlled by Yankeedom and New Netherland—states that account for
almost a quarter of the U.S. population—have executed just one person.
Why is violence—state-sponsored and otherwise—so much more prevalent
in some American nations than in others? It all goes back to who settled
those regions and where they came from. Nisbett, the social
psychologist, noted that regions initially “settled by sober Puritans,
Quakers, and Dutch farmer-artisans”—that is, Yankeedom, the Midlands,
and New Netherland—were organized around a yeoman agricultural economy
that rewarded “quiet, cooperative citizenship, with each individual
being capable of uniting for the common good.” The South—and by this he
meant the nations I call Tidewater and Deep South—was settled by
“swashbuckling Cavaliers of noble or landed gentry status, who took
their values . . . from the knightly, medieval standards of manly honor
and virtue.”
Continuing to treat the South as a single entity, Nisbett argued that
the violent streak in the culture the Cavaliers established was
intensified by the “major subsequent wave of immigration . . . from the
borderlands of Scotland and Ireland.” These immigrants, who populated
what I call Greater Appalachia, came from “an economy based on herding,”
which, as anthropologists have shown, predisposes people to belligerent
stances because the animals on which their wealth depends are so
vulnerable to theft. Drawing on the work of the historian David Hackett
Fisher, Nisbett maintained that “southern” violence stems partly from a
“culture-of-honor tradition,” in which males are raised to create
reputations for ferocity—as a deterrent to rustling—rather than relying
on official legal intervention.
More recently, researchers have begun to probe beyond state
boundaries to distinguish among different cultural streams. Robert
Baller of the University of Iowa and two colleagues looked at
late-twentieth-century white male “argument-related” homicide rates,
comparing those in counties that, in 1850, were dominated by Scots-Irish
settlers with those in other parts of the “Old South.” In other words,
they teased out the rates at which white men killed each other in feuds
and compared those for Greater Appalachia with those for Deep South and
Tidewater. The result: Appalachian areas had significantly higher
homicide rates than their lowland neighbors—“findings [that] are
supportive of theoretical claims about the role of herding as the
ecological underpinning of a code of honor.”
Another researcher, Pauline Grosjean, an economist at Australia’s
University of New South Wales, found strong statistical relationships
between the presence of Scots-Irish settlers in the 1790 census and
contemporary homicide rates, but only in “southern” areas “where the
institutional environment was weak”—which is the case in almost the
entirety of Greater Appalachia. She further noted that in areas where
Scots-Irish were dominant, settlers of other ethnic origins—Dutch,
French, and German—were also more violent, suggesting that they had
acculturated to Appalachian norms.
But it’s not just herding that promoted a culture of violence.
Scholars have long recognized that cultures organized around slavery
rely on violence to control, punish, and terrorize—which no doubt helps
explain the erstwhile prevalence of lynching deaths in Deep South and
Tidewater. But it is also significant that both these nations, along
with Greater Appalachia, follow religious traditions that sanction
eye-for-an-eye justice, and adhere to secular codes that emphasize
personal honor and shun governmental authority. As a result, their
members have fewer qualms about rushing to lethal judgments.
The code of Yankeedom could not have been more different. Its
founders promoted self-doubt and self-restraint, and their Unitarian and
Congregational spiritual descendants believed vengeance would not
receive the approval of an all-knowing God. This nation was the center
of the nineteenth-century death penalty reform movement, which began
eliminating capital punishment for burglary, robbery, sodomy, and other
nonlethal crimes. None of the states controlled by Yankeedom or New
Netherland retain the death penalty today.
With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States
would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence
seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom,
Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable
that some new alliance could form to tip the balance.
Among the eleven regional cultures, there are two superpowers,
nations with the identity, mission, and numbers to shape continental
debate: Yankeedom and Deep South. For more than two hundred years,
they’ve fought for control of the federal government and, in a sense,
the nation’s soul. Over the decades, Deep South has become strongly
allied with Greater Appalachia and Tidewater, and more tenuously with
the Far West. Their combined agenda—to slash taxes, regulations, social
services, and federal powers—is opposed by a Yankee-led bloc that
includes New Netherland and the Left Coast.
Other nations, especially
the Midlands and El Norte, often hold the swing vote, whether in a
presidential election or a congressional battle over health care reform.
Those swing nations stand to play a decisive role on violence-related
issues as well.
For now, the country will remain split on how best to make its
citizens safer, with Deep South and its allies bent on deterrence
through armament and the threat of capital punishment, and Yankeedom and
its allies determined to bring peace through constraints such as gun
control. The deadlock will persist until one of these camps modifies its
message and policy platform to draw in the swing nations. Only then can
that camp seize full control over the levers of federal power—the White
House, the House, and a filibuster-proof Senate majority—to force its
will on the opposing nations. Until then, expect continuing frustration
and division.
Colin Woodard, A91, is the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. An earlier book, The Republic of Pirates, is the basis of the forthcoming NBC drama Crossbones. He is currently state and national affairs writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, where he won a George Polk Award this year for his investigative reporting.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Statewide healthcare success sways the public
Right wing smear machine begs to stay relevant, as public opinion shifts
to favor the Affordable Health Care Act with success in KY. Rep. Yarmuth and Rep. Connolly
join Ed Schultz.
Friday, November 8, 2013
BREAKING: Thousands of Votes Discovered 'Unaccounted For' in Virginia AG Race
Inexplicably low absentee results in parts
of Fairfax County, which uses paper ballot op-scan systems with history
of dropping votes
UPDATED: Diebold op-scan
probs 'suspected' by County Registrar: 'Machine totals either didn't
print tapes, or didn't show full tallies'...
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2013, 11:01 P.M. PT
We reported yesterday
on the incredibly close race for Attorney General in Virginia. With more
than 2.2 million votes cast, the margin between Mark Obenshain (R) and
Mark Herring (D) has been within a few hundred votes since Election
Night on Tuesday.
Within the last few hours, an unexplained discrepancy has been
discovered by those combing over the reported numbers in Fairfax County.
The county leans heavily Democratic and, unlike much of the rest of the
state which uses 100% unverifiable touch-screen, Fairfax uses
optically-scanned paper ballots for its main vote tabulation system.
After Democrats reportedly won both the Governor and Lt. Governor races, only the AG's remains undecided at the top of the ticket. For the last 24 hours or so, the Republican Obenshain has been leading during the canvassing of ballots by about 700 votes, as absentee and provisionals are tallied and doubled-checked.
But now, thanks to some smart detective work by both a Democratic political team in Fairfax County and by Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, the fortunes for the Democrat candidate Herring may just have taken a big turn, even as a new mystery is added to the equation...
'Missing' Votes
Ben Pershing at Washington Post tonight reports what's happened over the past few hours this way...
It remains unclear, according to WaPo, "whether a recording error occurred when Fairfax reported its numbers or when the state board recorded them."
We would add the possibility of a tabulator error, given the history of the particular optical-scan systems in use in Fairfax County, but more on that in a moment.
"The more I look at the data, the totality of the evidence points towards the likelihood that there are [approximately] 3,000 untallied Fairfax Co. votes," tweeted Dave Wasserman, political analyst at the Cook Political Report, tonight. He's been going over the state's reported numbers with a fine tooth comb --- and a publicly crowd-sourced Google spreadsheet --- since Election Night.
"And if there are indeed [approximately] 3,000 missing Fairfax #VA08 absentee votes, that'd almost certainly be the miracle Herring (D) needs to pull ahead," he continued. "What a complete reversal of fortune in #VAAG race in just the last few hours."
"The 2,500-3,000 missing votes happen to be from some of the most Democratic precincts in Fairfax County. Big margin for Herring," tweeted Ben Tribbett tonight, who Wasserman lauded on Twitter. "No one knows Fairfax politics more intimately than" him, he said.
"It appears to me there is solid evidence of missing votes," Tribbet observed, before later adding that he spoke tonight to the Republican election board member Schoeneman "and explained the issue to him." Tribbet added: "Glad to have a Republican on Elec-Board making sure every vote counts."
For his part, Schoeneman tweeted a "Thanks to Ben [Tribbet] and Dave [Wasserman] for their doggedness on this. I'm heading to bed, heading back in early AM."
Bug in theOintment Diebold Tabulators
As if it wasn't clear previously, this race will likely end up in a "recount" no matter what. As if it wasn't a certainty before, tonight's events should seal the deal. Our report yesterday described the difficulty --- if not impossibility --- of "recounting" most of the votes cast across the state, thanks to the 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems in use in much of it. The best that can be done with those machines, by and large, is to push the buttons again to produce the same results they produced the first time. There is no way to know if any of the votes cast on those systems actually reflect the intent of any voter. And, to make matters worse there, as we reported on Election Day, a number of voters complained that the touch-screen systems were repeatedly checking the box for the Republican candidate as they were trying to vote for the Democrat.
But the largest single voting jurisdiction in the commonwealth is Fairfax County and the race is close enough that the results could flip just based on untallied votes in that one county alone. It also happens to be heavily Democratic, as noted by others above. So tonight's discovery --- whatever it turns out to be --- could very well become unexpectedly good news for Herring.
One last point we should note for now. The optical-scan systems used to tally paper ballots in Fairfax County are, according to Verified Voting, made by Diebold/Premier. Those systems, as has been discovered elsewhere, have been known to simply drop entire stacks of ballots --- potentially hundreds at a time --- from the results without notice to the system operator. Worse, as Diebold once admitted to the state of California, ballots dropped by the system may not be noted at all in the system audit logs.
In other words, the only way to know whether or not the system recorded votes accurately is to count them by hand, even though Virginia's recount law seems to require a computer re-tally of most votes that have been previously tallied by a computer [emphasis added]:
Paper ballots initially counted by hand are to also be recounted by hand...Additional ballots to be counted by hand include ballots tabulated by optical scanners that contain "write-in votes, overvotes, and undervotes," and "any ballots not accepted by the tabulator, and any ballots for which a tabulator could not be programmed to meet the programming requirements." However, all other ballots tabulated by optical scanners are retabulated by machine.
The specific VA statute notes, however: "The result calculated for ballots accepted by the tabulator during the recount shall be considered the correct determination for those ballots unless the court finds sufficient cause to rule otherwise."
We don't know what version of the Diebold optical-scan hardware and software may be in use in the Fairfax County systems, and if the particular bug discovered and confirmed in CA in 2008, has since been corrected in them. But it seems worth noting here, given the --- for now --- unaccounted for, seemingly "missing" ballots in the results.
Either way, the only way to know for certain that an optical-scan tabulating system has tallied ballots correctly is to count them by hand. Both candidates in this race would do well to prepare a pleading to the court to show "sufficient cause" for a full hand-count of the paper ballots in (at least) Fairfax County.
* * *
UPDATE: Just after publishing this story, Wasserman tweeted
a few more times, with information from the Fairfax County Registrar
that seems as if it could dovetail with the section of this report above
about concerns with the tabulators. Here's what he tweeted [emphasis added]:
"Breaking: Fairfax Co. voter registrar Cameron Quinn concedes in email
(I just obtained) that #VA08 absentee totals are 'in error. ... given
that on 11/4/13 there were 2014 [Absentee Ballots] returned by mail
& 5113 by in person, it appears the problem is the in-person numbers
are incomplete, but this is pure speculation on my part. ... I suspect there are machine totals that either didn't print tapes, or didn't show full tallies on the tapes. ... I expect that the Electoral Board will make figuring out what happened the first order of business in the morning.'"
After Democrats reportedly won both the Governor and Lt. Governor races, only the AG's remains undecided at the top of the ticket. For the last 24 hours or so, the Republican Obenshain has been leading during the canvassing of ballots by about 700 votes, as absentee and provisionals are tallied and doubled-checked.
But now, thanks to some smart detective work by both a Democratic political team in Fairfax County and by Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, the fortunes for the Democrat candidate Herring may just have taken a big turn, even as a new mystery is added to the equation...
'Missing' Votes
Ben Pershing at Washington Post tonight reports what's happened over the past few hours this way...
The Fairfax County Electoral Board is investigating a
possible irregularity in the number of absentee ballots cast in
Virginia's largest jurisdiction that Democrats say could shift votes in
the still-unresolved race for Virginia attorney general.
...
One oddity was flagged in Fairfax County by the political team of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.).
...
The State Board of Election's site shows absentee ballots cast in each county broken down by congressional district. Fairfax County includes portions of three districts: Connolly's 11th, Rep, Frank R. Wolf's (R) 10th and Rep. James P. Moran Jr.'s (D) 8th. According to state numbers, Fairfax reported an unexplainably lower number of absentee ballots cast in the 8th District than in the other two congressional districts.
The county keeps track of how many voters request absentee ballots as well as the number who actually turn them in. In the 10th District, 88 percent of voters who requested a ballot actually voted, while 86 percent did so in the 11th District.
But in the 8th district, the state board shows that only 50 percent of those who requested ballots - 4,168 out of 8,363 requests - actually cast ballots, a response rate not only lower than the other portions of Fairfax County but lower than any other congressional district in the state, according to the Connolly campaign.
...
A Republican member of the electoral board, Brian Schoeneman, agreed in several tweets late Thursday that a discrepancy exists. "I am convinced now too that there is an issue," he tweeted.
"Top priority tomorrow will be canvass of 8th District [absentee ballots]," he said. "We will figure this out."
The 8th District portions of Fairfax are more heavily Democratic than the rest of the county, with more than 70 percent of voters in many of its precincts having voted for Herring in Tuesday's contest. In other words, any discovery of previously uncounted absentee votes in the 8th District is likely to benefit Herring more than Obenshain.
...
One oddity was flagged in Fairfax County by the political team of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.).
...
The State Board of Election's site shows absentee ballots cast in each county broken down by congressional district. Fairfax County includes portions of three districts: Connolly's 11th, Rep, Frank R. Wolf's (R) 10th and Rep. James P. Moran Jr.'s (D) 8th. According to state numbers, Fairfax reported an unexplainably lower number of absentee ballots cast in the 8th District than in the other two congressional districts.
The county keeps track of how many voters request absentee ballots as well as the number who actually turn them in. In the 10th District, 88 percent of voters who requested a ballot actually voted, while 86 percent did so in the 11th District.
But in the 8th district, the state board shows that only 50 percent of those who requested ballots - 4,168 out of 8,363 requests - actually cast ballots, a response rate not only lower than the other portions of Fairfax County but lower than any other congressional district in the state, according to the Connolly campaign.
...
A Republican member of the electoral board, Brian Schoeneman, agreed in several tweets late Thursday that a discrepancy exists. "I am convinced now too that there is an issue," he tweeted.
"Top priority tomorrow will be canvass of 8th District [absentee ballots]," he said. "We will figure this out."
The 8th District portions of Fairfax are more heavily Democratic than the rest of the county, with more than 70 percent of voters in many of its precincts having voted for Herring in Tuesday's contest. In other words, any discovery of previously uncounted absentee votes in the 8th District is likely to benefit Herring more than Obenshain.
It remains unclear, according to WaPo, "whether a recording error occurred when Fairfax reported its numbers or when the state board recorded them."
We would add the possibility of a tabulator error, given the history of the particular optical-scan systems in use in Fairfax County, but more on that in a moment.
"The more I look at the data, the totality of the evidence points towards the likelihood that there are [approximately] 3,000 untallied Fairfax Co. votes," tweeted Dave Wasserman, political analyst at the Cook Political Report, tonight. He's been going over the state's reported numbers with a fine tooth comb --- and a publicly crowd-sourced Google spreadsheet --- since Election Night.
"And if there are indeed [approximately] 3,000 missing Fairfax #VA08 absentee votes, that'd almost certainly be the miracle Herring (D) needs to pull ahead," he continued. "What a complete reversal of fortune in #VAAG race in just the last few hours."
"The 2,500-3,000 missing votes happen to be from some of the most Democratic precincts in Fairfax County. Big margin for Herring," tweeted Ben Tribbett tonight, who Wasserman lauded on Twitter. "No one knows Fairfax politics more intimately than" him, he said.
"It appears to me there is solid evidence of missing votes," Tribbet observed, before later adding that he spoke tonight to the Republican election board member Schoeneman "and explained the issue to him." Tribbet added: "Glad to have a Republican on Elec-Board making sure every vote counts."
For his part, Schoeneman tweeted a "Thanks to Ben [Tribbet] and Dave [Wasserman] for their doggedness on this. I'm heading to bed, heading back in early AM."
Bug in the
As if it wasn't clear previously, this race will likely end up in a "recount" no matter what. As if it wasn't a certainty before, tonight's events should seal the deal. Our report yesterday described the difficulty --- if not impossibility --- of "recounting" most of the votes cast across the state, thanks to the 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems in use in much of it. The best that can be done with those machines, by and large, is to push the buttons again to produce the same results they produced the first time. There is no way to know if any of the votes cast on those systems actually reflect the intent of any voter. And, to make matters worse there, as we reported on Election Day, a number of voters complained that the touch-screen systems were repeatedly checking the box for the Republican candidate as they were trying to vote for the Democrat.
But the largest single voting jurisdiction in the commonwealth is Fairfax County and the race is close enough that the results could flip just based on untallied votes in that one county alone. It also happens to be heavily Democratic, as noted by others above. So tonight's discovery --- whatever it turns out to be --- could very well become unexpectedly good news for Herring.
One last point we should note for now. The optical-scan systems used to tally paper ballots in Fairfax County are, according to Verified Voting, made by Diebold/Premier. Those systems, as has been discovered elsewhere, have been known to simply drop entire stacks of ballots --- potentially hundreds at a time --- from the results without notice to the system operator. Worse, as Diebold once admitted to the state of California, ballots dropped by the system may not be noted at all in the system audit logs.
In other words, the only way to know whether or not the system recorded votes accurately is to count them by hand, even though Virginia's recount law seems to require a computer re-tally of most votes that have been previously tallied by a computer [emphasis added]:
Paper ballots initially counted by hand are to also be recounted by hand...Additional ballots to be counted by hand include ballots tabulated by optical scanners that contain "write-in votes, overvotes, and undervotes," and "any ballots not accepted by the tabulator, and any ballots for which a tabulator could not be programmed to meet the programming requirements." However, all other ballots tabulated by optical scanners are retabulated by machine.
The specific VA statute notes, however: "The result calculated for ballots accepted by the tabulator during the recount shall be considered the correct determination for those ballots unless the court finds sufficient cause to rule otherwise."
We don't know what version of the Diebold optical-scan hardware and software may be in use in the Fairfax County systems, and if the particular bug discovered and confirmed in CA in 2008, has since been corrected in them. But it seems worth noting here, given the --- for now --- unaccounted for, seemingly "missing" ballots in the results.
Either way, the only way to know for certain that an optical-scan tabulating system has tallied ballots correctly is to count them by hand. Both candidates in this race would do well to prepare a pleading to the court to show "sufficient cause" for a full hand-count of the paper ballots in (at least) Fairfax County.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
How Social Security Keeps Divorcées and Widows in the Dark About Their Benefits
By Larry Kotlikoff
Social Security cites misguided "privacy" restrictions, Larry Kotlikoff argues, for not sharing information about former spouses' earnings records with surviving and ex-spouses. Photo courtesy of Flickr user João Ferreira.
Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets", his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his Social Security gotchas have prompted so many of you to write in that we now feature "Ask Larry" every Monday. We are determined to continue it until the queries stop or we run through the particular problems of all 78 million Baby Boomers, whichever comes first. Kotlikoff's state-of-the-art retirement software is available here, for free, in its "basic" version.
Larry Kotlikoff: Here are some questions I've been receiving a lot since Paul asked me to write this column 15 months ago:
This policy, which Social Security claims is for privacy purposes, is simply outrageous.
I suspect a darker explanation. Congress, which sets Social Security's "privacy" rules, remains an old boys club. Keeping ex-wives from getting access to their former husbands' earnings records keeps ex-wives from demanding higher alimony if their former husbands start earning more money. Of course, this could go both ways, men could demand higher alimony too. But the Social Security Administration does spouses a disservice by not letting them see what their ex or late spouses were earning.
I may be off base about the underlying explanation for these provisions. But what I know for sure is that given Social Security's benefit formulas, the earnings histories of, say, Mary's ex-husband, Joe, and Linda's late husband, Sam, are just as much the private property of Mary and Linda as they are of Joe and Sam.
Mary and Linda have a legal claim to benefits based on their former
husbands' earnings records. But if they can't get access to these
earnings records, they can't properly plan when to retire, how much to
save for retirement, in which order to take their spousal, retirement
and survivor benefits, or when to take them at all.
Yes, once Mary and Linda are in spitting distance of being able to collect benefits on their ex or their deceased husbands, which is very late in the day, they can find out from Social Security what these benefits will be. And if they are really knowledgeable about the system, they can roughly infer what their husbands must have made and then run through the potentially thousands of combinations of benefit collection dates to figure out which one is optimal. But this is not something I recommend anyone try on their own.
As for learning whether your ex is collecting benefits, don't expect Social Security to notify you. First off, the Social Security Administration doesn't know who is or was married to whom. You need to establish you are or were married by providing a copy of your marriage certificate or your final divorce decree. But to collect divorcée spousal benefits, you need to have been married at least 10 years, have an ex who is at least age 62 and have been divorced for two or more years or have an ex who has filed for his or her retirement benefit. Because of those requirements, knowing whether your ex has filed matters a great deal if you were divorced less than two years ago. But the only way to know if your ex has filed is to ask him or her.
The AARP, which has close to 40 million members, should lobby Congress to make the Social Security Administration provide access to former spouses' earnings records because it's the private information of the surviving and ex spouses as much as it is of their former spouses.
Kathy C. -- McKinleyville, Calif.: Is it possible to benefit from a previous spouse's Social Security if I married and divorced again?
Larry Kotlikoff: Provided you're not now married yet again and that you were married to both former spouses for 10 or more years, you can take the larger of the two spousal benefits (provided you are eligible for both). To collect a spousal benefit as a divorced spouse, your ex-husband needs to be over 62 and either he has to have filed for a spousal benefit or you need to have been divorced for at least two years.
Given those conditions, some divorcées may need to take a spousal benefit from their lower-earning ex first and then switch to taking a spousal benefit from their higher-earning ex. Make sure you let Social Security know about both former spouses.
Also, be aware that if one or both of your 10-years-or-more-in-the-saddle exes dies, you can collect survivor benefits based on the deceased ex's earnings record. The survivor benefit of the lower-earning spouse might well exceed the spousal benefit from the higher-earning spouse. So you might, under the right circumstances, go from taking a spousal benefit on the lower-earning spouse to taking a spousal benefit on the higher-earning spouse or even from taking a survivor benefit on the lower-earning spouse to taking a survivor benefit on the higher-earning spouse.
Keep on top of the Social Security Administration to determine from whom you should be collecting benefits and when because they won't necessarily keep track.
Anne J. -- Oakland, Calif.: My husband of 25 years started drawing his reduced Social Security benefits 10 years ago at the age of 62. Is there a spousal benefit for which I am eligible? I am 65, and we are thinking about my filing for spousal benefits at 66 and deferring my own Social Security until 70. Since he is on reduced benefits for taking it early, would my spousal benefit be based on his current benefit amount or what he would have received if he had waited until 65?
Larry Kotlikoff: If you wait until 66 to file, you'll be, as you correctly understand, able to apply just for your own spousal benefit while letting your own retirement benefit grow by 32 percent through age 70. In this case, your spousal benefit will equal your full spousal benefit, which is half of your husband's full retirement benefit -- not half of what he's currently collecting. What he's currently collecting is a reduced retirement benefit since he started his own benefit at 62. So your spousal benefit will be more than half of the retirement benefit he's now getting.
David -- Calabasas, Calif.: My question is about a wife who receives a Social Security disability benefit. The husband, who's turning 65 in December, has applied for his Social Security benefits, but the Social Security Administration says that the wife's disability benefit will terminate once the husband receives his retirement benefit. This doesn't seem right, but I cannot locate anything on this situation. Help, please.
Larry Kotlikoff: It doesn't seem right for a good reason. It's not. The wife's eligibility for a disability benefit doesn't depend on the husband's taking his Social Security retirement benefit. Her eligibility for receiving an excess spousal benefit, in addition to her disability benefit, is conditional on the husband filing for his retirement benefit.
Perhaps the Social Security staffer was referencing what happens to the wife's disability benefit when she, not her husband, reaches full retirement age. At this point, unless the wife withdraws her retirement benefit, her disability benefit automatically converts to her retirement benefit.
The wife, in the situation you describe, can choose to not take her excess spousal benefit and withdraw her retirement benefit when she reaches full retirement age, then apply, at full retirement age, just for spousal benefits, and wait until age 70 to restart her retirement benefit, at which point it will be 32 percent higher (and adjusted for inflation).
Sydne -- Pottstown, Pa.: My husband will be 62 next February. I am 60 and have been the higher wage earner for many years. He is a farmer and I'm a nurse. With what I've been reading, it sounds like, if necessary, it would be best for my husband to apply for his retirement benefits early, and then check when I turn 66 to see if the spousal benefits would be greater than his reduced retirement benefits. Does that sound right? (I provide health benefits through my employer.)
Larry Kotlikoff: My mom was born in Pottstown! But back to business. No, this doesn't sound right. What may be the best option is for you to take your retirement benefit at age 64, thus permitting your husband to apply, at his full retirement age, just for his spousal benefit based on your earnings history. When he reaches age 70, he can then apply for his own retirement benefit. When you reach age 66 (your full retirement age), you would suspend your retirement benefit and start it up at age 70.
Robert C. -- Palm City, Fla.: My wife passed away 18 years ago and had worked 15 to 20 years. Can I collect survivor benefits? I am 63 and plan on working until 66. Her earnings were quite high during her career, so how does that affect my benefits?
Larry Kotlikoff: Survivor benefits are available starting at age 60. Let me ignore for the moment the fact that you're still working and assume that your age-70 retirement benefit exceeds your survivor benefit. If you start taking your survivor benefit immediately, it will be permanently reduced because you'll be taking it before reaching full retirement age. Still, this is likely to be the best move if you were the higher earner. At 70, you should collect your own retirement benefit when it will start at its largest possible value. Social Security will pay you the larger of either your own retirement benefit or your survivor benefit, so at 70, your survivor benefit will disappear.
Now let's add the fact that you are working. If you are earning enough to lose all your survivor benefits to the earnings test, which wipes out a portion of benefits for those still making a certain amount of money, you might as well wait until you reach January 1 of the year you'll turn 66 to take your survivor benefit. The earnings test will apply in that year until the month you reach your 66th birthday. After you reach your 66th birthday, the earnings test ends.
On the other hand, if you have been a low earner, it may be best to take your own retirement benefit for the few months between January 1 of the year you reach 66 and your 66th birthday. Then, upon reaching full retirement age, you should start taking your survivor benefit, which I'm now assuming will exceed not just your full retirement benefit, but also your age-70 retirement benefit -- the retirement benefit you'd collect if you first file at age 70 for a retirement benefit.
This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight.
Follow @paulsolman
Social Security cites misguided "privacy" restrictions, Larry Kotlikoff argues, for not sharing information about former spouses' earnings records with surviving and ex-spouses. Photo courtesy of Flickr user João Ferreira.
Larry Kotlikoff's Social Security original 34 "secrets", his additional secrets, his Social Security "mistakes" and his Social Security gotchas have prompted so many of you to write in that we now feature "Ask Larry" every Monday. We are determined to continue it until the queries stop or we run through the particular problems of all 78 million Baby Boomers, whichever comes first. Kotlikoff's state-of-the-art retirement software is available here, for free, in its "basic" version.
Larry Kotlikoff: Here are some questions I've been receiving a lot since Paul asked me to write this column 15 months ago:
- Why can't I get access to my ex spouse's earnings record? I need this information to do my own Social Security planning.
- Will Social Security notify me if my ex starts collecting his or her Social Security retirement benefit? This decision can, in special cases, affect when I can start my divorcée spousal benefit.
This policy, which Social Security claims is for privacy purposes, is simply outrageous.
I suspect a darker explanation. Congress, which sets Social Security's "privacy" rules, remains an old boys club. Keeping ex-wives from getting access to their former husbands' earnings records keeps ex-wives from demanding higher alimony if their former husbands start earning more money. Of course, this could go both ways, men could demand higher alimony too. But the Social Security Administration does spouses a disservice by not letting them see what their ex or late spouses were earning.
I may be off base about the underlying explanation for these provisions. But what I know for sure is that given Social Security's benefit formulas, the earnings histories of, say, Mary's ex-husband, Joe, and Linda's late husband, Sam, are just as much the private property of Mary and Linda as they are of Joe and Sam.
MORE FROM LARRY KOTLIKOFF:
When Social Security's Advisers Get It Wrong
Yes, once Mary and Linda are in spitting distance of being able to collect benefits on their ex or their deceased husbands, which is very late in the day, they can find out from Social Security what these benefits will be. And if they are really knowledgeable about the system, they can roughly infer what their husbands must have made and then run through the potentially thousands of combinations of benefit collection dates to figure out which one is optimal. But this is not something I recommend anyone try on their own.
As for learning whether your ex is collecting benefits, don't expect Social Security to notify you. First off, the Social Security Administration doesn't know who is or was married to whom. You need to establish you are or were married by providing a copy of your marriage certificate or your final divorce decree. But to collect divorcée spousal benefits, you need to have been married at least 10 years, have an ex who is at least age 62 and have been divorced for two or more years or have an ex who has filed for his or her retirement benefit. Because of those requirements, knowing whether your ex has filed matters a great deal if you were divorced less than two years ago. But the only way to know if your ex has filed is to ask him or her.
The AARP, which has close to 40 million members, should lobby Congress to make the Social Security Administration provide access to former spouses' earnings records because it's the private information of the surviving and ex spouses as much as it is of their former spouses.
Kathy C. -- McKinleyville, Calif.: Is it possible to benefit from a previous spouse's Social Security if I married and divorced again?
Larry Kotlikoff: Provided you're not now married yet again and that you were married to both former spouses for 10 or more years, you can take the larger of the two spousal benefits (provided you are eligible for both). To collect a spousal benefit as a divorced spouse, your ex-husband needs to be over 62 and either he has to have filed for a spousal benefit or you need to have been divorced for at least two years.
Given those conditions, some divorcées may need to take a spousal benefit from their lower-earning ex first and then switch to taking a spousal benefit from their higher-earning ex. Make sure you let Social Security know about both former spouses.
Also, be aware that if one or both of your 10-years-or-more-in-the-saddle exes dies, you can collect survivor benefits based on the deceased ex's earnings record. The survivor benefit of the lower-earning spouse might well exceed the spousal benefit from the higher-earning spouse. So you might, under the right circumstances, go from taking a spousal benefit on the lower-earning spouse to taking a spousal benefit on the higher-earning spouse or even from taking a survivor benefit on the lower-earning spouse to taking a survivor benefit on the higher-earning spouse.
Keep on top of the Social Security Administration to determine from whom you should be collecting benefits and when because they won't necessarily keep track.
Anne J. -- Oakland, Calif.: My husband of 25 years started drawing his reduced Social Security benefits 10 years ago at the age of 62. Is there a spousal benefit for which I am eligible? I am 65, and we are thinking about my filing for spousal benefits at 66 and deferring my own Social Security until 70. Since he is on reduced benefits for taking it early, would my spousal benefit be based on his current benefit amount or what he would have received if he had waited until 65?
Larry Kotlikoff: If you wait until 66 to file, you'll be, as you correctly understand, able to apply just for your own spousal benefit while letting your own retirement benefit grow by 32 percent through age 70. In this case, your spousal benefit will equal your full spousal benefit, which is half of your husband's full retirement benefit -- not half of what he's currently collecting. What he's currently collecting is a reduced retirement benefit since he started his own benefit at 62. So your spousal benefit will be more than half of the retirement benefit he's now getting.
David -- Calabasas, Calif.: My question is about a wife who receives a Social Security disability benefit. The husband, who's turning 65 in December, has applied for his Social Security benefits, but the Social Security Administration says that the wife's disability benefit will terminate once the husband receives his retirement benefit. This doesn't seem right, but I cannot locate anything on this situation. Help, please.
Larry Kotlikoff: It doesn't seem right for a good reason. It's not. The wife's eligibility for a disability benefit doesn't depend on the husband's taking his Social Security retirement benefit. Her eligibility for receiving an excess spousal benefit, in addition to her disability benefit, is conditional on the husband filing for his retirement benefit.
Perhaps the Social Security staffer was referencing what happens to the wife's disability benefit when she, not her husband, reaches full retirement age. At this point, unless the wife withdraws her retirement benefit, her disability benefit automatically converts to her retirement benefit.
The wife, in the situation you describe, can choose to not take her excess spousal benefit and withdraw her retirement benefit when she reaches full retirement age, then apply, at full retirement age, just for spousal benefits, and wait until age 70 to restart her retirement benefit, at which point it will be 32 percent higher (and adjusted for inflation).
Sydne -- Pottstown, Pa.: My husband will be 62 next February. I am 60 and have been the higher wage earner for many years. He is a farmer and I'm a nurse. With what I've been reading, it sounds like, if necessary, it would be best for my husband to apply for his retirement benefits early, and then check when I turn 66 to see if the spousal benefits would be greater than his reduced retirement benefits. Does that sound right? (I provide health benefits through my employer.)
Larry Kotlikoff: My mom was born in Pottstown! But back to business. No, this doesn't sound right. What may be the best option is for you to take your retirement benefit at age 64, thus permitting your husband to apply, at his full retirement age, just for his spousal benefit based on your earnings history. When he reaches age 70, he can then apply for his own retirement benefit. When you reach age 66 (your full retirement age), you would suspend your retirement benefit and start it up at age 70.
Robert C. -- Palm City, Fla.: My wife passed away 18 years ago and had worked 15 to 20 years. Can I collect survivor benefits? I am 63 and plan on working until 66. Her earnings were quite high during her career, so how does that affect my benefits?
Larry Kotlikoff: Survivor benefits are available starting at age 60. Let me ignore for the moment the fact that you're still working and assume that your age-70 retirement benefit exceeds your survivor benefit. If you start taking your survivor benefit immediately, it will be permanently reduced because you'll be taking it before reaching full retirement age. Still, this is likely to be the best move if you were the higher earner. At 70, you should collect your own retirement benefit when it will start at its largest possible value. Social Security will pay you the larger of either your own retirement benefit or your survivor benefit, so at 70, your survivor benefit will disappear.
Now let's add the fact that you are working. If you are earning enough to lose all your survivor benefits to the earnings test, which wipes out a portion of benefits for those still making a certain amount of money, you might as well wait until you reach January 1 of the year you'll turn 66 to take your survivor benefit. The earnings test will apply in that year until the month you reach your 66th birthday. After you reach your 66th birthday, the earnings test ends.
On the other hand, if you have been a low earner, it may be best to take your own retirement benefit for the few months between January 1 of the year you reach 66 and your 66th birthday. Then, upon reaching full retirement age, you should start taking your survivor benefit, which I'm now assuming will exceed not just your full retirement benefit, but also your age-70 retirement benefit -- the retirement benefit you'd collect if you first file at age 70 for a retirement benefit.
This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight.
Follow @paulsolman
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Teacher Chris Christie yelled at unloads to Salon
By Josh Eidelson
Chris Christie managed to inject some news in his largely suspense-free re-election race when he got into a heated confrontation with teacher Melissa Tomlinson, who challenged him on education at a weekend event.
A member of the country’s largest union, the National Education Association, and of the fledgling Badass Teacher Association, Tomlinson teaches at New Jersey’s Buena Regional middle school.
In an Election Day interview, she told Salon “the crowd cheered when he shouted at me,” and “I left shaking.” What follows is a condensed and edited transcript of our conversation on Chris Christie, teachers’ unions, and education reform.
You asked Chris Christie why he calls schools “failure factories.” He says he told you, “It’s never enough for you people.” You say he said, “I’m tired of you people.” Were you surprised by his reaction?
Yes, I was very surprised. Honestly…I was expecting to be totally ignored. The fact that he even acknowledged the question, I think kind of says something about how he feels about what’s actually going on. That maybe he realizes that something is wrong that he doesn’t want to be exposed.
What did you think of his answer to your question about “failure factories”?
“Because they are” – that was the first thing he said to me…In fact, New Jersey schools are not failing right now. We’re above the average for the rest of the country…And then he responded with some of his budgetary numbers about how he has set aside almost $9 billion towards education. When he was first elected, there were education cuts of over $1.3 billion in the state. And due to a lot of the state mandates and inflation and things that are needed for the classrooms, our district is still really, really feeling that original cut.
Why did you go and confront the Governor in the first place?
The Badass Teachers actually is what prompted me to do it. I have been seeing a lot of teachers really saying that they cant take this anymore. They want the public to be aware of what is going on in the country in public education.
So as I see other people stepping up and voicing their opinions, somebody gave me the idea. They had gone and confronted Christie with the same question the day before. So I wanted to keep some uniformity in what we were trying to get an answer for, and I decided to go in that town and ask the same question.
Chris Christie managed to inject some news in his largely suspense-free re-election race when he got into a heated confrontation with teacher Melissa Tomlinson, who challenged him on education at a weekend event.
A member of the country’s largest union, the National Education Association, and of the fledgling Badass Teacher Association, Tomlinson teaches at New Jersey’s Buena Regional middle school.
In an Election Day interview, she told Salon “the crowd cheered when he shouted at me,” and “I left shaking.” What follows is a condensed and edited transcript of our conversation on Chris Christie, teachers’ unions, and education reform.
You asked Chris Christie why he calls schools “failure factories.” He says he told you, “It’s never enough for you people.” You say he said, “I’m tired of you people.” Were you surprised by his reaction?
Yes, I was very surprised. Honestly…I was expecting to be totally ignored. The fact that he even acknowledged the question, I think kind of says something about how he feels about what’s actually going on. That maybe he realizes that something is wrong that he doesn’t want to be exposed.
What did you think of his answer to your question about “failure factories”?
“Because they are” – that was the first thing he said to me…In fact, New Jersey schools are not failing right now. We’re above the average for the rest of the country…And then he responded with some of his budgetary numbers about how he has set aside almost $9 billion towards education. When he was first elected, there were education cuts of over $1.3 billion in the state. And due to a lot of the state mandates and inflation and things that are needed for the classrooms, our district is still really, really feeling that original cut.
Why did you go and confront the Governor in the first place?
The Badass Teachers actually is what prompted me to do it. I have been seeing a lot of teachers really saying that they cant take this anymore. They want the public to be aware of what is going on in the country in public education.
So as I see other people stepping up and voicing their opinions, somebody gave me the idea. They had gone and confronted Christie with the same question the day before. So I wanted to keep some uniformity in what we were trying to get an answer for, and I decided to go in that town and ask the same question.
Chris
Christie gets talked about in the national media often as a moderate
Republican, as a contrast to Ted Cruz, and as a potential presidential
candidate. Do you think that’s fair?
No. I don’t feel so.
Do you think there’s anything for other politicians to learn from Chris Christie?
I think that maybe should learn to take a second thought before assessing what will ultimately be our future – an investment in public education is an investment in the future, and people that are qualified to make educational decisions need to be ones that are allowed to have a say in the matter.
I really don’t feel he has [done that]. I don’t. With the appointment [of superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard] in Camden – that gentleman was a Goldman Sachs employee.
What impact do you think Chris Christie has had in your classroom and your school?
Part of the effect he has had, because of his lack of respect for teachers, that’s starting to transfer to the parents in society which in turn is starting to transfer to the students…they’re not respected as adults as much as they were…
Another change is just in the fact that every time that you try to get something for the classroom, the automatic response is, “we don’t have money in the budget.”… I don’t know if you’ve seen the photo essay called “A Blind Eye”…It shows some pictures of the classrooms in New Jersey – they’re just filled with mold and water running down the hallways. And it’s really becoming a disgrace. And he’s letting it happen, so that it looks like the public education system in New Jersey is a failure
The contract deal in Newark, with the support of the AFT local and the national AFT [the country’s other majority teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers], in which there’s peer review – teachers are playing a role in evaluating each other – and there’s what they’re calling “performance bonuses” and some teachers are calling “merit pay,” where a portion of teacher compensation, coming out of money from Mark Zuckerberg, is going to be distributed based on evaluations including test results – what’s your view of that contract and that approach?
I don’t believe in merit pay…The main factor that determines a student’s educational success is the economic climate that they’re growing up in and that’s not something that teachers have any kind of control over, and [they] can’t really be held responsible for that.
What’s your view of the role that your union, the NEA, has played in fights over education in New Jersey and nationally?
From a personal standpoint I believe that NEA needs to look into representing the teachers a little bit better. I will admit until this year I was not a very big union person. You know, I did what my union asked of me…
The Badass Teachers Assocication has received approved to have a caucus this year [at a national NEA gathering]…I know some people have voiced their opinion that they’re really disappointed with how the NEA and the AFT are representing teachers. I do know [AFT President] Randi Weingarten has been very open w communicating with the teachers on various platforms. And she is not definitely you know for everything that is going on so we’re keeping those lines of communication open. NEA, as far as that, I don’t see too much communication from them.
What direction would you like to see the NEA go?
I would like them to start seeking out some people that really have done some research…other union members, and really open those lines of communication so we can all work together towards a common goal for public education.
What’s your view of President Obama’s record on education?
I’m not happy with [Education Secretary] Arne Duncan obviously. I don’t feel that President Obama has really dealt with it all that much…I thought he would really bring about a lot of change…I wish he would step up to the plate more and become a little bit more involved, and start questioning some of the things that are going on.
Assuming Chris Christie is re-elected today, what do you expect to see over the next few years in terms of education in New Jersey?
If Chris Christie is elected today, I expect to see more charter schools in New Jersey that unfortunately will be draining the school budgets even more…I expect to see stronger evaluations that are not valid in their measurements of a teacher’s performance… I would probably expect to see the possibility of a voucher program which is another thing that will just drain the money in our pub education fund even more, a stronger push for the common core curriculum – I know he’s very pro-that -which unfortunately is basically a corporate-run entity that’s being pushed upon schools nationwide, and doesn’t have a lot of educational research, and has not been thoroughly been tested before being forced upon our students.
The Star-Ledger noted that Christie said he’d “be happy to take as many dollars as possible away from failure factories that send children on a non-stop route to prison and to failed dreams, if we could take that money and put it into a place where those families have hope.” What’s your response to that?
Unfortunately charter schools have the right to be more discriminatory against the type of students that they allow in…So you might almost at one point start to see a separation of class within schools. You would see charter schools that would be set up for the elite students and then you would start to see these [other] charter schools that, “OK we need to put these students somewhere, we might as well put them in this charter school.” And you might have your English-language learners, you might have your special-education-classified students. And so we really have to watch that our public education system doesn’t start to mimic what has been going on overall in our society as far as that separation. It’s a real possibility.
Christie’s opponent has called him a “bully.” Do you think that’s fair? Is that how you saw him?
I’m going to be honest…I haven’t seen enough of him to say, “yes, he’s a bully.” Did I feel bullied at the time? Yes I did. I left shaking.
Why shaking?
It was a kind of a scary confrontation. He shouted at me. The crowd shouted at me. The crowd cheered when he shouted at me. People told me I was in the wrong place to be doing this. People need to understand it has to be done – somebody has to do it. This is our lives. This is my passion. This is people’s children that we’re trying to take care of.
No. I don’t feel so.
Do you think there’s anything for other politicians to learn from Chris Christie?
I think that maybe should learn to take a second thought before assessing what will ultimately be our future – an investment in public education is an investment in the future, and people that are qualified to make educational decisions need to be ones that are allowed to have a say in the matter.
I really don’t feel he has [done that]. I don’t. With the appointment [of superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard] in Camden – that gentleman was a Goldman Sachs employee.
What impact do you think Chris Christie has had in your classroom and your school?
Part of the effect he has had, because of his lack of respect for teachers, that’s starting to transfer to the parents in society which in turn is starting to transfer to the students…they’re not respected as adults as much as they were…
Another change is just in the fact that every time that you try to get something for the classroom, the automatic response is, “we don’t have money in the budget.”… I don’t know if you’ve seen the photo essay called “A Blind Eye”…It shows some pictures of the classrooms in New Jersey – they’re just filled with mold and water running down the hallways. And it’s really becoming a disgrace. And he’s letting it happen, so that it looks like the public education system in New Jersey is a failure
The contract deal in Newark, with the support of the AFT local and the national AFT [the country’s other majority teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers], in which there’s peer review – teachers are playing a role in evaluating each other – and there’s what they’re calling “performance bonuses” and some teachers are calling “merit pay,” where a portion of teacher compensation, coming out of money from Mark Zuckerberg, is going to be distributed based on evaluations including test results – what’s your view of that contract and that approach?
I don’t believe in merit pay…The main factor that determines a student’s educational success is the economic climate that they’re growing up in and that’s not something that teachers have any kind of control over, and [they] can’t really be held responsible for that.
What’s your view of the role that your union, the NEA, has played in fights over education in New Jersey and nationally?
From a personal standpoint I believe that NEA needs to look into representing the teachers a little bit better. I will admit until this year I was not a very big union person. You know, I did what my union asked of me…
The Badass Teachers Assocication has received approved to have a caucus this year [at a national NEA gathering]…I know some people have voiced their opinion that they’re really disappointed with how the NEA and the AFT are representing teachers. I do know [AFT President] Randi Weingarten has been very open w communicating with the teachers on various platforms. And she is not definitely you know for everything that is going on so we’re keeping those lines of communication open. NEA, as far as that, I don’t see too much communication from them.
What direction would you like to see the NEA go?
I would like them to start seeking out some people that really have done some research…other union members, and really open those lines of communication so we can all work together towards a common goal for public education.
What’s your view of President Obama’s record on education?
I’m not happy with [Education Secretary] Arne Duncan obviously. I don’t feel that President Obama has really dealt with it all that much…I thought he would really bring about a lot of change…I wish he would step up to the plate more and become a little bit more involved, and start questioning some of the things that are going on.
Assuming Chris Christie is re-elected today, what do you expect to see over the next few years in terms of education in New Jersey?
If Chris Christie is elected today, I expect to see more charter schools in New Jersey that unfortunately will be draining the school budgets even more…I expect to see stronger evaluations that are not valid in their measurements of a teacher’s performance… I would probably expect to see the possibility of a voucher program which is another thing that will just drain the money in our pub education fund even more, a stronger push for the common core curriculum – I know he’s very pro-that -which unfortunately is basically a corporate-run entity that’s being pushed upon schools nationwide, and doesn’t have a lot of educational research, and has not been thoroughly been tested before being forced upon our students.
The Star-Ledger noted that Christie said he’d “be happy to take as many dollars as possible away from failure factories that send children on a non-stop route to prison and to failed dreams, if we could take that money and put it into a place where those families have hope.” What’s your response to that?
Unfortunately charter schools have the right to be more discriminatory against the type of students that they allow in…So you might almost at one point start to see a separation of class within schools. You would see charter schools that would be set up for the elite students and then you would start to see these [other] charter schools that, “OK we need to put these students somewhere, we might as well put them in this charter school.” And you might have your English-language learners, you might have your special-education-classified students. And so we really have to watch that our public education system doesn’t start to mimic what has been going on overall in our society as far as that separation. It’s a real possibility.
Christie’s opponent has called him a “bully.” Do you think that’s fair? Is that how you saw him?
I’m going to be honest…I haven’t seen enough of him to say, “yes, he’s a bully.” Did I feel bullied at the time? Yes I did. I left shaking.
Why shaking?
It was a kind of a scary confrontation. He shouted at me. The crowd shouted at me. The crowd cheered when he shouted at me. People told me I was in the wrong place to be doing this. People need to understand it has to be done – somebody has to do it. This is our lives. This is my passion. This is people’s children that we’re trying to take care of.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
A Dynasty to Duck
By MAUREEN DOWD
Dick Cheney and Mike Enzi are in a tiff over whether they’re fishing buddies or not.
Enzi, the conservative senator from Wyoming who’s trying to fend off a
carpetbagger challenge from Liz Cheney, is lucky he wasn’t hunting
buddies with the trigger-happy former vice president.
Then he might not be in the race at all.
One of the best things about the 2008 race was ushering out the
incalculably destructive Dick Cheney. Except now, in 2013, he’s once
more ominously omnipresent. Even blessed with the gift of a stranger’s
heart, and looking so much healthier, he’s still the same nasty bully.
He’s trying to bully Enzi in an attempt to help his daughter — who has
never held elected office — muscle her way into the Senate by knocking
off the popular three-term incumbent Republican.
Showing that bullying runs in the family, Lynne Cheney told old friend
and former Republican Wyoming senator Alan Simpson to “shut up” in an
exchange tied to the contentious campaign, in which Simpson is
supporting Enzi.
This is one dynasty we want to duck.
Dick Cheney is hawking a book he has written with his cardiologist, Dr.
Jonathan Reiner, about his heart transplant at the age of 71. Calling it
“a spiritual experience,” he told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos: “I
wake up every morning literally with a smile on my face, grateful for
another day I never thought I’d see.”
Yet even in this blissed-out state, he still can’t emulate the
respectful restraint of his former partner, George W. Bush. He grabs
every opportunity to snarl at President Obama, who is still mopping up
from the Bush-Cheney misrule, as does his mini-me.
“Obstructing President Obama’s policies and his agenda isn’t actually obstruction; it’s patriotism,” Liz said.
Dick Cheney’s chutzpah extends to charging the Obama administration with
“incompetence” in the Middle East and saying that the president has
done “enormous damage” to America’s standing around the world.
When Bill O’Reilly asked Cheney on Fox News what “we get out of” the
Iraq war, given that “we spent $1 trillion on this with a lot of pain
and suffering on the American military,” Cheney repeated his delusion
about Saddam’s W.M.D. — the imaginary ones — falling into the hands of
terrorists:
“We eliminated Iraq as a potential source of that.”
And, of course, he disdains Obamacare, telling Rush Limbaugh that it’s
“devastating” — begrudging less well-off and well-connected Americans
the lifesaving and costly health care he got on us when he was in the
White House.
In his “60 Minutes” interview with Dick Cheney, Sanjay Gupta made it
clear that Cheney had gotten special treatment to ascend to the vice
presidency, given that he’d already had three heart attacks, the first
one at 37. As Dr. Gupta noted, the Bush campaign was concerned enough to
check with the famed Texas heart surgeon Denton Cooley, who talked to
Dr. Reiner and then informed the Bush team — with no examination — that
Cheney was in “good health with normal cardiac function.”
“The normal cardiac function wasn’t true,” Dr. Gupta said to Cheney.
“I’m not responsible for that,” replied the man who never takes
responsibility for any of his dark deeds. “I don’t know what took place
between the doctors.”
Four months after being cleared, Cheney suffered his fourth heart attack
during the 2000 recount and had to get a stent put in to open a clogged
artery.
If the doctors had not signed off on Cheney’s heart as “normal,” then
Cheney would never have been vice president, and Donald Rumsfeld never
would have been defense secretary, and Paul Wolfowitz never would have
been his deputy, etc., etc. And W. wouldn’t have been pushed and
diverted into Iraq.
In this alternative scenario, “It’s Not a Wonderful Life,” where Cheney
is not peddling his paranoia, how many Americans would not have lost
their lives and limbs?
Dr. Gupta also asked the question that even Cheney’s Republican pals
have puzzled over: Could his heart disease, limiting blood flow to the
brain, have affected his judgment on the Iraq invasion and torture?
Asked if he had ever worried about that, Cheney said “No.”
Speaking to Stephanopoulos, Cheney belittled his daughter’s opponent,
saying he had never been his fishing buddy and noting that Liz garnered
25 percent of her funds from Wyoming while Enzi only got 13 percent of
his from the state. In sparsely populated Wyoming, it’s not easy to
raise money.
And Liz has gotten a lot of help from daddy’s rich friends.
While other Republican elders, from Jeb Bush to John McCain, chided Tea
Party lawmakers for vaingloriously and recklessly closing the
government, and National Review warned of “perpetual intra-Republican
denunciation,” Dick Cheney gave the shutdown a shout-out. He knows Liz’s
best shot is being seen as part of the “new generation” of Tea Partiers
rather than a habitual beneficiary of old-fashioned nepotism.
“It’s a normal, healthy reaction, and the fact that the party is having
to adjust to it is positive,” he said on the “Today” show about the Tea
Party.
You know you’re in trouble when Dick Cheney thinks you’re a force for good.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on October 30, 2013, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dynasty To Duck.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Bill Maher's Rant On The Minimum Wage
October 25, 2013 - Bill Maher ended his show Friday night going after
Republican opposition to the minimum wage, calling them out for opposing
something that would make people less dependent on government handouts.
He targeted McDonalds in particular, saying "until Ronald McDonald
starts paying his employees a living wage, he has to wipe that fucking
smile off his face."
On the charge minimum wages cut into profits, Maher mockingly explained, "Paying workers is one of those unfortunate expenses of running a business, like taxes or making a product."
He asked, "When did the American dream become a pathway to indentured servitude?" and made the argument that the GOP can have a "smaller government with less handouts" or a low minimum wage, but they can't have both.
And Maher doesn't even eat fast food anyway. He said, "If I want to talk into the face of some red-nosed clown, I'll debate John Bohener."
On the charge minimum wages cut into profits, Maher mockingly explained, "Paying workers is one of those unfortunate expenses of running a business, like taxes or making a product."
He asked, "When did the American dream become a pathway to indentured servitude?" and made the argument that the GOP can have a "smaller government with less handouts" or a low minimum wage, but they can't have both.
And Maher doesn't even eat fast food anyway. He said, "If I want to talk into the face of some red-nosed clown, I'll debate John Bohener."
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Surprising Passions of 11 Brilliant People
You
already knew everyone on this list was brilliant and accomplished in
his or her chosen field. What you might not have known is that they were
also truly devoted to their less publicized passions.
1) Teddy Roosevelt was a man with a lot of hobbies, including obvious ones like hunting, trust busting, and carrying metaphorical sticks. But he was also a passionate boxer and had a brown belt in judo. He once turned heads at a state luncheon by playfully chucking a Swiss diplomat with a judo toss.
2) Napoleon had no rival when it came to battlefield brilliance, so it’s a little surprising that he wasn’t great at his favorite hobby: chess. Although the general supposedly carried a board with him on his military campaigns, he never had much time to practice and was generally regarded as a middling player.
3) Emily Dickinson made more than just amazing poetry – she was also a celebrated baker! Despite being famously shy, Dickinson was sure enough of her bread to enter it in a local competition, in which she won second prize. Of course, since she was Emily Dickinson, poetry was always at play, even in the kitchen – many of her drafts are written on the backs of recipes or ingredient wrappers.
4) Amelia Earhart was passionate about a hobby that’s not usually associated with daredevils: stamp collecting. Earhart frequently carried pieces of mail on her landmark flights. As these pieces became highly collectible, Earhart got in on the fun, acquiring examples of mail she’d flown and showing them at stamp-collecting conventions.
5) Mozart fell ill with smallpox when he was 11 years old, an illness that required several weeks of rest for recovery. The young composer used the down time of his convalescence to pick up a new hobby: card tricks. A local chaplain visited the sick boy and taught him a slew of card tricks that the composer later used to delight his friends.
6) Thomas Edison had a surprisingly impractical passion: concrete. The great inventor so adored concrete that he created a system of molds that would enable builders to simply pour a whole, complete house from concrete. He even had patents for concrete furniture to fill his concrete houses! As you might have noticed, the idea never took off.
7) Thomas Jefferson is so celebrated as a statesman, writer, architect, librarian, and oenophile that it’s easy to miss the fact that he was a celebrated violinist. Jefferson took lessons for most of his life, starting as a young boy, and although accounts of his skill level differ, Jefferson was able to use his musical abilities to woo his wife.
8) Marie Curie stayed pretty busy in the lab – being one of history’s greatest chemists and physicists takes some time – but she also spent a lot of time on her bike. Throughout her life, Curie’s favorite way to unwind was hopping on her bike for long trips that let her explore the outdoors.
9) Abraham Lincoln would have been a surprisingly huge fan of Internet memes. Mary Todd Lincoln was once asked if her husband had any hobbies. Her simple reply: “Cats.”
10) Edith Wharton is remembered for award-winning novels like The Age of Innocence, but her first published book was actually a guide to interior decorating. Throughout her life, the author was a passionate and accomplished interior decorator and garden designer. Wharton even designed her own country home and gardens, “The Mount,” in Lenox, Mass.
11) John Quincy Adams was among our quirkier presidents – he enjoyed skinny dipping in the Potomac and kept a pet alligator in the White House. But he was also an avid collector of ancient coins.
Source
1) Teddy Roosevelt was a man with a lot of hobbies, including obvious ones like hunting, trust busting, and carrying metaphorical sticks. But he was also a passionate boxer and had a brown belt in judo. He once turned heads at a state luncheon by playfully chucking a Swiss diplomat with a judo toss.
2) Napoleon had no rival when it came to battlefield brilliance, so it’s a little surprising that he wasn’t great at his favorite hobby: chess. Although the general supposedly carried a board with him on his military campaigns, he never had much time to practice and was generally regarded as a middling player.
3) Emily Dickinson made more than just amazing poetry – she was also a celebrated baker! Despite being famously shy, Dickinson was sure enough of her bread to enter it in a local competition, in which she won second prize. Of course, since she was Emily Dickinson, poetry was always at play, even in the kitchen – many of her drafts are written on the backs of recipes or ingredient wrappers.
4) Amelia Earhart was passionate about a hobby that’s not usually associated with daredevils: stamp collecting. Earhart frequently carried pieces of mail on her landmark flights. As these pieces became highly collectible, Earhart got in on the fun, acquiring examples of mail she’d flown and showing them at stamp-collecting conventions.
5) Mozart fell ill with smallpox when he was 11 years old, an illness that required several weeks of rest for recovery. The young composer used the down time of his convalescence to pick up a new hobby: card tricks. A local chaplain visited the sick boy and taught him a slew of card tricks that the composer later used to delight his friends.
6) Thomas Edison had a surprisingly impractical passion: concrete. The great inventor so adored concrete that he created a system of molds that would enable builders to simply pour a whole, complete house from concrete. He even had patents for concrete furniture to fill his concrete houses! As you might have noticed, the idea never took off.
7) Thomas Jefferson is so celebrated as a statesman, writer, architect, librarian, and oenophile that it’s easy to miss the fact that he was a celebrated violinist. Jefferson took lessons for most of his life, starting as a young boy, and although accounts of his skill level differ, Jefferson was able to use his musical abilities to woo his wife.
8) Marie Curie stayed pretty busy in the lab – being one of history’s greatest chemists and physicists takes some time – but she also spent a lot of time on her bike. Throughout her life, Curie’s favorite way to unwind was hopping on her bike for long trips that let her explore the outdoors.
9) Abraham Lincoln would have been a surprisingly huge fan of Internet memes. Mary Todd Lincoln was once asked if her husband had any hobbies. Her simple reply: “Cats.”
10) Edith Wharton is remembered for award-winning novels like The Age of Innocence, but her first published book was actually a guide to interior decorating. Throughout her life, the author was a passionate and accomplished interior decorator and garden designer. Wharton even designed her own country home and gardens, “The Mount,” in Lenox, Mass.
11) John Quincy Adams was among our quirkier presidents – he enjoyed skinny dipping in the Potomac and kept a pet alligator in the White House. But he was also an avid collector of ancient coins.
Source
600 Dogs Dead, Thousands Sickened in Connection to Chinese Jerky Treats
If you have a dog or cat that became ill after eating jerky pet
treats, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would like to hear from
you or your veterinarian.
The agency has repeatedly issued alerts to consumers about reports it has received concerning jerky pet treat-related illnesses involving 3,600 dogs and 10 cats in the U.S. since 2007. Approximately 580 of those pets have died.
To date, FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has conducted more than 1,200 tests, visited jerky pet treat manufacturers in China and collaborated with colleagues in academia, industry, state labs and foreign governments. Yet the exact cause of the illnesses remains elusive.
To gather even more information, FDA is reaching out to licensed veterinarians and pet owners across the country. "This is one of the most elusive and mysterious outbreaks we've encountered," says CVM Director Bernadette Dunham, DVM, Ph.D. "Our beloved four-legged companions deserve our best effort, and we are giving it."
In a letter addressing U.S. licensed veterinarians, FDA lists what information is needed for labs testing treats and investigating illness and death associated with the treats. In some cases, veterinarians will be asked to provide blood, urine and tissue samples from their patients for further analysis. FDA will request written permission from pet owners and will cover the costs, including shipping, of any tests it requests.
Meanwhile, a consumer fact sheet will accompany the letter to veterinarians so they can alert consumers to the problem and remind them that treats are not essential to a balanced diet. The fact sheet also explains to consumers how they can help FDA's investigation by reporting potential jerky pet treat-related illnesses online or by calling the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator for their state.
Severe cases have involved kidney failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a rare kidney disorder.
About 60 percent of cases involved gastrointestinal illness, and about 30 percent involved kidney and urinary systems.
The remaining cases reported various symptoms, such as collapse, convulsions or skin issues.
Most of the jerky treats implicated have been made in China. Manufacturers of pet foods are not required by U.S. law to state the country of origin for each ingredient in their products.
A number of jerky pet treat products were removed from the market in January 2013 after a New York State lab reported finding evidence of up to six drugs in certain jerky pet treats made in China.
While the levels of these drugs were very low and it's unlikely that they caused the illnesses, FDA noted a decrease in reports of jerky-suspected illnesses after the products were removed from the market. FDA believes that the number of reports may have declined simply because fewer jerky treats were available.
Meanwhile, the agency urges pet owners to be cautious about providing jerky treats. If you do provide them and your pet becomes sick, stop the treats immediately, consider seeing your veterinarian, and save any remaining treats and the packaging for possible testing.
In addition to continuing to test jerky pet treat samples within FDA labs, the agency is working with the Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN), an FDA-coordinated network of government and veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the U.S. and Canada. (A summary of the tests is available on Vet-LIRN's webpage.)
Inspections of the facilities in China that manufacture jerky products associated with some of the highest numbers of pet illness reports did not identify the cause of illness. However, they did identify additional paths of investigation, such as the supply chain of some ingredients in the treats. Although FDA inspectors have found no evidence identifying the cause of the spate of illnesses, they did find that one firm used falsified receiving documents for glycerin, a jerky ingredient. Chinese authorities informed FDA that they had seized products at the firm and suspended its exports.
To identify the root cause of this problem, FDA is meeting regularly with regulators in China to share findings. The agency also plans to host Chinese scientists at its veterinary research facility to increase scientific cooperation.
FDA has also reached out to U.S. pet food firms seeking further collaboration on scientific issues and data sharing, and has contracted with diagnostic labs.
"Our fervent hope as animal lovers," says Dunham, "is that we will soon find the cause of—and put a stop to—these illnesses."
This article appears on FDA's Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.
Oct. 22, 2013
The agency has repeatedly issued alerts to consumers about reports it has received concerning jerky pet treat-related illnesses involving 3,600 dogs and 10 cats in the U.S. since 2007. Approximately 580 of those pets have died.
To date, FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has conducted more than 1,200 tests, visited jerky pet treat manufacturers in China and collaborated with colleagues in academia, industry, state labs and foreign governments. Yet the exact cause of the illnesses remains elusive.
To gather even more information, FDA is reaching out to licensed veterinarians and pet owners across the country. "This is one of the most elusive and mysterious outbreaks we've encountered," says CVM Director Bernadette Dunham, DVM, Ph.D. "Our beloved four-legged companions deserve our best effort, and we are giving it."
In a letter addressing U.S. licensed veterinarians, FDA lists what information is needed for labs testing treats and investigating illness and death associated with the treats. In some cases, veterinarians will be asked to provide blood, urine and tissue samples from their patients for further analysis. FDA will request written permission from pet owners and will cover the costs, including shipping, of any tests it requests.
Meanwhile, a consumer fact sheet will accompany the letter to veterinarians so they can alert consumers to the problem and remind them that treats are not essential to a balanced diet. The fact sheet also explains to consumers how they can help FDA's investigation by reporting potential jerky pet treat-related illnesses online or by calling the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator for their state.
What to Look Out For
Within hours of eating treats sold as jerky tenders or strips made of chicken, duck, sweet potatoes and/or dried fruit, some pets have exhibited decreased appetite, decreased activity, vomiting, diarrhea (sometimes with blood or mucus), increased water consumption, and/or increased urination.Severe cases have involved kidney failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a rare kidney disorder.
About 60 percent of cases involved gastrointestinal illness, and about 30 percent involved kidney and urinary systems.
The remaining cases reported various symptoms, such as collapse, convulsions or skin issues.
Most of the jerky treats implicated have been made in China. Manufacturers of pet foods are not required by U.S. law to state the country of origin for each ingredient in their products.
A number of jerky pet treat products were removed from the market in January 2013 after a New York State lab reported finding evidence of up to six drugs in certain jerky pet treats made in China.
While the levels of these drugs were very low and it's unlikely that they caused the illnesses, FDA noted a decrease in reports of jerky-suspected illnesses after the products were removed from the market. FDA believes that the number of reports may have declined simply because fewer jerky treats were available.
Meanwhile, the agency urges pet owners to be cautious about providing jerky treats. If you do provide them and your pet becomes sick, stop the treats immediately, consider seeing your veterinarian, and save any remaining treats and the packaging for possible testing.
What FDA Is Doing
More than 1,200 jerky pet treat samples have been tested since 2011 for a variety of chemical and microbiological contaminants, from antibiotics to metals, pesticides and Salmonella. DNA testing has also been conducted, along with tests for nutritional composition.In addition to continuing to test jerky pet treat samples within FDA labs, the agency is working with the Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN), an FDA-coordinated network of government and veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the U.S. and Canada. (A summary of the tests is available on Vet-LIRN's webpage.)
Inspections of the facilities in China that manufacture jerky products associated with some of the highest numbers of pet illness reports did not identify the cause of illness. However, they did identify additional paths of investigation, such as the supply chain of some ingredients in the treats. Although FDA inspectors have found no evidence identifying the cause of the spate of illnesses, they did find that one firm used falsified receiving documents for glycerin, a jerky ingredient. Chinese authorities informed FDA that they had seized products at the firm and suspended its exports.
To identify the root cause of this problem, FDA is meeting regularly with regulators in China to share findings. The agency also plans to host Chinese scientists at its veterinary research facility to increase scientific cooperation.
FDA has also reached out to U.S. pet food firms seeking further collaboration on scientific issues and data sharing, and has contracted with diagnostic labs.
"Our fervent hope as animal lovers," says Dunham, "is that we will soon find the cause of—and put a stop to—these illnesses."
This article appears on FDA's Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.
Oct. 22, 2013
Related Consumer Updates
To The Bunkers!
By Juanita Jean
There are several things that scare the crap outta me before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee in the morning, and of those things, this is #1.
This headline. This one right here. In the morning newspaper.
On the truthfulness side, it most certainly would have to be God calling him because nobody else sure the hell is.
While most of you were ignoring him, I have been keeping an eye on Tom ever
since he got indicted, mainly because he lives down the road from me and until
they prove that sleazy is not contagious, I am keeping my distance.
Once he left Congress, Tom tried one scheme after another to make money. Most of them would make a monthly posting on his website before the scheme flopped and crashed, until he finally got down to just begging money off a damn street corner. Click the little one to see the big one.
The guy has quit everything he ever tried – the exterminating business, congress, Dancing With the Stars, the book writing circuit … he’s a whiner and wimp and that’s the damn truth.
In case you were wondering, Tom DeLay hasn’t found Jesus. It’s just his sideshow. He says Jesus tells him to do things and then he doesn’t have to accept responsibility when he falls on his face.
Also, it sounds a whole lot better than “my Momma said I have to ….”
So now he’s leading a revolution. Thank you, Pancho Villa.
And here’s the part that makes me giggle like a little girl.
Plus, Tom was in Burleson, Texas, making this speech.
I go to Burleson every now and then because I like being the youngest person in town. Burleson is 95.62 white and the median income for a family is $50,432. Yeah, for sure, those people need to be supporting the Tea Party.
Tom has a plan to gain control of the government by having the Tea Party win the House because “the House controls the purse strings.” He also warned them to protect Ted Cruz.
So the bottom line is that Tom DeLay has a new gig – he wants to make money by selling God and the Constitution. Break a leg, Tom.
Oh, and Tom compares his years of being indicted and convicted to being like Moses in the wilderness. He better watch that Messiah Complex because I think Ted Cruz has the third coast distribution rights on it.
Tom, while you were away, our cow died. So we won’t be needing your bull anymore.
There are several things that scare the crap outta me before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee in the morning, and of those things, this is #1.
This headline. This one right here. In the morning newspaper.
On the truthfulness side, it most certainly would have to be God calling him because nobody else sure the hell is.
Once he left Congress, Tom tried one scheme after another to make money. Most of them would make a monthly posting on his website before the scheme flopped and crashed, until he finally got down to just begging money off a damn street corner. Click the little one to see the big one.
The guy has quit everything he ever tried – the exterminating business, congress, Dancing With the Stars, the book writing circuit … he’s a whiner and wimp and that’s the damn truth.
In case you were wondering, Tom DeLay hasn’t found Jesus. It’s just his sideshow. He says Jesus tells him to do things and then he doesn’t have to accept responsibility when he falls on his face.
Also, it sounds a whole lot better than “my Momma said I have to ….”
So now he’s leading a revolution. Thank you, Pancho Villa.
Former Texas congressman Tom DeLay called on members of the Texas Patriot Tea Party on Tuesday night to join him in a revolution for the Constitution, to “shut down” every part of federal government that is not specifically based on the Constitution.
“It’s time for a constitutional renewal, a constitutional revival,” DeLay said in Burleson, adding that this revival is inherently linked to a “spiritual awakening” he sees happening across the country. He said conservatives have allowed “the left to intimidate us, cut off our heads, put us in prison.”Holy crap, Dude, that was you. You led the conservatives. You’re late to the Tea Party game. You invented the politics of personal destruction and now you’re leading a revolution against it? Don’t you get dizzy sometime?
And here’s the part that makes me giggle like a little girl.
“It’s time for a revolution,” DeLay said. “I am not advocating for revolution in the streets. But if that’s what it takes … ”Oh Tom, oh Honey, you’re 5′ 4″, chubby, 67 years old, balding, and have had a face lift or two. Just think how fabulous you’re gonna look taking it to the streets.
Plus, Tom was in Burleson, Texas, making this speech.
I go to Burleson every now and then because I like being the youngest person in town. Burleson is 95.62 white and the median income for a family is $50,432. Yeah, for sure, those people need to be supporting the Tea Party.
Tom has a plan to gain control of the government by having the Tea Party win the House because “the House controls the purse strings.” He also warned them to protect Ted Cruz.
“You will lose Ted Cruz. They will destroy him if you don’t support him,” DeLay warned.No, no, no, Darlin’, we’re sitting on our hands because Ted Cruz is doing a perfectly competent job of destroying himself.
So the bottom line is that Tom DeLay has a new gig – he wants to make money by selling God and the Constitution. Break a leg, Tom.
Oh, and Tom compares his years of being indicted and convicted to being like Moses in the wilderness. He better watch that Messiah Complex because I think Ted Cruz has the third coast distribution rights on it.
Tom, while you were away, our cow died. So we won’t be needing your bull anymore.
GOP official ousted for 'lazy blacks' comment on 'The Daily Show'
By Steve Benen
Following up on Rachel’s opening segment from last night, Don
Yelton, a Republican Party official in North Carolina, thought it’d be a
good idea to appear on “The Daily Show” and defend his party’s new
voter-suppression law. It didn’t turn out well for him or the state GOP.
If you missed the interview, it’s a doozy.
Yelton, who’s practically a caricature of himself, told Aasif Mandvi
the new state voting law is intended to tilt elections in Republicans’
favor, used the “n” word, referenced “lazy black people that wants the
government to give them everything,” and said, in all seriousness, that
one of his “best friends is black.”
The response came quickly.
A Buncombe County Republican precinct chairman has been asked to resign after making “offensive” comments on “The Daily Show.”Buncombe GOP Chairman Henry Mitchell said Don Yelton officially stepped down from his position Thursday.Mitchell called the remarks “offensive, uniformed and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party.”
Though Yelton resigned from his post, he told a local
television station that he stands by his comments. “This is being picked
up in Raleigh, across the state,” he told WLOS in Asheville. “They’re
trying to say, ‘Look at this guy. He’s racist.’ The whole question isn’t
about racism.”
The controversy coincides with a new effort,
launched just this week, in which the North Carolina Republican Party
is trying to expand its outreach to the African-American community.
But in the larger context, there’s a more systemic issue for Republicans to come to terms with. Republicans are, after all, the party of birthers. They’re the party of Rep. Steve “Cantaloupe” King and Gov. Paul “Kiss My Butt” LePage. It was Republican Don Young who talked about “wetbacks” in March, and it was Republican Sarah Palin who talked about “shuck and jive” during the 2012 campaign.
It’s also, of course, the party that’s spearheading
voter-suppression campaigns in states nationwide, in the most sweeping
assault on voting rights since the Jim Crow era.
Earlier this year, Colin Powell, himself a Republican, lamented the “dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party,” featuring GOP voices who “still sort of look down on minorities.”
It’s a problem that’s not going away.
Watch the impressive first trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The first glimpse of Marvel's upcoming blockbuster offers a surprising, political twist on the superhero genre
By Scott Meslow
With Thor: The Dark World just weeks away from release, Marvel has already started laying the groundwork for the next entry in its extended superhero universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And the impressive first trailer offers a glimpse of a film that looks like the studio's most ambitious and adult offering to date.
By Scott Meslow
With Thor: The Dark World just weeks away from release, Marvel has already started laying the groundwork for the next entry in its extended superhero universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And the impressive first trailer offers a glimpse of a film that looks like the studio's most ambitious and adult offering to date.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is set after the events of both the first Captain America and The Avengers,
as the hero adjusts to life in the modern day after spending over 50
years frozen in the Arctic before being thawed out. "I joined
S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect people," says Captain America (Chris Evans) in
the film's trailer. "To build a better world sometimes means tearing the
old one down. And that makes enemies," replies Robert Redford's
Alexander Pierce, making his debut in the Marvel universe.
Anyone who's sorry to see Captain America going solo again
after his time with The Avengers will also spot a few welcome familiar
faces, including Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the Black Widow
(Scarlett Johansson), who has nearly as large a role as Captain America
himself in the trailer.
If the presence of Robert Redford wasn't enough of a tip-off, the trailer makes it clear that Captain America: The Winter Soldier
will take a more staunchly political angle than most of the other
Marvel franchises. As a man who grew up in the 1930's and 1940's, Captain
America is having a difficult time adjusting to a world where the U.S.
government is asking its agents to eliminate potential threats before
they happen.
A big-budget superhero movie with the political
implications of Showtime's Homeland? If Marvel can actually pull it off, Captain America: The Winter Soldier could well turn out to be the best, brainiest superhero blockbuster it has ever released.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Rose and Time Returns to Ouya
By
Wesley Yin-Poole
Published
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Rose and Time has returned to the Ouya store after its creator accepted the changes made to the controversial Free the Games fund.
In September indie developer Sophie Houlden pulled her time-travel stealth game from the Ouya marketplace over Ouya boss Julie Uhrman's lack of action.
Under its $1 million Free the Games Fund, Ouya promised to match contributions to successful Kickstarter games built for the micro-console. At the time the conditions were that the game must have raised at least $50,000, and in return for Ouya's contribution, a six-month exclusivity was agreed.
The first two titles Ouya confirmed to receive a contribution were American Football game Grid Iron Thunder, which asked for $75,000 and ended up with $171,009, and Elementary, My Dear Holmes!, which asked for $50,000. Both games were scrutinized for alleged suspicious backing, and Elementary, My Dear Holmes! saw its Kickstarter suspended after some claimed it was a "scam".
Following the outcry, Ouya announced changes to the Free the Games Fund rules and admitted the program contained "too many loopholes".
Satisfied with the changes, Houlden has now re-launched Rose and Time on Ouya, saying her problems with the company "don't exist any more".
"At the time a lot of developers besides myself were upset at how the Free the Games fund was going and said so," she wrote in a new blog post.
"Then, within a week of chatting with developers (including myself) about how the fund could be improved and what the best outcome for all concerned would be, the Free the Games fund was changed, none of the scam games received a single cent of the fund, the company admitted its mistakes, and was asking for yet more feedback to further improve things.
"Listening to developers, responding quickly, showing humility, and of course showing passion. All the reasons I pulled the game for, were non-existent after just that week. I didn't put the game back on immediately - I'm pretty suspicious so I wanted to keep an eye on things for a while longer - 'If this keeps up for a while I'll put it back for sure' I thought.
"Well, I've seen Ouya listening to developers, I've seen the humility multiple times, I've even chatted to Julie a couple of times in email and on Skype so I am confident at this point that I can no longer justify keeping the game off the console."
Houlden concluded: "Will the company screw up again? Probably. Will they do something that pisses me off? Almost certainly! But I believe when it happens the company will be receptive to criticism and will not be afraid to say 'my bad' if they realize they took a wrong step."
Eurogamer's Jeffrey Matulef interviewed Uhrman last month to discuss Ouya's problems and the future of the micro-console.
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I haven't heard such enthusiastic, downright raucous applause since Texas Gov. "Oops" Perry suggested in 2009 that his state just might withdraw from the union. Unfortunately for him, the applauders were not Texans, but the people of the other 49 states.
This year, though, Idaho is the recipient of hip-hip-hoorays from across the country. Why? Because it has been selected as the site of an extraordinary new town to be named "III Citadel." This will be a walled, heavily-fortified, one-square-mile settlement of some 7,000 armed & angry, ideologically-pure, anti-government extremists drawn from cities, towns and gopher holes all across America. Lucky you, Idaho!
Founder and apocalyptic visionary Christian Allen Kerodin, says the Roman numeral III in the name of his Citadel scheme represents what he calls the "3 percenters" – the percentage of Americans who are superpatriot survivalists capable of withstanding the coming economic doomsday and social upheaval. He says that, once established, he and his fellow Citadellians will take it upon themselves to restore America to Americans:
"The Southwest will be purged of Latinos," he explains, and "Enclaves of Muslims such as in Detroit will be culled… by fed-up Americans looking for some payback." In Kerodin's barricaded utopia, everyone older than 13 "must possess an AR-15 assault rifle, five magazines, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition." In an odd comparison, he declares that his last bastion of liberty will be like Disneyland – "a walled, gated private property." Yeah – only Goofyer.
Of course, the III in the Citadel's name could also refer to Kerodin's three felony convictions.
Nonetheless, he's doing America a favor if he can actually bring 7,000 like-minded zealots into his compound. Once they're inside, we can sneak up and lock the gates from the outside.
"7,000 Gun-Loving "Patriots" Living in an Walled Citadel Built Around an Arms Factory in Idaho - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" www.alternet.org , August 15, 2013.