”Existing law authorizes a private person who wishes to transfer a firearm to another person to request the Central Repository to perform a background check on the person who wishes to acquire the firearm. (NRS 202.254) Section 8 of this bill requires, with certain exceptions which are set forth in section 7.8 of this bill, that a private person who wishes to transfer a firearm to another person request that a federally licensed firearms dealer submit a request for a background check to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”  (Abstract here)

This shouldn’t be too difficult a bill to comprehend. There are just a few categories of individuals who cannot legally obtain firearms in this state: Felons, Fugitives, Dangerously Mentally Ill, Undocumented Persons, and Minors.  Someone should probably add “individuals on the Terrorist Watch List?”  Be that as it may — these categories preclude gun ownership in the interest of public safety, except of course if these self-same individuals avail themselves of gun show parking lots, Internet sales, and other gun sellers and traffickers who don’t want to be bothered or inconvenienced with background checks.

Objections range from the bizarre to the banal.  Ammoland calls for opposition based on fearmongering:

“SB 221 will in effect create a registration system of all firearms transferred privately. This bill also makes revisions to Nevada law regarding mental health.  An individual who fails to comply with the new background check transfer requirements would be prohibited from possessing a firearm for a period of two years after being found guilty of a gross misdemeanor.”

Actually, that would be “no” — there is no registration system established in the bill.   Weasel words, like “in effect,” simply allow the writer latitude to assert — without substantiation — that any background check will start the rock rolling down the declivitous slope to Registration.

The Daily Caller is a bit more rabid on the subject:

“SB 221 carries severe penalties for violations that could result in a loss of Second Amendment rights. An individual who fails to comply with the new background check transfer requirements would be guilty of a gross misdemeanor and prohibited from possessing a firearm for a period of two years. The second offense would be a felony, resulting in loss of Second Amendment rights.”

Yes, people who violate the law, whether the statute refers to a misdemeanor or a felony, usually lose rights.  Commit a felony in Nevada and a person loses all manner of rights. For example, felons must follow the provisions of NRS 213.155 in order to vote.   There is a large difference between “losing a right” and common sense restrictions on “rights” such that liberty doesn’t devolve into license.   This concept is often missed on the radical right during discussions of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Flashback

There are no other rights specified in the U.S. Constitution which are not subject to common sense restrictions.   Free speech does not support slander. Free press does not allow libel.  Freedom of religion doesn’t allow a person to practice human sacrifice. Freedom of assembly doesn’t mean mobs can riot at will.  My home may be my castle — but if my neighbor sees stolen goods in my garage and calls the police none of my 4th Amendment rights are violated.  I can’t be tried twice for the same crime, but if I rob three different house the District Attorney may be pleased to try me for three separate crimes, and nothing in the 5th Amendment would prevent that.

The 8th Amendment says I can’t be subjected to “excessive bail,” but if I commit a truly heinous — Headline News worthy — crime of the century, nothing prevents the judge from assigning a bail for which I don’t have the funds in my checking account.

Even the 13th Amendment, the one prohibiting involuntary servitude, has limits.  Should I be convicted by a jury of my peers of my Headline News worthy crime of the month, then I can expect to be “serving” the state, if not breaking up rocks or making license plates, then in some other tasks assigned to me.

In short, as discussed previously,  there are no Constitutional rights which don’t require some level of personal responsibility.   Extrapolated to its conclusion the “Second Amendment” exceptionalism would reduce us to medieval entities, each armed to the maximum, each assured of perhaps not so much the righteousness of its cause but its efficacy in arms.  Even a rather conservative U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t taken the Second Amendment interpretation to these absurd extremes.

The Right Question

The essential question before the Nevada Legislature is whether or not we want  felons, fugitives, the dangerously mentally ill, undocumented persons, and juveniles to have convenient access to deadly weapons?

The sane answer would be NO.  The sane vote in the Nevada Assembly on SB 221 would be YES.

More News From Gun Land

Meanwhile the tragedies compound –

“The Lyon County sheriff’s office is investigating the shooting death of a juvenile in Dayton over the weekend.  Deputies say a preliminary investigation suggests it was an accidental shooting.  Officers say they were called to the scene on Riverpark Parkway about 11 a.m. Sunday. No other details have been released. The names of those involved are being withheld because of their ages.” [RGJ]

“Authorities were searching for at least two gunmen who walked up to the door of a Northern California home and opened fire, killing a 10-year-old girl and injuring her parents.

“Whoever these gunmen were, they were directly outside the front door,” Sacramento County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Jason Ramos said Sunday. “This was not a drive-by. These gunmen approached the house and shot inside.” [Las Vegas Sun]

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera has taken it upon himself to catalog incidents of gun violence in the U.S.  The entries are depressing, but informative.  If even a few of the tragic incidents logged in Nocera’s Gun Reports could have been prevented by expanding background checks then we would be able to reduce the level of the misery meter for families across this country.

Better still, if we could bring ourselves to (1) ban military style assault weapons, (2) limit ammunition capacity, (3) enact provisions in statute concerning the safe storage of firearms, and (4) prevent more gun trafficking from states with lenient to non-existent gun regulations to urban and suburban neighborhoods, then Nocera’s reports could be diminished significantly.  IF.

What did they support?

“SEC Regulatory Accountability Act – Amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), before issuing a regulation under the securities laws, to: (1) identify the nature and source of the problem that the proposed regulation is designed to address in order to assess whether any new regulation is warranted; (2) use the SEC Chief Economist to assess the costs and benefits of the intended regulation and adopt it only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify the costs; (3) identify and assess available alternatives that were considered; and (4) ensure that any regulation is accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.”  [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

Oh, how the Wall Street Wizards will love this one! The Little Wizards in the investment banking sector have long wanted all regulators to use the “cost/benefit” standard for restraining the excesses of investment enthusiasm.   H.R. 1062 seeks to gut the Dodd-Frank financial reform statute enacted in the wake of the Mortgage Meltdown and attendant financial machinations, and unleash the Wall Street Wizards from all regulation “past, present, and future.”  [HuffPo] We already have “cost/benefit analysis”  built into the system — so why another bit of legislation?

Here’s the little kicker in the bill:  “This bill was transparently designed to allow each regulation to be challenged in court by industry, but not by consumer advocates.”  [HuffPo] Got it?

Evidently, Representatives Heck and Amodei believe this to be a good idea — that the financial sector battalion of legal expertise may challenge each and every regulation proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission — but the rules may NOT be challenged by consumer advocates.

As Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI4) explains:

“The ink would not be dry on a SEC rule before the race to the courthouse door to challenge the regulations would begin. Presumably, the most powerful industry participants would challenge the rules in the way that achieves their narrow interest, which may be to the detriment of investors or other less-affluent market participants. In this way, the most powerful industry interests would be able to not only use the courts to undo consumer protections, but to also seek competitive advantage over competitors.”

The big get bigger, the fat get fatter, and the rest of us sit waiting to find out how best to serve the Big Bankers on Wall Street.

But wait! It gets better — if you happen to be a Big Banker on The Street:

Requires the SEC to: (1) consider whether the rulemaking will promote efficiency, competition, and capital formation; (2) consider the impact of the regulation upon investor choice, market liquidity, and small business; (3) explain in its final rule the nature of comments received concerning the proposed rule or rule change; and (4) respond to those comments, explaining any changes made in response and the reasons that it did not incorporate industry group concerns regarding potential costs or benefits. [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

Any rule has to promote “capital formation?“  Translation: No SEC rule may prevent any investment banking operation from accumulating capital (money) just about any way it wants to, and even further — if the rule does prevent some Wall Street investment house or Monster Bank from accumulating all the coin of the realm it wants then the SEC has to explain (presumably to Wall Street’s satisfaction) why “industry group concerns” weren’t incorporated into the rules.  Another translation might be in order:  The SEC can’t propose and adopt any rule Wall Street doesn’t like.

Wall Street would like to modify some existing rules (like those pertaining to the Dodd-Frank Act) and H.R. 1062 offers them a way to do that:

Requires the SEC to: (1) review its existing regulations periodically to determine if they are outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome; and (2) modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them.  [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

How nice.  Now, just what does “excessively burdensome” actually mean?  The standard Wall Street dictionary applies the term to any regulation they don’t like.   Is it “excessively burdensome” to require a Wall Street firm to report what it’s doing with derivatives? Is it “excessively burdensome” to make Wall Street stop playing casino games with people’s mortgages?   If the rule isn’t “excessively burdensome,” then how about making rule proposals almost impossible?  The bill had a little something for that prospect too:

“Requires the SEC, whenever it adopts or amends a major rule, to state in its adopting release: (1) the purposes and intended consequences of the regulation, (2) the post-implementation quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure the economic impact of the regulation and the extent to which it has accomplished the stated purposes, (3) the assessment plan that will be used under the supervision of the Chief Economist to assess whether the regulation has achieved those purposes, and (4) any foreseeable unintended or negative consequences. Requires the assessment plan to: (1) consider the costs, benefits, and intended and unintended consequences of the regulation; and (2) specify the data to be collected, the methods for its collection and analysis, and an assessment completion date.”  [Thomas CRS Summary]

Got all that?  How is an “unintended consequence” foreseeable?  That’s why they’re called “unintended” in the first place.   So, the SEC cannot enforce any rule which might at any point in the future have an “unintended consequence” because that would violate the provision calling for a full assessment of the development of the rule.

After this bit of legislative legerdemain on behalf of the Big Banks and their cohorts on Wall Street, Representatives Amodei and Heck have not a quarter of an inch of room to talk about protecting small businesses — who are all too often at the mercy of the Big Banks, nor do they have any leeway to discuss protecting investors and their retirement accounts.  Nevada homeowners facing all manner of difficulties with mortgages that were sold off in packages and then bet on more enthusiastically than the Kentucky Derby might want to inquire precisely how Representatives Amodei and Heck are protecting their interests?

Representatives Heck and Amodei have joined the Big Bank Boys Club in this vote; a connection avoided by Representatives Horsford and Titus.

If you are not a resident of Nevada and would like to see how your Representative voted on this egregious bit of pandering to Wall Street and Big Bank interests click here.

The Science Factor: No, we can’t glibly dismiss the notion of climate change, it doesn’t “cause” storms, but it is a factor in their strength.  The Oppenheimer-Lin Study released in February 2013 predicted stronger storms on the east coast of the U.S. — they just didn’t conclude that Sandy would show up so quickly.

“Oppenheimer and Lin, a civil and environmental engineering professor, said Hurricane Sandy’s destruction might have at least one benefit: bringing attention to the East Coast’s vulnerability to massive storms and the likelihood that a warming climate will bring more such storms than ever before.

Hurricanes gain power from the warm ocean surface, so higher temperatures create more intense storms. As sea levels rise, the risk of flooding increases, as well. Though climate change doesn’t cause storms, it’s a recipe for increasingly destructive ones, said Oppenheimer and Lin.

“What’s now a 100-year flood will become a five- to 20-year flood at the end of the century,” Oppenheimer said.” [NJ.com]

Climate change deniers to the contrary, the peer reviewed studies of the effects of global change point in one direction — toward a sign that says “Get Ready.”   See also: “Wilder Weather” [EPA.gov] and Climate Central.

The Population Factor:  One of the ways we measure the seriousness of storm events is by property damage and lives lost, but this calculation must take into account there are more of us if we’re making historical comparisons and contrasts.   The population of the United States in 1940 was 132,164,569; our last census counted 308,745,538 people living in this country.  The population of Reno, Nevada in 1940 was 21,317 by the last count it stood at 225,211.  More people are likely to be affected in some way by natural disasters because there are more people.

The Sprawl Factor: A map of Reno, Nevada made in 1940 shows a very different town than the one we see today.  University Heights was on the northern “line” of development, Keystone Avenue generally marked the western limit — think of Idlewild Park as at the city edge.  To the east the VA Hospital was toward the edge of city development and to the south think of Plumb Lane as the general boundary.  A wildland fire in 1940 would have done damage to wildland — there are now more acres developed placing more property and lives at risk.  Similarly, a 1942 Oklahoma highway map (pdf) shows the space between Oklahoma City, Moore, and Norman.  Moore now being considered a “suburb” of Oklahoma City.  A tornado which in 1942 would have pulverized farm land went through subdivisions in 2013.  As long as our planning and development tends toward moving out as opposed to moving up more land will be developed for more housing, and more targets for Mother Nature’s storms.

There’s food for thought here about global climate change, population, and land development… when we get past the immediate needs of families in New York, New Jersey, Texas and Oklahoma.

Repeat

Some time in the future — one can only hope it isn’t soon — the term  “Frontier Market” is going to come back to haunt someone, and we might wish to pray that not only is the backwash not immediate, but also that it doesn’t repeat the last financial debacle.

Tucked into Reuters’ reporting of market news was this article which may prove altogether too prescient:

“With the world’s biggest central banks driving yields on safe assets to near zero, some investors are tossing caution to the wind and rushing to buy illiquid and previously overlooked bonds sold by countries with no capital markets track record.”  [Reuters]

If this sounds too familiar, it should — it should have reminded someone of Argentina (1992-2002) the Asian financial calamity (1997) and the mess in Russia (1998) which brought down Long Term Capital Management.  We ought to take a second look at what happened in the LTCM mess:

“Long-Term Capital was advised by finance quants, or quantitative analysts, who made a number of unsound, esoteric bets, including investments in interest rate derivatives. When Russia’s inability to pay its debts roiled global markets, the fund, saddled with high-leverage and off-balance-sheet obligations, was near collapse.

Because Long-Term Capital owed large sums to banks and other financial institutions, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York organized a consortium of companies to buy it out and cover the debts. Alan Greenspan, then the Fed chairman, eased monetary policy to restart capital markets, which were starting to freeze up. Long-Term Capital’s shareholders were wiped out, but none of the creditors took losses.”  [NYT]

Quick summary:  A large hedge fund, guided by quantitative analysis (but not exactly a boatload of common sense), took positions in debt issued by Russia.  Because the hedge fund owed large amounts to “other financial institutions” (read: banks and other funds) when the Russian economy collapsed the Big Hedge Fund blew up, and the creditors (those other banks and investment firms) were about to get not only a hair cut, but possibly get their heads shaved.  Not surprisingly the financial markets began to “freeze up” (Does this sound familiar?)  Enter the first big government bail out of the Era of the Financialists.

This wouldn’t be the first or last time the bankers blew it.  Consider Mexico in 1994, those investors bought Mexican debt in pesos and were repaid in dollars — but the Mexican government didn’t have sufficient reserves to keep up the fixed rate repayment.  At this juncture a sentient creature might have wanted to ask: Why am I buying debt without checking to see if the nation in question has ample reserves to repay it?  Not enough investors (and their institutions) ask the question, and the result was messy.  The U.S. ended up buying pesos on the open market, and then added loan guarantees  to the tune of some $50 billion.

So, now let’s add “investors” interested in buying Paraguayan, Bolivian, and Honduran debt in 2013.  Just for good measure we can toss in some Vietnamese and Romanian debt as well.  These nations are issuing debt (bonds) and “investors” are buying it up.

Paraguay offered bonds at 4.65% interest (yield) on January 17, 2013.   Reuters reported: “Paraguay, one of South America’s poorest and most unstable nations is expected to see a strong economic rebound this year and the government is keen to tap increased investor interest in smaller emerging market issuers.”

U.S. Treasury bonds are currently going for 1.95% for ten years.  [Treasury] thus for the Greed Is Good Crowd that 4.65% might be very appealing?  However, that “poorest and most unstable nation” thing might give a few individuals pause.

Honduras was rated B+ by S&P when it issued its international bonds at 7.5%, mature in 2024.  They are involved in a $205 million lawsuit concerning a state owned logging company which caused Barclay’s to pull out of the deal. [Bloomberg] But Gee! doesn’t that interest rate look enticing? There’s just a bit of a problem — Honduras has “gang problems,” $6 billion in foreign debt, and an internal debt that’s tripled since 2010.  [AJTV] What could possibly go wrong?

Guatemala entered the lists: “Guatemala, rated two steps higher than Honduras at BB, sold $700 million of 2028 bonds to yield 5 percent on Feb. 6, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yield on the bonds has fallen to 4.95 percent since they were issued.” [Bloomberg] The fact that 54% of the nation’s citizens are living in poverty ought to be some kind of clue about its economy, and the fact that  the highest income earners are responsible for 42+% of the nation’s consumption might also be a sticky point. [CIA]  The State Department offers this caution: “Guatemala continues to face major challenges to successful development, including poverty, malnutrition, and vulnerability to economic fluctuations and natural disasters. The Guatemalan government also faces the challenges of corruption and the presence of transnational organized crime.”

Just imagine for a moment if Burnham Down & Crash LLC,  bought up some Paraguayan, Honduran, and Guatemalan bonds, which they mixed with some U.S. bonds (1.95%), some bonds from Great Britain (1.95%), and some German bonds (1.37%).   A bit of careful slicing, dicing, and repackaging could be used to manufacture “Unlimited Horizons” — a bond offering for “investors” (read: Other Bankers).  Incorporate a touch more Magic Hands and the bonds from “Unlimited Horizons” could be repackaged with bonds from “Blue Skies” yet another mixture of national paper, and an admixture of really good investments piled in with some really questionable ones.  Is this sounding familiar yet? Clue: Think Housing Bubble.

How many of the bonds from the shaky sources have to default before the investors are looking at the financial equivalent of Sweeney Todd’s barber shop?  How many investment houses are going to be involved in the purchase of these bonds and their derivatives before the Major Bankers “have to step in” and announce austerity measures so that the small debtor nations can repay the investors?  Clue: Look at Greece? Cyprus?

How many of us on this planet would be just as happy if the bankers had not decided to play in those debt markets in the first place?

It isn’t as though the bankers didn’t learn anything from Argentina, Mexico, the Asian markets, and Long Term Capital Management — from Lehman Brothers, or from the Mortgage Meltdown — it really doesn’t look like they’ve learned anything.

First, he opposed the nomination of Elissa Cadish, refusing to sign the paperwork necessary for her candidacy as a judicial nominee to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, because he was miffed by her position on guns.  Now, he’s opposing the nomination of Jennifer Dorsey because her previous law firm made a major donation to the PAC associated with Senator Harry Reid. [LVSun]

Surprise, surprise … law firms make significant political donations.  Who would have thought it?

“Nevada Sen. Dean Heller announced via statement Thursday that he would not be supporting Dorsey’s nomination because he was concerned about the propriety of large financial contributions Dorsey and her law firm — Kent, Jones & Coulthard — made to Sen. Harry Reid campaign and political action committees as he was considering recommending her to Obama for the position.” [LVSun]

That’s it?  No mention of her qualifications? Her previous legal work?  Not even a bit of sugar coating to make his opposition seem more professional, more considered?  Just pure good old fashioned unalloyed partisanship?  It doesn’t get more shallow than this.

Of course, Senator Heller’s previous press release wasn’t any more indicative of critical thinking.  His solution to the problem of interpreting the meaning of Internal Revenue Service regulations regarding the applications for 501(c)4 tax exempt status seems not to be the province of Congress to make clear and explicit statutes on what constitutes “social welfare” and if this should be the primary or the exclusive purpose of an applicant organization.

Nor, does Senator Heller propose that we restore the positions at the IRS, at least the 42 cut from the tax exemption department which took those ill advised shortcuts to process a 56% increase in the number of applications,  a staffing shortage which led to the creation of the shortcuts in the first place.  Believe it or not, Senator Heller’s “solution” is to exacerbate the problem.

“The President’s budget requested that about $440 million be diverted to the IRS for the purpose of enforcing the President’s healthcare law. Considering the IRS is under increasing scrutiny for targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, Heller introduced legislation to stop additional funding.”  [Heller]

Jolly, so budget cuts and staff reductions created problems for the Cincinnati office of the IRS in terms of determining the tax exempt status of 501(c)4 applicants, and now Senator Heller is promoting the idea that the IRS should be restricted in how it enforces health care insurance reform statutes?

This is simply classic Republican obstructionism at its finest.  The formula is predictable and thoroughly tested: Decry the incompetence of government, then cut funding and staffing levels for government agencies. When the agencies cannot function properly because of the funding and staffing cuts, decry the incompetence of government… lather…rinse…repeat.

Senator Heller’s machinations might be interesting, or at least amusing, if they were at least a tad bit unusual.  They aren’t.  He gives every appearance of spending the last week in full Obstruction and Blatant Partisanship Mode.   His fixation on the outward attributes of governmental operations makes Shallow Hal look like an astute and circumspect observer of human personality.

Meanwhile, the Federal District Courts in Nevada remain seriously understaffed.  How many more Nevada citizens and businesses must wait for their day in court before Senator Heller can find his  “perfect” nominee for an appointment to the bench?

STUDENT LOANS

The Federal Reserve Discount Rate right now is 0.75%. [BankRate] So, banks can borrow money at 3/4th of a percent.  The current Stafford Student Loan Rate (in school) is 3.4% and the current Stafford Student Loan Rate (out of school) is 6.8%.  [BankRate]  We know, of course, that the banks don’t keep loans on their own books for the most part, and the student loans are really safe “paper” to package up into bonds, which in turn get sliced and diced into derivatives for the market traders to play with, creating a tidy $1 Trillion in total student indebtedness in this country. [WSJ]

We say we need more scientists, more engineers, more physicians, more nurses, more architects, and more computer engineers — but when it come down to helping students pay for the education necessary to pursue these degrees our next generation finds itself so saddled with student debt that basic life decisions — like finding housing, getting married, and paying the usual bills are swirled into the vortex of loan repayment.  The Federal Reserve Bank of New York posted this conclusion on April 17, 2013:

“Student loans have soared in popularity over the past decade, with the aggregate student loan balance, as measured in the FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel, reaching $966 billion at the end of 2012. Student debt now exceeds aggregate auto loan, credit card, and home-equity debt balances—making student loans the second largest debt of U.S. households, following mortgages. Student loans provide critical access to schooling, given the challenge presented by increasing costs of higher education and rising returns to a degree. Nevertheless, some have questioned how taking on extensive debt early in life has affected young workers’ post-schooling economic activity.”   [...]

As seen in the chart below, the share of twenty-five-year-olds with student debt has increased from just 25 percent in 2003 to 43 percent in 2012. Further, the average student loan balance among those twenty-five-year-olds with student debt grew by 91 percent over the period, from $10,649 in 2003 to $20,326 in 2012. Student loan delinquencies have also been growing, as shown in the recent presentations by New York Fed economists Donghoon Lee and Wilbert van der Klaauw.

The number of student in debt has increased, the amount of the debt has increased, and so have the number of delinquencies.  And all the while the profitability of the banks (which we remember were bailed out with tax payer dollars) has continued unabated.  “Banks have been reporting steady growth in earnings since soon after the financial crisis. With the latest reports rolling in, analysts think the banks’ first-quarter profits will be their best ever.” [NYT 4/17/13]

Now isn’t that nice. The banks are getting “best ever” profits and the students are getting more deeply mired in debt.  Does this mean we have a Congress more concerned with the profitability of the banks than with the manageability of student debt, and the prospect of a nation in which fewer young people can afford to seek the educations which would boost their economic circumstances and enhance our national structure?  Meanwhile, it’s seemingly more important to give freshman Congress creatures an opportunity to repeal the Affordable Care Act — for the 37th time — than it is to conduct hearings and draft legislation to address the Student Loan Scandal.   Perhaps if we start calling the situation a “scandal” some attention might be brought to the subject?  Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has a bill on the Senate side to offer a bit of relief, which by some lights doesn’t go far enough, but at least someone is paying attention.

Military Sexual Assaults

There are approximately 1.4 million people serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Pentagon reports there have been some 26,000 cases of sexual assault.  This isn’t a “women’s problem.” This is a military culture problem.  This is a legal problem.    Even the distribution of a motion picture on the subject (The Invisible War) hasn’t raised the Scandal Flag amongst the Village Media.  A Senate Armed Services Subcommittee has held one hearing — March 13, 2013. [SASC]   On the other side of the building House Armed Services chairman Buck McKeown  “said he was outraged and disgusted by the Fort Hood allegations.” [CNN]  As well he should be — so now where are the umpteen hearings on sexual assaults in the military?  Generally, when the term “sex” is combined with an issue — infidelity, crime, or whatever — the resulting phrase is Sex Scandal.  Why not this time?  Oh, yes, wait — the House is still voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 37th time, and there will be more hearings on Benghazi…

This could go on … isn’t it scandalous we’re reducing the federal budget deficit … “The federal deficit is shrinking more quickly than expected, and the government’s long-term debt has largely stabilized for the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday in a report…” [LAT] BUT there’s a House bill which would further reduce funding for SNAP and nutrition programs, Meals on Wheels is sharply curtailing services to the elderly, and the Mysterious Chargemaster continues to make hospitalization bills inexplicable, opaque, and unfathomable…but these haven’t risen to the level of “Scandal” in the Washington, D.C. media.

And, then there’s the polling indicating that some 91% of the American people thought there ought to be expanded background checks to mitigate the prospects that an insane person, a felon, a fugitive, an undocumented person, or a juvenile could get hold of lethal weapons … and the Senate Republicans filibustered the bill…

For information about these issues we’re better off looking to local reporters who write about local children going hungry, or local seniors unserved, or local hospital rates, or local gun violence tragedies …. Perhaps if a crowd of  senior citizens picketed a military installation (or a couple of banks) clad like the current on-sale portrait of the late great  Bea Arthur, and packed AR-15s for show while waving their empty plates and their grandkids’ student loan papers … could we get some attention here?  And, while we’re at it — Where are the JOBS bills?

Would THAT be a scandal?

The first, and the most obvious, reason to oppose this bill is that We Don’t Need It.  RPEN reports “Due to careful management, PERS’ unfunded liability has decreased recently and the system’s assets have grown to a record $28.6 billion which speaks to this time-tested system’s viability.”   [Review, April 2013]

Why would anyone think we do need to change the PERS system from a defined benefit to a defined contribution, or in the case of AB 342, some kind of hybridization?

The “privatization” of public employee retirement has been a common motif of narratives spun by conservative organizations, among which ALEC is one of the most notable.

“The solution to the funding crises in state pension plans will require fundamental reform. Everything should be on the table, including changes in benefits and increased employee contribution rates, as well as employer contribution rates. These plans should consider replacing their defined benefit plans with defined-contribution plans for new employees.” [ALEC]

First, ALEC and related organizations would like us to believe that Public Employee Pensions are IN CRISIS! Crisis, I Say!   However, even if we revert to the wake of the last financial meltdown the situation nationally (and in Nevada) was not quite so alarming as the advocates of defined contribution plans would have us believe.

Information from the GAO should have been reassuring back in that day:

“Government Accountability Office said last summer, “our analysis shows that state and local governments on average would need to increase pension contribution rates to 9.3 percent of salaries— less than .5 percent more than the 9.0 percent contribution rate in 2006 to achieve healthy funding on an ongoing basis.”  Divided between employees and employers in whatever way negotiated, this is hardly an earth-shaking departure from the status quo.” [PS.org]

In short, the logic in the aftermath of the financial collapse was that defined benefit plans for public employees were in crisis because there was a down turn in the value of their investments and therefore the plans should be transformed into defined contribution plans which place retirement accounts in greater jeopardy during times of financial market volatility.  If this doesn’t make sense to you give yourself a Big Gold Star — because it doesn’t.

Secondly, the push toward defined contribution plans, or some variations thereon, obfuscates the result — that the defined contribution plans mean lower benefits for retirees and more expenses for the state to maintain the program. [FLPE]

There have been some analytical studies to support this conclusion, (using DC to mean defined contribution, and DB to mean defined benefits):

Generally, the reports found that the DC plans carried a higher price-tag than maintaining the current DB systems. In both the Michigan and New Hampshire reports, the proposed employer DC contribution rates were scored to be comparably higher than the normal DB cost. The studies cite that higher costs derive primarily from administrative costs – whether they are outsourced to a third-party or expanded internally, legal and consulting fees assumed by public pension fund handlers, and additional operating costs.  [FLPE]

Thus, moving from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan primarily augments the coffers of the administrators, legal consultants, and fund managers — not the state or the retired state employees.   If defined contribution plans are more beneficial to Wall Street, then who benefits from the defined benefit plans?

We do. There is evidence of this:   Traditional defined benefit plans reduce employee turnover and aid in employee recruitment. They pay higher benefits at lower administrative costs than the DC plans.  The benefits are expended in local communities adding to their economies.  Individuals with predictable incomes tend to contribute more to the economy as consumers.  [SDCERA]

AB 342 is not a particularly useful addition to the fiscal discussions in the Nevada Assembly.  We don’t need it. It won’t save anyone any more money — and may, in fact, end up costing the state more.  Nor will it serve to do anything more than line the pockets of those wonderful people who brought us the Financial Meltdown of 2008 — who now want public employee retirement accounts to add to their funds to gamble in the Wall Street Casino.  The bill should be watched — from a distance — in what ever dark and hidden corner it now resides.

The Las Vegas Sun sets the record straight on the actual contents of the bill under consideration — for those who are actually interested in what the bill would really do, and not primarily fascinated by projecting their fears on the canvas of someone else’s proposal for addressing the fact that Nevada has the 4th largest teen pregnancy rate in the country.

There is just about as much misinformation as any sentient human being could every aspire to amassing in the comments on AB 230 at the Legislature’s input site.

Those against the bill seem to track along various lines: Sex is icky and should not be discussed; Sex is sacred and should be theologically framed and not discussed as a biological feature associated with human behavior; and it’s OK to talk about sex and we’re doing enough already.  The last argument is at least a point we could discuss in rational terms.  The first two are essentially religious in nature, and emotional in character.

The unavoidable and uncomfortable fact that we have the fourth highest rate of teen pregnancy in the United States of America ought to be enough to convince the public we’re not doing something  effectively.

Those who advocate for total parental control over the content of sex education may want to remember that not all parents (or other family members) have accurate information.

For example, during a quiet conversation with an adolescent female a few years back, the youngster about floored me with the fervent assertion that “You can’t get pregnant if he’s drunk.”  That would be only if “he” were intoxicated to the point of dead to the world unconsciousness….

Or, there was the young lady who assured me her grandmother was correct when she said, “You can’t get pregnant if you do it standing up.”   Uh, that would be a “no.”  It doesn’t matter if the position you’ve assumed is the most uncomfortable imaginable — all the two little bits have to do is to get together and then the impossible becomes possible.   The NCBI did a study published in 2009 regarding the sources teens use to find information about sex. The results really shouldn’t be surprising:

“Consistent with previous research, adolescents in this sample rely heavily on friends, parents, teachers, and the media for sexual information. There were several differences in source use by race/ethnicity and gender, but the only difference by age group was with regards to media. The older the adolescents, the more they relied on media as a source of information. Among those who cited the media as an information source, television was the medium from which adolescents reported learning the most about sex, which is not surprising in light of research showing that 70% of television programs in 2005 contained some form of sexual content.” [NCBI]

There’s a reason for the order given in that summary paragraph.  Teens reported their sources of information as 74.9% from friends, 62.2% from teachers, 60.9% from mothers, 57% from the media, 41.4% from doctors, 32.8% from fathers, 29.3% from cousins, 18.1% from brothers, 17.7% from sisters, 13.5% from grandparents, and 12% from religious leaders.

If we adopt the policy that parents should be the only ones doing the sex education spiels with their youngsters then we’re accepting that the mothers are generally the ones doing the talking (at 60.9%) and only 32.8% of the fathers are involved in the “teachable moments.”  However, we still have to deal with the fact that nearly 75% of the information the kids are getting comes from outside the home — from friends who may be as informed or misinformed as the sources of their information.

One of the controversial provisions of AB 230 is the matter of passive or active parental consent — does the parent have to actively permit the child’s instruction, or does non-action constitute tacit approval?  Given the data indicating that 75% of the sexual information is passed along by friends — of possibly dubious veracity — if we truly want to educate children and empower them with the most accurate information possible then the tacit approval route would include more young people in the process.

If parents want control over the content of their child’s collection of information about human sexuality then the bill allows for that, parents can always opt out — and hope that the 75% outsourcing of education to “friends” works for them.  Fathers may wish to note that they are responsible for an average of only 32.8% of the information the child receives?

Religious leaders, no matter how well intended, aren’t getting their message across if only 12% of our teens are reporting that those leaders are the source of their sex education.

If parents are fearful about the intrusion of the right wing bogey of the day — Planned Parenthood — inserting its messages about contraception (and horror of horrors “abortion”) into public school instruction, then they ought to be assuaged by the bill’s language giving local districts control over curriculum content.  However much some parents may believe that Planned Parenthood and other health care providers are salivating at the prospect of propagandizing the progeny the statistics still indicate that information about the subject of contraception among teens who participated in sex education classes  tends to be “superficial and often limited to condoms.” [Guttmacher pdf]  This doesn’t speak well for the current curriculum or the level of instruction, whether parents opt in or out.  Or, as one 17 year old participant in the study told researchers, “My Dad said turn the lights out and use a condom.” In short, what teenagers may know about contraception, either to avoid impregnation or to minimize the prospects of a sexually transmitted disease, is limited to “safe sex sound bites.”  We could be doing better than this.

Further, if we truly want to prevent the possibility of abortions then the rate of teen abortions in Nevada could be reduced with more and better information about contraception.  Recent statistics show Teenage abortion rates were highest in New York (41 per 1,000), New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware and Connecticut. [Guttmacher 2010 pdf]  Someone isn’t “Just Saying No.”

Contraception, one the best ways to avoid unintended pregnancies, may not be on the educational agenda at all — only 14% of U.S. schools as late as 2002 had truly comprehensive sex education, 86% had policies on sex education curricula calling for the promotion of abstinence as a primary focus, 51% allowed the discussion of contraception as a way to avoid STDs, 35% required that abstinence be the only option.  [UC SF pdf]  The abstinence-only approach was effective in limited environments (religious schools, small groups) but there is little evidence that success rates can be replicated in larger, more diverse, groups such as public schools.  The 2002 report concluded that most of the abstinence-only research was not peer reviewed, and tended to be isolated.

What parents could hope for from the Nevada Legislature is a bill that expands the scope of comprehensive sex education for all Nevada youngsters, with instruction appropriate to the age level of the students, and with a curriculum which emphasizes information over exhortation.

If we truly don’t wish to have students dropping out then we need to have the parents opt in.

Case in point: Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.   As long as the D.C. press continues to focus on the construction of talking points in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack on a diplomatic outpost seeking an elusive, and very likely non-existent connection to political machinations in campaign season, we’ll not get around to addressing some very real problems which make our diplomatic missions less safe.

There is another way to frame this information issue:  As long as the D.C. press corps is intent on categorizing all policy decisions and governmental activity in political terms we won’t get deeply enough into the policy implications.  This framing is easy, requires very little if any policy expertise, and can be deftly constructed to create a platform for hyperbole. The focus may sell newspapers and advertising but it’s not very helpful when looking for ways to solve real problems.

It might be interesting to know how many of the commentators and pundits who have graced us on the Sunday morning jabberwocky sessions have read the 39 page report from the State Department’s independent review panel.  (pdf)  Those who have will be familiar with the following sample of recommendations for action made by the independent review panel.

The Department must strengthen security for personnel and platforms beyond traditional reliance on host government security support in high risk, high threat posts.

The Board recommends that the Department re-examine DS organization and management with a particular emphasis on span of control for security policy planning for all overseas U.S. diplomatic facilities.

Regional bureaus should have augmented support within the bureau on security matters, to include a senior DS officer to
report to the regional Assistant Secretary.

The Department should develop minimum security standards for occupancy of temporary facilities in high risk, high threat environments, and seek greater flexibility for the use of Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) sources of funding so that they can be rapidly made available for security upgrades at such facilities.

The Board supports the State Department’s initiative to request additional Marines and expand the Marine Security Guard (MSG) Program – as well as corresponding requirements for staffing and funding.

The Board strongly endorses the Department’s request for increased DS personnel for high – and critical – threat posts and for additional Mobile Security Deployment teams, as well as an increase in DS domestic staffing in support of such action.

Perhaps instead of endlessly opining on the subject of how the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency disputed the crafting of information to be made available to the public at large (including interested parties in Libya) we might take a moment to ask:

# What actions have the Department of State and other governmental agencies taken to reduce our reliance on host nation security forces for the protection of diplomatic outposts?

# What actions have been taken to better coordinate the agencies and departments responsible for developing and implementing plans for outpost security in high risk environments?

# If we are using temporary facilities in high risk areas what contingency plans are now in place to reduce the probability of attack.  Granted, we shouldn’t announce our security plans to the entire world, but it would be nice to know that the Department of State and other agencies are coordinating their efforts to plan for the use of temporary facilities and to mitigate threats.

# Where were the Marines?  The quick answer is: In Tripoli.  The important question isn’t why weren’t they dispatched to the scene immediately?  Quick answer: The were guarding the permanent embassy in Libya. The long answer is another question:  What is the appropriate kind of staffing for diplomatic security?

“Approximately 90 percent of U.S. diplomatic security personnel are private contractors, according to Deborah Avant, a scholar with a doctorate from the University of California San Diego who oversees The Private Security Monitor, an independent research project on government contracting.”  [UTSanDiego]

Do we want to increase funding for the expansion of the Marine Security Guard (MSG) Program? Or, do we want to rely on privately contracted security personnel?   If we mix the two, what percentage should be military personnel? Corporate security personnel?  Contractors from the host nation?  No, this kind of discussion doesn’t make for rousing ratings, but it would be far more informative than bickering about who edited talking points for Sunday morning consumption.

# The independent review panel urged the State Department to “increased DS personnel for high – and critical – threat posts and for additional Mobile Security Deployment teams, as well as an increase in DS domestic staffing in support of such action.”

“The State Department is asking Congress for more than $1.3 billion to boost security, out of contingency funds once allocated for Iraq: $553 million for additional Marine security guards, $130 million for civilian diplomatic security personnel and $691 million for installation improvements, officials told The New York Times.” [UTSanDiego]

The request has been made, now we need to know how much of this recommendation has be implemented, or is in the process of implementation?  Perhaps we could even find out how Marine Corps plans to get 1,000 more guards trained and available for diplomatic security duty?  Do they have the funding necessary to make all posts as secure as reasonably possible? Or, are current funding levels sufficient to meet some needs but not others?

The recommendations mentioned above are only a handful, and not representative of the entire report, but they are illustrative of the kinds of questions we should be discussing as a civil society with legitimate concerns for the safety of our diplomatic endeavors.  So long as the Villagers are content to air the political rendition of the Bickersons we’ll not likely hear much about the policy changes necessary to improve diplomatic security.

Case in Point:  The Tax Man Cometh.  The Internal Revenue Service faced a veritable flood of requests for 501 c(3) and 501 (c) 4 status (tax exempt) in recent years.  There were no less than 2,744 501 (c) 4 applications in 2012:

Compare that to 1,777 applications in 2011 and 1,741 in 2010, federal records show. Not since 2002, when officials processed 2,402 applications, have so many been received.

Meanwhile, Exempt Organizations Division staffing slid from 910 employees during fiscal year 2009 to 876 during fiscal year 2012, agency personnel documents indicate.

In 2010, IRS officials projected exempt division staffing at 942 employees. But IRS officials cut the number to 900 after the agency began slashing its budget in response to fiscal woes affecting most corners of the federal government.  [CPI]

Thus we have a decreasing number of people handling a 56% increase in the number of applications in a single year — and what do people tend to do when an agency is short handed?  They make short cuts.  In this instance some not very good ones.   We can quibble endlessly about who did what to whom? However, questions like is the “targeting” of right wing groups comparable to IRS investigations of Green Peace or the NAACP?” aren’t very constructive.   There are two policy points in this controversy, each less well covered in our media than would be good for us.

# Who should be making decisions about the application of campaign finance laws?  There are some legitimate lines of inquiry here:

“For the I.R.S.’s bipartisan legion of critics, the agency’s record has underscored its contradictory and seemingly confused response to the fastest-growing corner in the world of unlimited political spending: tax-exempt groups that have paid for at least half a billion dollars in campaign ads during the last two election cycles.

The I.R.S. has done little to regulate a flood of political spending by larger groups — like Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by Mr. Rove, and Priorities USA, with close ties to President Obama — as well as Republican leaders in Congress and other elected officials. And an agency that is supposed to stay as far away from partisan politics as possible has been left in charge — almost by accident — of regulating a huge amount of election spending.”  [NYT]

Given the amount and sources of political funding in this country, it hardly seems rational to leave the determination of regulation to an agency tasked with revenue collection.  Perhaps we ought to be using this latest “scandal” as a starting point toward rationalizing our campaign finance structure?  We can see the agency struggling with how to deal with groups that announced their intention to “improve our general welfare,” but whose main object was to funnel campaign funds.   How was the agency to determine what was political and lobbying and what was “advocacy?”  Would a political, as contrasted with a social welfare, organization necessarily be involved with limited or expanding government, or with educating people about the Constitution?  [ABC pdf]  Should the term “party” in the title of the group be an acceptable flag identifying the applicant as a political rather than a social welfare or educational organization?   There is appropriate indignation from both sides of the political aisle about the shorthand methodology of the IRS, but that still leaves us wondering — Who is in charge of implementing campaign finance regulation in this country?

# Is the Internal Revenue Service appropriately staffed to allow that agency to meet citizens’ needs in a timely and accurate fashion?  Do we really believe that cutting staff from 942 to 900 will mean there are enough people to review the increasing number of applications for tax exempt status?  Is the agency so understaffed that there is a temptation to ignore the Big Players while smaller organizations get more scrutiny?

Case in Point: Pressing the Press.  The Department of Justice used FISA warrants to obtain information from 20 telephone lines related to reporting by the Associated Press.

“The organization was not told the reason for the seizure. But the timing and the specific journalistic targets strongly suggested they are related to a continuing government investigation into the leaking of information a year ago about the Central Intelligence Agency’s disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner.” [NYT]

We need to tread carefully here.  In 2008 Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act, in the wake of revelations about the NSA warrantless wiretaps during the Bush Administration.   This would be the self-same H.R. 6304 about which the ACLU raised significant objections.     The bill passed with a 293 to 129 vote in the House of Representatives on June 20, 2008 [roll call 437] and by a vote of 69 to 28 in the Senate on July 9th.  [roll call 168]  There were 188 House Republicans who voted for the bill and 105 Democrats voting in favor.  128 Democrats voted against it, while only 1 Republican (Rep. Johnson, IL) voted “no.”   All 28 “no” votes in the U.S. Senate were cast by Democrats.

While the Associated Press may characterize the the intrusion in angry terms:

“Gary Pruitt, the president and chief executive of The A.P., called the seizure, a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news gathering activities.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” he wrote. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by The A.P. during a two-month period, provide a road map to A.P.’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about A.P.’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.” [NYT]

The Associated Press ought not get a free pass in this instance because (1) we don’t know if it was “massive,” — we actually don’t know much of anything because that’s how the FISA Law was written,  (2) we don’t know if it was “overbroad” either because that’s how the FISA Law was drafted, and (3) we don’t know if AP’s “sources and methods” were compromised — and we probably aren’t going to find out because in the wake of various acts of terrorism the majority of members of the 110th Congress were pleased to enact ‘reformed’ measures to allow for this kind of surveillance in cases of national security (in this instance a CIA operation).   If the Associated Press naively thought it was somehow immune to the provisions of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 because a press pass is as good as a law-proof vest, then they’ve been sorely disabused of their optimism.

Some caution should be exercised when we call for a No-Holds Barred approach to “fighting the War on Terror” in the name of national security, because while it may appear to be a grand idea when the target is a potential or alleged terrorist or someone associated with a potential or alleged terrorist –  it’s a whole different ball game when the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is applied to you.

The discussion in this instance needs to be more broadly focused — not on whether or not the AP is an aggrieved party or if CIA operational methods and sources were compromised by reporting — but on whether we may finally be ready to take a serious look at the objections to H.R. 6304 which were raised by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations when the law was being considered.

Simply bouncing from one “scandal” to the next in order to boost ratings and sell print isn’t going to serve the American public any better now than it did when we followed Whitewater into nothingness.   With each major incident there is a choice to be made — either follow popular titillation with the shallow aspects of a scandal, or take a more measured long term view which addresses serious questions about which we should demand serious answers.  It’s the difference between be able to discern good wood from pulp.