Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, shows incredible ignorance

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/09/senate-democrats-to-unveil-bill-to-override-hobby-lobby-decision/

“One thing we're going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women's lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday. “This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous, and we're going to do something about it. People are going to have to walk down here and vote, and if they vote with the five men on the Supreme Court, I think it's -- they're going to have -- be treated unfavorably come November with the elections.”

According to Harry Reid, the 5 Supreme Court justices whom ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby are white. According to my eyeballs, Clarence Thomas is African American.

That's all I need to say, for now.

My take on Bergdahl

Many people are asking if the trade of Bowe Bergdahl for 5 members of the Taliban was worth it. The polls I've seen say more say no than yes but it's not a majority. Here's what I think.

John McCain has referred to these guys are "the hardest of the hard-core." Each of these guys has there own wikipedia page and their descriptions show that they are pretty high ranking. If these guys were five henchmen who threw their hands up in the air when a black ops team invaded and took over the compound of their big bad boss it would be very questionable if the trade was worth it. But these are not henchmen, these guys are the big bad bosses.

To me this trade seems like a game of chess where you gain a pawn or bishop at the expense of your opponent getting 5 queens. It is worth it if your a move away from being able to use that piece for a checkmate. Maybe that's the case but public doesn't have a way of knowing so. I'm a big fan of 24 so I'm inclined to speculate that there's more to this trade than what meets the eye and that perhaps what the United States has really gained is much more than one Sergeant. From what I understand it's been said that he was a deserter and sort of went AWOL. I kind of wonder if he was doing some top secret mission. Who knows. But in my opinion, there is no way that trade was worth it based off of the information available on the surface.

Elections have consequences

Today I saw a program on MSNBC talking about Eric Cantor's loss in the primary election. It showed footage of a meeting only a few days after the inauguration in 2009 between President Obama, Eric Cantor, and others. The meeting was about passing and economic stimulus bill. In this meeting Congressmen Cantor made his pitch as party leaders do somewhere in this meeting President Obama says "elections have consequences," and he tells them that he won.

Depending on who you ask, someone might say that the President was unwilling to listen to modest proposals. Someone else might say that Eric Cantor was unwilling to accept the reality that Americans had just voted for the Democrats and their agenda and that even from Day 1, if President Obama was for something, than Eric Cantor and the republicans were against it. The later, I thought was the tone of the program I saw on MSNBC. But that's the point of my post.

Just a few minutes later I was riding my bike and thinking about the president's statement and I thought to myself, "He's totally a hypocrite for saying that."

The 2008 election was about many different issues but the outcome was pretty definitive. But I feel there was another election where the president didn't adhere to the spirit of the quote I mentioned. That was the Massachusetts senate special election where republican Scott Brown was elected to the Senate by a pretty comfortable margin. But in my view it seemed the president decided that this didn't matter and that he could ignore it and do what he wanted. In other words it seems to me that he thinks he can set the rules of what is kosher in politics and fold them so that they work only to his advantage. I said something similar in the bottom paragraph from a post I made earlier this year.

The rights of the Priesthood

Honor Code T Shirt

I consider BYU's honor code to be a great privilege. Being able to go to a school that upholds standards on sex drugs and alcohol makes my college experience much more enjoyable.

But during this year's honor code week I supposed to wear the honor code t shirt for a few of my shifts. I was willing to do this but the idea of keeping that shirt made me uncomfortable.

Another great privilege of attending BYU is it's tuition price. Few if any institutions offer such a great return on investment. I think compliance with the honor code, including wearing their t-shirt for a day, is a pretty small price to pay for what the school has to offer.

I think I can say that I enjoy BYU's honor code, but don't have quite the same feelings about an honor code week.

There are people who like to say things such as, "there are a ton of [unmarried] students at BYU having sex in the dorms," or "Provo has one of the highest rates of Rape in the country." I think these statements come from people whom are scared to come across as naive. The impression I get is that a large majority of the students here don't need an honor code to tell them not use alcohol or coffee, or that they can't have sex outside of marriage, or that they should go to church.

At a zone conference when an Elder or the mission president holds a white handbook and mouths the word "obedience" about 3 or 4 things come to mind. These are rules about being alone with opposite sex, when to wake up, when to study, when to leave, what websites not to use, etc. These aren't unimportant there's a lot more in the white handbook than just that. When you hear "honor code" there are at least two things that come to mind. 1) You can't have a beard. 2) You can't have people of the opposite sex in your apartment after given hours. I don't complain about these rules. But I worry that the spirit of honor code emphasis might give them too much weight.

When I was about 16 I had a lesson in Priests' quorum about habits. There was some fort of object lesson with some sort of tokens with words like "pornography," "alcohol," "swearing," "laziness," "procrastination." I said something like "if procrastination and pornography are in the same boat then I'm in trouble." I love BYU but sometimes feel like I'm being told that growing a beard is in that same boat as pornography.

My issue with wearing an honor code t-shirt is that I feel like I'm sending a message that if someone is a little irked that they have to shave, or that they can't have opposite gender friends hang out past midnight at their apartment, then they also must not appreciate being able to go to a school where the law of chastity and the word of wisdom are expected. I'm not suggesting that the honor code change, but I don't want to send the message I've described.

I'm generally a big fan of t-shirts. When I was young I collected Pokemon cards, when I was older I collected state orders, recently it's been t-shirts. Since the beginning of Fall Semester I think I've collected around half a dozen t-shirts. Some of them are about things I don't know or care about. So the fact that I didn't want to keep this shirt is pretty significant. The laundry room for my apartment complex has a bucket with a lid that says "clothing donations for the needy." That's what I did with it. 

Letter to Senator Lee, on stuff that will happen relating to health care

Dear Senator Lee

I just recently saw an article that the Treasury Secretary was recommending that Congress again raise the debt ceiling and that not doing so might harm the economy. The tendency for the past few years has been that when it's time to raise the debt ceiling or to pass a budget if often turns into a "showdown." Whether or not this happens there's a few issues that I want to be represented on.

One issue is Health Care reform. There's an interesting article about some problems with the affordable care act that don't seem to be getting that much attention. It is authored by Jon Kingsdale who was involved in the "RomneyCare" health insurance policy in Massachusetts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/beyond-healthcaregov-obamacares-other-challenges/2013/11/08/26cd7e3c-4702-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_print.html

A health insurance exchange is more than a Web site. It is an insurance store, and to manage it well requires insurance experience, technical know-how, and savvy marketing and sales tactics. The administration has a few months to put together a management team with these skills, dedicated exclusively to running the world’s largest store for private insurance. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have talented staff, and Jeffrey Zients, a former budget official who’s been called up to help fix the federal exchange’s online enrollment, may be just the guy to corral wayward technology vendors. But selling insurance is not what policy analysts and turnaround specialists do. I had 45 employees dedicated to operating the Massachusetts Health Connector; California has budgeted more than 300. Who’s minding the federal store?

If the administration fails to convince hundreds of insurers that the federal exchange will do a superb job marketing their products next fall, what then?

Premiums will jump, Democrats will blame “greedy” insurers, regulators will review rates and push for price controls. And Republicans can credibly crow: “We told you so.”

Below is from an article I read from CBSnews. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/6-key-obamacare-dates-to-watch-for-in-2014/ 

Nov. 15, 2014: Open enrollment for 2015 starts

The two-month Obamacare open enrollment period for 2015 begins 11 days after Election Day -- which some Republicans have called all too convenient. "If premiums go through the roof in the first year of Obamacare, no one will know about it until after the election," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in response to the timeline.

The administration said it decided to delay the open enrollment period by a month since 2014 enrollment got off to such a slow start. The delay should give insurers more time to evaluate the Obamacare marketplace and set 2015 premiums accordingly.

What I've tried to do is make a good case that The Affordable Care Act is likely going to hurt the economy because nobody or not enough people are running a store that according to an expert should need hundreds of people. Furthermore the bill is passed so that if it hurts the economy nobody will see it until after the election. How is that justified?

You were one of 18 republican senators who voted against the bill that ended the government shutdown and raised the debt ceiling. Not even a week later hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans made the news for receiving notifications that they were going to loose their health insurance due to the affordable care act. President Obama said over and over again that someone who liked their health plan would not loose it on account of the ACA. People made a big deal about how his words turned out to be inaccurate but nobody vindicated the TEA party. Nobody said, "why didn't we listen to them."Nobody said, "I thought they didn't deserve to be taken seriously but it looks like they were right all along." And this is because no politician had the standing to say "see, this is what we said three weeks ago when the shutdown started." My belief is that the Republican party and especially the TEA Party might have the right ideas but what they don't have is their act together. Instead of a clear logical simple explanation for how and why the budget and the health care system needed to be changed, the only things anybody remembers hearing from the TEA party is Senator Cruz's reading of Dr. Seuss.



So far I have tried to represent 3 legitimate reasons to want to reform Health Care.

1. State health insurance exchanges have dozens if not hundreds of people managing them whereas the nation-wide exchange doesn't seem to have any.
2. The timetable of the bill is crafted so that if premiums go up (which according to Kingsdale will definitely happen) nobody will know until after the election which may be an unfair advantage to the democrats.
3. Despite the president's promise, many are being told that they cannot keep the health coverage that they like.

During the recent state of the union address the President said something like "let's not take another 40 something votes to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans." You were one of the senators the president was speaking to. I myself am a little sick of hearing the words "Obamacare" and "repeal" in the same sentence. But I do believe that there is an opportunity to reform the health system so as to address some of these concerns.

So if there's going to be another game of chicken over the debt ceiling here's the view I want to be represented.

"We have zero people managing the health insurance exchange when we need hundreds. And the bill is crafted so that premiums could go up but nobody will know until after the election which is an unfair advantage to the democrats."

The reason I want it said like this is that if it is then it would be hard to not agree with. Whereas if people only hear the old message about how Obamacare is going to kill jobs, hurt the deficit, etc. then people will say "good grief, we've heard enough from these TEA Party guys who are not willing to compromise, let's vote them out this fall."

Sochi revisited.

A while back I said that I didn't believe him when he said his schedule was too busy for him to attend the Olympics. Well I might owe him an apology. Because once again it is time to raise the debt ceiling and that does up quite a bit of his time. Did it occur to him that he would have to deal with this when he announced that he wouldn't attend the Olympics? I don't know the answer to that but addressing government spending and taxes is more important than watching some sports games. Although I do believe their is some diplomatic advantage in participating in international events. But preventing an economic mess that would certainly affect other countries also has diplomatic advantage.

But there's a question I want to pose. When the Olympics were in China was there a Google doodle that said anything about human rights? Surely they must have done something about the Olympics but did they say anything alluding to China's human rights record. China is known for offenses of human rights. So is Russia. I'm curious if the amount of protest against Russia compared to the protest against China is proportionate to their human rights records. That is my question.

Obama on income inequality and Minimum wage

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/22/fox-news-poll-voters-say-addressing-income-inequality-is-not-government-job/

This article is about a poll from Fox news saying that President Obama doesn't see eye-to-eye with Americans about income inequality. According to the article 62% of Americans think that income inequality is basically part of life. Yet President Obama has said that fixing it is one of his biggest priorities. The article also says that much more americans are concerned with jobs (40%) and with government spending (36%) than they are about income inequality (12%).

I am disappointed with the President. I would put myself in the 36% of Americans worried about government spending. It's not like the President has never spoken about the other two issues but it worries me that he is putting more emphasis on income inequality. It appears that perhaps he doesn't think that government spending is a problem or that he has no idea what to do about it.

I think perhaps he feels that he can more efficiently win people over with talking about income inequality. It's not too hard to craft an argument with that some large percentage of money is held by a small percentage of people (logos). He'll happily quote Warren Buffet on how his secretary pays a lower tax rate than he does(Pathos). He can tell the story of how some struggling person from Ohio, Florida, or Colorado, trying to increase their opportunities(Ethos). It's hard to win over someone's emotions with the phrase "quantitative easing."

And he hopes that he can somehow persuade enough of that 62% to join the 13% who feel that the government should do something about income inequality. It seems that he is trying to get support by doing something that is not practical but will hopefully appeal who don't understand that his idea is bad.

I think he is doing something similar thing with the minimum wage. The Federal minimum wage is 7.25$. He and the democrats want to raise it to about 10.00$. The highest state level minimum wage in the U.S. is in Washington at 9.32$. So even for them it would be a pretty large increase.

And I'm very doubtful that raising the minimum wage is really the best way for people to be better off. For example a lot of the people earning between 7.25$ and 10.10$ (the proposed new minimum wage) are college students. Many of them might loose their jobs if their employers were not able to afford those wages. But even if everyone all those students had more money they would then have more money to spend on groceries, other food options, second run movie theaters, rent, gas, recreation, etc. If they had more money to spend on those things then those who are selling this and that would charge more money. And before too long people are basically back where they started. I've taken a college class on economics. But not everyone has. Not everyone understands that raising minimum wage can actually hurt the low wage workers and it seems to me that Obama is trying to take advantage of people's ignorance. If they loose their jobs it won't be too long before Obama is trying to make the case for more stimulus spending.


Some of my thoughts on the State of the Union. I thought it was kind of boring. I was on a website where you could click whether or not you agree. But the entire speech was crafted so that you could never really disagree with the words coming out of his mouth. I did like the Republican response and even the TEA party response wasn't bad either. But Obama said one thing that I thought was kind of pathetic. He said something like "let's not take another 40 something votes to repeal Obamacare." I'm thinking, "so you can pass unpopular massive reform through and obscure back door (reconciliation) that nobody has ever heard of, but taking a vote of repeal is somehow out of the norm of policy making." He seems to think that he is authorized to do such things but the republicans are somehow not.

Did Obama contradict himself

Without even reading any further than the title some might say, "of course he did." But I just recently read an article from NBC quoting the President making a statement about how race affects his popularity. What the President said just recently seems like a blunt contradiction of what he has said before.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/19/22360951-obama-pot-not-more-dangerous-than-alcohol?lite

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” he said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”

Now think back to a few years ago during the health care debate. President Obama was addressing a joint session of Congress on his agenda for health reform. In the Speech congressman Joe Wilson shouted "you lie." Former President Jimmy Carter said that some of the opposition to the president was due to racism. The white house press secretary released a statement saying, "[President Obama] does not believe that the criticism comes based on the colour of his skin."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8260109.stm

So did the president change his mind or does he contradict himself to get across the point he wants. I'll let you be the judge. But there's a difference between saying "there's no doubt that there is," and saying "he does not believe that there is."

Patrick Star of the TEA party

Just the other day I thought of an analogy of the Tea party.

There's an episode of Spongebob where Spongebob and Patrick get paint on Mr. Krabs' precious first dollar and are worried about the consequence. There's a scene where Patrick suggests that if they put another dollar in its place nobody would know the difference. Spongebob suggests that Patrick do just that but Patrick is so dumb that he doesn't understand why spongebob is suggesting he pull out his dollar. He ends up using his dollar on a vending machine. Patrick had the right idea and the resources to make it happen, but what he lacked was the ability.

The TEA party reminds me of Patrick. I feel that we might need to raise the debt ceiling a few more times before we lower it but to let the debt get bigger and bigger without having any intention to turn it around is unacceptable. I think the TEA party understands this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/6-key-obamacare-dates-to-watch-for-in-2014/

The above article says that Obamacare's open enrollment will start about a week and half after the midterm elections. It quotes Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) saying "if premiums go through the roof in the first year of Obamacare, no one will know about it until after the election."

Remember when the government was shut down because some politicians were demanding that Obamacare law be changed. Well what Senator Grassley said seems to be a very solid reason to make a few changes to the legislation. And if the TEA party had said this I think a lot of americans would say "that's not right."

But no. We didn't hear that. Instead of hearing about this we heard Senator Cruz reading from Dr. Seuss.

So what I'm saying is that the TEA party might have the right idea, but what I don't think they have is someone who's going to make it happen. Should someone like this end up in the White House, they might have the right idea but I don't think they'll be able to make it happen.

What was he supposed to do?

This last week Governor Christie made the news for probably his first scandal. Had it happened to any other governor it would not have been nearly as big a story. But after his 60% reelection victory and his lead in polls to be the next GOP nominee for president people are going to watching his every move. Whether he accepts bribes, or forgets to start the dishwasher, people are going to be watching his every move.

In my opinion I think this story highlights outcome bias. Outcome bias is evaluating the quality of decision making based on what happens as a result of the decision. Governor Christie may have hired a few staff members who did corrupt things. He has said that he takes responsibility for what has happened. I think this is sound logic but is it really his fault that this Lane closure incident happened. I think the only way to really give him fault is to suppose that he was so cocky and excited about winning that his staff members also got cocky and decided to play political retribution.

What could have stopped this from happening. Perhaps if he had already seen the email correspondence before everyone else did. So that's the scandal? Governor Christie is in trouble because he didn't spy on the correspondence between his staff members? Then why are we giving the NSA such a hard time?

Now back to outcome bias. Another way that Governor Christie could have prevented this from happening would be if he had never hired these staff members. One of them, ironically, was named Bridget. Should he have done more to know that these people would never harm his administration like this? I think he'll do more in the future and hopefully others will learn from his example. If he had increased the state revenue by buying a lottery ticket that so happened to be the winner would that have showed wise decision making and strong leadership? The answer is no, this is the textbook example of outcome bias.

Former Governor Barbour of Mississippi made some interesting comments about the incident that I recommend discussing. In essence he said that Governor Christie accepted responsibility for this incident whereas Hillary Clinton said "what difference, at this point, does it make" when asked if a phone call could shed light on whether or not the attacks in Benghazi were a planned attack or a protest.

Here's the article

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/01/haley_barbour_defends_christie_in_bridge_scandal_lashes_out_at_liberal_media.html

More over analysis of Disney's Frozen

I also thought that the movie was kind of ignorant of economics. At the end of the movie the older princess cuts of trade with their biggest trade partner. My thought was, "that's going to kill their economy." My next thought was, "I'm probably the only person who's going to watch this movie and then think that."

There is such thing a an economic sanction. But those decisions are made very carefully, especially when it's with their biggest trade partner. But Frozen was a family movie. The audience, at least the youth, does not think about economic consequences. They think about how an antagonist got a punishment they didn't want.

Let it go

Has Disney written it's song about coming out of the closet or accepting alternative lifestyles. Take a look at the lyrics to Let It Go from Disney's Frozen and you will find yourself saying "oh my gosh."

Early in the movie the two princesses are taken to some obscure place because one of them was affected by her older sister's condition that it even acknowledges she was "born with."

Not long later she is 'outed' if you will and has to leave the place she grew up in. She then starts singing a song that I think has some striking parallels to how a gay young adult growing up in a religious family would feel after being told for several years to "conceal don't feel."

The first two verses are about how she couldn't keep 'it' in even though she had tried. It then goes on to say that she can't keep up the masquerade and she doesn't care what others are going to say. And she does say that there is no right or wrong or rules for her.

I won't give a one-to-one analysis of every line of the song, but if you take a look at the lyrics and consider my point your jaw just might drop.

If Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Elton John,  or a host of other artists puts this song into their concert with a visual presentation of love and equality then remember. You heard it here first.