AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. The Substance Abuse-Medicaid Expansion Connection
Medicaid expansion, drug abuse biggest issues facing NH lawmakers
State House Dome, by Garry Rayno, unionleader.com, November 28, 2015
ADDRESSING THE state's opioid epidemic is the biggest issue facing lawmakers when they return to Concord in January. The second biggest issue — Medicaid expansion — is receiving a boost from the first.
Gov. Maggie Hassan has long tied the two together, saying the single most important action lawmakers could take to expand treatment and recovery services is to reauthorize Medicaid expansion, which officials said last week covers 100 percent of the cost of substance abuse treatment for about 2,000 newly insured individuals.
The governor contends that private treatment providers will not be willing to expand their services in New Hampshire to take care of the growing number of addicts without the assurance of federal money.
Hassan wanted reauthorization included in the state's two-year operating budget, but the leadership of the GOP controlled Legislature did not and instead said more time is needed to ensure the program works as intended.
Republicans spoke in one voice, asking to wait, but there is clearly a divide within the party. Some in the Republican leadership are actively pushing for reauthorizing the program beyond the date the federal government no longer pays 100 percent of the cost.
That date is Jan. 1 2017, when it will pay 95 percent and then eventually step down to 90 percent. For this biennium the cost is about $14 million, something that is achievable, but increases to about $40 million a year when the state picks up 10 percent of the cost in the future.
Last week on NHPR's “The Exchange,” Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, said expansion had to be reauthorized to help address the drug abuse epidemic, and other state officials echoed that sentiment last week when the Joint Task Force for the Response to the Heroin and Opioid Epidemic in New Hampshire began its meetings to fast-track legislation for January.
Bradley has been alone among the leadership in saying the program is working and needs to be reauthorized; others have held back.
The chief concern is how to pay for the expansion of Medicaid, which provides health insurance to about 44,000 low-income adults and is about to move those recipients from the state's traditional Medicaid program to private insurers through the state's health insurance exchange.
The substance abuse treatment benefit is a federal requirement for Medicaid expansion and not a benefit in the state's traditional Medicaid program. But it will be in the current biennium budget. Under traditional Medicaid, the state and federal government split the program's cost.
Why wouldn't the state want the federal money to help address the opioid epidemic? Taking federal money to address state problems has largely been the state's method since it began taking it decades ago.
After Republicans took control of the House following the 2014 elections, the leadership said one priority was to stop reauthorization of Medicaid expansion, but the tune has shifted.
After the budget was approved in September, House Speaker Shawn Jasper left the door open to reauthorization if it did not involve additional taxpayer money, which has largely been Senate President Chuck Morse's opinion as well.
A recent study by the New Hampshire Hospital Association indicated more insured individuals are using their services, which is a key to reducing the amount of uncompensated care hospitals provide to those who cannot pay for the treatment they receive.
Uncompensated care also results from the state Medicaid program, which pays lower reimbursement rates than it costs to provide the services. That's one of the reasons the Medicaid expansion program moves recipients to private carriers beginning Jan. 1. That lowers uncompensated care costs and provides hospitals with higher reimbursement rates for the services they provide.
How the drug task force's work pans out once lawmakers are back in January may have a significant impact on whether Medicaid expansion reauthorization is approved.
Gov. Maggie Hassan has long tied the two together, saying the single most important action lawmakers could take to expand treatment and recovery services is to reauthorize Medicaid expansion, which officials said last week covers 100 percent of the cost of substance abuse treatment for about 2,000 newly insured individuals.
The governor contends that private treatment providers will not be willing to expand their services in New Hampshire to take care of the growing number of addicts without the assurance of federal money.
Hassan wanted reauthorization included in the state's two-year operating budget, but the leadership of the GOP controlled Legislature did not and instead said more time is needed to ensure the program works as intended.
Republicans spoke in one voice, asking to wait, but there is clearly a divide within the party. Some in the Republican leadership are actively pushing for reauthorizing the program beyond the date the federal government no longer pays 100 percent of the cost.
That date is Jan. 1 2017, when it will pay 95 percent and then eventually step down to 90 percent. For this biennium the cost is about $14 million, something that is achievable, but increases to about $40 million a year when the state picks up 10 percent of the cost in the future.
Last week on NHPR's “The Exchange,” Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, said expansion had to be reauthorized to help address the drug abuse epidemic, and other state officials echoed that sentiment last week when the Joint Task Force for the Response to the Heroin and Opioid Epidemic in New Hampshire began its meetings to fast-track legislation for January.
Bradley has been alone among the leadership in saying the program is working and needs to be reauthorized; others have held back.
The chief concern is how to pay for the expansion of Medicaid, which provides health insurance to about 44,000 low-income adults and is about to move those recipients from the state's traditional Medicaid program to private insurers through the state's health insurance exchange.
The substance abuse treatment benefit is a federal requirement for Medicaid expansion and not a benefit in the state's traditional Medicaid program. But it will be in the current biennium budget. Under traditional Medicaid, the state and federal government split the program's cost.
Why wouldn't the state want the federal money to help address the opioid epidemic? Taking federal money to address state problems has largely been the state's method since it began taking it decades ago.
After Republicans took control of the House following the 2014 elections, the leadership said one priority was to stop reauthorization of Medicaid expansion, but the tune has shifted.
After the budget was approved in September, House Speaker Shawn Jasper left the door open to reauthorization if it did not involve additional taxpayer money, which has largely been Senate President Chuck Morse's opinion as well.
A recent study by the New Hampshire Hospital Association indicated more insured individuals are using their services, which is a key to reducing the amount of uncompensated care hospitals provide to those who cannot pay for the treatment they receive.
Uncompensated care also results from the state Medicaid program, which pays lower reimbursement rates than it costs to provide the services. That's one of the reasons the Medicaid expansion program moves recipients to private carriers beginning Jan. 1. That lowers uncompensated care costs and provides hospitals with higher reimbursement rates for the services they provide.
How the drug task force's work pans out once lawmakers are back in January may have a significant impact on whether Medicaid expansion reauthorization is approved.
2. Legislative Inbox
Proposed bills run gamut from major to minor
Capital Beat, by Allie Morris, concordmonitor.com, November 29, 2015
New Hampshire law prohibits adults from playing in children’s bingo games at private campgrounds or hotels. This session, Rep. James Webb wants to change that.
He is proposing a bill that would allow adults to play children’s bingo, but bar them from winning or claiming a prize. The point is to let parents participate in the game while they are watching their kids as a way to keep the grown-ups engaged, he says.
“It’s for the purpose of watching the children,” said Webb, a Derry Republican, who plays bingo occasionally when he goes camping. “Adults shouldn’t win in a kids’ game, plus what am I going to do with a kite?”
Webb’s bingo bill is one of at least 766 measures that lawmakers are proposing the state adopt when the legislative session resumes in January. While it’s unlikely all the proposals will make it into law, and many will be killed early on, each bill is required to get a public hearing. So lawmakers are in for a lot of work over the coming months.
Some of the bill proposals are high profile, such as reauthorizing the state’s Medicaid expansion program, and will likely suck up most of the political oxygen during the session. But other legislation is far less obvious, and calls for specific changes to obscure state statutes that most people probably don’t even know exist.
Rep. Max Abramson is proposing New Hampshire repeal the state penalty for collecting seaweed at night. The effort is the result of a contest Abramson helped organize, called “New Hampshire’s Dumbest Law,” that asked students to nominate an outdated statute to repeal. The nighttime seaweed collection ban won, and now Abramson, a Seabrook Republican, is working to strip it from the books.
Other proposals are bound to attract attention. Concord Rep. Katherine Rogers is hoping to put a new law into statute, one prohibiting bestiality. The state doesn’t currently ban the practice, which has recently been a problem for prosecutors who have had to use the animal cruelty statute to press charges in those cases, Rogers said.
While it’s easy for people to make a joke of the bill, Rogers said, it’s a serious matter. Bestiality “is a precursor to further sexual abuse,” she said.
Despite desire from some lawmakers to limit government, many bills up for discussion this year would add to existing state law, or tweak it slightly.
Several lawmakers are seeking to make more license plate options available. Others want to designate commemorative dates.
For example, one lawmaker wants to establish RV month in New Hampshire, another wants to make May 19 a Day of Compassion, and a third wants to require public schools observe New Hampshire constitution day.
On the license plate front, one legislator hopes to authorize “friends of animal number plates” and another wants to allow the alternative motto “scenic” on motor vehicle plates.
Right now, many of the bills are still in an early form, proposals known as Legislative Service Requests, or LSRs. It means that the full text of a bill isn’t yet publicly available, and instead the proposals are characterized by short, vague sentences.
Rep. Herbert Richardson, a Lancaster Republican, is putting forward a bill “prohibiting the sale or possessions of sky lanterns.”
Rep. David Danielson, a Bedford Republican, is proposing a measure “permitting vehicles to proceed straight through an intersection after stopping for a red light.”
Rep. Ken Weyler, a Kingston Republican, filed a bill proposal “relative to shining a laser pointing device at an aircraft or vessel, or at another person.”
A lot of the bills are requests from lawmakers’ constituents, who are seeking small but specific changes in state law.
As part of his bingo bill, Webb is also proposing to raise the payout in children’s bingo games from $2 to $5, a request from a resident. The sum hasn’t been increased in more than 30 years, Webb said.
There isn’t a limit on how many bills a lawmaker can file, and some legislators propose more than others. Rep. Michael Brewster, a Barnstead Republican, submitted 37 bill proposals, ranging from “establishing a citizen complaint and grievance website” to “establishing a homestead act.”
There has been talk of limiting the number of bills that a lawmaker can submit. Each filing comes at a cost to the state because the proposals must be drafted into legal language, a step that requires significant staff time.
But the talk about a cap on bill filings has never gone beyond a discussion. Those types of limitations would go against what New Hampshire stands for, said Senate President Chuck Morse, a Salem Republican.
It doesn’t mean dealing with nearly 1,000 bills, ranging from funding drug courts to renaming a state landmark, is easy.
“Is it a problem? Yeah, the time constraints are the problem,” Morse said. “But the reality is that is what you are paying me the big bucks for, to get it through the process.”
And by the big bucks, he of course means the $100 annual salary.
3. Gobblings
We give out our 2015 Political Turkey Awards
from NH Political Report, by Kevin Landrigan, nh1.com, November 27, 2015
In honor of the Thanksgiving Day holiday, we bring you this year’s NH1 News Political Turkey Awards.
The year is not complete but we’ve come far enough in 2015 to make some early assessments.
[-] House GOP Caucus Flop: This seemed like a good idea at the time, forming a rump caucus to rival House Speaker Shawn Jasper’s leadership team after the new speaker stunned the GOP establishment to win the gavel.
Former House Speaker Bill O’Brien had more than 100 GOP members endorsing his candidacy which gave conservatives reason to think they would be a real force to be reckoned with.
They really had only one shining moment that was when they had enough leverage on the House floor to tailor final changes to the House GOP budget.
[-] House Finance Chairman Neal Kurk, R-Weare: This is a strange one as the fiscal conservative and privacy law zealot has been one of the most productive legislators in recent history.
But one could not observe putting together the House budget and watching it presented the first time without realizing Kurk did not have the process well in hand.
The fact is Kurk did not ensure that legislative budget staff reviewed the initial House spending plan or he would have known the initial proposal did not add up and had to be sent back to the committee for more work.
Ultimately, the House budget was fixed but did anyone else notice that the final budget was nearly identical to the Senate spending package?
[-] Democratic leaders in the House and Senate: They were really not empowered by this governor to present a final alternative budget plan except for scattered amendments that really didn’t hang together.
Putting a second budget up for a final vote would have also helped Hassan’s future narrative in making her case for having vetoed the original Republican-passed state budget.
[-] New Hampshire Centric Campaigns for President: It’s too early to write political obituaries but thus far it’s already clear that spending a surplus of campaign days in the first-in-the-nation primary state is not translating to instant success.
Let’s review:
[-] Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC. He’s spent the most days here, 60 on 25 different trips. He’s hovered at or below 1 percent in the polls here and nationally was so low he got bounced from the adult debate table last month.
[-] Former New York Gov. George Pataki: He has had the same number of trips as Graham, 25, but spent 46 campaign days there.
[-] New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: He’s spent 53 days in the state, made 30 different visits to the state and far and away hosted the most number of no-holds barred town meetings.
All of which did little for him thus far and also got him demoted in the debate hierarchy as he fell out of the top eight candidates according to Fox Business News channel.
------------------------------
There are some old scores being settled in the battle between current New Hampshire Republican State Chairman Jennifer Horn and the Donald Trump campaign.
Horn gave some surprisingly frank comments about Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination during an interview with The Boston Globe.
“Shallow campaigns that depend on bombast and divisive rhetoric do not succeed in New Hampshire, and I don’t expect that they will now,” Horn told the Globe about the billionaire and frontrunner.
“In New Hampshire, historically, the truth is, people really don’t make their final decisions until very, very close until Election Day.”
In response, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski called Horn’s actions “everything that’s wrong with the GOP elite.”
“Another elitist who thinks they know better than tens of thousands that support Trump at events,” Lewandowski added in another Tweet.
Trump supporter and State Rep. Steve Stepanek, R-Amherst, was the first to call upon Horn to quit.
“Her actions jeopardize the primary process and the first-in-the-nation primary, if candidates believe the party chairperson is going to pick winners and losers,” Stepanek said.
“Jennifer Horn is chairwoman of the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. She should be criticizing Democrats, not her fellow Republicans and it’s time she figured that out.”
Horn said she was not taking sides I the presidential primary race which is what the bylaws did not allow.
The history relates to Horn’s role as party boss when former Speaker Bill O’Brien was stunned in his bid to get back the speaker’s gavel by Hudson Republican Rep. Shawn Jasper.
O’Brien won among Republicans but Jasper won the top post with the help of all the House Democrats and just a few dozen Democrats.
Several O’Brien supporters did not believe Horn was critical enough of Jasper after that occurred.
------------------------------
...Abortion rights supporters continue to try and make the US Senate race in 2016 a referendum on their pet issue.
Next week it’s a news conference Monday that Planned Parenthood of Northern New England will sponsor to criticize Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s move a decade ago to defend the state’s law requiring minor girls give notification prior to an abortion.
Ayotte argued the case herself before the US Supreme Court that ultimately did not strike down New Hampshire’s law but indicted there were flaws in how it protected a mother’s health..
The Republican-led Legislature the following year amended the state law to put the mother’s health exceptions in it.
4. NH's "Independent" Voters
Undeclared voters' influence challenged
by Dan Tuohy, unionleader.com, November 28, 2015
CONCORD — Dean Blake stood out in the crowded Secretary of State's office. Wearing a yellow clown wig will do that.
The Portsmouth man, while waiting for Donald Trump to show up to file for the New Hampshire primary ballot earlier this month, identified himself as an “independent” in search of a different kind of presidential candidate. “He's not like a true politician,” he said of Trump.
Blake might not look like your average undeclared voter — with or without the wig — but who really does?
In New Hampshire, more than 4-in-10 voters are undeclared, meaning they are not registered with either the Republican or Democratic parties. Undeclared voters can choose a ballot for a Republican or a Democrat in a primary.
This prompts a flood of stories every four years on the importance of presidential hopefuls capturing a share of the independents, as well as stories about which party the independents will break toward.
Those same stories also perpetuate an enduring myth about the New Hampshire primary and the importance of non-affiliated voters, according to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and author, with David W. Moore, of “The First Primary: New Hampshire's Outsize Role in Presidential Nominations.”
False impression
Calling them “independents” creates the false impression that undeclared voters are free agents, malleable enough to sway primary results one way or another, Smith said in an interview.
When it comes time to cast ballots, 85 percent of the time they vote consistently with the party they usually support.
Based on research, exit interviews and polling data, Smith said that in general, “They don't cross over.”
Still, New Hampshire's undeclared voters are again ready for their closeup, because this bloc of voters is bigger than Republicans and Democrats.
In terms of swaying the primary, Smith also pointed to research by Dartmouth College's Linda L. Fowler. In “Sheep in Wolves' Clothing: Undeclared Voters in the New Hampshire Primary,” Fowler and co-authors Dean Spiliotes and Lynn Vavreck concluded that “critics and advocates of open primaries appear to have exaggerated the impact of letting undeclared voters” participate.
From his research, Smith is convinced undeclared voters in New Hampshire are just as partisan as Democrats and Republicans. And New Hampshire's famous “independent” voters are really no more independent than counterparts in other states.
“No labels”
The beat goes on, though, and it was loud last month when former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman kicked off the “No Labels Problem Solver” convention in Manchester. Huntsman made a push for the undeclared voters when he ran in the 2012 New Hampshire GOP primary. Lieberman didn't fare as well as a Democratic hopeful, but he similarly celebrated the independent-streak in the Granite State. In a commentary for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Huntsman and Lieberman addressed leveraging the undeclared for both political parties to get things done for America.
“The power of the undecided 43 percent is as powerful as granite itself,” they wrote. “These voters can swing the political pendulum toward a new kind of presidency …”
To see the prominence of the undeclared class of voters, look no further back than the early 1990s, with dramatic changes in the U.S. economy, said Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor at New England College in Henniker. Globalization, a shrinking middle class, and changes in the manufacturing sectors led to greater voter angst, he said.
“They've found a great deal of dissatisfaction with both parties on those issues, Lesperance said. “So I think a lot of folks have sort of retreated from traditional positions with the political parties to the independent-run, affiliated crowd. They may lean one way or the other, but tend to vote on the individual running — who speaks to their issues.”
The Portsmouth man, while waiting for Donald Trump to show up to file for the New Hampshire primary ballot earlier this month, identified himself as an “independent” in search of a different kind of presidential candidate. “He's not like a true politician,” he said of Trump.
Blake might not look like your average undeclared voter — with or without the wig — but who really does?
In New Hampshire, more than 4-in-10 voters are undeclared, meaning they are not registered with either the Republican or Democratic parties. Undeclared voters can choose a ballot for a Republican or a Democrat in a primary.
This prompts a flood of stories every four years on the importance of presidential hopefuls capturing a share of the independents, as well as stories about which party the independents will break toward.
Those same stories also perpetuate an enduring myth about the New Hampshire primary and the importance of non-affiliated voters, according to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and author, with David W. Moore, of “The First Primary: New Hampshire's Outsize Role in Presidential Nominations.”
False impression
Calling them “independents” creates the false impression that undeclared voters are free agents, malleable enough to sway primary results one way or another, Smith said in an interview.
When it comes time to cast ballots, 85 percent of the time they vote consistently with the party they usually support.
Based on research, exit interviews and polling data, Smith said that in general, “They don't cross over.”
Still, New Hampshire's undeclared voters are again ready for their closeup, because this bloc of voters is bigger than Republicans and Democrats.
In terms of swaying the primary, Smith also pointed to research by Dartmouth College's Linda L. Fowler. In “Sheep in Wolves' Clothing: Undeclared Voters in the New Hampshire Primary,” Fowler and co-authors Dean Spiliotes and Lynn Vavreck concluded that “critics and advocates of open primaries appear to have exaggerated the impact of letting undeclared voters” participate.
From his research, Smith is convinced undeclared voters in New Hampshire are just as partisan as Democrats and Republicans. And New Hampshire's famous “independent” voters are really no more independent than counterparts in other states.
“No labels”
The beat goes on, though, and it was loud last month when former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman kicked off the “No Labels Problem Solver” convention in Manchester. Huntsman made a push for the undeclared voters when he ran in the 2012 New Hampshire GOP primary. Lieberman didn't fare as well as a Democratic hopeful, but he similarly celebrated the independent-streak in the Granite State. In a commentary for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Huntsman and Lieberman addressed leveraging the undeclared for both political parties to get things done for America.
“The power of the undecided 43 percent is as powerful as granite itself,” they wrote. “These voters can swing the political pendulum toward a new kind of presidency …”
To see the prominence of the undeclared class of voters, look no further back than the early 1990s, with dramatic changes in the U.S. economy, said Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor at New England College in Henniker. Globalization, a shrinking middle class, and changes in the manufacturing sectors led to greater voter angst, he said.
“They've found a great deal of dissatisfaction with both parties on those issues, Lesperance said. “So I think a lot of folks have sort of retreated from traditional positions with the political parties to the independent-run, affiliated crowd. They may lean one way or the other, but tend to vote on the individual running — who speaks to their issues.”
5. Justice Denied
Council should have approved qualified judicial candidate
by Benjamin King, sentinelsource.com, November 27, 2015
I write as the president of the N.H. Association of Justice, and on behalf of its board of governors, to express our dismay that the N.H. Executive Council torpedoed the nomination of a worthy candidate for the Superior Court bench, attorney Dorothy Graham, all because certain Executive Councilors disapproved of the clients attorney Graham represented as an attorney with the N.H. Public Defender’s Office.
The N.H. Association for Justice is a statewide professional association of trial attorneys working to protect constitutional rights, and to ensure that people have a fair chance to receive justice through the legal system when they have been harmed by the wrongful acts of others. At the core of an equal and fair justice system is an unbiased judiciary not influenced by, nor needing to pay homage to any particular political philosophy.
Attorney Dorothy Graham was nominated by Gov. Hassan to serve as a N.H. Superior Court Justice after being vetted and recommended by the rigorous judicial selection process that all New Hampshire judicial candidates must pass in order to be nominated. The judicial selection panel is comprised of 11 individuals of diverse backgrounds and expertise, including both attorneys and non-attorneys. Every candidate, before being recommended by the panel, is scrutinized through interviews — of themselves, their associates and even their opponents. The judicial selection panel gives careful consideration to the intellect, character and judicial temperament of each candidate.
One purpose of this selection process is to ensure that only the most highly qualified individuals are nominated to serve in the judiciary. The selection process is designed to avoid the interference of politics and other special interests.
Yet, the majority of the N.H. Executive Council has demonstrated a determination to inject politics into the process of who will sit as a judge in New Hampshire. With the New Hampshire gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races looming on the horizon, members of the council criticized Gov. Hassan’s nomination of attorney Graham because in her career as a public defender she fulfilled her ethical duty to represent zealously a client convicted of being a child sex offender.
Criticizing a criminal defense attorney for representing a client, regardless of the offense of which the government has accused the client, undermines the fundamental principles of our judicial system.
In the American justice system, every accused is presumed innocent and is guaranteed legal representation. In New Hampshire, the Public Defender’s Office — the office in which attorney Graham served — performs this constitutional duty, providing representation to any New Hampshire criminal defendant who wants legal representation but cannot otherwise afford it.
Certainly, our society should not tolerate a political party disqualifying an attorney from service in the Judiciary, or otherwise punishing the attorney, because of the essential work the attorney has performed in the Public Defender’s Office in fulfillment of the government’s constitutional obligations to its citizens.
Attorney Graham has distinguished herself for more than 20 years at the Public Defender’s, Office. Not only did the judicial screening panel recommend her, but she has wide ranging support from fellow members of the N.H. Bar, chiefs of police and many others. Her lack of prosecutorial experience is of no consequence. Prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys and civil litigators all may qualify to serve as judges, if they have the necessary knowledge, legal experience and judicial temperament.
The American Justice system, though not perfect, is perhaps the best in the world in ensuring that all people who come before its courts are treated equally and fairly, regardless of who they are, what they have been accused of, or their political persuasion. The Founding Fathers would have had it any no other way. To block a highly qualified candidate, such as attorney Graham, whom the judicial selection panel has recommended over many other candidates, as a means to score a political blow undermines the interest that all New Hampshire citizens share in ensuring that our judicial system remains fair and unbiased.
The Executive Council should not let politics infect the judicial selection process and should take appropriate action to right the wrong done here and allow Dorothy Graham to continue her distinguished service to New Hampshire and its citizens as a judge.
Benjamin King, president of the N.H. Association of Justice, wrote this as a letter directed to the members of the N.H. Executive Council.
6. Republiecans
The Post-Truth Era
by Susan Bruce, susanthebruce.blogspot.com, November 25, 2015
Author and teacher Ralph Keyes published a book in 2004 called, “The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life.” The “post-truth era” sounds so much better than the liar-liar-pants-on-fire era – but any way you look at it, that’s where we now reside. We don’t expect honesty in any situation anymore, and we’ve cultivated a variety of euphemisms to soften the blow of that reality. We use the term “spin” instead of deceit. We say, “ethically challenged” instead of thief or charlatan. We’ve become so compromised that we can’t even use the word liar.
There is little we can trust in our public lives. In the post truth era, we can pick our own media. We can choose the media sources that give us information that confirm our beliefs or biases. Saint Ronnie told us that gummint is the problem, so we don’t expect anything good or honest to come from our elected officials. We watched as Reagan’s history was rewritten to make him a saint. Everything is fair game these days – even history can be sanitized for our protection. Our presidential primary has become a reality show where big, bold lies are TRUMPeted with no fear of reprisal. The sad truth is this -there are no consequences for lying.
The NH House of Representatives has an internal “all reps” email listserv that is supposed to be used by House members to communicate with one another (and constituents) as they work on The People’s business. Instead, it is frequently used as a means of sending out ideological mendacity. In 2013, State Representative Peter Hansen of Amherst achieved global renown when he sent out an all reps email where he referenced, “children and vagina’s” instead of saying women and children. In 2013 State Rep. Romeo Danais sent out a “joke” over the internal mail system that compared people getting food stamps to wild animals. Danais found it so amusing that he sent it to all of his colleagues twice. In 2013, State Representatives Gary Hopper and Jordan Ulery found it necessary to send out an all reps email with a scantily clad photo of a young woman. The subject matter of the email was the “Democrat’s plan for a 100% gun ban.” In other words, it was fabrication combined with soft-core porn.
In the weeks since the terrorist attacks in Paris, we’ve seen a near constant barrage of prevarication on just about every level of public discourse. From presidential candidates to NH state legislators, folks are working overtime to spread fables in order to gin up fear.
On November 13, State Representative Dick Marple of Hooksett sent out a real beaut to the all reps listserv:
Coming to a State near you!
Coming to a State near you!
“Oh” “Yes” it is coming here too! 1200 to 2,000 a day are coming here. Obama asked for to have 10,000 then it expanded to 100,000 the with in a week it went to 180,000. That is a lot of Diaper heads.
The thing is, these that Obama is bringing in does not have a wife or family with them! This a invasion! Wake up people we are being taken under with out a shot fired! Obama’s pen does the same thing! If this pisses you off! GOOD!
The spelling, sentence structure, and grammar are all Marple’s. The email heading read: “Four wives? Yup n Miochighan.”
The spelling, sentence structure, and grammar are all Marple’s. The email heading read: “Four wives? Yup n Miochighan.”
Xenophobic? Check. Offensive? Check. Incoherent? Check.
Marple sent this out to all of his colleagues on the official House internal email system. He referred to Syrian refugees – people fleeing for their lives during wartime - as “diaper heads.” These are the words of an adult man, speaking about some of his fellow humans. That’s awful enough, but this is, by the way, a listserv paid for and maintained by our tax dollars. Our tax dollars are subsidizing the spread of lies, fear, and hate. Marple is serving his fourth term, so one assumes that the good people of Hooksett support his incoherence, duplicity, and his xenophobia.
Back in June of 2012, then Speaker Bill O’Brien sent out an email to all reps advising them of a new policy regarding speech on the all reps listserv:
"Electronic media cannot be used for knowingly transmitting, retrieving, or storing any communication that is: 1. Discriminatory or harassing; 2. Derogatory to any individual or group; 3. Obscene, sexually explicit or pornographic; 4. Defamatory or threatening. In addition, also prohibited are jokes . . . or any other non-legislative work activity that is not allowed on government computers." This new policy was, according to O’Brien, going to be strictly enforced, and violators would lose their email privilege. Clearly it was not strictly enforced, nor has it ever been. Not a single speaker or majority leader (including O’Brien himself) has ever attempted to enforce this rule, no matter how much offensive stuff is sent out on the official House internal email system.
One would think that these guys would be smart enough to send stuff like this out over their own personal email, rather than risk having someone like me make their bigotry, calumny, and bad spelling a matter of public record, but one would be wrong. There are no consequences for lying.
State Representative Max Abramson, Republican, Free Stater and convicted felon, from Seabrook sent out his refugee falsehoods on Twitter. He tweeted, “Shaheen and Obama are still trying to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to New Hampshire to help the Democrats win a close race in 2016.”
This is complete fabrication. The total of all Syrian refugees approved to come to the United States is 10,000. That is for the entire country, not the state of NH. If Representative Abramson had done even a modicum of research, he would have learned that a refugee coming to the US is not eligible to apply for citizenship for five years after they arrive. They have to be citizens to vote. Abramson didn’t bestir himself to find facts. His intent was to gin up fear and xenophobia for his political party, before an election, so he deliberately sent out misinformation.
Marple sent this out to all of his colleagues on the official House internal email system. He referred to Syrian refugees – people fleeing for their lives during wartime - as “diaper heads.” These are the words of an adult man, speaking about some of his fellow humans. That’s awful enough, but this is, by the way, a listserv paid for and maintained by our tax dollars. Our tax dollars are subsidizing the spread of lies, fear, and hate. Marple is serving his fourth term, so one assumes that the good people of Hooksett support his incoherence, duplicity, and his xenophobia.
Back in June of 2012, then Speaker Bill O’Brien sent out an email to all reps advising them of a new policy regarding speech on the all reps listserv:
"Electronic media cannot be used for knowingly transmitting, retrieving, or storing any communication that is: 1. Discriminatory or harassing; 2. Derogatory to any individual or group; 3. Obscene, sexually explicit or pornographic; 4. Defamatory or threatening. In addition, also prohibited are jokes . . . or any other non-legislative work activity that is not allowed on government computers." This new policy was, according to O’Brien, going to be strictly enforced, and violators would lose their email privilege. Clearly it was not strictly enforced, nor has it ever been. Not a single speaker or majority leader (including O’Brien himself) has ever attempted to enforce this rule, no matter how much offensive stuff is sent out on the official House internal email system.
One would think that these guys would be smart enough to send stuff like this out over their own personal email, rather than risk having someone like me make their bigotry, calumny, and bad spelling a matter of public record, but one would be wrong. There are no consequences for lying.
State Representative Max Abramson, Republican, Free Stater and convicted felon, from Seabrook sent out his refugee falsehoods on Twitter. He tweeted, “Shaheen and Obama are still trying to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to New Hampshire to help the Democrats win a close race in 2016.”
This is complete fabrication. The total of all Syrian refugees approved to come to the United States is 10,000. That is for the entire country, not the state of NH. If Representative Abramson had done even a modicum of research, he would have learned that a refugee coming to the US is not eligible to apply for citizenship for five years after they arrive. They have to be citizens to vote. Abramson didn’t bestir himself to find facts. His intent was to gin up fear and xenophobia for his political party, before an election, so he deliberately sent out misinformation.
No one has paid any attention to his lies, or those of his colleague Dick Marple. We should want better from our elected officials, but this kind of behavior is exactly what we have become conditioned to expect. There are no consequences for liars in the post-truth era.
“Casual duplicity picks at the thread of our social fabric.” Ralph Keyes
AND NATIONALLY
7. Insurance Blackmail
Big Insurance's Health-Care Scam for the Holidays
by Dean Baker, truth-out.org, November 23, 2015
Last week, UnitedHealthcare (UHC), the country's largest health insurance company, announced that it was considering leaving the health care exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It claimed that it was losing money on the plans it offers in the exchange, so it might decide to give up this market.
The prospect of UHC leaving the exchanges naturally delighted foes of Obamacare. Many quickly celebrated this as the beginning of the end. If other insurers follow the lead of UHC, there may be no one left offering insurance in the exchanges. And if there are no exchanges, there is no Obamacare. People would no longer be guaranteed the option to buy an insurance policy without regard to their health.
Before we join the death of Obamacare celebration there are a few questions worth asking. First, is UHC really losing money in all of the exchanges in which it is participating? Remember each of these state exchanges are treated as separate pools, with rates set based on the costs for treating people in the state. If UHC is pulling out of all the exchanges does that mean it is losing money in every single state? Presumably that would be the case, since it's hard to see why UHC would be leaving a market in which it is making money.
If UHC really is losing money in all the exchanges it has entered, that would really say a great deal about the competence of UHC's management. The day after UHC's announcement, Aetna, another major insurer, announced that it was happy with the performance of its plans in the exchanges and that it has no intention of leaving this market. If Aetna can apparently make a profit in most of the exchanges and UHC can't make money in any of them, then it doesn't sound like UHC is run by a very good team.
That should make UHC shareholders very angry. Stephan Hemsley, the CEO of UHC, took home $66 million last year. For that sort of pay, it would be reasonable to think that he would be able to figure out how to make a profit in at least one of the state exchanges. Zero for 50 would be a pathetic track record even if Mr. Hemsley were getting just 1 percent of his current pay, or $660,000 a year.
Of course there is another possibility. It may be the case that UHC actually is making money in most of the exchanges, just like its competitor Aetna. It may be claiming that it is losing money and threatening to leave the exchanges in the hope of getting more favorable regulation. Perhaps the threat of leaving the exchanges will persuade regulators to allow UHC to charge higher premiums. In that case, claiming to lose money could be a very sound business strategy.
Unless we can get access to the details of UHC books we may never know for sure whether the company is being run by incompetents or liars, but this situation does point to the value of one part of the original plan for the ACA that got left on the cutting room floor: the public option.
Suppose that there was a Medicare run plan available in each of the exchanges. If people were unable to find a plan they liked from a private insurer, or their insurer left the market, as UHC is now threatening to do, they would be able to buy into the Medicare program. This would ensure that everyone would have at least one good option in the exchanges.
The insurers obviously hate the idea of having to compete with Medicare. That's why the public option got killed when the plan was being debated by Congress. But we should all see UHC's threats as a wake-up call reminding us of why we needed a public option in the first place.
Of course we could do even better with a universal Medicare system, as Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. It certainly would have made far more sense to extend a large and overwhelmingly successful program to the whole population than to jury-rig a system as was done with the ACA.
But if politics prevents us from extending the same sort of health insurance coverage to the rest of the population that we now give to those over age 65, we should at least be able to give people the option to buy into Medicare. After all, if the private insurers don't want to provide insurance, why shouldn't we let Medicare fill the gap?
8. Summarizing the Inequality Issue
The Big Struggle Is the Financial Elite vs. Everyone Else
by Robert Reich, alternet.org, November 20, 2015
The standard explanation for why average working people in advanced nations such as Britain and the United States have failed to gain much ground over the past several decades and are under increasing economic stress is that globalisation and technological change have made most people less competitive. The tasks we used to perform can now be done more cheaply by lower-paid workers abroad or by computer-driven machines.
The left’s standard solution has been an activist government that taxes the wealthy, invests the proceeds in excellent schools and in other means that people need to become more productive, and redistributes to those in need. These prescriptions have been opposed vigorously by those on the right, who believe the economy will function better for everyone if government is smaller, public debt is reduced and taxes and redistributions are curtailed.
But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.
And the interminable debate over the merits of the “free market” versus an activist government has diverted attention from how the market, both in Britain and in the United States, has come to be organised differently from the way it was half a century ago, why its current organisation is failing to deliver the widely shared prosperity it delivered then and what the basic rules of the market should be. This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment versus establishment.
The standard explanation cannot account for why the compensation packages of the top executives of big companies soared from an average of 20 times that of the typical worker 40 years ago to almost 300 times in the United States.
Nor can the standard explanation account for the decline in wages of recent university graduates.
To be sure, young people with university degrees have continued to do better than people without them. In 2013, Americans with four-year college degrees earned 98% more per hour on average than people without a university degree. But since 2000, the real average hourly wages of young university graduates have dropped. While a college education has become a prerequisite for joining the middle class, it is no longer a sure means for gaining ground once admitted to it. That’s largely because the middle class’s share of the total economic pie continues to shrink, while the share going to the top continues to grow.
A deeper understanding of what has happened to incomes over the past 25 years requires an examination of changes in the organisation of the market, a transformation that has amounted to a pre-distribution upward. Intellectual property rights – patents, trademarks and copyrights – have been enlarged and extended, for example. This has created windfalls for pharmaceuticals, hi-tech, biotechnology and many entertainment companies, which now preserve their monopolies longer than ever. It has also meant high prices for average consumers.
Meanwhile, certain corporations have gained enormous market power, including those owning network portals and platforms (Amazon, Facebook and Google); cable companies facing little or no broadband competition (Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon); and the largest banks. In the United States, financial laws and regulations instituted in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929 and the resulting Great Depression have been abandoned – restrictions on interstate banking, on the intermingling of investment and commercial banking and on banks becoming publicly held corporations, for example – thereby allowing the largest Wall Street banks to acquire unprecedented influence over the economy. The growth of the financial sector, in turn, spawned junk bond financing, hostile takeovers, private equity and “activist” investing and the notion that corporations exist solely to maximise shareholder value.
Bankruptcy laws have been loosened for large corporations, notably airlines and car manufacturers, allowing them to abrogate labour contracts, threaten closures unless they receive wage concessions and leave workers and communities stranded. Bankruptcy in the United States has not been extended to homeowners, who are burdened by mortgage debt and owe more on their homes than the homes are worth, or to graduates laden with student debt. Meanwhile, the largest banks and vehicle manufacturers were bailed out in the downturn of 2008–09, shifting the risks of economic failure on to the backs of average working people and taxpayers.
In America, contract laws have been altered to require mandatory arbitration before private judges selected by big corporations. Securities laws have been relaxed to allow insider trading of confidential information. CEOs have used stock buybacks to boost share prices when they cash in their own stock options. Tax laws have created loopholes for the partners of hedge funds and private equity funds, special favours for the oil and gas industry, lower marginal income tax rates on the highest incomes and reduced estate taxes on great wealth. All these instances represent distributions upward – towards big corporations and financial firms and their executives and major shareholders – and away from average working people.
Meanwhile, corporate executives and Wall Street managers and traders have done everything possible to prevent the wages of most workers from rising in tandem with productivity gains, in order that more of the gains go instead towards corporate profits. Public policies that emerged during the 1930s and the Second World War had placed most economic risks squarely on large corporations. But in the wake of the junk bond and takeover mania of the 1980s, economic risks were shifted to workers. Corporate executives did whatever they could to reduce payrolls: outsource abroad, install labour-replacing technologies and use part-time and contract workers.
A new set of laws and regulations facilitated this transformation. Trade agreements, for example, encouraged companies to outsource jobs abroad, while enhancing protections for the intellectual property and financial assets of global corporations. Government budgets that prioritise debt reduction over job creation have undermined the bargaining power of average workers and translated into stagnant or declining wages. Some insecurity has been the result of shredded safety nets and disappearing workforce protections.
As a result, economic insecurity has been baked into employment. Full-time workers who had put in decades with a company have often found themselves without a job overnight – with no severance pay, no help finding another job and no health insurance. Today, nearly one in five working Americans is part-time. Many are consultants, freelancers and independent contractors. Two thirds are living paycheck to paycheck. And employment benefits have shrivelled. The portion of workers with any pension connected to their job has fallen from just over half in 1979 to less than 35% today.
The prevailing insecurity is also a consequence of the demise of trade unions. Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker earned $35 an hour in today’s dollars. By 2014, America’s largest employer was Walmart and the typical entry-level Walmart worker earned about $9 an hour.
This does not mean the typical GM employee half a century ago was “worth” four times what the typical Walmart employee in 2014 was worth. The GM worker was not better educated or motivated than the Walmart worker. The real difference was that GM workers 50 years ago had a strong union behind them that summoned the collective bargaining power of all carworkers to get a substantial share of company revenues for its members. And because more than a third of workers across America belonged to a trade union, the bargains those unions struck with employers raised the wages and benefits of non-unionised workers as well. Non-union firms knew they would be unionised if they did not come close to matching the union contracts. Today’s Walmart workers do not have a union to negotiate a better deal. They are on their own. And because fewer than 7% of today’s private-sector workers are unionised, most employers across America do not have to match union contracts. This puts unionised firms at a competitive disadvantage.
Here again, public policies have enabled and encouraged this fundamental change. More states have adopted “right-to-work” laws. The National Labor Relations Board, understaffed and overburdened, has barely enforced collective bargaining. When workers have been harassed or fired for seeking to start a union, the board rewards them back pay, a mere slap on the wrist of corporations that have violated the law. The result has been a race to the bottom.
Given these changes in the organisation of the market, it is not surprising that corporate profits have increased as a portion of the total United States economy, while wages have declined. Those whose income derives directly or indirectly from profits – corporate executives, Wall Street traders and shareholders – have done exceedingly well. Those dependent primarily on wages have not.
Britain is not as far along the path toward oligarchic capitalism as is America, but it is following the same trail. Markets do not exist without rules. When large corporations, major banks and the very rich gain the most influence over the composition of those rules, markets invariably tilt in their direction – adding to their wealth and their political influence. Unaddressed and unstopped, the vicious cycle compounds itself.
Yet the trend is not sustainable economically. The American economy cannot maintain positive momentum without the purchasing power of its vast middle class. This is one reason why today, six full years into an economic recovery, theUS economy is barely back to where it was before it fell into the Great Recession.
Nor is it sustainable politically. A large portion of the American electorate, working harder than ever but seeing no wage gains for years, is becoming angry and frustrated. That anger and frustration, in turn, is fuelling a populist revolt against the prevailing establishment. The revolt is already manifest in the presidential election of 2016 in the forms of Democratic candidate Bernie Sandersand Republican candidate Donald Trump.
But the two are quite different. Sanders represents a tradition of leftwing reform populism that seeks to limit the influence of big money on the political process, thereby clearing the way for the enactment of new laws and rules that can deliver more broadly shared prosperity. Trump comes out of a tradition of rightwing authoritarian populism that seeks a strongman who will take power away from the prevailing oligarchy and deliver it back to the people directly. Often accompanying authoritarian populism is making a scapegoat of vulnerable minorities, including immigrants.
Both Britain and America have had brushes with authoritarian populism in the past. In the Depression decade of the 1930s, Oswald Mosley in Britain and Father Charles Coughlin in the United States offered authoritarian solutions to the nations’ economic problems. But neither nation has succumbed. In times of economic stress, both Britain and the United States have opted instead for reform. President Franklin D Roosevelt arguably saved American capitalism from its own excesses, as did William Beveridge and the postwar Labour government, with regard to British capitalism.
It is impossible to know when we will again reach a tipping point, but there can be little doubt it will come. Political economies that bestow most gains on small groups at the top are inherently unstable. The real question is not whether change will occur, but whether it will come through democratic reform or authoritarian mandate.
9. The Republican Illeterati
AP FACT CHECK: Most GOP candidates flunk climate science
by Seth Borenstein, bigstory.ap.org, November 22, 2015
WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to climate science, two of the three Democratic presidential candidates are A students, while most of the Republican contenders are flunking, according to a panel of scientists who reviewed candidates' comments.
At the request of The Associated Press, eight climate and biological scientists graded for scientific accuracy what a dozen top candidates said in debates, interviews and tweets, using a 0 to 100 scale.
To try to eliminate possible bias, the candidates' comments were stripped of names and given randomly generated numbers, so the professors would not know who made each statement they were grading. Also, the scientists who did the grading were chosen by professional scientific societies.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had the highest average score at 94. Three scientists did not assign former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley a score, saying his statements mostly were about policy, which they could not grade, instead of checkable science.
Two used similar reasoning to skip grading New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and one did the same for businesswoman Carly Fiorina. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had the lowest score, an average of 6. All eight put Cruz at the bottom of the class.
"This individual understands less about science (and climate change) than the average kindergartner," Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor, wrote of Cruz's statements. "That sort of ignorance would be dangerous in a doorman, let alone a president."
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, with an 87, had the lowest score among the Democrats, dinged for an exaggeration when he said global warming could make Earth uninhabitable. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush scored the highest among Republicans, 64, but one grader gave him a perfect 100. Bush was the only Republican candidate who got a passing grade on climate in the exercise.
Below Clinton's 94 were O'Malley with 91; Sanders, 87; Bush, 64; Christie, 54; Ohio Gov. John Kasich, 47; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, 38; Fiorina, 28; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 21; businessman Donald Trump, 15; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, 13; and Cruz with 6.
For the Republicans, climate change came up more in interviews than in their four debates. But Rubio did confront the issue in the Sept. 16 debate in a way that earned him bad grades from some scientists.
"We are not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing, to change our climate, to change our weather, because America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely," Rubio said. "But America is not a planet. And we are not even the largest carbon producer anymore. China is. And they're drilling a hole and digging anywhere in the world that they can get ahold of."
Scientists dispute Rubio's argument that because China is now the top emitter, the U.S. can do little to change the future climate. The U.S. spews about 17 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, "so big cuts here would still make a big difference globally," said geochemist Louisa Bradtmiller at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Rubio's inference that China is not doing much about global warming "is out of date. The Chinese are implementing a cap-and-trade system in their country to reduce emissions," said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University.
At an August event In California's Orange County, Cruz told an interviewer, "If you look at satellite data for the last 18 years, there's been zero warming. ... The satellite says it ain't happening."
Florida State University's James Elsner said ground data show every decade has been warmer than the last since the middle of the 20th century and satellite data-based observations "show continued warming over the past several decades."
In fact, federal ground-based data, which scientists said is more reliable than satellites, show that 15 of the 17 years after 1997 have been warmer than 1997 and 2015 is on track to top 2014 as the warmest year on record.
Scientists singled out Sanders for overstatement in the first Democratic presidential debate.
"The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable," Sanders said.
Dessler said, "I would not say that the planet will become uninhabitable. Regardless of what we do, some humans will survive." Harvard's Jim McCarthy also called the comment an overstatement, as did other scientists when Sanders said it. Recent research on the worst heat projections in the hottest area, the Persian Gulf, finds that toward the end of the century there will be a few days each decade or so when humans cannot survive outside, but can live with air conditioning indoors.
Trump brought out some of the more colorful and terse critiques.
"It could be warming and it's going to start to cool at some point," Trump said in a September radio interview. "And you know in the 1920s people talked about global cooling. I don't know if you know that or not. They thought the Earth was cooling. Now it's global warming. Actually, we've had times where the weather wasn't working out so they changed it to extreme weather and they have all different names, you know, so that it fits the bill."
McCarthy, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called Trump's comments "nonsense," while Emmanuel Vincent, a climate scientist at the University of California, Merced, said, "the candidate does not appear to have any commitment to accuracy."
The eight scientists are Mann, Dessler, Elsner, McCarthy, Bradtmiller, Vincent, William Easterling at Pennsylvania State University and Matthew Huber at the University of New Hampshire.
___
Online:
"What We Know" on climate science by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on climate science:http://bit.ly/ZxACVI
"Climate Change: Evidence and Causes" by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of United Kingdom:http://bit.ly/1pufueQ
10. Playing Into ISIS' Hands
Anti-Muslim Sentiment Is a Serious Threat to American Security
by Ken Gude, americanprogress.org, November 25, 2015
The incredible barbarism perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, too often dissuades those in the West from any meaningful assessment of the group’s strategy and tactics. From beheading or burning alive captives to slaughtering entire minority populations and gunning down innocent civilians in previously quiet streets, the violence is incomprehensible and thus can appear devoid of reason or planning. That is far from the truth. ISIS has been very clear about its objectives. It uses violence to achieve its goals, including to spread fear and induce governments and publics to make choices they otherwise would not; to mobilize its supporters with demonstrations of its capabilities; and, most importantly, to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash to help it attract new followers and prepare for a clash of civilizations. The ignorance of most in Western society to ISIS’s clear and openly described objectives is providing the necessary fuel for their continued growth and momentum.
The reaction in the United States to the attacks in Paris has been a mixture of solidarity with the victims and a growing anxiety about the threat ISIS poses to the American homeland. This fear is understandable even though the ability of the U.S. government to detect and prevent terrorist attacks has never been stronger. The United States should not be complacent, however, and the Center for American Progress has proposed a series of steps the United States should take to defeat ISIS. We can never completely eliminate the risk of terrorist attacks. But in times such as these, it is incumbent upon political leaders to reassure the American people that they are taking all of the appropriate steps to keep them safe now and in the long term.
What is not acceptable is the kind of rhetoric that attempts to exploit Americans’ reasonable fears for political gain and tries to push a jittery population toward increased hatred and prejudice: This is Islamophobia. Hateful rhetoric and discriminatory policies that target Muslims are morally wrong, factually inaccurate, and genuinely threaten the safety of Muslims in the United States. This report focuses on an additional aspect of Islamophobia that receives too little attention in the current political discourse—that ISIS wants and needs the United States and other Western societies to alienate their Muslim populations through their words and deeds. This is a stated goal of ISIS leadership.
ISIS needs the West to alienate and marginalize its Muslim citizens in order to foster the appearance of a war against Islam. ISIS desperately needs new recruits in order to contend with its massive weakness compared with the forces aligned against the group and its incredible unpopularity among Muslims in Muslim-majority countries.
ISIS has developed a very sophisticated propaganda and recruiting campaign that uses modern communications and social media tools to dramatically eclipse previous terrorist recruiting efforts. Western anti-Muslim sentiment is the central narrative element in this propaganda and recruiting campaign.
The many knee-jerk policy proposals directed at all Muslims that are now emerging, particularly among conservatives and from several presidential candidates, serve only to advance ISIS’s goals. This is dangerous and deadly serious. And it must stop.
FINALLY
No comments:
Post a Comment