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How to Win the Culture War: Sell a Better Version of Economic Fairness
The rise of the Tea Party permanently shifted the battlefield on social issues. Now all that's left is a fight over whether equality should be a starting point or an outcome.
In 1943, Allied forces achieved a hard-fought victory in the North African campaign, captured Sicily, and began to fight their way up the Italian peninsula. Victories in places such as El-Alamein, Salerno, and Anzio gave America some confidence that the Allies would ultimately prevail in Europe. That confidence allowed the American public to shift more of its attention to the Pacific Theater. Popular magazines such as National Geographic began to publish more maps and articles about the Pacific because Americans suddenly wanted to know a lot more about Saipan and Leyte Gulf.
- Jane Mayer: Dark Matters
- Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson: Past Perfect?
- J. Bradford DeLong: Shrugging off Atlas
The same sort of shift is happening now for the left in America's long-running culture war. From the 1980s until the birth of the Tea Party, most of the action was in the Social Theater, in which the religious right and the secular left waged an existential struggle for the soul of American society. Issues related to sexuality, drugs, religion, family life, and patriotism were particularly vexing, and many people over 40 can recall the names of battlefields such as Mapplethorpe, needle exchange, 2 Live Crew, and the flag-burning amendment. But the left won a smashing victory in the 2012 elections, including the first victories at the ballot box for gay marriage. These triumphs, combined with polling data showing the tolerant attitudes of younger voters, give the left confidence that it will ultimately prevail on most issues in the Social Theater. The power base of the religious right is older, white, rural Protestants, a group that immigration, demography, and urban renewal have consigned to play an ever-shrinking role in American presidential elections.
Both sides are now likely to shift several divisions and carrier task forces over to the Economic Theater of the culture war, where the single most important battle of 2012 was fought -- the battle over marginal tax rates for the rich. The left won that battle on January 1, when the House of Representatives voted to raise tax rates for the rich, but victory in the overall war is far less certain. Economic issues such as taxation are moral issues -- no less so than social issues like gay marriage -- and neither side has full control of the key moral foundations that underlie economic morality: fairness and liberty. Both sides are vulnerable to being outflanked and outgunned. Both sides could use a detailed map of the moral ground on which economic battles are waged.
In this essay I offer such a map, showing the territory currently controlled by Democrats (equality and positive liberty) and by Republicans (proportionality and negative liberty). What remains up for grabs is "procedural fairness": the integrity of the process by which we decide who gets what. Both parties are open to charges that they don't want everyone to "play by the same rules." Both parties have ways of answering this charge and persuading the broader public that its concept of fairness is the better one. The party that wins that point will have the upper hand in this new culture war.
The Six Foundations of Morality
My research in social psychology has focused on morality and how it varies across cultures. I conducted my early research in India and Brazil in the 1990s, trying to understand why so many cultures and religions moralize food and sexual practices -- think of kosher laws, or the widespread condemnation of homosexuality -- even when such behaviors don't seem to harm anyone. Why do many cultures treat rules about food and sex as seriously as rules about murder and theft?
I conducted interviews to find out how people feel about harmless taboo violations -- for example, a family that eats its pet dog after the dog was killed by a car, or a woman who cuts up her nation's flag to make rags to clean her toilet. In all cases the actions are performed in private and nobody is harmed; yet the actions feel wrong to many people -- they found them disgusting or disrespectful. In my interviews, only one group of research subjects -- college students in the United States -- fully embraced the principle of harmlessness and said that people have a right to do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else. People in Brazil and India, in contrast, had a broader moral domain -- they were willing to condemn even actions that they admitted were harmless. Disgust and disrespect were sufficient grounds for moral condemnation.
I had predicted those cross-national differences. What I hadn't predicted was that differences across social classes within each nation would be larger than differences across nations. In other words, college students at the University of Pennsylvania were more similar to college students in Recife, Brazil, than they were to the working-class adults I interviewed in West Philadelphia, a few blocks from campus. There's something about the process of becoming comparatively well-off and educated that seems to shrink the moral domain down to its bare minimum -- I won't hurt you, you don't hurt me, and beyond that, to each her own.
To make sense of these cultural variations, I created a theory in 2003 called "moral-foundations theory." My goal was to specify the "taste buds" of the moral sense. Every human being has the same five taste receptors -- tiny structures on the tongue specialized for detecting five classes of molecules, which we experience as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. Yet our food preferences aren't dictated just by our tongues. Rather, they depend heavily on our cultures, each of which has constructed its own cuisine.
In the same way, I aimed to identify the innate psychological systems that were given to us all by evolution, and that each culture uses to construct its unique moral systems. For example, you'll never find a human culture that makes no use of reciprocity and has no conception of fairness and cheating. Fairness is a really good candidate for being a moral taste bud, yet cultures vary greatly in how they implement fairness. Consider this quote from the Code of Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian legal text: "If a builder builds a house and does not construct it properly, and the building collapses and kills the owner, the builder shall be put to death. If it kills the owner's son, the builder's son shall be put to death." You can see the psychology of fairness here, but this is not quite the way we'd implement it.
Drawing on the work of many anthropologists (particularly Richard Shweder at the University of Chicago) and many evolutionary biologists and psychologists, my colleagues and I came to the conclusion that there are six best candidates for being the taste buds of the moral mind: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Oppression, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation.
Moral-foundations theory helped to explain the differing responses to those harmless taboo violations (the dog-eating and flag-shredding). Those stories always violated the Loyalty, Authority, or Sanctity foundations in ways that were harmless. My educated American subjects (who, in retrospect, I realize were mostly liberal) generally rejected those three foundations and had a moral "cuisine" built entirely on the first three foundations; so if an action doesn't harm anyone (Care/Harm), cheat anyone (Fairness/Cheating), or violate anyone's freedom (Liberty/Oppression), then you can't condemn someone for doing it. But in more traditional societies, the moral domain is broader. Moral "cuisines" are typically based on all six foundations (though often with much less reliance on Liberty), and it is perfectly sensible to condemn people for homosexual behavior among consenting adults, or other behaviors that challenge traditions or question authority.
The Older Culture War
After the 2004 presidential election, in which gay marriage, abortion, patriotism, and other "social issues" had played a large role, I began to apply moral-foundations theory to the American culture war. I wanted to find out if left and right in the United States were in some sense different nations, each with its own set of beliefs, facts, and values. Was it correct to say that liberal moral cuisine was based primarily on the first three foundations (which protect individuals), whereas social conservatives were offering a moral cuisine that drew on all six foundations, including Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity (which are more oriented to protecting a tight, binding moral order)?
To find out, my colleagues and I created a website at YourMorals.org, where we posted more than 60 psychological surveys and experiments. More than 300,000 people have completed one or more of those surveys. When people register at the site, they indicate their political orientation on a seven-point scale running from "very liberal/left" to "very conservative/right," with additional options for "don't know" and "libertarian." The results on our most basic survey, the "Moral Foundations Questionnaire," support our basic prediction that liberals rely primarily on the first three foundations, whereas social conservatives use all six. People who identify as libertarian, or who say that they are liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues, tend to look more like liberals -- they have little use for the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations. Where these "economic conservatives" differ from liberals is in having much lower scores on the Care/Harm foundation -- they dislike the "bleeding heart" attitude often seen on the left.
Everyone values the first three foundations, although liberals value the Care foundation more strongly. For example, they show the strongest agreement with assertions such as "Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue." But this difference on Care is small compared to the enormous difference on items such as these: "People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong." "Respect for authority is something all children need to learn." "People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed." Those three items come from the scales we use to measure the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations, respectively. You can see how social conservatives, whose morality rests in large part on those foundations, don't see eye to eye with liberals. Basically, liberals want to loosen things up, especially in ways that they believe will make more room for women, African Americans, gay people, and other oppressed groups to escape from traditional strictures, express themselves, and succeed. Conservatives want to tighten things up, especially in ways that they perceive will help parents to raise more respectful and self-controlled kids, and will assist the police and other authorities in maintaining order. You can see how those disagreements led to battle after battle on issues related to sexuality, drug use, religion, family life, and patriotism. You can see why liberals sometimes say that conservatives are racist, sexist, and otherwise intolerant. You can see why social conservatives sometimes say that liberals are libertine anarchists.
But then along came the Tea Party. It was an alliance among social conservatives and libertarians -- two groups that are very different in terms of both morals and personality traits. They made common cause on economic issues -- especially opposition to big government, the welfare state, and the high taxes required by such a state -- and downplayed the social issues that would otherwise divide them. After 2009, the culture war therefore shifted away from the Social Theater, in which the battle is over the legitimacy of the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations, on which libertarians score very low -- as do liberals. The battle has moved to the Economic Theater, in which the two sides agree that Fairness and Liberty are important, but disagree about what those words mean.
Is the shift temporary? I doubt it. If social conservatives separate from libertarians and the Republican Party tries to retake ground lost in the Social Theater, they'll win only the occasional Pyrrhic victory, alienating women (as with the "vaginal probe" controversy of 2012) and young people. The millennial generation has been raised on a diet of tolerance, diversity, and a reluctance to make moral judgments. They do not remember World War II or the Cold War, which would have instilled in them a stronger sense of the need for national unity to face down external enemies. Instead, technology links them increasingly to young people all around the world, making it harder to inflame them with pleas revolving around Loyalty. They have little fondness for hierarchy and tradition, so it will be hard to woo them with appeals based on the Authority foundation. And they have no visceral sense of disgust at homosexuality, and have been socialized to be as inclusive as possible, so arguments about sexuality derived from Sanctity will fail to move them.
But the millennials also realize they are likely to get a raw deal when it comes to taxes and entitlements. They are well aware that previous generations borrowed heavily to subsidize their own retirement years, and left the generations to come holding the bag. They are likely to listen carefully to arguments about fairness, taxing, and spending from both parties. So let's talk about the psychology of fairness.
Three Kinds of Fairness
Arguments about fairness are interminable in part because there are three different kinds, making it easy for left and right to talk past each other. First, we must distinguish between procedural fairness and distributive fairness.
Procedural fairness involves whether impartial and open procedures are used when decisions affecting the well being of others are made. Is the decision-maker impartial? Is the game rigged? Procedural fairness is crucial for the health of a democracy because when people have faith in the system, they are much more willing to accept outcomes that are disadvantageous to themselves. And when they think the system is corrupt, they are much more prone to join populist rebellions. Occupy Wall Street and many Tea Partiers (including Sarah Palin) agree that America suffers from crony capitalism -- a direct violation of procedural fairness.
Distributive fairness, in contrast, refers to how we distribute stuff -- benefits as well as burdens. Is everyone getting his fair share and doing her fair share? But there are two subtypes of distributive fairness -- equality (everyone gets the same) and proportionality (all receive rewards in proportion to their inputs; this is sometimes called equity). This simple distinction can help us understand many of today's most vexing controversies. Everyone endorses proportionality, but the left simultaneously endorses equality, even when it is in tension with proportionality. The right has no interest in equality for its own sake. Conservatives prefer proportionality, even when it leads to massive inequalities of outcome.
We find this clearly in our data at YourMorals.org. For example, consider this item, which pits equality versus proportionality: "All employees in a job category should be paid the same, regardless of productivity." Among subjects who call themselves "very liberal," 30 percent agreed. But just 3 percent of our "very conservative" subjects did. Liberals had to think about it, but for conservatives it's a no-brainer: Imposing equality of outcomes in the absence of equality of inputs is a violation of fairness as proportionality.
This difference appears in left-right conflicts internationally. For example, François Hollande, the Socialist president of France, wants to ban homework. His concern is that children from single-parent homes are less likely to get help with homework from their parents than are children of married parents, who tend to be much better off financially. He is willing to slow down the education of some children to reduce the inequality of outcomes that results from meritocratic institutions such as the French school system. Conservative commentators in the United States discussed the initiative gleefully as an example of what they see as the left's immoral commitment to achieving equality at all costs, punishing kids who are willing to work hard -- even those poor children who want to work hard despite lacking parental help.
We find the contrast again in statements about fairness from President Obama and Mitt Romney. In 2008, responding to a question from "Joe the Plumber" on whether his taxes would increase if he became more successful, candidate Obama said, "It's not that I want to punish your success .... I think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." The right seized on that phrase -- "spread the wealth" -- as evidence that Obama was a socialist who favored using tax law to achieve equality, with complete disregard for fairness as proportionality.
Perhaps burned by the reaction to that encounter, Obama has since shied away from such explicit talk about equality of outcomes. The formulation that he introduced in his 2012 State of the Union address, and has repeated many times since then, is interesting in this regard: "We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules." The second phrase ("fair share") is a clear plea for fairness as proportionality, and the third phrase ("same set of rules") is a clear plea for procedural fairness. But what should we make of that first phrase, "everyone gets a fair shot"? What exactly is a fair shot? Left and right have very different notions, and those competing notions underlie much of the controversy over the proper role of government today.
For conservatives, I believe that "a fair shot" refers to procedural fairness. It means that we all play by the same rules. As long as the law does not favor one group over another, it is not the government's job to make everybody equally well-endowed at the start of the race. It's okay if some children start off rich and others start off poor. In fact, there is special honor for the child who starts off poor and succeeds by dint of hard work. And this was precisely the context in which Mitt Romney made his famous "47 percent" remarks in Boca Raton. He began by describing how his father and his wife's father were raised in homes with little money but a strong work ethic. They achieved the American dream. He then praised the work ethic of Chinese factory workers, willing to work for a pittance to better their lives. He praised Florida Senator Marco Rubio's parents, who came to America with little money but were never envious of others: "Instead they said that you work hard and go to school, someday we might be able to have enough." And then, only then, did he get the question about how he was going to "convince everybody you've got to take care of yourself," to which he responded by dismissing the 47 percent who pay no federal income taxes. So for Romney, it's proportionality all the way. If you work hard, you'll succeed. If you don't, you deserve to fail. If you pay into the treasury, then you deserve benefits. If you don't, you don't. Equality simply is not a concern.
Democrats, however, have a very different idea about what constitutes a "fair shot." It's not just a matter of procedural fairness; it also involves questions of distributive fairness. To see this, we must discuss liberty alongside fairness.
Two Kinds of Liberty
All Americans value liberty. One of the first manifestos for the Tea Party was titled Give Us Liberty (by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe). Occupy Wall Street renamed Zuccotti Park "Liberty Park." So as a first pass we might simply say that left and right value liberty equally -- they just disagree on the main threat to American liberty. The Tea Partiers say it is an out-of-control federal government; the Occupiers say it is big business and the 1 percent.
But the differences run deeper than that. Liberty comes in two competing flavors: positive and negative. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin coined the terms positive liberty and negative liberty in 1958 as European welfare states were developing new ideas about the relationship between governments and citizens. Negative liberty refers to "the absence of obstacles which block human action." This is the traditional understanding of liberty: It's the freedom to be left alone; it's the freedom from oppression and interference by other people. This is the kind of liberty that, when violated, elicits the psychological state called reactance, which is an angry reaction against perceived pressure or constraint. Reactance makes people do the opposite of what they were pressured to do, even if they were not inclined to act that way beforehand.
Positive liberty, in contrast, refers to having the power and resources to choose one's path and fulfill one's potential. Berlin was summarizing a trend in postwar democracies in which some philosophers and activists began to ask: What good is (negative) liberty if you are stuck in a social system that offers you few options? Proponents of positive liberty argue that governments have an obligation to remove barriers and obstacles to full political participation, and to take positive steps to enable previously oppressed groups to succeed.
Perhaps the most eloquent argument for positive liberty was given by Lyndon Johnson in his 1965 commencement speech at Howard University. He began with a celebration of the Civil Rights Act, which granted negative liberty to African Americans: "Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society -- to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others."
Johnson then made the transition to positive liberty:
But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "You are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. And this is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result. [emphasis added]
Johnson's logic still seems sound with regard to African Americans in the 1960s. But does it apply to African Americans today? Or to Mexican immigrants? Once the left made the pivot from negative to positive liberty, it committed the Democrats to using the power of the federal government to pursue some policies in the name of fairness (as equality) and (positive) liberty that violated many other people's notions of fairness (as proportionality) and (negative) liberty. These policies were usually deeply unpopular, and they opened up lines of attack that Republicans pursued with great success.
Examples from the 1970s are numerous: Forced busing of public school students to achieve racial integration violated white parents' sense of negative liberty and triggered strong reactance. Affirmative action in education and hiring violated the idea of procedural fairness. Generous welfare programs violated many people's notions of proportionality -- the government seemed to give out money for nothing, which made it ever easier for men to abandon their children and pass the bill on to the taxpayers. These policies combined to alienate the white working class, driving much of it over to the Republican Party. The title of one book about that era says it all -- Jonathan Rieder's Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism.
But these conflicts over competing notions of fairness and liberty are not just historical curiosities from a tempestuous time. They are still very much with us. Look at the New Haven firefighters' case -- the controversial 2008 case decided by Justice Sonia Sotomayor before she joined the Supreme Court. A white firefighter named Frank Ricci had gone to great lengths to study for an exam that was necessary for promotion to lieutenant. To overcome his dyslexia, Ricci had paid an acquaintance to read several books into a tape recorder, which Ricci then listened to. Ricci's hard work paid off, and he qualified for promotion. But because no black firefighters passed the test, the New Haven fire department decided to throw out the results, fearing a lawsuit under federal laws designed to protect racial minorities. Ricci and 17 other firefighters sued. The District Court sided with the city, and Sotomayor was a member of the three-judge panel that heard the case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. They too sided with the city and against Ricci. (The Supreme Court later overturned the decision and sided with Ricci.)
If you value fairness as proportionality, the initial ruling was an outrage. Ricci worked extremely hard, he overcame obstacles, and he succeeded. If you value procedural fairness, it looks bad, too: Everyone had a fair shot, everyone played by the same rules, but the rules were changed afterwards because they produced a group-based inequality. (The court had found no evidence that the exam was improper or racially biased.) Is this the vision of positive liberty that the left wants to take into the twenty-first century? If so, then the Democrats will be vulnerable in the Economic Theater of the culture war.
The map above shows the lay of the land. The three kinds of fairness are the lands west of the river; the two kinds of liberty lie to the east. Democrats have undisputed control over the northern provinces of equality and positive liberty, which are related concepts supporting notions of social justice. Republican forces are massed in the south--they control most of proportionality and negative liberty, and a portion of procedural fairness. So what would it take to shift the border? What would it take for each side to capture more territory?
The Coming Battles
For the Republicans, their main weakness is clear: procedural fairness. Especially after Mitt Romney's campaign, many Americans think of the Republican Party as the party of the plutocracy, trying to use the levers of government to maintain privileges, low taxes, and political access for the super rich. Republicans perennially oppose efforts to reduce the role of money in government and rein in the excesses of Wall Street. Democrats sell plenty of influence too, but at least they make visible efforts to make politics more procedurally fair.
Republicans could also challenge Democrats on the main piece of negative liberty that Democrats own -- sexual liberty. If libertarian influence grows over time while Protestant social conservatives weaken, the party could someday drop its opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage, allowing Republicans to claim that they are truly the party of liberty, not just in the boardroom but in the bedroom as well. (The same thing goes for drug use and decriminalization -- Republicans currently oppose negative liberty in the rec room.)
Republicans seem to have no interest in positive liberty, but some of their most innovative young thinkers can be seen laying the groundwork for an eventual move into that territory. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, for example, have been writing for years about how the Republican Party can become the party that helps the poor and working class achieve upward mobility in part by strengthening two-parent families. The goal is not social justice per se, but it is an attempt to use government to help groups that start off in life with a huge disadvantage -- a lower level of family stability.
For Democrats, the map shows areas of opportunity and risk as well. The Democrats often pursue "nanny state" policies that are good for public health, but that strengthen Republican claims on negative liberty -- the Affordable Care Act and its individual mandate being the most prominent case in point. Another change for Democrats would be to back away from their habitual preference for government regulation of businesses by applying stricter cost-benefit tests, as Cass Sunstein did as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during Obama's first term. Indeed, the Obama Administration implemented fewer new regulations in its first three years than did the George W. Bush Administration in its first three years. Democrats have historically claimed to stand for the "little guy," so it is striking that small businesspeople tilt strongly Republican. That could change, particularly if Republicans continue to be seen as the party of big business. If Democrats can keep showing that they are responsive to the needs of the business community, and that they aim for fewer and smarter regulations, they might eventually retake some portion of negative liberty.
Democrats could also gain some ground on proportionality, particularly the negative side of proportionality: punishment for cheaters and slackers. The Democrats earned the label "soft on crime" in the 1970s, because they seemed to disregard proportionality out of compassion for criminals or concerns about racial equality. Bill Clinton made some progress reversing that association, and the plummeting crime rates of the 1990s reduced the pressure. But the Democrats should still be mindful of opportunities to punish cheaters -- opportunities they have traditionally passed up. Tort reform, for example, is popular. Many people are outraged by stories about frivolous lawsuits, which insult our sense of proportionality. Whether or not such lawsuits are major drivers of health-care costs, Democrats seem to be the party protecting trial lawyers (who are major donors), while Republicans have long been the party showing moral outrage and calling for changes. The Obama Administration took a step in the right direction in 2011 when it launched a drive to help states overhaul their medical malpractice procedures, including the creation of special health courts. Such courts -- opposed by the trial lawyers' lobby -- would have specially trained judges able to resolve malpractice claims quickly, awarding compensation from a set schedule. No more juries handing out extravagant settlements after long trials filled with testimony from dubious experts. Such courts would increase procedural fairness as well as proportional fairness.
Perhaps the biggest challenge Democrats will face in the coming years is to rethink their commitment to race-based affirmative action, and a conception of positive liberty in which African Americans are the focal group, as they were (quite properly) in Lyndon Johnson's time. The race gap in education and achievement has been shrinking in America for 60 years, whereas the class gap has been rising, particularly since the 1980s. It is now twice as large as the black-white race gap, by some measures. It is therefore increasingly difficult to offer a moral justification for giving hiring and admissions preferences to the children of married African-American lawyers, rather than to the children of white coal miners or single mothers.
Andrew Jackson's campaign slogan from 1820 seems apt for our time: "Equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none." If Democrats can manage the pivot from race to class in the coming years, and can make the argument for how and why government programs should be used to create positive liberty for the poor, in ways that violate neither proportionality nor the negative liberty of others, they'll be able to reclaim Jackson's slogan. It will be an inspiring banner for them to wave in the new culture war over fairness and liberty.
This article originally appeared in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, an Atlantic partner publication.


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I missed the Bloomberg poll in the recent avalanche of polling results, but The Cable didn't — and for good reason. One month after Democrats bragged at their convention that they would pound Mitt Romney on foreign policy and national security, Barack Obama suddenly finds himself at a disadvantage on the issue of terrorism. That wasn't the only decline Bloomberg measured, either:
The foreign-policy results of the new Bloomberg National Poll haven't gotten much attention yet, but the survey contains some bad news for the Obama campaign. According to the poll, Mitt Romney has a 48-42 advantage over Barack Obama on the question of which candidate would be tougher on terrorism. Romney, in other words, has encroached on one of Obama's signature strengths.
What makes this result so surprising is that the president has consistently trounced Romney when it comes to counterterrorism. A Fox News poll earlier this month found that 49 percent of respondents trusted Obama to do a better job than Romney in protecting the United States from terrorist attacks, compared with 41 percent who put their faith in the Republican candidate. The president had a 51-40 advantage on handling terrorism in an ABC News/Washington Post poll around the same time, and a 50-35 edge on carrying out the war on terror in an Ipsos/Reuters poll in August. The Democrats' rare national-security muscle was on full display at their convention, where speakers boasted about the administration's successful raid against Osama bin Laden and targeted killings of al Qaeda leaders.
The Bloomberg poll contains other grim findings for Obama — such as declining approval of the president's diplomacy and a neck-and-neck battle between Obama and Romney on flashpoint campaign issues such as energy independence, Chinese trade practices, relations with Israel, and Iran's nuclear program (61 percent of respondents were skeptical about Obama's pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon).
This appears to be the first national poll taken after the White House's Benghazi narrative began to collapse. The poll itself doesn't ask any confirming questions about that issue, though, so it's unclear to what extent this may be driving those numbers. The shift, though, is significant, giving Romney a six-point lead on terrorism, the first such lead I can recall this year. Romney also has a narrow two-point lead on relations with other countries, well within the margin of error, but putting support for Obama at just 45% — very low for an incumbent President who pitched his diplomatic skill at the convention.
Obama has a six-point lead in this poll among likely voters, 49/43, but there are other danger signs. Romney has a bigger lead on the economy, winning by 12, 53/41, and the biggest issue by far in this poll is unemployment/jobs (43% rank it #1). Obama only gets majorities on two issue questions: understanding your problems and struggles (51/38) and womens' issues (54/34). The rest of the issues are virtual toss-ups, except for the Romney six-point lead on terrorism and the Romney seven-point lead on gas prices, and a six-point Obama lead on health care — usually a huge Democratic advantage.
So how did Obama end up with a six-point lead? It might have something to do with the D/R/I split among likely voters of 30/24/41, which narrows to 38/36/21 with leaners included. Despite this split, though, Republicans have a narrow lead on the Congressional ballot, 43/41 and 45/43 with leaners, so either the sample split may not be impacting the poll numbers, or the GOP will be stronger in Congressional races that the media assumes.
Update: "Declines" was supposed to be "decline."

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans aren't budging on tax rates, and Democrats are resisting steps like raising the eligibility age for Medicare. Negotiations on averting a year-end fiscal train wreck combining big automatic tax hikes and sweeping spending cuts again appear stalled.
There are less than three weeks before the government could careen off this "fiscal cliff," but the chief GOP negotiator, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that "serious differences" remain between him and President Barack Obama after an exchange of offers and a pair of conversations this week.
Boehner spoke after a closed-door meeting with fellow GOP lawmakers in which he advised them not to make plans for the week after Christmas.
Neither side has given much ground, and his exchange of proposals with Obama seemed to generate hard feelings more than progress. The White House has slightly reduced its demands on taxes — from $1.6 trillion over a decade to $1.4 trillion — but isn't yielding on demands that rates rise for wealthier earners.
Boehner responded with an offer very much like one he gave the White House more than a week ago that offered $800 billion in new revenue, half of Obama's demand. Boehner is also pressing for an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and a stingier cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the two men did not have any follow-up talks Wednesday.
"There were some offers that were exchanged back and forth yesterday, and the president and I had a pretty frank conversation about just how far apart we are," Boehner said after his meeting with fellow Republican lawmakers. "He said it's looking like trench warfare," said Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., referring to Boehner.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke weighed in as well. He said, "Clearly, the fiscal cliff is having effects on the economy," the uncertainty affecting consumer and business confidence and leading businesses to cut back on investment.
There is increasing concern about a Dec. 31 deadline to stop the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and the start of across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of Washington's failure to complete a deficit-reduction deal last year. Even if an agreement can be reached, the halting pace of negotiations is jeopardizing chances that it could be written into proper legislative form and passed through both House and Senate before the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3.
Both sides accuse the other of slow-walking the talks. Democrats say Boehner is unwilling to crack on the key issue of raising tax rates on family income over $250,000 because he's afraid of a revolt on his right flank and from younger, ambitious members of his leadership team.
"I do have an increasing concern that the speaker … is trying to string this out until January 3rd because that's when he would be re-elected as speaker," Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told The Associated Press. "And I think he's nervous that if he can't get a majority of his House Republican members to support a reasonable agreement that that could put his speakership election in jeopardy. And so that might cause him to try and string these talks."
Many conservatives say they would oppose a deficit-cutting package negotiated by Boehner that included higher tax rates.
"I'll say no, because the focus has got to be on economic growth," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. "The simple fact is raising taxes is not going to grow our economy."
Others wouldn't rule it out completely.
"If there's real cuts in spending, if there's real reform of entitlement programs, I think all of us would have to reconsider our position," Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said Wednesday. "But the problem is, I don't see real cuts. I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no."
Liberal Democrats are trying to pull Obama in the opposite direction on Medicare and Social Security. Eighteen months ago, Obama had all but agreed to an increase in the retirement age and a less generous inflation adjustment for calculating Social Security COLAs.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned Republicans against insisting on raising the Medicare eligibility age as part of any deal.
"Don't go there," Pelosi said on "CBS This Morning." She said raising the retirement age wouldn't contribute much savings toward an agreement in the short term, adding, "Is it just a trophy that the Republicans want to take home?"
Raising the Medicare age from 65 to 67 could cut Medicare costs by $162 billion over a decade, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate last year. But by 2035, it would cut Medicare's projected budget by seven percent.
That estimate, however, assumes the eligibility age would increase rather abruptly and hit people just about to retire. Republicans have insisted in the past that their Medicare proposals won't affect now those 55 and above.
Democrats are also pushing back against a GOP plan to reduce Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, another step back from where Obama and Boehner were just 18 months ago.
"Quite frankly, Social Security is off the table," said Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y.
The backtracking has Republicans fuming that Obama campaigned on a "balanced" fiscal solution but now is unwilling to pair tax increases with politically painful cuts to Medicare and other popular programs.
"The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table the only thing left is the varnish," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But in an ABC interview Tuesday, Obama did not reject a Republican call to raise the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67. The proposal is "something that's been floated," Obama said, not mentioning that he had tacitly agreed to it in the deficit-reduction talks with Boehner more than a year ago that ended in failure.
"When you look at the evidence, it's not clear that it actually saves a lot of money," Obama said. "But what I've said is, let's look at every avenue, because what is true is we need to strengthen Social Security, we need to strengthen Medicare for future generations, the current path is not sustainable because we've got an aging population and health care costs are shooting up so quickly."
(Photo: AP)
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April 03, 2012
Ask the Experts: Will America 'Win' in Afghanistan?
Last fall, a two-part question circulated throughout the Pentagon: Can the United States win in Afghanistan? Will the United States win in Afghanistan?
In this case, "win" meant accomplishing the strategic objectives of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, as presented in President Obama's December 2009 speech at West Point: disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan through "a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that reinforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan."
The consensus among civilian and military staffers and officials was that while roughly half thought the U.S. military could win in Afghanistan, almost nobody believed that it would. This disconnect has created an uncomfortable situation where some of the people who design, refine, and implement U.S. strategy in Afghanistan simply do not believe it will ultimately succeed.
Today, the Obama administration acknowledges setbacks, such the increase in attacks by Afghan security forces on U.S. and ISAF troops, the Taliban's suspension of the negotiating process with the United States, and the alleged murder of sixteen civilians in the Kandahar province by an Army staff sergeant. Nevertheless, the White House affirms that its Afghanistan strategy is working. Two weeks ago, General John Allen told the House Armed Services Committee, "I am confident that we will prevail in this endeavor." On Saturday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta proclaimed: "In Afghanistan we've also made a turning point. The level of violence has gone down…We've seen the Taliban weakened so that they've been unable to establish and organize efforts…The bottom line is it's working."
Public opinion polls show that the American public is increasingly skeptical of the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan and the likelihood of its success. The majority of Americans think the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan (62 percent), that the war is going "somewhat" or "very" badly (68 percent), and that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn earlier than the 2014 (55 percent). The vast majority of Americans now oppose the war (72 percent), an increase of 21 percent since President Obama entered the White House.
With less than twenty months until U.S. troops are scheduled to be withdrawn, we asked several foreign policy experts who focus in Afghanistan to address this question:
"The Obama administration's stated objectives in Afghanistan are to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven, prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the government, and build up Afghan security forces in order to transition U.S. combat forces out of the country by 2014. Based on the current strategy, do you think that the Obama administration will achieve its goals?"
- Andrew Exum, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
I may lose my think-tanking license for writing this, but my honest answer to the question is that I simply do not know. I have been traveling to and studying Afghanistan for a decade now, and the more I learn about the country and the conflict there, the less confident I am in my ability to know anything certain about what will or will not happen as a result of U.S. actions.
I believe Afghanistan may be a case in which the president's policy will succeed but not the strategic goals associated with that policy. It may be possible, in other words, to continue to disrupt and dismantle al-Qaeda while failing in the effort to create a stable Afghan government.
The question asked specifically if the United States could prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the government, and the answer to that question is probably yes. My suspicion, which has been unchanged since 2009, is that the people of Afghanistan will suffer for the foreseeable future from a proxy war fought between elements supported by United States and its allies on the one hand and elements supported by Pakistan's security services on the other hand. The United States can ensure the Taliban and its supporters across the Durand Line do not win that war. But it will be very difficult to minimize the suffering of the Afghan people, who have surely already endured more than their fair share of pain.
- Jamie M. Fly, Executive Director, Foreign Policy Initiative
The Obama administration's (and America's) ability to meet those goals will depend in large part on the decisions that President Obama makes in the coming months. If he follows the reported advice of Vice President Biden and others in his administration who favor an early announcement of additional troop withdrawals in 2013, the strategy will be seriously compromised. With the surge forces that the President sent to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010 set to return home by the end of this September, our commanders on the ground are already being forced to make do with lower force levels than they would have preferred.
In the coming months, we will see if the gains that have been achieved at great cost in American lives in areas like Helmand and Kandahar hold as we hand over more control to Afghan security forces. The situation in the east along the border with Pakistan remains uncertain and the administration does not appear to have a coherent Pakistan strategy that would enable success in Afghanistan.
These uncertainties have led General John Allen to say that he will not be able to adequately assess required troop levels for 2013 until the end of this year after the surge forces are withdrawn and the fighting season comes to an end.
Over the last three years, the Obama administration has pursued what appears to be a schizophrenic policy toward Afghanistan. Despite his decisions early in his administration to double down and send tens of thousands of additional troops, the President and his top advisors are clearly uncomfortable with a war that they believe to be a political liability.
If the war is lost, it will be lost in Washington, not on the battlefield. Our men and women in uniform can succeed, but only if they are given the resources and time to do so.
- Colonel Gian P. Gentile, Professor of American History, United States Military Academy at West Point
For the last eleven years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan the American Army has displayed a conspicuous and troubling tendency to fall in line with an American Way of War: A Way which sees any problem in war solved by an optimal operational solution discovered by the army's senior officers, especially its higher ranking generals. In Vietnam it was search and destroy; in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it has been hearts and minds counterinsurgency.
To be sure wars fought for a nation's existence like World War II—with the Allies goal of unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan—a military's operational framework can provide the solution in war. However, in limited wars of choice such as Vietnam and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes even with an optimal operational solution the wars can still be lost, or fought to a point to where they are no longer worth fighting. This seems to be the state of affairs in Afghanistan today. Yet instead of seeing the strategic reality that the war is no longer worth fighting, the American Army maintains its faith in an operational solution to save a war fought under a botched strategy.
That botched strategy has sought to achieve very limited policy aims—the reduction of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan—with a maximalist operational method of armed nation building. It represents the death of good American strategy and a waste of good American blood and treasure.
- Michael Wahid Hanna, Fellow, The Century Foundation
The core goals of the Afghan war are still within reach for the Obama administration, as they are not reliant on the actual defeat of the Taliban. Al-Qaeda's role in Afghanistan has been degraded materially and their effective presence is now de minimis. The Taliban are also not in a position to topple the central government and reassert political control over all of the Afghanistan.
However, the United States and its allies simply cannot defeat the Afghan insurgency. The insurgency has proven to be resilient and is able to take advantage of safe havens in Pakistan.
As such, the United States can achieve its core mission, albeit with a continuing but vastly diminished commitment post-2014. However, the only viable pathway for achieving a durable settlement without an ongoing U.S. presence remains a negotiated outcome with the insurgency. Short of this result, the United States will have an enduring military presence in the country. This is obviously a suboptimal outcome. Yet, we have not seen a truly committed approach to the political track, which remains parallel to military efforts.
It is incumbent that the United States expend political capital now to test the ultimate intentions of the Taliban leadership and their capacity to enforce a settlement, if one is reached. In turn, this will inform planning for the post-2014 environment. The war will not be won in that timeframe regardless of U.S. military strategy. Bearing this in mind, harmonizing political and military strategy represents a prudent approach with few downside risks.
In any event, plans for transition should continue unabated, as an extended presence under a Strategic Partnership Agreement is only conceivable or sustainable with a vastly reduced presence. And it is only if a political process fails that an American commitment to Afghanistan is defensible.
- Malou Innocent, Foreign Policy Analyst, CATO Institute
The pervasive corruption in the Afghan government, the militant safe havens in Pakistan, and the "crisis of trust" between American soldiers and Afghan troops will likely prevent the Obama administration from achieving its goals. Fortunately, a sustained U.S. troop presence to deny al Qaeda a safe haven is unnecessary—in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Al Qaeda poses a manageable security problem that requires discrete operations, intelligence sharing, and surgical strikes when necessary.
Let us remember that in 2009, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, warned that without a surge of forces the conflict "will likely result in failure." The Obama administration tripled the American military presence and yet we have seen no meaningful turn around. A classified NATO report, "State of the Taliban 2012," saidthe Taliban's "strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact." And inseparate dissents appended to the 2011 National Intelligence Estimate, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen, and the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, argued that the Taliban have shown no readiness to abandon their political goals.
Slowly turning over portions of the country to Afghan security forces implies that threats to Afghanistan's internal security will be resolved or substantially diminished in the next eighteen months. Such problems will likely persist, but do not threaten vital U.S. security interests.
- Candace Rondeaux, Senior Analyst, Afghanistan, International Crisis Group
There is not much to recommend the Obama administration's current strategy on Afghanistan. Barring a major course correction in U.S. policy on South Asia and a tectonic shift that unifies the increasingly divided Afghan political elite, Washington is unlikely to succeed in building up an Afghan security force capable of confronting the Taliban after 2014. Rife with factionalism, high attrition rates and low morale, Afghan security forces are ill-prepared to handle the threat from insurgent safe havens in Pakistan. They will be even less prepared if NATO proceeds with proposals to slash military aid to Afghanistan and to drastically reduce the number of Afghan security forces on the rolls by 2015 or 2017 without a comprehensive contingency plan for demobilization. Washington's effort to blunt the threat in South Asia through negotiations with the Taliban doesn't offer much hope either. Neither Obama nor President Hamid Karzai have been able to convince Afghan insurgents of the value of breaking ranks with their backers in the Pakistani military. The Pakistani military, meanwhile, has repeatedly demonstrated it is prepared to go to great lengths to control the negotiation process and to marginalize or even eliminate perceived defectors or their backers among Afghanistan's elites. Mullah Omar's Quetta shura, as a result, appears to be split over whether and how to proceed with their nascent talks with the U.S. Osama bin Laden is dead and gone but leading Taliban negotiators involved in the Qatar process have refused to publicly renounce al-Qaeda, saying that do so would be a betrayal of Islamic values. The Taliban are unlikely to overthrow the Afghan government wholesale but they don't have to for the White House strategy to fail—it already has.


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Easy Interactions in the Smart City
- Details
Wearable computing facilitates a new form of human-computer interaction. A small body-worn computer remains always on and ready and accessible, and in this regard, differs from hand held computers, laptops and smartphones. The "always ready" capability leads to a new form of synergy between human and computer, characterized by long-term adaptation through constancy of user interface ( from Prof. Steve Mann, http://wearcam.org/wearcompdef.html ).
Wearable design: device of eGo project
The H2O project capitalizes on former results from the Catrene eGo project: http://www.ego-project.eu
The purpose of the H2O project is to develop a human-centric secured architecture, to support the rapidly emerging wearable Computing and IoT markets.
The project will investigate the human to object interactions in different application areas of the smart city domain: communication, transportation, e-health and e-retail. Some technology bricks are still missing for the deployment of efficient wearable computing, as demonstrated by the successful eGo project, and all aspects of the new digital lifestyle are not yet fully understood.
Major assets delivered by the project will be:
- A high-performance, reliable, ultra low-power BCC (Body Communication Coupling) technology with a standardized physical layer, usable as communication enabler in any Body Area Network. The eGo project has demonstrated the need to improve the BCC interface for addressing harsh environments.
- A representative set of non-intrusive, secure, low-cost, always working, wearable devices, suitable for several application domains pertaining to the IoT or smart-city area (in particular, e-health, communication, safety and security, retail). The eGo project has prototyped some form factors acceptable by a large category of users.
- A fully trusted and privacy preserving transaction environment, enabling object(s) that the user wears or touches to seamlessly initiate applications or communication.
- An Open SDK and application certification tool-chain enabling third party developers to easily develop apps for wearable, guaranteeing that such app can be automatically verified before being remotely loaded in the wearable devices owned by the user.
- Complete reference and trusted security architecture, thus enabling seamless secure synchronization of wearable devices. This synchronization includes the recovery of credentials into a blank wearable device
- Pilot implementation of wearable computing scenarios in some IoT or Smart-City application domains, together with first QoS or QoE feedback reports.
The partners of the project cover the different skills required in the wearable/IoT value chain (technology suppliers, technology integrators, silicon manufacturers, embedded application developers, SW houses, digital security companies, designers, market analysts). The consortium includes iinstitutions as well as large and small companies strongly committed to promoting industrial standards.


text: Ten years after The Lion King shot to the top at the box office and first introduced the characters of Simba (Matthew Broderick) and his pals Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), Disney presented this retelling of the Academy Award winning animated musical. Switching the perspective to that of meerkat Timon and warthog Pumbaa, The Lion King 1 1/2 puts a new spin on the events of the original film. This time around, the comic duo are conveniently at the center of much of the story. Along with returning castmembers Moira Kelly, Whoopi Goldberg, and Chech Marin, The Simpsons' Julie Kavner and Seinfeld's Jerry Stiller lend their voices to newcomer characters Timon's Mom and Uncle Max, respectively. The straight-to-video film also features the never-before-heard song "That's All I Need."


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Cushman & Wakefield has named a new market leader in New Jersey, officially making her the head of the brokerage firm's three offices in the state.
The company announced the move Monday, though Brennan has been the face of the firm's operation in the state since the departure of longtime executive Gil Medina. The former executive managing director left in late June to join rival brokerage CBRE.
Now in Cushman's top management role in the Garden State, Brennan will oversee offices in East Rutherford, Morristown and Edison for one of the world's largest and oldest real estate services firms. She had risen to become a senior managing director since joining the privately held company in 2005.
The 21-year industry veteran has overseen expansions for each of the three New Jersey offices, according to a news release. Brennan also developed the region's junior executive training program and served on a committee to launch the initiative nationally.
Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield, Brennan worked as managing director of brokerage services in CBRE's Midtown Manhattan office, the news release said. She began her career with C&W as a market research coordinator.


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Protecting your Future: Elder care might include thousands in surcharges
Many seniors and their families only learn about the significant cost of nursing home care when they need the care.
New York is one of the most expensive states in the country, and nursing home costs average $132,000 per year in our area. Elder law attorneys and senior advocates recommend preparation as soon as possible, because planning ahead keeps more options open and saves more assets from going to the nursing home.
There are only three ways to pay for the expensive but necessary nursing home costs. The first is long-term care insurance, which very few people have. An advantage of long-term care insurance is the ability to "age in place," which means staying at home for long-term care.
The second is Medicaid, which is the biggest payer of nursing home costs in the country. If you plan ahead five years with a Medicaid asset protection trust, you can protect your assets and qualify for Medicaid.
The third method is self-paying for nursing home costs. Some folks either save enough to pay for nursing home care privately or are forced to "spend down" their assets for a time and then switch over to Medicaid when their resources are exhausted.
In addition to the cost of the nursing home, those paying privately must also contend with a 6 percent state surcharge tax.
Some advocates have tried to repeal the tax, which applies to all residents who privately pay for skilled nursing home care. The tax first appeared in 2002 as part of the New York State Health Care Reform Act. The tax applies only to private payers, obviously, as the state wouldn't tax itself via Medicaid payments.
The tax is not insignificant. For a $132,000 annual fee at a nursing home, the surcharge is nearly $8,000. However, it is not uncommon for individuals in more expensive locations to have $9,000 to $10,000 added to their bill each year as a result of this tax. All told, the tax brings in about $600 million to the state every year.
Those who are against the surcharge refer to this measure as the "granny tax." It has come under fire from many. Most potently, the critics argue that it is grossly unfair to tax those who properly saved and are paying their own way for care.
However, it's highly unlikely the surcharge will ever be repealed. Considering the incredibly tight budget situation, eliminating $600 million, no matter what the cause, is a dire measure. The surcharge is just another detail about paying for long-term care in New York that seniors need to be aware of and prepare for when crafting future plans.
Bonnie Kraham is an attorney practicing elder law estate planning with Ettinger Law Firm, 75 Crystal Run Road, Town of Wallkill. She can be reached at 692-8700, ext. 119 or at email@example.com. This column is intended to provide general information, not legal advice.


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WASHINGTON — President Obama took aim at Republican lawmakers today, accusing them of holding the public hostage to Washington politics by blocking extended unemployment benefits for millions of out of work Americans.
"It's time to do what's right, not for the next election, but for the middle class," Obama said in a presidential jawboning statement in the Rose Garden this morning.
Lawmakers have battled for weeks over legislation extending unemployment benefits to workers who have been out of a job for long stretches of time. The last such extension expired at the end of May, leaving some 2.5 million people without benefits.
The Senate is set to take up the measure again Tuesday, immediately following the swearing in of a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd. Filling that seat will give Democrats the 60 votes they need to block a Republican filibuster.
Obama's argument has become a familiar one, as Democrats try to use the Republican blockade of unemployment benefits as a wedge issue heading into the November midterm elections.
Today, he sought to cast his Republican opponents as hypocritical for having voted for extensions of unemployment benefits when his Republican predecessor, former President Bush, was in the White House, but not now. He accused Republican leaders of subscribing to what he called a misguided notion that providing unemployment aid to people lowers their incentive to look hard for a job.
"That attitude, I think, reflects a lack of faith in the American people," Obama said.
The president said the out-of-work people he hears from are "not looking for a handout. They desperately want to work. Just right now, they can't find a job."
"These are honest, decent, hardworking folks who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own."
The $34 billion needed to extend benefits would be borrowed, adding to the nation's mounting debt. Republicans have tapped into the public's anger and concern over the national debt, saying they would support extending jobless benefits only if the bill was paid for.
"Everyone agrees on extending the additional unemployment insurance, but the Democrat way is to insist we add it to the national debt at the same time, while blocking Republican efforts to pass the same extension without the debt," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said extending unemployment benefits amounts to "emergency spending" that justifies higher deficits. Under GOP presidents, he told reporters, most Republican lawmakers agreed, but now they are insisting that extended benefits be paid for.
If the unemployment rate remains above 9 percent three months from now, Gibbs said, benefits may need to be extended again.•
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Captain John Decatur Peterson
Captain John Decatur Peterson is a steamboat master who has the esteem of all lake mariners. He is a man of good purpose and of strict integrity, and who has by close application to his duties attained to the command of one of the good steamboats on the lakes, the J. C. Lockwood. It has been the pleasure of the writer of this article to have known Captain Peterson for a number of years, and he can say with truth that no more skillful or seamanlike master ever stepped aboard a steamboat.
Captain Peterson is a son of Capt. John and Ann (Lee) Peterson, and was born February 26, 1841, at Black River, Ohio. His father was for a long time master of lake vessels, among which were the schooners Rambler, Monson, Eclipse, Tartar, Wild Rover, Live Yankee, Eveline Bates, and David Provost, part of which he owned. Captain Peterson's mother was a sister of Capt. Seth Lee, whose name will be found many times by the close readers of this history.
Capt. John Decatur Peterson attended the public schools in Huron, and the business college at Cleveland two winters, after he commenced sailing. He began his lake-faring career at the age of fifteen years, and when fifteen years of age he shipped on his father's boat, the Wild Rover. In the spring of 1858 he shipped on the Eveline Bates, and the following season (1859) was appointed second mate. The schooner was chartered to take a cargo of oak plank from New Baltimore, Mich., to Liverpool. She made good weather of this voyage and after eighteen days out she arrived at Liverpool, and was then sent to the Cardinas, Cuba, with merchandise, which she discharged and went light to New Orleans. At this time freights were dull, and she laid in New Orleans four weeks. She returned to the lakes in 1861.
In the spring of 1860 Captain Peterson was appointed mate of the schooner Surprise, with Capt. Hugh Morrison, and remained on her a full season. In 1861 he was made mate of the schooner Cape Horn, and the following season mate on the schooner Eveline Bates, which his father sailed. In the spring of 1863 he was appointed master of the schooner Wings of Morning, and in 1864-65 master of the schooner George D. Dousman; in 1866 master of the bark DeSoto; in 1867 master of the schooner Charles Wall; 1868, master of the schooner King Fisher; 1869 master of the Charles Wall; 1870, master of the schooner David Stewart, in which he continued until the close of the season of 1880.
In the spring of 1881 Captain Peterson was appointed master of the steamer Columbia (the construction of which he had superintended), plying between Buffalo, Chicago and Duluth. On July 27, 1889, he took command of the new steamer J. C. Lockwood, which had also been built under his supervision, and has sailed her up to the present writing, giving satisfaction to all parties. In both the Columbia and the Lockwood the Captain owns a large interest. Captain Peterson was in the employ of Mr. J. C. Lockwood for twenty-seven years, and has always been considered one of the most reliable masters. Mr. Lockwood died in the fall of 1892, and in the spring of 1893 Captain Peterson was made manager of the steamer J. C. Lockwood. Two years later she was sold to F. B. Case, of Norwalk, Ohio, and one year later, 1896, she was sold to George W. Brown, but by reason of his residence in New York City, Mr. Brown was unable to give the steamer the attention required; he still retained Captain Peterson as his manager, which position he has held since 1893. This shows a confidence of which Captain Peterson may well feel proud.
He is a member of the Ship Masters Association and carries Pennant No. 329. He is also a Chapter Mason (since 1866), and is a charter member of Marks Lodge of Master Masons, of Huron, Ohio. His Chapter is No. 72, Sandusky, Ohio.
In 1862 Captain Peterson was united by marriage to Miss Eulalia C. Benschoter, of Huron. The children born to this union are Carlin E., William D., Eva R., Bessie A., Jennie B., Hiram H., and Walter. The family homestead is in Huron, Ohio.
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Return to Home Port
This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.
Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.


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Will Bipartisan Bill Create Jobs or Increase Investor Fraud?
JOBS Act aims to reduce red tape for entrepreneurs
Calling it "a potential game-changer" for start-ups and small businesses, President Obama has signed legislation that will, depending on your point of view, either improve the economy by creating jobs or pave the way for the wholesale fleecing of unwitting investors, many of them older Americans.
See also: Older Americans depend on Social Security.
The bill, styled the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, sailed through the House by a vote of 380-41, with lawmakers from both parties hailing it as a way to boost a languid economy, and through the Senate by a vote of 73-26. President Obama has said that he will sign the legislation.
The JOBS Act aims to free entrepreneurs of regulatory red tape, making it easier for "emerging growth companies" to raise capital. That, argue the bill's proponents, including a large number of venture capitalists, will help create jobs, as well as innovative enterprises.
Obama said that the legislation represents "exactly the kind of bipartisan action we should be taking in Washington to help our economy."
Critics of the measure, who've called it everything from "a disgrace" (Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission) to "investor rip-off legislation" (journalist Robert Kuttner), say that it will roll back important investor protections, including some put in place in 2002 after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals.
The JOBS Act will change the rules in three major ways.
1. It will exempt companies with annual revenue of less than $1 billion from certain financial disclosure and governance requirements in connection with initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock. Under current law, companies that seek to go public are required to file detailed disclosure documents about their finances and operations with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which vets the filings before it authorizes IPOs.
2. The law will allow small companies to raise up to $1 million a year through "crowdfunding" — the sale of small amounts of stock to many investors — without registering the shares for public trading with the SEC.
3. Under current law, small companies that offer and sell stock under a provision of the Securities Act that allows them to bypass normal SEC registration are barred from general solicitation of investors. The law will free those companies to solicit investors virtually without restriction.
The measure has drawn criticism from many advocates for consumer protection, including AARP. In a letter to congressional leaders, Joyce Rogers, AARP's senior vice president for government affairs, noted that "older investors ... with a lifetime of savings and investment are disproportionately represented among the victims of securities fraud." Without the inclusion of additional safeguards, she said, the legislation could "open the floodgates to a repeat of the kind of penny stock and other 'boiler room' frauds that have ensnared financially unsophisticated and vulnerable investors in the past."
And, Rogers warned, crowd-funding websites, in the worst cases, "could become the new turbo-charged pump-and-dump boiler room operations of the Internet age."
Lynn E. Turner, a former chief accountant at the SEC, sounded a similar warning. "People come to the elderly, who are the most likely to say 'I've got to have enough money to pay my bills,'" he said. "They'll tell them, 'This is the next Google, this is the next Facebook,' and put the hard sell on them. I've seen it happen with my own mother-in-law. People try to sell these things and make them sound wonderful and yet they aren't."
Turner said that passage of the JOBS Act was all but a foregone conclusion, partly because deep-pocketed venture capitalists — who are generous campaign contributors — lined up behind it.
"This is a train wreck in the making, and I just don't think we're going to avoid it," he said. "We're in an election year, and those people [running for reelection] will do anything for the cash they need to keep their jobs."
Kirk Victor is a contributing editor of National Journal.
You may also like: Understand the national debt.


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On the City Council Agenda, May 15, 2012
An agenda heavy with closed session items faces the Tustin City Council this week. Negotiations are in full swing with all employee organizations. Topping the list however, is the contract renewal of Chief of Police Scott Jordan. The Chief's annual review is under scrutiny during the closed session with an item under the open session stating that the city has been negotiating his contract. It is interesting that the contract will only be made available to the public that evening and only if the City Council decides to vote on it.
Closed Session
Multiple conferences with legal counsel regarding exposure to litigation and initiation of litigation, as well as the usual discussion on the ongoing lawsuits between the city and the school district. Hopefully, after the false start in April, the first of these two cases will be heard this year. The best scenario would be for everyone to come to their senses and realize the drain of taxpayer money wasted on litigation over a power play.
Real Estate Negotiations – MCAS property in two separate negotiations regarding Broadcom Corporation and Vestar/Kimco.
Public Employment – Performance Evaluation of the Police Chief.
Labor Negotiations – All represented employees in various employee organizations. We hear that negotiations are going slowly but there may be some takeaways on the table.
Regular Meeting
Item – Public Hearing Adopt a finding that the Tustin Legacy Fire Station to be substantially complex and establish a retention amount of ten percent. This is an effort by the city to circumvent SB293 which established a maximum retention rate of five percent for public works projects. The original law, as enacted, was designed to ensure that contractors get paid and can pay their subcontractors and was supposedly designed to allow the maximum amount of funds to flow in a timely manner so everyone gets paid. That's not a bad thing, is it? Support for the original bill came from the contractors themselves, of course, with a long list of supporting trade associations. Opposition was a slate of who's who in government and quasi-government lobbying entities such as the State Association of Counties and the Special Districts Association.
Although one has to wonder why the legislature felt it necessary to free up more funds and thereby place cities, counties and special districts in even more financial peril (we've all heard horror stories of contractors who went bust and couldn't finish the job, leaving a public works project hanging for years), this little game of declaring a simple project like a fire station as "complex", is not worthy of our City Council. Through this tactic, they have established that they won't let a little thing like the law protect their fiefdom. Let's hope none of the contractors decides to sue or dispute the complexity issue, because the city will then have to show in court just how "complex" the project is. And, I doubt their commentary in the Agenda Report would suffice. In any case, the only ones likely to show at the public hearing are the "greedy" contractors providing local jobs and hoping to get paid in a timely manner.
Consent Calendar
Item 4 – Frontier Park Fitness Element This looks to be part of the Community Development Block Grant funding. No complaints about spending money on our parks. Tustin has some of the finest in the area and they are certainly a draw for prospective residents. Some of our current residents may take issue with the proposal, however, as it looks as if current handball courts will be replaced with outdoor fitness equipment.
Item 6 – Quarterly Investment Report If this item isn't pulled for discussion, it is only because Deborah Gavello isn't here. Deborah has publicly denounced the current investment manager for the city, stating that he has made illegal investments and made questionable investments that put funds at risk. The Gang of Three continue to rally behind their boy, George Jeffries, saying that he is the best thing that ever happened to taxpayer money. Interesting that Jeffries, who is around 80 years old, only has one client. And, suffice it to say, we haven't lost any money…yet.
Regular Business Items
Item 8 – Set Date for Budget Workshop The tentative date is 4pm on June 5, 2012.
Item 9 – Solicitation Ordinance This is a second run for this ordinance which would have unfairly burdened non-profit groups with requirements for fingerprinting and permit fees. As we said
before, this ordinance has some problems with regard to our homeless who panhandle. But, that is not what the City Council had issues with. The Council, specifically Jerry Amante, was in a tither about his Girl Scout cookies. We had to agree. The ordinance, as written, would have unfairly burdened the very groups we as a community support. It seems the city staff have come up with a solution: rely on the old solicitation ordinance to regulate residential solicitors. So, while our homeless may be in fiscal jeopardy, at least Jerry's and my cookies are safe. You school folks that run car washes are on your own.
Item 10 – Approval of Police Chief Contract I will state emphatically, that I like Chief Jordan. I like his philosophy on policing and believe he is a huge asset to the city. Anyone who has interacted with our police department knows how professional they are. That said, the city should exercise fiscal prudence here. Raises in any way shape or form for an executive, who should be leading by example, are out of order when it has been rumored that other line staff city employees may be faced with takeaways or, at the least, no raise or change in benefits. In fact, the city recently renegotiated new hire pensions at a significantly lower amount. Any significant change to any executive manager compensation at this time, would be fiscally imprudent.
That's about it. We forgot to mention the city will have two presentations at the beginning of the public session. The first is for an Eagle Scout recognition. The second is for the highly publicized "Trees in Tustin" photography contest. We congratulate the winners and hope the city will continue to have fun contests like this in the future. And hey, don't forget to join us as the Tustin Street Fair & Chili Cookoff, Sunday, June 3rd at 11 am. Get your tasting tickets early as they always run out of chili to soon. Now, if the City Council wanted to consider an ordinance for minimum chili amounts….
Posted on May 14, 2012, in Local Government, Politics, Tustin City Council and tagged chili cookoff, deborah gavello, Jerry Amante, soliciting ordinance, tustin chief of police, Tustin Police Department. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
The CIty Council caved on the T Mobile lawsuit.


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Since its inception, the DLC has championed policies from spurring private sector economic growth, fiscal discipline and community policing to work based welfare reform, expanded international trade, and national service. Throughout the 90's, innovative, New Democrat policies implemented by former DLC Chairman President Bill Clinton have helped produce the longest period of sustained economic growth in our history, the lowest unemployment in a generation, 22 million new jobs, cut the welfare rolls in half, reduced the crime rate for seven straight years, balanced the budget and streamlined the federal bureaucracy to its smallest size since the Kennedy administration.
Now, the DLC is promoting new ideas -- such as a second generation of environmental protection and new economy and technology development strategies -- that is distinctly different from traditional liberalism and conservatism to build the next generation of America's leaders.
America and the world have changed dramatically in the closing decades of the 20th century. The industrial order of the 20th century is rapidly yielding to the networked "New Economy" of the 21st century. Our political and governing systems, however, have lagged behind the rest of society in adapting to these seismic shifts. They remain stuck in the left-right debates and the top-down bureaucracies of the industrial past.
The Democratic Leadership Council, and its affiliated think tank the Progressive Policy Institute, have been catalysts for modernizing politics and government. The core principles and ideas of this "Third Way" movement [began with] Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign in 1992, Tony Blair's Labour Party in Britain in 1997, and Gerhard Shroeder's Social Democrats in Germany in 1998.
The Senate New Democrat Coalition (SNDC) [is analogous to] the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) in the House. Members of both groups are moderate Democrats who advocate a new centrist, progressive approach to governing and who often reach across party lines to get things done.
Established in 1997, the House New Democrat Coalition (NDC) grew to 64 members between 1998 and 2000, making it the largest caucus in the House. With the success of NDN's top House candidates on Election Day, the NDC has grown to 72 members in the 107th Congress. The Senate New Democrat Coalition (SNDC), established in 2000, is already 20 members.
In announcing the establishment of the SNDC in February 2000, Sen. Landrieu stated, "The American people are tired of the same old proposals and are demanding that we work together in a more creative way on the many problems facing our nation. Too often here in Washington, the loudest voices are the ones on the far left and far right. That is why this group was formed, to give voice to those in the sensible center." The SNDC has already made its voice heard on critical issues ranging from education to trade to health care and, with the Senate evenly divided, the Senate New Dems are increasingly determining the balance of power.
|Other candidates on Principles & Values:
|Zell Miller on other issues:
GA Gubernatorial:
Sonny Perdue
GA Senatorial:
Allen Buckley
Denise Majette
Johnny Isakson
Mac Collins
Mary Squires
Max Cleland
Paul Coverdell
Sam Nunn
Saxby Chambliss
George W. Bush
(Republican for President)
V.P.Dick Cheney
(Republican for V.P.)
Sen.John Kerry
(Democratic nominee for Pres.)
Sen.John Edwards
(Democratic nominee for V.P.)
Ralph Nader
(Reform nominee for Pres.)
Peter Camejo
(Reform nominee for V.P.)
David Cobb
(Green nominee for Pres.)
Michael Badnarik
(Libertarian nominee for Pres.)
Michael Peroutka
(Constitution nominee for Pres.)
2004 Senate Races:
(AK)Knowles v.Murkowski v.Sykes
(AR)Holt v.Lincoln
(AZ)McCain v.Starky
(CA)Boxer v.Jones v.Gray
(CO)Coors v.Salazar v.Randall v.Acosta
(CT)Dodd v.Orchulli
(FL)Castor v.Martinez
(GA)Isakson v.Majette v.Buckley
(IA)Grassley v.Small v.Northrop
(IL)Obama v.Keyes
(IN)Bayh v.Scott
(KY)Bunning v.Mongiardo
(LA)John v.Vitter v.Kennedy
(MD)Mikulski v.Pipkin
(MO)Bond v.Farmer
(NC)Bowles v.Burr
(ND)Dorgan v.Liffrig
(NH)Granny D v.Gregg
(NV)Reid v.Ziser
(NY)Schumer v.Mills v.McReynolds
(OH)Fingerhut v.Voinovich
(OK)Carson v.Coburn
(OR)Wyden v.King
(PA)Hoeffel v.Specter v.Summers
(SC)DeMint v.Tenenbaum
(SD)Daschle v.Thune
(UT)Bennett v.Van Dam
(VT)Leahy v.McMullen
(WA)Murray v.Nethercutt
(WI)Feingold v.Michels
Civil Rights
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Social Security
Tax Reform
Other Senators
House of Representatives
SenateMatch (matching quiz)
Senate Votes (analysis)
House Votes


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Nearly a year after citizens blindsided the government with an unprecedented protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, Congress is at a loss for how to proceed. Luddite officials see complex tech issues as a mysterious minefield and the greenhorn technology industry does not have the insider D.C. connections to move beyond unwieldy protests outside the gated halls of America's capitol.
As a startup-focused publication, TechCrunch gets to see the results of tech policy every day. And we think we can help the two sides understand each other better. So we're launching a new project today called CrunchGov.
It includes a political leaderboard that grades politicians based on how they vote on tech issues, a light legislative database of technology policy, and a public markup utility for crowdsourcing the best ideas on pending legislation. Everything is in beta for now (you know how these things go), but we think you'll already be able to get a lot out of it.
Here's some more detail about each part of the project, and our thinking behind it.
Political Leaderboard: Newspaper Endorsements 2.0
For nearly two centuries, many of the world's most venerable newspapers have endorsed political candidates and ballot propositions, believing that even the hallowed tradition of journalistic neutrality does not relinquish us from our civic duty. Yet, the process of wheeling out an otherwise shameful opinion from the shadows for a quadrennial pronouncement seems riddled with problems.
How, for instance, did the The New York Times decide to endorse Obama in 2008, and was there any way in which McCain could have possibly earned the endorsement? Why offer an opinion every four years, when the gravest threats necessarily happen between elections? These concerns compelled TechCrunch to give the traditional media endorsement a much-needed 21st century upgrade: a quantified opinion, a platform for bi-directional consultation with officials, and a constantly updated database of issues.
Our report card ranks members of congress on a set of transparent criteria, which reflect the consensus policy beliefs of those in the technology industry. Most individuals in the technology industry favor more high-skilled immigrants, the ability to crowdfund startups, and vigorously opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act when it was presented to congress.
Our "A" through "F" evaluation ranks policymakers on the probability that their vote will align with the technology industry.
A "B" grade reflects the overwhelming majority of Congresspeople who had 100 percent alignment (voted for high-skilled immigrants and crowdfunding, and opposed SOPA).
A "C" congress member deviates on one of those issues and a "D" deviates more than one issue.
For those members who are widely known champions or threats of tech policy, we reserved a select few "A" and "F" ratings.
A more thorough explanation of our evaluation methodology can be read here; suffice it to say that our ratings were informed by a broad set of influential tech lobby organizations that collectively represent most of the technology industry. Each of them filled out a survey, indicating which laws should be included in our measure, and we only graded on laws that had broad agreement. Net neutrality, privacy, and cyber security ultimately did not make the cut, since there is no consensus on how to approach those issues.
We believe this approach overcomes glaring shortcomings in traditional endorsements. For one, every member knows exactly why they got a particular grade and what they could do to change their standing (in the future, we will let Congress members know how we will grade a particular bill before it comes to a vote). Second, our measure, rather than reflect the mysterious opinion of a faceless editorial board, reflects an actual voting constituency. Last, our measure will be constantly updated, so that policymakers and interested citizens can be fully informed in realtime.
A Legislative Database
Tech policy is more than just piracy and immigration reform: it's tax reform, STEM education, cybersecurity, privacy, patent rights, broadband expansion, libel law, wireless spectrum — not to mention all of the local policies, such as taxi and hotel regulation, wreaking havoc on startups. Haphazardly skimming tech news headlines is an inefficient way to be an informed netizen, so we've developed a (growing) database of tech legislation, complete with all the relevant details, links to news stories, and a list of who supports and opposes the legislation.
However, simply being educated on legislation and voting every few years isn't enough. Democracy 2.0 demands a more direct, interactive form of citizens…which brings us to our third tool:
Project Madison, A Crowdsourced Public Markup Utility
"Everyone is an expert in something," says Seamus Kraft, U.S. Representative Darrell Issa's Digital Director, who helped develop America's first real shot at federal direct democracy, Project Madison. The utility for solicits public feedback on pending legislation: users amend actual bill language, comment on each other's suggestions, and vote up or down each suggestion. With the help of the collective IQ of the technology industry, we hope that better ideas can facilitate bi-partisan agreement on otherwise doomed bills and avoid the unintended consequences of poorly crafted laws.
A trial run of the public markup utility in Congress has already proven successful. When Rep. Issa opened his own alternative to SOPA for public markup, Project Madison participants came in droves with surprisingly specific legal suggestions. For instance, one savvy user noticed that current piracy legislation could mistakenly leave a person who owns a domain name legally responsible for the actions of the website administrator (the equivalent of holding a landlord responsible if his tenant was growing pot in the backyard). The suggestion was included in the updated bill before Congress, representing perhaps the first time that the public, en masse, could have a realistic shot at contributing to federal law purely based on the merit of their ideas.
We know that all of our readers are experts in something and we want to harness your brilliance to improve the democratic process.
Additionally, we think crowdsourcing legislation is the path to more productive conversations. For instance, rather than a firm like Google writing a blog post opposing a piece of legislation, they could offer their own amendment to Project Madison, satisfying both a need to publicly criticize a bill and offer a realistic alternative.
In addition to our three initial CrunchGov products (report card, policy database, and legislation crowdsourcing), the most prominent members of tech policy are lending their voices to TechCrunch, including Senators Wyden and Moran, Congressman Issa, investor Ron Conway, and Pandora Founder Tim Westergren.
We would like to give special thanks to the Sunlight Foundation and inSourceCode for contributing to the development of our CrunchGov rollout. In addition, we'd like to thank lobby groups Technet, Engine Advocacy, The Internet Association, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group for lending their expertise as we attempt to understand the evolving constituency that is the technology industry.
CrunchGov began as a conversation at our Disrupt conference in New York between myself, co-editor Eric Eldon, and Voxer CEO, Tom Katis on how the media could help its readers be more effective citizens. The beta for our new platform is evolving and we'd love hear your (constructive) thoughts and suggestions.
For a decade, technology has democratized countless industries; isn't it about time that technology also democratized democracy itself?