Recently, workmen discovered a old brown wallet inside of the wall of a home in San Marino California they were remolding. They turned it over to City hall and went on with their job. In the wallet, the three clerks at city hall found  a WWII Navy i.d., honorable discharge papers, two pay stubs for a $1.50 an hour job installing insulation and a social security card.  So they knew whose wallet it was – it belonged to Arthur Robles born 1924 . But they didn’t know the name of the pretty teen-aged girl posing in a garden in a slightly faded black and white photo,  or the meaning of a 1947 calendar with names and dollar amounts on it . But their goal was to find Mr. Robles and return his wallet not understand it.

They found Mr. Robles in a Central California cemetery where he had been buried after passing away at age 76.  But the headstone held a clue to his next of kin, Thomas Arthur Robles in a small suburb in Southern California.  The clerks contacted Thomas,  a 57-year old firefighter, who drove with his sister Chacon to San Marino to retrieve the wallet.

Thomas and Chacon knew who the teenaged girl in photo was.  Her name was Julia Tahan, their dad’s high school sweetheart who married him in 1949.  She had died in 2000 at the age of 72. She was their mother.  This was the only photo of her before she married their father they had ever seen.

And they figured out the calendar in the wallet with the names and dollar amounts on it.  They figured out that is was the record of his payments to their aunts on the money he borrowed from them in 1947 to buy the engagement ring he gave their mother.  They had heard the story from aunts and uncles for years but had never seen proof of it.

The return of Author Robles’ wallet is not an act of memorable policy or monumental politics, it is just a small sign that  people are good, that families are important, and  that the people we count on to serve us do so with grace and generosity beyond the call of duty.   We need more of these stories.

After the release of an immediately discredited study by the Heritage Foundation claiming he Senate immigration bill would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion over the next few decades, Republicans tabled over 300 amendments to the bill.  This is a common stalling tactic to gum up the system.  But it is also a sign of the civil war inside the Party over immigration policy.  Among the 32 amendments the Committee struggled through in almost 8 hours testimony and wrangling, were Sen. Ted Cruz’s amendment to triple the number of border control agents and Sen. Jeff Sessions’ proposal to construct a 700 mile, double-layered fence along our Southern border. Neither of these were among the 21 changes adopted, most of them technical.

What did get through the committee however was Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s amendment requiring that the Department of Homeland Security to submit a plan to stop 90 percent of illegal border crossings in high-risk areas, before undocumented individuals living here can even apply for so-called “provisional immigrant” status.  This is actually a kind of victory for reform as it replaces his earlier  poison-pill amendment which  set an impossible standard that DHS  had to stop 90% of all illegal crossings before the government could even consider a process for a pathway to citizenship.

The fact of the matter is the Republicans don’t want immigration reform and they know the American people don’t care about it that much.  Polls show that the majority of voters don’t consider it a high priority and in any case want border security measures before citizenship is even talked about.

Let’s take a look at what the people are saying.

First, it is not a priority.   Voters list gun control and job growth as what the government should focus on.  A new Gallup poll released last week reported that 86 percent of voters said Congress should focus job creation and the economy.  Fewer than half of Americans say immigration is a high priority.

Second,  Americans don’t believe that the federal government will really secure the border, despite the recent downturn in illegal immigration. Only 30% think it’s even somewhat likely that the federal government would actually implement the provisions to secure the border, down from 45% in January. This is in the face of a huge increase in deportations and border patrol agents and technology by the Administration.

Third, they don’t believe the government will actually pass comprehensive reform legislation. Only 38% think it’s at least somewhat likely that the House and Senate will pass a bill and the President will sign.  This may be part of the general abysmal attitude toward Congress, but is here in high numbers for this issue.

Fourth, the issue is not a winner for either party.  Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the man whose name is most associated with immigration reform, is losing ground with his party.  When he started  highlighting the bill 3 months ago  44% of GOP voters viewed him Very Favorably. Today, that number is  31%.  And on the other side of the aisle, only 44% of Democrats said it should be the top priority of government  - 11 points below the 55 %  of Republicans who give it priority. So there is little incentive for the Democrats to burn much political capital this year on the issue.

The bottom line is that despite all the talk about the Latino vote being critical to the Democrats for immediate election victories, and critical to the Republicans for long term viability, the American people are not that interested and there is no real incentive for either party to make it happen.  With anti-immigrant Republican Senators gumming up the works, I am doubtful that anything of substance will emerge.  It will be gun safety legislation all over again – much sound and fury, but nothing happens.

But digging deeper into the public’s attitudes found that a majority don’t understand it, that more people strongly disapprove of it than strongly approve of it, and that more than twice as many people think it will hurt them as think it will help them and a plurality think it will have no effect.

Medicare however is another story. Fifty-eight percent of people oppose any spending cuts to Medicare and 46 percent oppose any cuts in Medicaid, according to the poll, released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. Medicare received the strongest support, after protecting public education.

Both programs have to deal with the rising amounts of money the healthcare/pharmaceutical/hospital industrial complex is extracting from patients, insurers and the government in the form of unjustifiably high prices, deceptive billing and lobbying.  And both systems have to deal with massive fraud perpetrated by business – sometimes very large businesses – that drives up costs for everyone.

But regardless of the reasons for the problems of these two national health insurance systems, Americans spend more money on health care and receive fewer benefits from it than any other western nation.  Long gone are the days when Americans could boast that their nation’s health care is second to none…that distinction is now only for the wealthy and the highly insured who can actually benefit from our superior technology. The bulk of Americans never see it, and in many cases, never see a doctor except in an emergency room. The system is broken, Obamacare didn’t  fix it and millions of Americans are retiring and counting on Medicare to keep them healthy. A single payer, state system is the answer, but is off the table in Congress, so waht now.

The nation needs to put aside political wrangling, knee-jerk responses and point scoring and build a health care system that works.  The question of course, is how.

The FCC is a very important agency, and more so everyday as our lives move on online.

Which is why Emily’s List and other women’s organizations have been pressuring the President to finally, at long last and for the first time in the history of the agency, appoint a woman chair.  And consumer groups have been pressuring the President to appoint someone who is not beholden to the communications industries, someone who can be counted on to look out for the people, not the companies – which is why the agency was created in the first place.

After all, Progressives elected this President, so it is reasonable to expect that he steer the country away from big business, away from white male old boy corporate clubs, and toward the people, especially women and minorities.

You would think that, but that is not what he is planning on doing.  He is planning on appointing an old white male former telecom lobbyist, Tom Wheeler. A lobbyist for the industry the FCC is supposed to regulate.    An old white guy when there are many top notch women who are better choices, like FCC Commission member Mignon Clyburn.

Wait…when did my President become a Republican?  I thought we elected a Democrat who build an Administration that would represent the people.  I guess not.

When asked about the controversial appointment, a White House official not authorized to speak about the appointment (I guess that is newspeak for the White House Communications Director) said: “Tom Wheeler is an experienced leader in the communications technology field who shares the president’s commitment to protecting consumers, promoting innovation, enhancing competition and encouraging investment.”

Protecting consumers? Really?  Tom Wheeler ran  the National Cable Television Association (since renamed NCTA) which lobbied Congress and the FCC for  higher rates, less competition, longer contracts and anything else they could get to extract money from the public and pay less in taxes and public benefits.  Then, after a stint as an investor in the industries he is now supposed to regulate, he took over the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association which he ran until 2002.   Currently, the CTIA favors overriding local zoning authorities on the placement of cell towers in neighborhoods and allowing ads on your cellphone, among other positions, not exactly an advocate for the public.  The CITIA files petitions to the FCC which Wheeler will have to review – that is he will judge petitions filed by the organization that he ran.  This does not instill confidence in the White House promise that he will protect the public interest.

But he did raise $200,000 to $500,000 for the President’s 2008 campaign and $500,000 for the 2012 campaign.

Now, to be fair to Wheeler, he does have supporters in the public interest sector.  Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, a digital rights organization firmly on the side of consumers and people, said she has known him for hers and predicts he will be independent and proactive, which to say the least, the outgoing Chairman was not.  The lobbying organizations Wheeler ran were focused on smaller companies, not big corporations, and he has spent his time in between running organizations and starting up companies to bring innovation into communications.

So, the jury is out on whether Wheeler will or will not be another corporate fox in a consumer protection henhouse.  But the jury is not why he is there in the first place –  why did the president appoint a old, white former industry lobbyist to the run the agency when there were many qualified women and minorities available, one of whom was on the Commission at the time.

Did money talk once again, this time to the President? I hope not, but I  that is what communication in Washington is all about, even under Obama.

When I read that I recalled what then Secretary General Boutrous Boutrous Ghalli told me at the UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo:  countries that ignore half their population – the female half – cannot advance financially, culturally and politically. It is true.  If you cast your gaze around the world, you see that countries with high numbers of women in leadership positions in government and business, Sweden, Denmark, the US to a lesser extent – are among the world’s leaders in technology, business, democracy and quality of life.  And countries that marginalize women are among the poorest and most backward.  These are what I call the patriarchal countries.

Now, I know that some people will be offended at my saying that, and at what I am going to say.  Many, if not most, of the patriarchal countries are Muslim.    So let me state up front, I am not singling out Islam or Islamic countries for criticism. But, I am also being realistic.  I – and all of us – have to be.  Samuel Huntington’s “class of civilizations” is underway now between the modern West and the patriarchal east, which is mostly Muslim.  And the battle lines are the role of women in society, which is a huge issue in all Muslim countries, although to carrying degrees – Indonesia is not the same as Tunisia.  But elements of Islam do allow extremists and fundamentalist to justify marginalizing and even brutalizing women – that is reality.  It is also reality that  if the West does not win that clash by igniting a reformation in the patriarchal world, these two cultures will grow more separate  and the clash will be come more violent.  And more women will be tortured and killed, even inside our borders.

Like most people in the west I was thrilled when the Arab Spring was launched by the slap to the face of fruit seller in Tunisia in December of 2010. I thought, as many in the est did, at last, Democracy will take hold, rights will be respected, women can take part in building new, free nations.  I should have know better because I have travelled to many patriarchal countries and had seen the depth of the fear and hatred of everything female in vast swaths of the population.  But as a westerner, I had faith in the will of the people and power of the law.

Unfortunately, we are now seeing the will of the people.  In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood leaders are calling for women to stay out of public places when men are present, even for demonstrations.  They are demanding that the laws giving women the right to property and divorce be annulled.  Worse, they claim that a man has the right to beat and rape his wives whenever he wants and he can not be prosecuted and that women who are raped while taking part in demonstrations are the ones at fault.

And they are acting on their beliefs.  Downtown Cairo has become so dangerous that women fear  even the very public Tarir Square because of the emergence of public gang rapes -  even an American network reporter with her camera crew and body guard was grabbed and stripped and attacked in public by a gang.  The government does nothing and the Brotherhood says the women deserved it for being at a protest or march or even in a place where there were men.

Recently a Tunisian woman who charged two policemen with raping her was summoned by the court to face charges of indecency.  Similar incidents have occurred in Pakistan where being raped is a crime and the victim goes to jail. Women don’t count in these countries and they suffer if they challenge men, especially men who attack them. That would be like your dog complaining because you leashed it.

As a result of this attitude, promoted by fundamentalists imams, in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab spring, public gang rapes and murder and disfigurement of women just going about their business is becoming routine, with the extremist Salafies saying when a woman is raped it is her fault.

Even in Democratic In India with its history of female leaders,  gang rapes are a daily occurrence, as is spousal rape and even murder of women simply because the exist and are gong about their business in a free democracy. Laws or local custom deny women the ability to prosecute the rapists, especially if the rapist is the woman’s husband or father or other relative or a policeman.  Women who speak up and refuse to cowed are attacked, vilified and even killed.

Why is this happening at a time when democracy is spreading?

Patriarchy does hard – or, as we see in Egypt and Tunisia and Pakistan, it does not die with democracy but gets stronger and meaner.  The dominant view of women in patriarchal countries, from Egypt to India, is that they are a sub-human species, a combination of sex slave, household servant and livestock. From dowries and bride prices, to arranged marriages, to clitoral mutilation to female infanticide, in patriarchal nations women are a separate species put  on earth to serve men, be bought and sold, and when they are no longer useful sexually or as property, to be killed or discarded.  When women try to assert their humanity, the best solution is to kill or jail them, or rape them until they shut up.

The result is a collection of nations patriarchal nations who remain economically poor, culturally bankrupt and socially in the 1st century.   And they are populated by and run by men who spend most of their time fighting each other for so-called honor, and when they are not fighting, they are tormenting the women in their midst.

This is the clash of civilizations Huntington warned of, the clash between modern western civilizations in which woman and men are partners in developing families, businesses, nations, and patriarchal countries in which woman are sub –human species excluded from the nation’s leadership and growth.  Unfortunately, male –dominant societies are historically characterized by violence –constant fighting over honor, prestige, women, reputation.  When religion is mixed in, fundamentalists can call of attacks on “the infidels” – us – to eliminate our blasphemy of women’s rights from the earth.

The Obama Administration is taking the threat seriously and has been moving quickly, along with the South Korean military in response to the war mongering threats from the North  in recent weeks.  North Korean has threatened American military installations in the Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as the United States mainland, which it cannot reach. Thursday, it said it could  “take powerful, practical military counteractions” against the threats from B-2 bombers from the United States, B-52 bombers from Guam and F-22 Stealth jet fighters from United States bases in Japan that have recently run missions over the Korean Peninsula during joint military exercises with South Korea.

So what is going on?  As usual, North Korea is opaque and its new leader , Kim Jon-un, something of a mystery, partying with US basketball players one week and threating nuclear war the next. Many analysts familiar with North Korea feel he is under the sway of aggressive military leaders who want to restart the war with South Korea that never technical ended, or that have calculated that the US will not respond militarily to provocations and threats for fear of starting a war.

Some concrete actions lend credence to the first theory:  today,  for a second straight day, North Korea blocked South Koreans from crossing the border to enter a jointly operated industrial park, threatening the future of the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. It also warned that it would pull out more than 53,000 North Korean workers from the joint factory park, located in the North Korean city of Kaesong, if taunts from the South Korean news media continued, whatever that means.  The factory site is one of North Korea’s largest income earners and would be a blow to the North Korean economy.

Another question mark in all of this is China …a rational analysis would think that the last thing a growing China wants on its border is a nuclear war – or a war of any kind with it #1 trading partner, the United States.

I think the lack of alarm from China may indicate what is rally going on:  a power struggle inside North Korea between Kim and a group of powerful elites, especially in the military, that he has not gained total control over.  The threats are not aimed the US or even ant South Korea;  the audience is internal –  a few men that he is wrestling with politically.  He is trying to appease these hardliners without actually doing anything.  China is getting impatient, but I think, it understands what is happening inside the Hermit Kingdom.

This is echoed by Jina Kim,  an expert in North Korean politics from Seoul’s Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, thinks that the threats are part of  “potential friction among elites.” Rather than real threats aimed at the US.  The US missile advantage over Korea is 400 to 1 – not good odds even for military hardliners.

Jina Kim noted that “It was reported that Kim Jong Un has ordered troops near the demilitarized zone not to make any mistake that can be utilized by (U.S. and South Korean) forces to use force against the North,” .  She pointedly told troops to be cautious and she thinks he is stalling while he reshuffles his inner circle.  If she is correct, the best strategy for the US is exactly what the administration is doing:  don’t downplay the threat, go on alert and build up defenses, let North Korea know visibly that it has no chance to even start a war, and wait and see.  Calls to take any other action could lead to disaster.  Sometimes the best use of strength is to show it, but not use it.
 

Outside of the court, interest groups for both sides of the question of marriage equality demonstrate, but inside – and in the country as a whole – there is a major shift going on:  conservatives are abandoning their objections to marriage equality.  The American political landscape is quickly shifting, as conservatives, Republicans businesses and even some church leaders now see that gay rights are civil rights and marriage equality is what the founding fathers would have wanted.

I and others have assumed that the court Court will split on ideological lines with conservatives voting against marriage equality and benefits for gays, and liberals voting for them with Justice Anthony Kennedy the swing vote that could go either way.

I don’t think so anymore.  The rapid change in public opinion, the support from Republicans like Rob Portman and even tepidly by Karl Rove, the support by big time Republican corporate funders like Goldman Sachs argue that there may be more support n the Court than the usual 4/4/1 vote pattern.  This is bolstered by the release last week of a poll by  Reuters/Ipsos showing that 63% of Americans favored gay marriage – including many self-identified conservatives.

Marriage equality leaders like Rick Jacobs and Chad Griffith have cast the marriage equality issue in terms of liberty– getting the government out of the lives of gays and letting them marry whomever they want.  This is a classic conservative theme and it appears to be working.  Rick and Chad and other marriage equality advocates have out-organized and out fund raised the anti-gay groups and will continue to do so.  Possibly more important politically are the corporate lobbyists and billionaires telling Republicans that marriage equality is good for business so get out of the way if you want to continue to get our money.   Other conservatives supporting marriage equality include former Republican Party Chair Ken Mehlman, who is gay, Ted Olson, President Bush’s Solicitor General who is arguing the case before the Court, and Margaret Hoover, a Republican Activist who is also pro-marriage equality and a great name.

This doesn’t mean the case is a slam dunk.  We can count on Justices Alito and Thomas to vote against marriage equality, and possibly even Bryer on a state’s rights position.  Focus on the Family and other human rights organizations have launched a publicity campaign to push their one-man/one woman line, (even though in the Bible it is usually one man and many women), and some state senators and representatives who voted for marriage equality have lost their elections in the past.

In life and politics and even in Constitutional rights, there are no guarantees.  But watching a former enemy quietly slide over to your side is a very , very good sign for the decision and its aftermath.

Who knows, maybe next conservatives will understand that reproductive rights are also part of liberty.

Listen to the interview in our Archives (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-fairness-doctrine/2013/03/20/fairness-radio) and then buy the book. Available online and in bookstores everywhere.

This is not to apologize for Detroit.  The elected government of Detroit has been profligate and corrupt.  Its former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted last week for a variety of crimes that looted the city.  This year, the City issued $1.4 billion in securities to fund pension payments and borrowed another $129.5 million to pay off other loans to just keep the city running – borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and feed the family.  In dollar figures,  according to a state treasurer’s review Detroit’s liabilities rose to almost $15 billion, including money owed retirees.

Detroit was devastated by the collapse of the auto industry, and thousands of people just left – leaving behind blocks upon bock of deteriorating, empty homes and stores, stripped of their appliances and wires and pipes.  Fully a quarter of the residents left, taking jobs and tax base with them, so it is no wonder the city has been running a deficit for years and now has no streetlights, no buses, few city services and has cut the police department so much that crime is steadily rising.

But, guess who made out like bandits from Detroit’s troubles?  Wall street banks.  UBS, BofA, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase and others have reaped $474 million in fees for the $3.7 billion in bond issues they sold for Detroit to cover its debts.  And they continue to reap fees from a city too poor to literally keep its lights on.

The bond sales  cost Detroit $474 million, including underwriting expenses, bond-insurance premiums and fees for wrong-way bets on swaps – Wall Street was betting the city’s money on credit default swaps, something no city should be investing in – , according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Those fees just about  equal the city’s 2013 budget for police and fire protection.

And while Wall Street was making money on Detroit’s woes, they were working to make sure that Detroit would get deeper into to debt.  Some of the banks that also dealt in home mortgages targeted city homeowners with subprime loans that led to foreclosures, which depressed real-estate values, drove out residents and reduced the  and tax revenue needed to pay the fees to the banks.  And Detroit is not alone. Municipal borrowers from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – my water district - to Harvard University  have paid billions to banks to end interest-rate swaps that were supposed to protect them when the markets crashed, but didn’t.  You remember the market crash during the Bush administration when it finished the deregulation of the banks started by Bill Clinton. At least they did not lose their democracy like Detroit is.

But, cheer up, Paul Ryan’s new budget calls for an end to regulations on Wall Street, because, you know, regulations slow the economy.

But the secrecy does not stop Americans from opining about the Church, the Pope and the selection.  A recent CBS/NYT survey of American Catholics show that confidence in all three is slipping. The majority of respondents found the leadership of the Catholic Church unfavorable – 38%, compared to only 13% who viewed it positively and 52% said it was a mixture of good and bad.

In contrast, over 60% of Catholics viewed Pope John Paul’s leadership favorably after his death in 2005.

Blandness seems to be the  majority opinion of Benedict.  His short reign produced little of consequence and made few if any changes in the direction of the Church at a time when it was obvious that change were solely needed.  Only a quarter of American Catholics think that Benedict’s leadership helped the Church, while 15% said he hurt the Church and 48% said that he was a mixed blessing. A majority of American Catholics  – 54% – thought the Vatican was out of touch with the needs of today’s Catholics, a problem Benedict did not help solve.

American confidence in the church slipped under Benedict.  22% said that things in the US got worse under Benedict, while only 17% felt they improved and 60% said they stayed just about the same.   However, most Catholics were positive about the state of their church: 54% said it was in good or excellent shape.  However, they disagreed with the Church on some major areas:  67% favor priests getting married and 59% favor letting women become priests and a shocking 77% of American Catholics feel that someone who rejects the Pope’s Authority can be a good Catholic.  One reason for that may be the response that 66% feel the Vatican has done a bad job in handling the sexual abuse scandals.

So, as the red hats vote and send opaque smoke signals to select a new Pope, whoever he will have a big marketing a sales job to do in the US.  Whether or not the Conclave can choose a person who can do that, or if such a person exists, remains to be seen.