Sunny Day Flooding

It’s so commonplace that locals sometimes take rubber boots with them in outings in their coastal neighborhoods. In some areas of Southern Florida, folks buying real estate on the coast are seeing longer-term mortgages disappear. 15-year term loans are about as long as most can get. The fear, where residential real estate loans give lenders on default recourse solely against the purchased property but not otherwise against the borrower, is that with the expected flooding – which just might become a permanent coastal realignment – folks whose residences are surrounded by water might just walk away with substantial balances remaining on their mortgages… and the only people that would be left “high and dry” would be the lenders.

Higher average global temperatures are squarely to blame. Strange that one of the properties destined to be consumed by coastal sea rise is climate change scoffer, Donald Trump’s, Mar-a-Lago golf and tennis property. But it’s hardly just Florida.

Equally strange is that it is the federal government that is not only acknowledging the phenomenon but issuing dire warnings about how much worst such flooding is going to get. Carolyn Gramling, writing for the July 15^th Science News, tells us: “As sea levels continue to rise, many coastal U.S. cities will see an increasing number of days each year that streets flood during high tides, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]. For many parts of the country, particularly along the U.S. East Coast, that increase has already ramped up over the last two decades.

“From 2000 to 2019, these ‘sunny-day flooding’ events jumped by 190 percent in the Southeast, and by 140 percent in the Northeast, according to a report by NOAA released July 10. Such events can devastate coastal infrastructure — for example by disrupting traffic, inundating septic systems and salting farmlands.  

“In its fifth annual high tide report, NOAA details flood risks faced by different U.S. regions using tide gauge data collected at 210 stations around the country from May 2018 to April 2019. Officials’ definition of a ‘flood’ can vary, depending on factors including the shape of the land, urban development and storm-proofing. But across all U.S. coastal areas, tidal flooding occurred an average of five days during the study period — repeating a record set in 2015, the report says.

“Still, some regions saw tidal flooding far more frequently than the national average. The Chesapeake Bay region set new records in the last year, with 22 days of high tide floods for Washington, D.C., and 12 days each in the Maryland cities of Annapolis and Baltimore.

“‘It’s primarily an issue in the East Coast and Gulf Coast at the moment,’ said NOAA oceanographer William Sweet, who led the study, during a July 10 news conference. “Flooding in the densely populated Northeast, in particular, is influenced by ‘a very energetic system’ offshore involving winds and ocean currents along with sea level rise. The land surface in the Chesapeake Bay region also is slowly sinking, part of a delayed readjustment to the retreat of the great ice sheets that covered North America thousands of years ago (SN Online: 8/15/18). 

“The U.S. Southeast, from Florida to North Carolina, is expected to see an average of five days of tidal flooding through the meteorological year. The western Gulf of Mexico is set to record an average of six days in tidal flood events per year, a 130 percent jump relative to two decades ago…By 2050, what are currently the worst flood days in some cities will basically become a new normal, the results suggest.”

If the Republican Party, where either denying climate change or (de)regulating pollutants/ emissions without taking this accelerating reality into consideration is considered a basic policy directive, expects to have some level of traction with the younger generations who will be forced to live with the severe consequences of ignoring global warming, I am finally beginning to understand why so many in the GOP are no longer opposing the legalization of marijuana.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I remember someone once telling us that “it’s not wise to mess with mother nature.”

The Politics of Medicine – An Expensive Bitter Pill

If you are rich, there are very few medical barriers that matters. Need an expensive doctor’s appointment to get a US prescription for a medicine that is widely considered an over-the-counter drug in most other developed nations?  So what? Even if you have insurance, your deductible or co-pay can still render that choice too pricey. And if you are still uninsured…

Interestingly enough, in the “good old days” – where an illegal abortion was a plane ride to a jurisdiction where it was legal… or a trip to a local medical butcher with “a way to get rid of that fetus” – money solved that problem easily. Butchers were the cheap choice, but not every woman survived the process. Richer folks flew to jurisdictions where trained physicians in clean facilities did what needed to be done. As the GOP gathers steam and ultra-conservative appointments to the federal bench, expecting Roe vs Wade to continue is hardly a safe bet. Might happen again.

Getting the FDA involved in ordinary and most common prescriptions – those sold over-the-counter almost everywhere else – adds the massive expensive of qualifying for FDA approval, securing a doctor’s prescription, and often adds a layer of political priorities that usurp both common sense and medical realities.

Right now, amidst the Senate hearings to consider whether the House impeachment merits removing Donald Trump from office, both parties are considering legislation to facilitate access to ordinary medications that needlessly require prescriptions by taking the FDA out of the mix. Birth control, part of that evangelical bugaboo called “family planning” (where abstinence is the only universally accepted method), lingers in controversy for both Dems and the GOP.

“Switching a drug from prescription to over-the-counter status also typically causes its price to fall. For instance, the price of a day’s supply of the anti-heartburn medication omeprazole fell nearly by half, from almost $4.20 to $2.35. The price of the antihistamine loratadine also fell by half, to just $1 per pill. Prices for drugs that become available over the counter often fall below what many insured patients had been paying in copays.

“Neither the Republicans’ bill nor the Democrats’ would deliver lower prices [for birth control pills] because neither would make the pill available over the counter. Instead, each leaves that decision with the executive branch — the same branch that blocked access to ‘Plan B’ emergency contraception (a.k.a. the morning-after pill) — for political reasons for more than a dozen years under Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Neither the Republicans’ bill nor the Democrats’ would deliver lower prices because neither would make the pill available over the counter. Instead, each leaves that decision with the executive branch — the same branch that blocked access to ‘Plan B’ emergency contraception (a.k.a. the morning-after pill) — for political reasons for more than a dozen years under Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Adding insult to indifference, the Republicans’ bill would entrench existing prescription requirements, while the Democrats’ bill would increase prices for contraceptives. The FDA imposed the current prescription requirement, which means the agency has the authority to remove it. The Republicans’ bill would lock in that requirement with regard to minors by requiring an act of Congress to remove it — a much higher hurdle.

“This makes no sense. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges over-the-counter access to all hormonal contraceptives ‘without age restrictions.’ Congress already leaves minors free to purchase Plan B — and even lethal doses of acetaminophen, aspirin and other over-the-counter drugs — without a prescription. Yet the GOP bill would deny minors access to a low-risk drug that prevents pregnancy and reduces the incidence of abortion.

“The Democrats’ bill attempts to expand access by requiring insurers to pay 100% of the cost of over-the-counter contraceptives for their enrollees. But after the government phased in an identical requirement for prescription contraceptives in 2014, prices for hormones and oral contraceptives stopped falling and instead skyrocketed. By 2019, they had risen three times as fast as prices for prescription drugs overall.

“Again, the Democrats’ bill would not make birth control available over the counter. But if it did, such a mandate would make it more expensive.” Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and Jeffrey A. Singer, a Cato Institute senior fellow and a general surgeon in Phoenix writing an OpEd for the January 27^th Los Angeles Times. Even some conservatives, like Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, a fan of deregulation, favors making the “pill” ubiquitous. Or we could cling to the belief that young teenagers just do not have sex. Oh, in March, birth control pills will be available in… wait for it… California. Of course.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and depoliticizing medical issues, resorting to common sense, is just one necessary track to bring down the most expensive prescription drug prices in the developed world: ours!

Facebook Allies with Donald Trump

While some social media services will not accept political ads at all, giant Facebook has elected an entirely different tact: “Facebook is sticking with its controversial policy of refusing to fact-check political ads or ban false ones, and has also decided not to limit microtargeting by political campaigns, the company announced in a blog post this morning [1/9].

“Instead, according to the post by Product Management Director Rob Leathern, Facebook plans to ‘add a new control that will allow people to see fewer political and social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram. This feature builds on other controls in Ad Preferences we’ve released in the past, like allowing people to see fewer ads about certain topics or remove interests.’

“The post doesn’t specify what seeing ‘fewer’ ads means, or promise that users can block all political ads… The political ads control will be deployed in the U.S. ‘early this summer’ (just a few months before the 2020 elections) and expanded to other locations over time, the post says.” MediaPost.com, January 9^th.

As Russia interfered with our 2016 and subsequent elections, it used some pretty sophisticated targeting and tracking software based on manipulating social media posts. It developed analytics that could recognize vulnerable biases in individual consumers, proclivities that would make appropriately worded messaging to elicit the desired response most effective. Conspiracy theories, completely false but aimed at undermining a specific political candidate or policy, were Russia’s bread and butter.

Russian analytics knew what messages would resonate with individuals searching for buzz words and “events” that support their beliefs, but which would also support a chosen candidate or policy and undermine, with falsehoods and mythology, candidates and policies who might be harmful to Russian goals. Add the exceptionally well-developed automated systems – the use of “bots” – to implement these efforts on a mass scale without the need of concomitant human actions. Masses of Russian disinformation and manipulation have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Every US intelligence agency so affirmed without dissent.

Facebook thus opened the door to corrupting the 2020 presidential campaign, and Trump’s well-oiled campaign mechanism dived in with both feet. “What did Facebook expect? The company has doubled down on its policy of allowing political ads that contain lies, explaining that it shouldn’t be in the business of evaluating ads. One unfortunate (and predictable) consequence of that is that the Trump campaign, the biggest overall buyer of Facebook ads, would take advantage. In fact Facebook’s policy looks almost tailor-fit to Trump’s Facebook ad game.

“When you look through President Trump’s voluminous collection of ads in the Facebook Ad Library, you see all kinds of oddities, from contests with the prize of seeing Trump’s Superbowl ad early to sales of Trump hats that say ‘Woke’ on the front. And hidden among the thousands of ads you occasionally find ad copy and video containing lies and half-truths. But in the last few days, as the president’s impeachment trial hit full stride in the Senate and on national TV, the campaign seems to have bumped up the misinformation level a few notches. Here are a few examples.

“This one, found by Popular Information’s Judd Legum and posted on Twitter, makes the false claim that ‘dirty cops’ illegally spied on Trump’s campaign in 2016. The president has long defended the conspiracy theory that the Obama administration wiretapped his campaign headquarters. He even ordered a government investigation, which came up with zilch. He later claimed the FBI placed a spy within his campaign. Actually, the FBI placed a confidential informant near, but not within, Trump’s 2016 campaign while investigating suspected Russian interference in the election. The FBI inspector general found no wrongdoing. Nor is there evidence that Hillary Clinton or the DNC spied on his campaign… The ad began running on January 21, and is still running.

“In another ad (which barely makes sense), the Trump camp claims that the president has been ‘exonerated twice.’ One of those ‘exonerations’ surely refers to the Mueller Report, which found ample evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. It also found evidence that the Trump campaign tried to conspire with the Russians but not enough to recommend charges. And it explicitly said that it could not exonerate Trump of charges of obstruction.

“A number of other Trump ads show mere half-truths or milder distortions, like this ad, which is also in circulation now. The text says Trump ‘obliterated’ Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, which is an odd way of describing the result of an election in which Trump lost the popular vote by close to 3 million votes…

“[In December,] [Facebook] board member Peter Thiel, a Trump supporter and advisor, urged CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the board to ignore public concerns and adopt the company’s current political ads policy… In a speech at Georgetown last fall, Zuckerberg said that Facebook doesn’t fact-check political ads because it doesn’t want to be an arbiter of truth and believes that people are entitled to hear what public figures are saying. Whatever the motivation, the policy allows politicians to spread as much BS on the world’s biggest social network as they wish—as the president’s campaign keeps on proving.” Mark Sullivan writing for the January 24^th FastCompany.com.

The ability to spread disinformation and completely fabricated conspiracy theories combined with the ability of individuals to filter out any “news” that disagrees with their basic desired perspective – “I don’t want facts that disagree with what I think those “facts” should be” – have distorted the necessary and accurate information our electorate needs to vote intelligently. It was a total shock to me, knowing that during the House presentation of their impeachment to the Senate – materials already widely reported other than by clearly biased conservative media – there were Republican US Senators who were forced to listen to facts completely ignored by Fox News and most of the conservative press… and were truly surprised at what they were hearing apparently for the first time. Can democracy survive on a diet of lies, where truth is buried and easily extinguished?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I do not have a Facebook account… and never will!!!

More Money than Most Countries

So-called “index funds” – equity investment funds that simply track a specific US stock market – have trillions and trillions of dollars in assets. Three individual funds, Black Rock, State Street and Vanguard simply dominate that market dramatically. Together, they control about $4.3 trillion in equity assets (out of an entire market of about $11 trillion), with trading volumes a multiple of their assets. Remember the good old days, individual investors would play the stock market, acting on instincts and whatever information that could glean? Day-traders? Online access made it all so easy, and various trading companies were raking in the bucks, charging for every trade.

Then the sophisticated analytics kicked in, programmed trading and even strategic location of the analytical computers to be closer to the exchanges they tracked, nanoseconds faster in getting information and reacting. Before and during this evolution, a parallel and vastly more simple investment vehicle was formed and began to grow. It started out slowly, and frankly, the early years did not produce the results generated today. Index funds.

According to the January 9^th Bloomberg.com: “The surprising thing about all this is that index funds began so modestly. They were a niche product aimed at investors who took the then-radical position that paying close attention to individual companies wasn’t worth the effort and expense. In the decades after [Vanguard founder Jack] Bogle launched the first retail index fund in 1976, that idea would be proven right again and again. For example, only 10% of actively managed U.S. large-cap funds outperformed the market in the 15 years through June 2019, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices data.

“Investors caught on, and money piled in. Vanguard, now led by CEO Mortimer ‘Tim’ Buckley, boasts more than 30 million investors globally. The original Vanguard 500 Index fund now has about $405 billion in assets; there are about 380 U.S. mutual funds that follow indexes. Add to this list exchange-traded funds [ETFs] that track indexes and can be bought and sold instantly just like stocks. In 1993, State Street’s investment management arm, State Street Global Advisors, launched the first of these in the U.S., the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, or SPY for short. BlackRock got into the business when it acquired iShares in 2009 from Barclays Plc. The U.S. now has more than 1,400 equity index ETFs. In August 2019 the industry reached a milestone when the $4.27 trillion in passively managed U.S. stock funds outflanked the $4.25 trillion run by stockpickers. According to the ICI and Morningstar, last year assets in index funds globally climbed above $11 trillion.

“The Big Three represent the key votes on matters such as mergers and shareholder activist campaigns. The fund companies also hold what they call ‘engagements’ with companies through meetings and phone calls. But perhaps unsurprisingly, because the rise of index funds is relatively new, academics who study common ownership have different ideas about how the fund managers’ influence might be felt. Some, such as [Harvard Professor John] Coates, think they could emerge as key power players, perhaps joining their votes with hedge funds that push for deals or corporate restructurings. Such deals can boost share prices but may also lead to layoffs…

“Their success has had a weird and unintended consequence. As millions of investors have done the most sensible thing financially, they’ve also concentrated shareholder power in the Big Three. Some 22% of the shares of the typical S&P 500 company sits in their portfolios, up from 13.5% in 2008. Their power is probably greater, given that many stockholders don’t bother to vote their shares.

“BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street combined own 18% of Apple Inc.’s shares, up from 7% at the end of 2009. Of the four largest U.S. banks, the fund companies together own 20% of Citigroup, 18% of Bank of America, 19% of JPMorgan Chase, and 19% of Wells Fargo. The phenomenon can be even more pronounced for smaller companies. The Big Three own 28% of Cabot Microelectronics Corp., an Aurora, Ill., seller of materials to semiconductor manufacturers that has a market value of $4 billion.

“The fund companies say there’s nothing to worry about because they don’t vote as a bloc. And index funds don’t buy shares to pursue any special agenda—they just buy whatever’s in the index, usually in proportion to its market value. If passive managers weren’t grabbing up all these shares, similar power would likely be in the hands of active funds, which haven’t served investors nearly as well. Index fund managers are more technocrat than robber baron.

“And yet voting power is voting power. The fund companies’ combined votes and back-channel jawboning, in which they make their views known to directors and chief executive officers, could swing the outcome of important matters such as mergers, major investment decisions, CEO succession, and director elections—even if no fund house has the ability to decide the outcome of such matters alone. They’re potentially the most powerful force over a huge swath of America Inc. Alarm bells have begun to go off with some regulators, as well as with an ideologically diverse array of academics and activists.” With outstanding performance records and fees often just 0.04% of assets (they really do make it up in volume!), they are becoming irresistible to all but the most sophisticated traders.

Headquartered in the little town of Malvern, Pennsylvania, Vanguard Group is one of the most powerful financial institutions on earth, yet smaller than Black Rock or State Street. By itself, it attracts $10 trillion of assets, and some academics, competitors and government regulators are beginning to question such a massive concentration of power. Little old Vanguard: “Once an upstart investment company shunned — even mocked — by rivals, Vanguard has disrupted the investment management world. The cheap index-tracking funds championed by late founder John Bogle helped batter down fees across the industry and have attracted $10 trillion of assets. The company is now cautiously expanding in Europe, China and elsewhere, moving deeper into financial advice, and even exploring whether it could offer its customers private equity funds.

“‘The sheer size of Vanguard and the income that it generates allows us to invest more for our clients, roll out things like advice, enter new markets,’ Tim Buckley, Vanguard’s chief executive, said in an interview. ‘Our size gives us the ability to do it while still lowering your costs to improve your returns.’ Disruption, however, ruffles feathers. Moving further into offering financial advice, it competes with wealth managers and financial advisors who offer Vanguard products.

“International expansion also takes it into less hospitable terrain. There are concerns that the inexorable tide of ‘passive’ funds — which track a stock or bond index, as opposed to ‘active’ investment picks designed to beat the market — are distorting markets and weakening corporate governance.” Los Angeles Times, January 20^th.

These funds wield the equivalent power of governments in nations with small or even mid-size national wealth. A big mistake, a big fall, in a small company may not mean that much to our entire economy. But when three financial structures control this much…. what could possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong? Boom!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and one might hope that each of these funds is run by a genuine “stable genius” with a whole lot of ethical boundaries…

Horrible People Despicably Treated

Waterboarding, also called water torture, simulated drowning, interrupted drowning, and controlled drowning, method of torture in which water is poured into the nose and mouth of a victim who lies on his back on an inclined platform, with his feet above his head. As the victim’s sinus cavities and mouth fill with water, his gag reflex causes him to expel air from his lungs, leaving him unable to exhale and unable to inhale without aspirating water. Although water usually enters the lungs, it does not immediately fill them, owing to their elevated position with respect to the head and neck. In this way the victim can be made to drown for short periods without suffering asphyxiation.                          Encyclopedia Britannica

Incarceration for almost two decades without a trial. Purposely and continued exposed to loud noises with the intent to prevent sleep.  Beatings. Forced enemas (“rectal rehydration”). Purposefully exposed to cold. Sexual exposure with an intention to humiliate. Forced to stand (sometimes restrained) for hours and hours. Repeated waterboarding. Each of the foregoing is considered torture by almost every nation on earth, and now even the United States (officially affirmed during the Obama administration) under the:

“The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT)) is an international human rights treaty, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment around the world… The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent torture in any territory under their jurisdiction, and forbids states to transport people to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured.

“The text of the Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1984 and, following ratification by the 20th state party, it came into force on 26 June 1987… As of October 2019, the Convention has 169 state parties.” Wikipedia. The United States signed in 1994, but as of 2002, it withdrew from the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which establishes an international inspection system for places of detention. The United States of America utilized all of the above acts of torture to extract “confessions” from prisoners at our Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) detention facility in Cuba.

Thwarted by Congress in bringing trials of those Gitmo prisoners into federal court in New York City, the Obama administration set about setting a trial before a military commissioner at the Cuban base. The federal government had previously used national security as a reason to prevent the disclosure of “enhanced interrogation methods” (a DOJ administration attempt during the GW Bush to describe the above torture as legal) in the proceedings against those held at Gitmo or to use the use of such techniques to challenged the credibility of forced confessions. That was simply not an option for defense attorneys seeking to defend their clients. Until now.

Although the US government is preparing to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of serious attacks against the United States, before a military tribunal, for the first time, the issue of the impact of torture is now a subject that can be explored and presented at that trial.  Make no mistake, many of these prisoners perpetrated heinous crimes, blowing up buildings and murdering US citizens on US soil and elsewhere. While I have no desire to excuse, justify or exonerate these criminal actions or to elevate the perpetrators as mere disciples of religious fervor, likewise I believe that the United States must adhere to its own highest principles of due process and humane treatment of those it arrests and detains. And its own treaty commitments.

The psychologists who designed these torturous “enhanced interrogation” techniques have now been called before that military commission. One such psychologist, James Mitchell, who personally waterboarded Mohammed at a ‘black site,’ a secret prison, in Poland told the commission at a pre-trial hearing: “Let me tell you just so you know… If it were today, I would do it again.”

“For their work, Mitchell and another psychologist, John ‘Bruce’ Jessen, received up to $1,800 a day. They later formed a company that was paid about $81 million to help operate the interrogation program over several years. In 2017, the psychologists settled a civil lawsuit brought against them by two former detainees and a third who had died in custody. The American Psychological Assn. condemned the two psychologists for ‘violating the ethics of their profession and leaving a stain on the discipline of psychology.’

“As Mitchell testified, the men he had interrogated — Mohammed among them — showed no visible emotion… Mitchell’s testimony marked a dramatic opening to pretrial proceedings that were already noteworthy for putting the torture issue front and center. Mitchell defended his decisions, recalling the fear that gripped America after terrorists slammed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

“Back in 2002, when the interrogation program was devised, the Central Intelligence Agency had only one high-value detainee in custody, a suspected Al Qaeda functionary named Abu Zubaydah. After some early success in interrogations, mainly by FBI agents, Zubaydah had clammed up.

“The CIA had decided some sort of coercive interrogation techniques were required, and Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., head of the agency’s counter-terrorism center, put Mitchell in charge of the program, he testified… Mitchell said he sat alone in a hotel room late into the night thinking that if he didn’t do it, the agency would probably go ahead anyway — but with a less effective, potentially harsher program…

“Human rights organizations around the world have condemned the interrogation program… Julia Hall, a lawyer for Amnesty International who attended the hearing here on Tuesday [1/21], said she was appalled that Mitchell said that he had come to testify on behalf of the Sept. 11 victims. The families would have seen justice long ago, she said, but for the role torture has played in delaying the trial of the men… ‘It took my breath away,’ she said. ‘He’s a cause for all those delays. Torture ruined everything.’

“Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale who was the State Department’s top lawyer under President Obama, said, ‘What on Earth did he accomplish by it — other than staining our country, degrading our values and complicating the trial?’” Los Angeles Times, January 22^nd. Even as torture stopped, prisoners continued to make admissions. Their defense lawyers stressed that these inmates were now broken, no longer able to resist complying with their captors’ wishes.

We’re better than that. Despite statements to the contrary by President Trump, may we never again condone, support or apply torture to those we detain, arrest or incarcerate. Ever. We have repeatedly learned that those who are tortured will say what they think their captors want to hear… just to stop the pain and suffering.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and in addition to the moral ignominy of torture, information so extracted routinely has been found to be completely unreliable.

Nothing to Sneeze at

It’s a family of viruses that ranges from a common cold to more dangerous flus and beyond. Coronaviruses. You might remember the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak early last decade: “SARS first sprang to the world’s attention in early 2003, when more than 8,000 people got sick in an outbreak that spread to 26 countries. Nearly 800 people died.

“Doctors and scientists tracked the disease to southeastern China, near Hong Kong. From there, travelers soon carried SARS to other countries in Asia, such as Vietnam and Singapore, as well as Europe and Canada… Public health officials around the world scrambled to contain the outbreak. We’ve had no reported cases since 2004.

“SARS is caused by a virus that takes over your body’s cells and uses them to make copies of itself. The SARS virus is from a group known as coronaviruses… SARS can spread when people who have it cough or sneeze, spraying tiny droplets of liquid with the virus to other people within 2-3 feet. Other people may get the virus by touching something those droplets hit, then touching their nose, eyes, or mouth… People who live with or are in close contact with someone who has SARS are more likely to get it than someone who is just passing by or sharing a room with an infected person.” WebMD.com (on SARS). 

Why the history lesson? Because there is a new and seemingly deadly new coronavirus building in and around Wuhan, a huge industrial city on the Yangtze River in China’s heartland, that is already traveling internationally and killing. With symptoms that mirror pneumonia and SARS, the new virus – labeled 2019-nCoV – could signal a new pandemic outbreak. The January 20^th BBC.com, explains: 

“There are now more than 200 cases [see below, the number has risen in just two days], mostly in Wuhan, though the respiratory illness has also been detected in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen… Three people have died. Japan, Thailand and South Korea have reported cases.

“The new strain of coronavirus, which causes a type of pneumonia, can pass from person to person, China confirmed… The sharp rise comes as millions of Chinese prepare to travel for the Lunar New Year holidays… Although the outbreak is believed to have originated from a market, officials and scientists are yet to determine exactly how it has been spreading…

“[While contact with animals and animal byproducts is presumed to be the primary source of infection, the World Health Organization] also said it believed there had been ‘some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.’… ‘As more cases are identified and more analysis undertaken, we will get a clearer picture of disease severity and transmission patterns,’ it wrote on Twitter.” Generally, such viral outbreaks start out in an “animal-to-human” infection, but if a pandemic follows, it is human-to-human contact that causes the infectious explosion.

Scanners at many international airports, including in the United States can often detect individuals at border checkpoints who have a fever (generally over 101.1F, 38.4C). Customs and passport officers are on the lookout for individuals evincing symptoms of this illness. Flushed faces. Sweating. Obvious flu symptoms. Obvious discomfort. Answers to questionnaires regarding symptoms or recent travels to farms or animal markets.

Not only are such infected individuals subject to quarantine, but those traveling with them may be subject to additional scrutiny plus warnings of possible exposure. These tests are applied both to people arriving and often to people before they board an aircraft and expose fellow travelers. Sometimes the detecting device is a simple thermometer that can be held a few inches from a forehead; in some airports, it is a universal scan (see above picture). These systems can also be applied to farm animals, where these viruses often originate, as well as to border control areas.

The BCC continues: “Coronaviruses are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one would make it seven) are known to infect people… Scientists believe an animal source is ‘the most likely primary source’ but that some human-to-human transmission has occurred… Signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.. People are being advised to avoid ‘unprotected’ contact with live animals, thoroughly cook meat and eggs, and avoid close contact with anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms.”

What is the United States doing about this risk? “Federal officials announced Friday [1/17] that they will immediately begin screening passengers flying into three major U.S. airports… Health workers will screen passengers coming from Wuhan… into Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

“Arriving passengers will answer questions about any respiratory symptoms and will also have their temperature taken, he said. Those whose symptoms don’t match up with the new coronavirus will not be detained… Patients with worrisome symptoms will be taken to a nearby location — officials would not say where exactly — for further testing. There they will answer more questions and will be tested for the new virus as well as other illnesses, such as the flu, that may be causing their illness. 

The testing could take hours…” Los Angeles Times, January 20^th. And they will probably miss any connecting flights. Unless the outbreak subsides, expect the additional screening to cover passengers from additional Asian cities.

“The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced the first known case of a new strain of the coronavirus in the US. In a Tuesday [1/21] press conference, a CDC spokesman said a US citizen returning from a trip to central China had been diagnosed in Seattle… The US is the fifth country to report a case of the illness. Nearly 300 cases have been reported in China, Thailand, Japan and South Korea...” the Guardian.com, January 21^st. 

Whether this information might impact travel plans or mingling with recent arriving passengers from exposed areas, I do not know. But that conventional wisdom about washing your hands and avoiding touching surfaces that are not generally germ free (welcome to air travel) continue to have relevance. Caution is not misplaced. Not a huge deal but taking a few additional steps in maintaining a clean environment cannot hurt. Hand sanitizer anyone?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and the greatest danger from globalization certainly is not trade.

Only Winning Matters?

The United States was politically configured almost two and half centuries ago, a time of slavery and flintlocks. When we relied primarily on an unpaid citizen militia, and farming was our mainstay industry. What are short distances today among the 13 original colonies would have taken days, if not longer, to reach the capital. Farm states, with their population diluted by vast tracks of farmland, were suspicious of city slickers, where concentrations of a lot of voters were crammed into smaller spaces. The Electoral College, where electors, not the direct vote of the citizens, cast the final ballots for president and vice-president. They were selected as trusted local surrogates for voters, avoiding a constant litany of long trips “back home” to re-ask voters what they want in the event the voting situational changes.

The United States is the oldest contiguous democracy on earth with the least amendable constitution among any modern democracy. It is virtually impossible to amend the Constitution given the requirements, particularly today where polarization rules, which is reflected in the last rather innocuous amendment – the 27^th which limited Congress’ right to give itself a raise – that took 203 years from being introduced to passage in 1992.

All of the above factors led the United States, way back “then,” to adopt what is known as the New Jersey Compromise, where land and voting districts were gave a distinctly heavier weight to agricultural states with smaller populations over cities with greater concentrations of voters. Hence, today, California with a population of 40 million has the same number of Senators – two, elected every six years – as Wyoming with 500 thousand voters. Note the impact of such a skew in a Senate trial to remove an impeached president. The House of Representatives (elected for two years), often based on legislatively biased gerrymandered voting districts enhanced by voter restrictions to minimize the power of the opposing party, is supposed to represent the relative populations (vs land mass).

Indeed, as Citizens United has influenced primaries to push political parties to extremes – same-party candidates square off touting how much more conservative or liberal they are than their opponents – the resulting polarization has decimated Congress’ ability to compromise or even act in the best interests of the people in general. Even the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who signed an oath of impartiality in the approaching Senate trial of Donald J Trump, has openly stated that he would not remotely be impartial. He is placing pressure on Republicans to close ranks to deny Trump’s removal, and he publicly stated that he would be in close coordination with defendant Trump and his legal team. A number GOP Senators have already pledged to follow McConnell’s lead.

The Republican Party has a deep set of problems, despite their domination of both the US Senate and a majority of state governorships and legislatures. Their core constituency is growing older and decreasingly relevant in terms of sheer numbers. The United States is rapidly becoming a majority of racial and ethnic minorities that seems to threaten a number of white, Christian traditionalists that form the core of Trump’s base. And while GOP candidates cherish Donald Trump’s connection to an unmovable block of supporters, the base without which a majority of Republican elected officials could not win the next election, the message for an increasingly educated, younger rising electorate threatens to extinguish the Republican Party in the coming years. They may win in 2020, but they will slowly unravel thereafter… if the United States survives at all.

Saddled with unmanageable student dept while the rich continue to benefit from accelerating income inequality, unaffordable housing, the impact of job displacement from automation (artificial intelligence), the embarrassment of a mendacious president decimating US relations with other nations, igniting potential wars where the young might be required to fight… but most of all denying climate change despite irrefutable proof to the contrary, exacerbating the release of greenhouse gasses and environmental pollutants that will make living in the future vastly more unpleasant… the vast majority of younger voters are leaving and will continue to leave the GOP in droves. Those younger Trump supporters you see in rallies or at red state sporting events are a dying breed.

But the conundrum for the GOP is that if they court those younger voters, or those still too young to cast a ballot, they will lose their base. Some base-driven ultraconservative will blow them away at the next primary election. So, the GOP’s marching orders are to fight to maintain politically motivated gerrymanders (will the new right-leaning Supreme Court eliminate that?), voting restrictions that effectively deter or eliminate Democrat-supporting voters and political systems that tend to support them, like an outmoded Electoral College. Delay the inevitable and maybe we’ll figure out a new path in the future. The Electoral College remains an unnecessary middleman in a modern era, but one that clearly favors red states over blue. Electors generally cast their expected votes in the January when the President takes office, well after the November election. In the graphic above, Democrats won the popular vote in six out of the last seven presidential elections but won the presidency only four times. See anything wrong with this picture?

In 2016, one Colorado Democrat elector, Michael Baca, decided to cast a vote for GOP candidate, John Kasich, over his pledge to vote for Hillary Clinton. Colorado officials then removed him, discarded his vote and replaced him with an elector who cast her vote for Clinton. Baca sued. The “U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals last year that held that the electors established by the Constitution ‘have a right to make a choice’ when they vote for president… If the ruling stands, it could further transform the creaky electoral college system and inject a new element of suspense and surprise into presidential elections.

“Under the little-understood electoral college system, when Americans cast their votes for president on election day, they are actually choosing a slate of electors who will, in turn, cast the state’s votes the following January. Since the early 1800s, it has been understood that the chosen electors will cast their votes for the candidate who won the most votes in their state, making the January tally a mere formality… But if electors have a ‘constitutional right’ to pick someone else, the winner of a close presidential election could be in doubt for weeks after election day.

“Electors in most states are required to take an oath to support the winning candidate, and many states have laws stating that so-called faithless electors will be removed and replaced if they fail to abide by their commitment.” David G. Savage writing for the Los Angeles Times, January 18^th.

Enter Michael Baca. “Baca sued, alleging that his removal violated the Constitution, which says the ‘electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for president.’ He lost before a federal judge but won a 2-1 ruling in the 10th Circuit Court. The majority said the use of the terms ‘elector, vote and ballot have a common theme,’ indicating that ‘the electors, once appointed, are free to vote as they choose.’…

“The Supreme Court agreed Friday [1/17] to resolve an issue that could tip the outcome of very close presidential elections, and decide whether electors have a right to defy their state’s choice for president by voting for the candidate of their choice.” LA Times.

Despite the reality that the Electoral College system is an anachronism that has long-since outlived its purpose, since it clearly favors land-based voters (heavily GOP) in an era where urbanization now defines the country – where districts not popular votes are determinative – the likelihood of getting a constitutional amendment to go directly to a popular vote has absolutely no foreseeable chance of passage. OK, Supreme Court, are you truly an impartial and independent leader of our judicial system… or just a political functionary? The case is Colorado Department of State vs. Baca, and the court will also consider a similar case from Washington state, Chiafalo vs. Washington.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and increasingly old systems never intended to be used in political manipulation are threatening the very foundations of American democracy.