canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
"How Much Should You Worry About Bank Failure?" reads a typical news headline I've seen over a dozen slight variations of in the past 24 hours. These are part of a predictable news cycle after the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank late last week. As usual for articles about finance in the general media, writers get it wrong. Curiously in this case they manage to both over- and under-report what the risk to the average person is.

Generally speaking, your savings are safe. The FDIC insures bank accounts for up to $250,000. This organization was created in 1933 after the widespread bank failures of the Great Depression wiped out millions of ordinary Americans' life savings. There's emphasis on ordinary. In 1933 the covered amount was only $2,500. It has been increased over time. The last increase was in late 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, when it was raised from $100k to $250k.

"What if I've got more than $250k?" you might wonder. Well, first, congratulations! Most people don't have that much. Second, it depends on what form your money is in and where you keep it. This coverage does not protect investments; it protects cash accounts, like your checking account and savings account. The cool thing is the limit is per account, so if you have more than $250k you can split it across multiple accounts, each with a balance below that threshold, and protect it all.

For example, in my family we have 7 FDIC insured accounts. We could protect up to $1.75 million in them. We have way less cash than that, though. We don't even have $250k between all of them. We have those different accounts because they're titled differently (some in my name, some in my spouse's, some joint) and because they offer different benefits (unlimited check writing vs. high interest). But if we had $1.75 million to protect, we could do it with those seven accounts.

There's a practical limit to how far you can divide a huge amount of wealth to protect it in $250k envelopes. If you have $25 million cash, you'd need 100 accounts to protect it all. That's not feasible. But that's also the point. FDIC insurance is to protect ordinary Americans, not the One Percent.

Now, while having $25 million in checking is an enormous amount for an individual it is not that much for a business. And that's where this category of news articles understates the risk to ordinary Americans. While your savings are safe, your employer's are not.

That was especially the case with Silicon Valley Bank, which served primarily corporate accounts. Dozens, even hundreds, of business could have lost most of their money— money they use for things like payroll.

Yes, those businesses were also protected up to $250k per account, but $250k doesn't go as far in business as in kitchen-table economics. For example, my company— which has/had its payroll accounts at SVB— has about 350 US employees. At next payroll, that $250k from the FDIC means there's only $714 to pay each employee... and then the company is broke.

That's why the federal government stepped up and covered the full amount of accounts at SVB. Because if suddenly lots of people are losing their jobs because their companies suddenly lose 99% of their assets, it's an economic catastrophe.


canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
After Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was seized by regulators on Friday, the government has taken steps to prevent further runs on the bank. First, on Sunday the FDIC announced that it would make all depositors whole. It extended its typical insurance limit of $250,000 per account to cover the full amount on deposit. This is not a "bank bailout"; the bank is still failed. Investors lose all their money, and executives will have to find jobs at others banks to ruin. The protection for is the people who had accounts there— which actually is a lot of companies that have their accounts there for things like payroll. I know, because I've worked at multiple companies with checking accounts there— including my present employer. 😱

The second major step the government took was this morning. To prevent runs on the bank at other banks as investors and depositors react in fear, the US Treasury has promised to redeem their underwater Treasury Bills at face value. This is arguably also not a "bank bailout" as the payments are actually loans, not full redemptions. I'm still trying to find details on it— which is hard even in financial media at the moment because of the amount of misinformation and outright disinformation (purposeful lies) that pollute the channels.

The bond loans are critical because it's US Treasury bonds that sunk Silicon Valley Bank. That's right, it wasn't something crazy and risky like cryptocurrency or "liar loans" that wrecked them, it was good old, safe, sensible Treasuries. What happened was all the bonds they bought a few years ago, when rates were really low, are now worth much less than their face value since rates are really high. For buy-and-hold investors that's not a problem; if you hold bonds to maturity, you're paid the full face price. But banks and other investors who need to sell bonds early to pay for something else— like larger-than-expected withdrawals from bank accounts— have to take the current market price. SVB got burned on that, tried to raise capital with a new stock offering, and triggered a vicious downward cycle, a run on the bank.

Updatemy crosspost of this journal entry to LiveJournal hit the daily Top 15 list there in less than an hour!


canyonwalker: Cthulhu voted - touch screen! (i voted)
Representative George Santos, elected to Congress in November after lying about... basically everything... in his qualifications for office, has chosen to step down from the two committees Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy had assigned him to.

It's notable that McCarthy refused calls not to assign Santos any roles after his utter lack of ethics became known. McCarthy cited the will of the 160,000 voters who voted for Santos in November's election. How ironic that is after McCarthy voted on January 6, along with 146 other Republicans in Congress, to overturn the will of 80,000,000 voters who voted to elect President Joe Biden.

How ironic also that McCarthy's refusal to act against Santos comes just days after he used his unilateral power as Speaker to boot two Democrats, Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, from the powerful House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy, acting sadly in the form of his namesake Sen. Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), made transparently phony accusations against Schiff and Swalwell he refuses to provide any evidence for. Furthermore, with the Santos issue now out of the way (at least in terms of committee assignments), McCarthy now thinks he has the votes to boot another Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, from her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, on spurious charges.

The narrative of the 2022 election from many pollsters is that Republicans won a narrow majority in Congress by flipping suburban voters swing districts with moderate-sounding messages about addressing inflation, the budget, and crime. Attention suburban swing voters: You were duped.

The modern Republican party is a den of liars, conspiracy theorists, and unscrupulous power-seekers. What we've been seeing the past few weeks are the opening rounds in putting conspiracy crackpots in leadership roles to waste everyone's time on bad-faith investigations, and subverting the levers of power to punish their political opponents. Republicans crow about how our form of government is a republic. They're making it a banana republic.


canyonwalker: coronavirus (coronavirus)
President Joe Biden announced yesterday (30 Jan 2023) that he intends to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11. Biden's move comes only a few weeks after he last extended the emergency on Jan. 11. What's changed in 19 days? His move appears to have been prompted by bills introduced in the Republican-controlled Congress to force an end to the emergency. Though such bills were unlikely to become law— the Democrat-majority Senate likely wouldn't have approved them, and the president could veto them if they did— Biden's move is seen as giving cover to Democrats in Congress who wish to avoid being forced to make a "show" vote.

What actually changes as a result of ending the emergencies in May? Very little, it turns out. In terms of public health policy, masks and other public health restrictions have been off the table for well over a year at this point. In terms of posture, Biden already announced the pandemic is basically over a year ago, as well. In terms of public perception, most of the public already considered it over— largely ignoring public health recommendations such as wearing masks and minimizing time among indoors crowds— even before that.

What the general public will notice as a change after May 11 is that certain things won't be free anymore. The program providing free at-home Covid tests will end. Tests in clinics will no longer be free. Some Covid treatments, e.g. monoclonal antibodies, will no longer be free. At least Covid vaccines will still be free. Those are funded by a different federal law.

The end of these emergencies was announced while the death toll due to Covid is still 500/day. 500 seems like not such a large number, right? Certainly it's way lower than the 3,000 deaths per day we saw during the worse surges. But do the math.... 500/day is over 180,000/year. That's around 5x as many deaths as from influenza. 180k/year still puts Covid as the #4 overall cause of death among adults in the US. And those figures are without another huge spike like the Omicron surge we saw a year ago.

canyonwalker: Cthulhu voted - touch screen! (i voted)
Last week was the first week of the new GOP majority running the House of Representatives in Congress. Fresh off selecting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on a nearly unprecedented 15th round of voting in the wee hours of Saturday morning then rushing home to salvage the remainder weekend, Republicans got to work on Monday. What did they do with Week One? Here's the score, and it looks like a rout for any constituency of truth or good governance.

Five Things:

  • In the rules package McCarthy agreed to in partly secret negotiations to win crucial votes to become speaker, Republicans voted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). They removed 3 of the 4 Democratic members in the name of "term limits" and made it all but impossible for their eventual replacements to hire any staff. Why is this so bad? One immediate consequence involves Rep. George Santos, accused of lying about pretty much everything on his resume. Leadership can refer him to the OCE, confident that no meaningful investigation will actually happen. Way bigger picture, a toothless OCE will not investigate the ongoing election lies of the majority of the Republican majority who voted to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, and who still claim openly that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.

  • The rules package also created a new subcommittee charged with investigating "the weaponization of the federal government". It's been promised this subcommittee will investigate the January 6 committee and witnesses, prominent public health leaders such as Anthony Fauci who spoke about the dangers of Covid, and representative and investigators involved in the impeachments of Donald Trump. In short, it's going to be 2 years of partisan conspiracy-theory horseshit.

  • The first bill the new GOP majority passed was a measure to strip funding from the IRS for hiring new agents. Republicans have painted this as saving money, and saving honest ordinary people from overreaching government thugs, by not hiring 87,000 "enforcers". In truth extremely few of the 87,000 staff the IRS plans to hire would have police powers of badges and guns. The IRS has become woefully understaffed the past several years. Hiring staff would net-net reduce the government deficit, not increase it, as the extra staff would be able to catch tax cheating in excess of their salaries. Whatever happened to the GOP being the party of "law and order"? And BTW, it's phony populism. The IRS spends little time or money "going after" middle class Americans. Tax cheating is largely the province of big corporations and the 1%.

  • Another GOP vote made illegal an abortion procedure that basically doesn't exist. Conservative fabulists have decrying for month, even years now, "born-alive" abortions. They rile up the far right base, who are primed to believe basically any horseshit their thought leaders tell them, with the notion that abortion rights mean women and doctors are allowed to kill babies surviving outside the womb. Such a procedure doesn't exist and it's never been legal anyway even if it did. But by golly, the GOP made sure of that last week.

  • Finally there are the committee assignments. 11 of the 17 committee chairs Speaker McCarthy appointed are members who voted to overturn the popular election on January 6, 2020. These people have no business leading Congressional committees. Possibly the worst pick among them is Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who'll chair the powerful Judiciary Committee. As the January 6 committee showed through witness testimony, Jordan did more than just cast a vote to overturn the election; he was involved in planning the attempted coup with President Trump, senior White House officials and advisors such as Rudy Giuliani. The people who tried to destroy our Constitutional form of government two years ago should not be entrusted to run it today!


Fortunately the nonsense bills the GOP House is passing won't go anywhere. They're unlikely even to be brought to a vote with the slim Democratic majority in the Senate. And even if they did, and somehow won, President Biden would veto them. But the committee assignments and rules are done deals, and those plus even the dead-letter bills are examples of the lying and naked subversion of justice we'll see for at least the next two years.
canyonwalker: Cthulhu voted - touch screen! (i voted)
How do you solve a problem like Maria? asks one of the memorable songs from the classic movie, The Sound of Music. Voters in Long Island, New York, and many politicians nationwide might be asking themselves right now, How do you solve a problem like George Santos?— referring to the case of Rep. George Santos who was elected to Congress on an autobiography riddled with lies.

It's turning out that almost nothing salient Santos told voters about himself is true... other than being a Republican. Of course, for some that's enough. There are a lot of "Yellow dog Republicans" out there, people who'd vote for a yellow (sick or cowardly) dog, as long as it was a Republican, before they'd cast a ballot for anyone (or anything) Democratic.

For other, though— for people who care about even a shred of honesty in our elected representatives— what are the options to remove Santos from office? Sadly they're almost nil:

  • Santos could resign. This is the fastest and simplest way to get someone better into office. ...Okay, yes, I can hear your laughter from here. There's nearly no way he's going to resign. Constant lying has become a hallmark of Republican Party for the past several years, dating back to the birther conspiracy against President Obama up through more recent canards such as the Big Lie of the 2020 election and Covid denialism.
     
  • A recall election is not possible. While many states provide a way for voters to recall a local or state politician, there's no provision for recalling a member of Congress. If a state tried to enact one, it would like be found unconstitutional.
     
  • The House could vote to expel Santos. This requires a 2/3 super-majority vote. It's unlikely that more than a few Republicans would join the Democratic minority in voting for such a thing. While many Republicans have already started paying lip service to how bad the things that Santos has done are, when it comes time to act (or even talk about acting) they'll change the subject and slink away.
     
  • Short of actually expelling him, the House Ethics Committee could recommend his expulsion. Such recommendations in the past have prompted a few members of Congress to choose to resign, ahead of an actual expulsion vote. The new Republican majority, though, actually gutted the Ethics Committee last week in the new rules package it passed as one of its first orders of business. They removed 3 of the 4 Democrat committee members in the name of "term limits" and enacted absurd limits on hiring staff that will leave the committee hamstrung and toothless for at least the next 2 years.

Meanwhile, every day it seems that new lies Santos told about himself and his qualifications for office are exposed. It seems unlikely he's going to go anywhere for the next 2 years, though. He's a pathological liar, but now he's our pathological liar.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Recently I've written several blog entries about Kevin McCarthy's quest to become Speaker of the House. His election, which he won only after 15 highly contentious rounds of voting, isn't the only historic thing that happened this weekend in Congress. Democrats selected Hakeem Jeffries as House Minority Leader. Rep. Jeffries is the first Black person to serve as leader of any major party in Congress. But it's not just who Jeffries is that's newsworthy (besides, his party selected him for this role 6 weeks ago) it's what he did as his first act in the new Congress.

After McCarthy won the 15th round of voting, Jeffries handed him the ceremonial gavel of the Speaker of the House. Jeffries did that because he took it from former speaker Nancy Pelosi, when she stepped down as party leader. And before he handed over the gavel, Jeffries gave a speech. A stirring speech.

The most memorable part of Jeffries's speech employed a rhetorical technique of using the alphabet. Going from the letter A to Z, Jeffries enumerated the important American values the Democrat Party stands for.

“House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues … freedom over fascism, governing over gaslighting, hopefulness over hatred. … maturity over Mar-a-Lago ... quality of life issues over QAnon, reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression ... zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation."


That was Jeffries's first official act in the new session of Congress.

McCarthy's first official act? He thanked President Trump. Former President Trump, though he didn't say former. Upon this graceful transition of power he invoked Trump, the leader who personifies the opposite of graceful transition of power. Trump, who still claims that he rightfully won the 2020 election and should be installed into office 2 years later by the Supreme Court— or the military. Trump, who revved up an armed mob to attack the Capitol building on January 6, 2020. The evidence for his responsibility there was laid out in clear detail by a House committee investigation that finished just days ago. And, of course, McCarthy even stated that responsibility in the days immediately following Jan. 6— until he backtracked days later upon realizing that Trump would remain kingmaker in the Republican Party. So here we are just over 2 years later, with the new Speaker giving a bow to the utterly corrupt kingmaker.

What a sad state of affairs, rendered in such stark contrast by these two leaders' speeches.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Late, late at night Friday night, technically early morning Saturday in Washington, D.C., Representative Kevin McCarthy won the final vote necessary to become Speaker of the House. It was on the fourth day and 15th round of voting— a number of re-votes that hasn't been necessary in the US in over 160 years, since before the Civil War. And even there it came down to the last moments. Representative Matt Gaetz, one of the core holdouts against McCarthy, signaled in the final seconds of a motion to adjourn after the failed 14th round of voting that he would vote against adjournment— a signal McCarthy read as indicating he was ready to make a deal1.

Well, what deals did McCarthy make along the way to gain the votes to win as Speaker? There are things we know about and things we don't. Here are Five Things:


1) The Motion to Vacate
One of the most widely reported concessions McCarthy made is lowering the threshold for a "Motion to Vacate". This is a rule by which House member(s) can force a new election for Speaker. The current rule in Congress is that the motion needs a majority of the majority party to trigger it. Under this key concession, any single member can trigger it. Many political observers, not to mention many representatives themselves, say this means that the Speaker will be held hostage by fringe members who can call for a no-confidence vote— and thus paralyze the House— whenever McCarthy displeases them. How likely is this threat to control what McCarthy does? Well, just look at how hard (15 rounds!) he fought to win the job. This is a man with no principles who wants this job more than anything.

2) Make it harder to raise the Debt Ceiling
Another key concession McCarthy made is that efforts to raise the nation’s debt ceiling must be paired with spending cuts. This compromise is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The Debt Ceiling is not a spending act. It's not a time to debate what's in the budget. By the time the debt limit comes into play, the budget is already long set. The question in the debt ceiling matter is whether the US government can continue to pay its bills. If it doesn't it defaults, causing who-knows-what level of involuntary shutdown. We don't know what because thankfully it's never happened— though Republicans in Congress have forced such showdowns several times in recent years. Each time it's a manufactured crisis that excites right wing hardliners at the cost of shaking the world's confidence that the US government will actually, y'know, pay its bills.

3) Conspiracy theory-driven investigations
McCarthy agreed to create a special subcommittee on the "Weaponization of the Federal Government to investigate the Biden administration's assault on the constitutional rights of American citizens." This issue of "weaponization" is a new hobby horse of the 2020 election deniers, who now decry the prosecution of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6. Basically this is an "investigate the investigators" ploy— and even worse, an "investigate the witnesses" sham. Oh, and expect them to dredge up all their conspiracy theories about Covid and key public health leaders, too.

4) Votes on key right wing issues
One of the Speaker's powers is determining when bills are voted on. Speakers often decline to schedule votes on bills proposed by the minority party. They can also bottle up bills proposed by members of their own party, thwarting votes on divisive issues that are popular with hardliners but politically damaging to mainstream party members. McCarthy promised that he will schedule votes on key conservative bills, including a balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits, and border security. Count on these being the right wing tilting at its favorite windmills. The bills are unlikely to go anywhere even if they do win a majority vote in the House. The Democrat majority in the Senate is likely to oppose them, and President Joe Biden is almost certain to veto them. One bit of good that might come out of this is Republicans going on record with votes that are unpopular with centrists and independents, giving strength to their Democrat challengers in 2024.

5) Committee roles for hardliners
McCarthy agreed to give more committee seats to members of the hardliner Freedom Caucus, including seats on the powerful Rules Committee. It's also reported that in an early round of negotiation Gaetz asked McCarthy for chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee. McCarthy insisted, "No promises," but others are suspicious. Consider that after the 14th failed round of voting, that the man currently slated for that chairmanship, Rep. Mike Rogers, lunged at Gaetz and had to be physically restrained by at least one fellow member. Even members of McCarthy's own party fret that he's given away the house to be Speaker.

Note that none of these concessions are sure things yet. House rules changes have to be approved by a majority vote. That should be one of the first orders of business this coming week. Committee assignments— which are the privilege of the Speaker— are another. And votes will be scheduled as they're scheduled.


[1] Even so, Gaetz didn't vote for McCarthy but merely switched his vote from other candidates to "present", lowering the threshold of votes McCarthy needed to win.


canyonwalker: I'm holding a 3-foot-tall giant cheese grater - Let's make America grate again! (politics)
I haven't written much about politics in my blog over the past year, but that's not a reflection of my interest (or lack thereof) in following politics. I do stay on top of the new every day and consume it from multiple sources. One odd thing that's been in US political news yesterday and today is the election for Speaker of the House of Representatives. For the first time in over 100 years, no Speaker has been selected even after multiple rounds of balloting.

Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) was the presumptive candidate for speakership. He'd been the minority leader for 4 years. With the Republicans gaining a majority in the House after last November's elections, McCarthy was naturally in line for the job. Over the past few weeks, though, a small number of strongly conservative House members have opposed his candidacy. There were 5 of them— just enough to tank his accession in a House where the Republicans hold a slim, 4-seat majority.

It turns out opposition has been wider than just that core bloc of 5 members. In the first round of ballots Tuesday 19 Republican members voted against McCarthy. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries actually won more votes than McCarthy as Democrats were united in voting for him.

As of Wednesday afternoon Congress has now gone through five now SIX rounds of votes for Speaker with still no winner. McCarthy had boldly predicted after the first few losses yesterday that he'd wear down his opponents and they'd come over to his side. Instead, on the fourth and fifth ballots today he lost a supporter each time. Talk is growing among Republican circles that it's time for McCarthy to withdraw in favor of a compromise candidate.

What's the Impact?

What does it actually matter how many rounds of balloting it takes? I've heard a lot of politicos and commentators remark that McCarthy's speakership would be weakened if he won after even one failed round of voting. I both agree and disagree with that argument.

On the one hand, regardless of how many rounds of votes it takes, and regardless of whether the winner wins by a single vote or an overwhelming majority, the winner is the winner. The new Speaker has all the powers of the office.

On the other hand, there's been significant horse-trading behind closed doors to woo opponents. Key concessions McCarthy made give more power to far-right members of his party, e.g. in the form of committee assignments. These committee members and leaders could use their investigative powers to tie the federal government up with wasteful, bad-faith investigations of the Biden administration. ...And no, that's not a worst-case hypothetical notion from someone on the other side of the political divide; it's what these members have openly and repeatedly promised to do.

All the same, though, this speakership has been destined to be weak, at least for the next 2 years. That's because there's a Democrat president and Democrat majority in the Senate. The Republican majority in the House can block legislation from going through, but it's a two edged sword. If they overplay their hand and block too many bills or waste too much time on conspiracy theory-driven investigations they'll tarnish their party's reputation in the short term and hamper its performance in the 2024 elections.


canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Since Sen. Raphael Warnock's reelection win in Georgia less than 2 days ago pundits are saying it totally changes the math of the US Senate. "Joe Manchin is the second biggest loser in this race [after defeated candidate Herschel Walker]," the gist goes.

Manchin, a Democrat US senator from West Virginia, rose to prominence over the past 2 years for his opposition to much of his party's legislative agenda. In an evenly divided 50-50 Senate every single vote counted. Manchin milked his for all it was worth. But is Machin made much less relevant with Dems now holding at 51-49 majority? Yes and no.

If all that had changed was Senate composition then, yes, Manchin would lose some leverage. Though only some, as Arizona Democrat Kirsten Sinema often joined him in thwarting Democrat priorities. The two of them together would still be enough to scuttle any or all Democrat legislation. But that's not the whole picture after the election; far from it. Republicans took control of the House. That makes intra-party opposition from Manchin in the Senate much less relevant. Sure, Dems can pass bills in the Senate without Manchin's support, but anything they do that's seen as even remotely partisan will die in the House.


canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
The REAL ID program, which requires enhanced drivers licenses to do all sorts of not-driving things such as enter an airport, federal courthouse, or your Congressional representative's office, has been postponed another 2 years. Today the DHS pushed back the deadline for full enforcement from May 3, 2023 to May 7, 2025. Source: DHS press release, 5 Dec 2022.

The reason that I note it has been pushed back again is that the REAL ID program was enacted into law back in... 2005. With the latest extension it will have taken twenty years to implement— or more if it gets delayed again! As the idea of creating more secure identity documents was one of the recommendations coming out of the 9/11 commission, one has to wonder the fact it will have taken 24 years since 9/11 to get them implemented demonstrates they're just security theater and actually not consequential for public safety.

There are many reasons why this program has been delayed for so many years. Initially it was because a lot of states opposed the program that created federal security requirements on state-issued driving permits. States opposed it partly because Congress passed without hearings or debate. In the House, it was dropped from a must-pass appropriations bill because of member objections but then reinserted in conference committee. The full House then approved the appropriations bill with the unrelated Real ID rider, as did the Senate. Et voilà: How A Bill (Really) Becomes A Law.

While many states fought the law for several years, it did remain the law. The federal government extended deadlines a few times to give them more time to comply. When it looked like the final extension would end in 2019, the roughly half the states that were holding out aligned with the program so as not to create hardships for their citizens when traveling or attempting to interact with the federal government. But then another extension came, giving states until 2020... at which point the Coronavirus Pandemic arrived, so the federal government extended it a few more times, ultimately to May 2023. And now it's May 2025.
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
I had my interview for renewing Global Entry yesterday. After all the frustration with the process the past few weeks— seeing basically nothing available for weeks, then by chance finding an online interview the next day— the actual interview was so basic it was ridiculous. The interviewer asked me a bunch of simple questions that I already answered in my application: what's my address, what countries have I traveled to in the past 5 years, have I ever been convicted of a crime. It was complete in 5 minutes, and my renewal fully approved.

What a farce. Asking me these questions a second time, this time on a Zoom video chat, does nothing to validate the answers. The pointlessness of this interview just underscores what a farce this whole stupid process is. They should have just renewed me without putting me through the rigamarole of scheduling an interview they're woefully understaffed to provide.

Oh, and the interviewer arrived almost 15 minutes late. That was penultimate frustration in the process, as the government policy around missing an interview is that it's basically your fault— and the punishment is having to start the process over from scratch. ...Not just starting the renewal from scratch, but having to reapply to the whole program as you've never had GE before.

Well, at least it's done now for the next 5 years. And the interview could've been worse.... I could've had to fly 1,000 miles away for it!
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
Twoe weeks ago Hawk and I applied to renew our Global Entry credentials. They expire in December and January. The government quickly approved us conditionally— meaning our credentials were provisionally extended for several more months. We'd need to complete interviews to renew fully for another 5 year term. That sounds like a sensible process, right? The problem was interviews are almost completely unavailable for the next 12 months.

"I'll check back periodically," I promised myself. I know that often the way government schedules work is that appointments are made available in small blocks on some regular schedule, like once a week or once a month. I checked two weeks ago Monday... nothing. I checked last week Monday, too; also nothing. I checked on a few other days of the week, as well, since Monday is not always the key.

I checked again today... I hit pay-dirt! I found about two dozen virtual appointments open Tue-Wed-Thu this week. (And nothing for the rest of the year. They might only load appointments a week at a time.) I booked one for myself tomorrow midafternoon and called Hawk at work to let her know. Now she's got one for Wednesday after work.

I'm glad we'll get these taken care of early and via Zoom rather than having to keep checking back for in-person appointments all over the country, or worrying about what the lines might be like for doing "Enrollment on Arrival" the first time we return from a foreign trip. We don't even have a foreign trip planned at the moment. It's nice to clear this bureaucratic hurdle separately from all the other complexity of traveling overseas.


canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
My new passport arrived in the mail today. My last one, quite well used (I had traveled overseas extensively years ago) expired in 2020. With the Coronavirus pandemic and all I let it lapse and then procrastinated renewing it. Finally I drew a line in the sand last month and pushed myself to submit the application for renewal.

Getting my new passport less than 4 weeks later, including time mailing the old one in and getting the new one mailed back, seems fast. But that's because I paid $60 extra for expedited service. Regular passport service comes with a disclaimer like, "We'll try to get it in 6 months. Maybe. We're really busy." So I paid more not to wait in limbo. Gotta love the government.

Where will I go first with my renewed passport? I don't know. I don't have any specific travel plans right now. I rushed the renewal mostly because I wanted to have a valid passport to renew my Global Entry pass,which expires at the end of this year. Global Entry is valuable even without travel abroad because it includes TSA PreCheck— which I enjoy the benefits of on every trip that involves flying from a US airport. That's been 20 one-way trips in the past 7 months, with at least 6 more in the next 2 months. I definitely don't want to let that lapse next year... and again the government's already like, "Processing time could be 6 months or longer due to high demand." 🙄

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
Last Thursday the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted to approve a regulation that phases out the sale of new gas-powered cars, trucks and SUVs by 2035. The rule phases it in with a few steps. By 2026, 35% of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the state must be either zero-emission, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen-powered models. The target rises to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. Existing vehicles are not affected, nor are sales of used vehicles. Example news coverage: NPR article, 25 Aug 2022; NY Times article, 29 Aug 2022.

It'll be interesting to see what comes from this. So far we've been stuck in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation where some automakers say, "The demand's not there," while many buyers say, "The choices aren't there." To be sure, there's a lot of development left to be done on providing more choices— and more affordable prices. The EVs sold today are expensive compared to the average new passenger vehicle. A government mandate would help break through the problem of manufacturers waiting on an answer to the chicken-and-egg question. And even though this is just one state's policy, not a nationwide policy, California is both (a) a huge market within the US and (b) a first mover on automobile & climate policy that many other states copy.
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
The Supreme Court Monday issued its ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The case concerned a high school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who was leading students in prayer at midfield after football games. Lower courts upheld the school district's decision to put Kennedy on paid administrative lead for illegal promotion of religious activities at an official school event, a violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause. The Supremes overturned those decisions, though, ruling that it was a legitimate, private expression of personal faith protected by the First Amendment.

One of the issues on which this case (or cases like it) turns is coercion. Yes, the prayer is nominally voluntary in that students are invited to join; but when it's a school authority figure who's leading it, there is enormous pressure on students to go along. The coach is the boss of who gets to play, in which position, and for how long. He's also a role model for the students. A student who objects to the group prayer— perhaps because he practices a different faith or perhaps is not religious— may find himself denied opportunities to play and ostracized by fellow students who support the coach.

Some cases about prayer in school have so-called gray areas. This case is not one of them. What happened here was, or should have been, black-and-white.

So, how did the Supremes decide 6-3 to ignore the obvious conclusion in this case? Well, they simply ignored the facts of the case. They. Ignored. Facts.

To underscore this point, Justice Sotomayor included pictures in her dissent. Pictures of large, loud scrums of people— not just team members but players on the opposing team and fans from the stands including local politicians— flocking onto the field to join the coach's prayers. Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion characterizing the prayers as "private" and "quiet" is simply dishonest.
canyonwalker: WTF? (wtf?)
Recently someone close to me had Covid-19 and just ended quarantine. (Details are in this blog earlier this evening, which is locked to friends.) They ended quarantine despite still testing positive for Covid-19. Ridiculously irresponsible? No, they followed the rules! The latest CDC guidance states:

Ending isolation if you had symptoms
End isolation after 5 full days if you are fever-free for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication) and your symptoms are improving.

When they told me about that guidance I didn't believe it. I assumed they made a mistake reading it. Certainly the CDC would not advise leaving quarantine until a negative result is obtained. I mean, that used to be the rule.... But no, they read it correctly. They read the bullshit, weaksauce guidance correctly. It's like we, as a country, have so much given up the will to fight Coronavirus that even the government, the Democratic run administration, has watered down its guidance to the gentlest possible rules in hopes that enough Americans will listen to them at all instead of ignoring them entirely.

BTW, this isn't just my sense of scientific and policy indignation speaking. By chance today I spotted an article in The Atlantic, America is in the "Figure it our yourself' era of the pandemic (The Atlantic, 27 Jun 2022). The second paragraph in the article reads like a bingo card of all the governmental failures I've written about in past months and then some:

Across the country, almost all government efforts to curtail the coronavirus have evaporated. Mask mandates have been lifted on public transit. Conservative lawmakers have hamstrung what public-health departments can do in emergencies. COVID funding remains stalled in Congress, jeopardizing supplies of tests, treatments, and vaccines. The White House and the CDC have framed COVID as a problem for individuals to act upon—but action is hard when cases and hospitalizations are underestimated, many testing sites have closed, and rose-tinted CDC guidelines downplay the coronavirus’s unchecked spread. Many policy makers have moved on: “We’re heading into the midterms, and I think there’s a real desire to show confidence that they’ve solved this,” Céline Gounder, an infectious-disease specialist and the editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, told me.

I... I can't even. I can't figure out why or even how I should care when our elected leaders on both sides have thrown in the collective towel.

Welcome to Coronavirus in 2022: Figure it out yourself. Or don't. The government's already given up.
canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday the Supreme Court published its decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This is the political earthquake of a ruling that was leaked in draft form 7 weeks ago. Earthquake, because it reverses the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that affirmed a woman's right to seek abortion. That "law of the land" has guided how women live their lives for nearly 50 years.

The overturning of a Supreme Court ruling is rare. There's a principle in jurisprudence called Stare Decisis. It's Latin for "Stand by things decided" and it means that judges should respect the precedent of previous decisions on an issue rather than whipsawing the law back and forth when they happen to disagree with it. Chief Justice John Roberts explained during his confirmation hearings years ago that stare decisis means that to reverse a past ruling a judge must conclude more than just that it was "wrongly decided"; judges must also weigh issues such as how a reversal upends settled expectations, whether a reversal diminishes the legitimacy of the court, and whether a particular precedent is workable or not.

Roberts did not to vote for overturning Roe v. Wade. Though he concurred with 5 other justices in upholding the Mississippi law at the center of Dobbs v. Jackson, a law that restricted abortion after 18 weeks, making that decision a 6-3 vote, he did not join the 5-4 majority that went far beyond that to strike down Roe v. Wade entirely.

How rare of an outcome is this? The only other time a Supreme Court ruling that affects the daily lives of literally tens of millions of Americans was when Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy notoriously upheld the doctrine of "Separate but Equal"— a cornerstone of racism perpetuating legal apartheid after the elimination of slavery in the 1860s. Note how the long arc of history bends toward justice in that reversal.... The reversal of Roe v. Wade is the first time the Supreme Court has ever reversed a previous opinion to take away a civil right.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
I've remarked various times in recent weeks that Covid statistics are becoming less accurate because fewer and fewer cases are being reported. With the rise of at-home testing months ago, many people who test positive at home but have mild symptoms don't pursue clinical care, or even clinical testing, and thus aren't included in the statistics reported up through county health departments.

This issue became personal for us yesterday after Hawk tested positive for Covid at home Tuesday night. Among our many next steps I urged her to press her doctor for a PCR test. She did manage to get an appointment on Wednesday. It was a telemedicine appointment, though. And the doctor told her that a PCR test was "unnecessary". Since she had a positive at-home test and had Covid symptoms, the doctor explained, that was enough for the doctor to prescribe her Paxlovid, the antiviral drug developed to treat Covid infection.

On the one hand, the personal hand, this is good news. Hawk is getting the best treatment available, fast— no need for extra testing.

On the other hand, the policy hand, this is not such good news. Hawk's case will not be reported for statistical purposes. I state that as a fact, not a notion, because I looked up actual government policy. Our county, Santa Clara County, California, defines official cases as "A case is someone who tests positive for COVID-19 using viral testing performed in a lab" (emphasis mine). Source: Covid-19 Cases and Deaths, sccgov.org. Presumably this is a typical policy in the US.

This is an example, BTW, the discrepancy I noted in a recent blog post about how official records indicate 26% of US population have had Covid-19 while the CDC estimates it's 60%. Hawk is now part of that 34% undocumented gap, and I might be soon, as well.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Ugh. I don't even want to have to write about this. I've put off writing about it for at least a day, intending to wait for more perspective on the issue, but political news cycles nowadays move too fast for that. So here's a quick summary of what I know now, organized as Five Things:

1) 48 hours ago Politico published news about a leak of a draft decision from the US Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal, within certain broadly accepted restrictions, in the US. Link: Politico article, 2 May 2022, updated 3 May 2022. To say the shit hit the fan would be an understatement.

2) The leak is of a draft opinion. It was written in February, based on oral arguments heard in the court in December. The final decision isn't expected until June. Anything could change between now and then. But the draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined (so far) by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, brings together a majority count of 5 justices who've strongly opposed abortion in past decisions and other writings. Three of these justices were nominated to the court by a president who boasted that choosing justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade was his chief concern.

3) Overturning Roe v. Wade is enormous. It's a huge precedent that has guided the lives of women, by affirming for them the right to control their own bodies and reproduction, for nearly 50 years. In federal jurisprudence there is the policy of stare decisis. Latin for "stand by things decided", it means that judges should respect the precedent of previous decisions on an issue rather than whipsawing the law back and forth when they happen to disagree with it. Other Supreme Court decisions have been overturned, but few if any as major as Roe. The only one that comes to mind is Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that upheld racial segregation through the sham doctrine of "separate but equal". It was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Some try to add Dred Scott to that list.... But (a) Dred Scott was clearly a terrible decision, not only affirming slavery in the US but extending some of its practices to non-slave states; and (b) Dred Scott was not overturned by the courts. It was overruled by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

4) The impact of this change will be swift. First, numerous states have "zombie" laws banning abortion since before Roe v. Wade in 1972. Many of those laws, rendered unenforceable for nearly 50 years, were never repealed. They could be enforced immediately after a new Supreme Court decision. Second, approximately 13 states have passed "trigger" laws to ban abortion. These laws say that if the Supreme Court permits abortion to be outlawed by the states, those states will do so. Third, there are all the other states controlled by Republicans that I expect will have new laws banning abortion in place by the end of the year. By the end of the year it's quite likely the abortion would be outlawed in a majority of the states in the US.

5) While the political left and center are outraged by this draft decision— a recent survey found that 60% of Americans were in favor of retaining Roe v. Wade as-is— surprisingly the political right is, too. Except the right is going nuclear about the leak. Fox News in its first daily cycle of coverage used the word leak twice as much as abortion. Conservative politicians have been all about "the leak", too. And they are apoplectic about it. Prominent politicians like Fla. governor Ron Desantis are calling it an insurrection. Imagine that... the political right has just been granted the top item on their wish list for the past 50 years— and all they can do is rail about how unfair it is. Understand, though, this is part of a bad-faith ploy. By shifting attention to the leak rather than abortion, they crowd abortion out of the news stream. And they need to because this position on abortion is unpopular with a majority of the country. But even worse, their deliberate use (and frequently reuse) of terms like insurrection is a stratagem to minimize the actual mob insurrection against the US Capitol on January 6, 2020. They are deliberately hijacking the term to scramble what it means in people's minds and establish a false equivalency.

Profile

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
canyonwalker

July 2025

S M T W T F S
   1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 1516171819
20 21 22 23242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 24th, 2025 01:44 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios