There are days when nothing works, or seem not to work. I am writing this in a café, since the Internet decided to drift off somewhere, and the cat decided to catch and subsequently torment a pigeon. So the music is too loud, and there are two Russians—also very loud—and two Oriental kids—still louder—all talking away. There is, however, the Internet as well as air conditioning.
And there is Kelly Ayotte to consider. She’s a Republican senator from New Hampshire who voted against the expanded gun control check in the Senate two weeks ago. And yesterday she had to go home and explain that vote to, among other constituents, the daughter of a woman killed in the Newtown massacre.
She’s getting heat, is Kelly, and she clearly isn’t happy about it. Her approval rating dropped 15%, and 50% of voters say that her vote on the issue will be a consideration for them in the next election. So some people held up “SHAME ON YOU” signs, and the senator stammered out something unintelligible and completely illogical about an undue burden. Later, she refused to speak after the meeting privately with two women who wanted to pursue the topic.
I made a promise to myself, several months ago—I would not let the NRA into my day. There is something called mental hygiene, which means that you resist the urge to focus on the negative, to lick old wounds, to obsess on whatever festering issues resonate most for you.
Right, scratch Ayotte.
Well, what about Sandra Day O’Connor? She sat down with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, recently, and revealed that she’s been rethinking that little decision about Bush versus Gore. Not, mind you, that she thinks she voted the wrong way. No, she now thinks that the Supreme Court should never have agreed to hear the case at all.
It didn’t do the Supreme Court’s reputation much good, she says, and that can’t be denied. It also did do her reputation any good, and that must pain her. But she said something interesting: "There were at least three separate recounts of the votes, the ballots, in the four counties where it was challenged, and not one of the recounts would the decision have changed. So I don't worry about it."
Well, she was always portrayed as a pragmatic, matter-of-fact kind of lady—not a theoretician or an intellectual, though of course she was no fool. But given that the decision convinced all but the die-hard conservatives that the court could be bought, why isn’t she more concerned? I’d be kicking myself still….
Right, so maybe O’Connor wasn’t the best person to turn to.
Right, scratch two.
So how about Nick Hanauer? He’s the guy in the clip below, who takes on the issue of the huge disparity of wealth distribution in the United States. And what he says makes intuitive sense, though Forbes Magazine pans his theories. But what else would you expect?
And Hanauer comes through with a refreshing idea—taxing the rich and using the money to help the middle class benefits everybody, the rich included. Oh, and by the way, the rich don’t create jobs—the middle class does, by running out to the stores and spending money.
Hanauer makes the case that like most guys, he buys a couple pairs of pants, some shirts, goes out to eat once in awhile. But his income is perhaps a thousand times the average. For him to spend proportionate to his wealth, he’d have to have 3000 cars.
It’s nice, you know, finally to hear someone say it. It’s past time, really.
According to a TED talk I heard recently, 997 billion dollars was lost in one year in corporate fraud in the United States.
Two questions…
Was it the CEO and executive directors who did it?
And if there had been more equity in salary distribution, would that figure have been lower?
