Open Everything for Everyone!

This whole 'NY needs an open primary' thing is nuts.

I've talked about it in this blog, noting my opposition.  There were two great letters to the editor of the Post-Standard published recently, both of which made pretty good cases for keeping things the way that are. The letters were in response to an editorial published before our primary last week lamenting that voting, while "a privilege and an obligation of citizenship," is a hassle in NY, and they recommend that voters start lobbying for change.

If you're not registered in a political party - and 3.2 million of New York's 11.7 million registered voters aren't - you'll have to sit this one out. If you unaffiliated and independents and members of minor parties want a voice in selecting a presidential candidate the next time around, start lobbying the state Legislature now to loosen New York's restrictive voting laws. 

New York is one of 11 states with a 'closed' primary system, which means that only voters who are registered in a political party can vote in a primary election. This setup maintains the power of the political parties to choose their candidates - but excludes huge numbers of voters from the process.  

It goes on to mention how Bernie Sanders has benefited from open primaries in other states, as if that in and of itself is good enough reason to change the rules.

One writer, a gentleman named Andy Chertow, offered this:

As a rule, you  need to be a member of an organization in order to have a say in that organization's policies. I don't get to vote on flight attendants union contracts or policies of the American Psychiatric Association, even though I may have an interest in these outcomes.  There is no charge or entrance requirement for party membership. All you have to do is join a party and then you can vote in the primary. If a person is unwilling to say they are a member of a given party, they lose their right to complain about that party's choices.

The second writer, one Bob Jackson, noted that the editorial 'lack(ed) substance' and suggests (among other things) that we should worry about the rights of people who do bother to enroll in a party.

A closed primary system, in your opinion, is a bad thing because the "setup maintains the power of political parties to choose their candidates." How is that a bad thing? Simply because "huge numbers" of people who have chosen not to join a party cannot participate in choosing a party's nominee? You speak of the 'rights' of people who have specifically opted not to join a party, but what of the rights of the people who choose to be Democrats or Republicans? 

I got to thinking, if the Berners and the Editorial Board think open is the way to go, let's open up some other stuff too.

There's an Elks Lodge around the corner from us, and heck - there's an American Legion the other direction too, where I vote. I don't know what it takes to be a member of the former, and I'm pretty sure I don't have the qualifications to belong to the latter. But is that my fault?  Why can't I just stroll right in and begin receiving all of the benefits of membership, while maintaining my independence and ability move from the Elks or the Legion to the Moose Club whenever I choose?

Or an exclusive country club -- you know, the kind with the big initiation fees and the significant annual membership and the dress codes requiring the silly pants and stuff?  I can't afford it, but heck - I should be able to play there anytime I want, and get towel service in the sauna and play tennis and all that without having to join, right?

How about voting for the Academy Awards? I mean, I should be able to vote for the best actor and actress, and screenplay, and original score, and the ones that are given out at the luncheon instead of on TV, even though I'm not a member of the Academy, right? Nothing special about them, or members of the Screen Actors Guild, or the Directors Guild, so why not let me vote for all of those as well?

Airline VIP lounges? Why should we treat VIPs any different from the rest of us?

Locally, in the Syracuse area, there's the Pastime Athletic Club, which back in the day used to (and maybe still does) offer cheap drinks to members. Cheap gas at PriceChopper without earning your rewards? Discounted prices at Wegmans, without having a Shopper's Club card?  Volume-based Centro bus pass prices, without buying rides in volume?

This is fun! Open everything for everyone!

Wondering, on Wednesday (v54)

Ahh...  A nice relaxing night to sit and wonder about stuff.

I wonder how much time Ted Cruz (R-Canada, R-Cuba, R-Texas) spent thinking about his nefarious plot? You know, the one in which he and John Kasich (R-Hungry, R-Ohio) would dance around each other, rather than competing directly against each other, in an effort to stop His Hairness from getting the nomination on the first ballot?

In case you missed it, the deal which I think Mitt Romney started asking for weeks ago was supposed to have Kasich head west for New Mexico and a couple other places, and leave Indiana to Cruz, who was believed to have the better chance there to beat Trump. If they weren't actively competing against each other, they figured, one would be stronger and have a better chance of winning.

Then John Kasich was asked, between bites of something (since lately he's always shown eating, it seems), whether he would tell his supporters to vote for Cruz. Um, that's a big negative. His supporters should vote for him, he said.  The 'deal' such as it was, unravelled just that fast. The point of it, according to Kasich, was that neither campaign has unlimited money and they both were trying to economize - not give up on their supporters, or have their supporters give up on them.

That sure made me wonder about the art of the deal Ohio-style, and I'm sure it made Ted Cruz wonder too.

So what's a wondering, wandering, lost-on-the-campaign trail guy to do, especially after finishing third in four out of five primaries last night?  Well, let's see.  I know -- tell the media you're going to make a big announcement, and then spend some time wondering what you're going to announce?

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And then without further ado, announce your plan to be forever linked in failure with....

After a great deal of time and thought, after a great deal of consideration and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that if I am nominated to be president of the United States that I will run on a ticket with my vice presidential nominee Carly Fiorina. 

What a country Canada, Cuba and America are, eh?

And speaking of Making America Great Again, I wonder how totally ridiculous it would sound if Hillary Clinton (and yes, even Carly Fiorina) decided to accuse Donald Trump of "playing the man card" -- would they sound as stupid as does Trump when he accuses Hillary of playing the woman card?  My guess is yes, yes they would sound as stupid as he does. But I'm willing to bet that both Clinton and Fiorina are smarter than that.

And speaking of smarter than that, according to a recent Rasmussen poll from earlier this month, here's what likely voters thought about which of the candidates was 'qualified' to be president:

• 54% thought Kasich was
• 50% thought Hillary was
• 48% thought Bernie Sanders was
• 40% thought Cruz was

How many said yes to Trump?  27%.  

I wonder what 'card' he's playing?

Tuesday's Number: $604,093

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were 34 new judgments, totaling $604,093. And for the second week in a row, there were no satisfied judgments or bankruptcies noted.

Here’s the breakdown by hospital:
Crouse had three, for a total of $21,121
St Joe’s had two, for $36,413
SUNY Upstate had 29, for $546,559

Community, SUNY’s other campus, did not have any filings reported.

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

Quick Takes (v9): Independent No More

Quick Takes

Well, well, well.

After spending his entire political career, and more importantly his entire philosophical life, as an Independent, it seems that the Gentleman from Vermont has changed his stripes.

Bernie Sanders to Stay A Democrat For Life And Support Clinton If She Is The Nominee 

So proclaims the above headline from an article last night on Politics USA, the liberal political news website, which includes a link to the video from Bloomberg's With All Due Respect broadcast, where Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver broke this news.

I was just wondering along these lines last night, what would happen with the Berners were Sanders to come out in support of Clinton. My wondering was more in the context of him getting out of the race now, in the face of his campaign having to not only win all of the remaining contests, but having to win them by margins exceeding those of Trumpian proportions, something that seems almost impossible.

I hadn't considered that Sanders would be disavowing his Independent label and officially join the party against which he's trying to foment a revolution.

Does the revolution continue with the standard-bearer as an Insider, a very different capital I designation than the one he's leaving behind? Does Sanders now join forces with Elizabeth Warren and try to move the monolithic party to the left, knowing that they are, in many respects, pretty much alone out there in deep left field?

And the Berners, will they be as committed today as they were yesterday before this news broke?

The most committed of the revolutionaries, those who say they would never vote for Clinton in the general election, no matter what, may have some soul-searching to do today.  And it might be interesting to see if the money continues to pour in at the same frenetic pace after the NY primary results and last night's news.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v53)

So, New Yorkers went to the polls, and voted in a primary that mattered. There's still much thinking and talking going on, but I'm mostly wondering.

For example, we all heard from the Sanders folks - campaign people and supporters alike - about the closed primary and the Independents being 'disenfranchised' because we only allow people who are willing to commit, to vote.  But I wonder why we didn't hear anything from the Green Party, and the Working Families Party, and the Conservative Party and the rest complaining about their disenfranchisement? They weren't allowed to vote for anyone either.

Hillary won cities: NYC, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Sanders won everything else. Which is bizarre, simply bizarre. That said, it still appears that Hillary can lose, and lose big to Bernie in the remaining contests, and handily win the nomination.

One figure I saw was 29% -- she only needs to get 29% of the vote each of the remaining contests from now until this blissfully ends in June, and she'll still win. I'm not sure what the Sanders campaign's plans are, but I wonder if they truly believe there's a path to victory come the convention?

More importantly, I wonder when Sanders will start telling his supporters that they are committing political suicide, and setting back any hope of progressive legislative victories under any future president if they don't vote for Clinton in the general election?

Because if all of the BernFeelers stay home, the chances of having a Republican president seem to increase, which means that, say, the likelihood of having the next few Supremes chosen by Republicans is high. And the chance of rolling back changes in voting laws, or reducing student loan debt, or expanding the Affordable Care Act (much less replacing it with something more Sandersesque) are slim to none for the duration.  I can't help wondering if it's really beneficial for all of these folks to cut off their noses, or shoot themselves in the foot, or whatever other body-damaging analogy works here?

And if Sanders himself doesn't address this and encourage sanity, what happens if he endorses Clinton, as he surely will, as he must? Do the Berners turn on him as well, I wonder?

On the Republican side, His Hairness won the entire state with the exception of a handful of voters who put John Kasich on top, in that one teeny little part of the map that wasn't Trump red. I don't know about you, but I wonder if anyone thought, last June with the infamous escalator ride, that Trump was riding into this kind of success?  Did even Trump picture this?

Kasich and Cruz, Cruz and Kasich. How do they pull together to stop Trump - or, I wonder, does Trump stop himself?  Talking today with friends at work, and one questioned whether Trump really even wanted to be president, or if instead he really just wanted to influence who becomes the nominee for the Rs. He wondered how Trump could really walk away from his company, and his luxury, and his travel and open schedule and all of that, and actually perform the duties of the POTUS. Others, professionals in the political arena, have suggested that this was done on a lark, and Trump had no clue now how to get out.  I wonder, is that really the case? And who will come to his rescue?

Finally, I wonder on this Wednesday as I have before, what my Dad would say about the Empire State and her voters, about this campaign. I don't have a clue.

Tuesday's Number: $140,688

Finally, a slow week.

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages. 

As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were only twelve new judgments, totaling $140,688 - both are nice low totals. And,for the second week in a row, there were no satisfied judgments or bankruptcies noted - a mixed bag, for sure. 

Here’s the breakdown by hospital:

• Crouse had five, for a total of $37,899
• SUNY Upstate had the other seven, adding $102,799

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective: "Onerous" Voting Rules

Ivanka Trump, the 34 year old daughter of the Republican front-runner, has been a get-out-the-vote champion as she travels around the country supporting her father's campaign.

So has Eric Trump, her 32 year old brother.

Neither of them will be able to vote for their father in Tuesday's New York primary, because they are not registered to vote as Republicans.

The Trump kids told Anderson Cooper the other day that the problem was the rules in New York. According to Ivanka,

We're not a family of politicians. We haven't been in politics very long. New York has one of the most onerous rules in terms of registration, and it required us to register a long time ago - almost close to a year ago - and we didn't do that. We found out about it sort of after the fact.  

Eric added

It was kind of our first foray into politics. We didn't realize how the whole system worked. It was amazing. We actually made it a very big part of the campaign and there's no one that's been more visible on the campaign than the two of us, but we made it a very big part to get that message out...

 For his part, their father is taking it pretty well, noting

They had a long time to register and they were, you know, unaware of the rules, and they didn't, they didn't register in time. So they feel very, very guilty. But it's fine. I mean, I understand that.

It's now come to light that Trump himself was not able to vote in the 2012 primary, after endorsing Mitt Romney, because - you guessed it - he was not registered as a Republican. While he's been able to change his party designation several times, having been a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent and a 'no party' guy, he was not able to get his voter registration in line with his political positions in time.

So, I don't know about you, but I'm not from a "family of politicians" and I "haven't been in politics" at all -- I'm just a middle-aged white lady who has been registered to vote in New York since I was eighteen years old, because that's how we did things, I guess. Yes, my parents were teachers, but my friend who's dad drove a truck registered to vote, and my friend who's dad was a businessman registered to vote, and my friend with the stay-at-home mom registered to vote, too. Most of us registered in the party of our parents - which was not uncommon at that time - but I don't remember anyone who registered as a 'no party' person.

Why?  We all learned, way back then, that if you want to vote in a primary you have to be registered in a party. We also learned that, if you're registered in a party, you are not able to vote in another party's primary. We knew, all the way back then, that it mattered how you registered, because if you wanted to participate in choosing the candidates who made it into the general election, regardless of whether it was a local, state, or national race, you had to be registered as a party member.

NY Voter Registration Form screen capture

New York's voter registration form points that out, for people who might not have been aware.

Try looking at this from a different perspective: would anyone be in favor of having the Red Sox make personnel decisions for the Yankees? Would it make any sense at all for my company to let a competitor make our hiring decisions?

Of course not.

You know what happens if you register in a political party?  You get mail from candidates and elected officials.  You get phone calls reminding you to vote.  You get asked, sometimes, to sign nominating petitions. And sometimes you get surveys.  No one spies over your shoulder to see if you're voting in line with your registration. The only time anyone looks over your shoulder is if you try and vote in the primary for a party you chose not to join.

I understand that some people might not know that New York doesn't have open primaries (which is a good thing, in my opinion), and that if a person wanted to be able to vote in the primary here, they needed to make a party designation change by October 9, 2015 - not by "almost close to a year ago" as Ivanka said. New voters had until March 25th to register, in a party, to be eligible to vote in the primary on Tuesday.

I don't feel that the rules are 'onerous' -- the instructions are clear on the NYS Board of Elections web site, and political campaigns have typically been aware of the rules that apply in each state, so as to ensure their best opportunity to get the votes they want come primary or caucus time. Generally, well -organized campaigns spend time educating people well in advance, to not lose out on potential voters.

And the rules are certain less onerous when we're talking about the second generation of a family that doesn't know how it works, especially when the kids complaining should have been voting in primaries for a number of years by now. Blaming the rules, and missing primaries, seem to be family traits.

If these kids - one a Wharton School grad, the other a Georgetown alum - who have all possible benefits, knowledge, and access, kids who are making it their mission to ensure there's a yuge pool of voters for their father in states across the country, (and who apparently learned nothing from their father having exactly the same problem previously) can't figure it out, how the heck are we supposed to Make America Great Again?

The Update Desk: Poor Ethan, Revisited

graphiq

You remember Poor Ethan, right?

The 'affluenza defense' made him famous, when he drove drunk and killed four people, injured several others, and was sentenced to probation because he was raised so badly as to be completely disconnected from the reality of what he did.

You can read more here and here on his case, which dates back to 2013.

Ethan ran to Mexico with his mother, then was found and returned to Texas to await the next phase of his path to adulthood. There was some thinking that, since he was a minor when he crashed his truck, and was sentenced originally as a minor, that he would continue in juvenile court.

No such luck.

He met his first judge as an adult today, and was told he'd be staying in jail, at least for now, and was sentenced to about two years of time.

That's 180 days for each of the four who were killed in the accident that changed his life, and the lives of the victims who survived, and the families of those who did not, forever.

Tuesday's Number: $724,410

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were 39 new judgments, totaling $724,410. No satisfied judgments or bankruptcies were reported.

Here’s the breakdown by hospital: 

• Crouse had five, for a total of $45,562 
• St Joe’s had one, for $6,431 
• SUNY Upstate had 32, adding $667,249

A local hematology-oncology practice had one filing, making up the $5,168 balance.
The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

Tuesday's Number: $882,944

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were 30 new judgments, totaling $819,378; two satisfied judgments for $12,258 and three bankruptcies totaling $75,824.

Here’s the breakdown by hospital:

• Crouse had three, for $38,331
• St Joe’s had two – the repayments - for a net credit of $12,258
• SUNY Upstate had 28, for total of $833,575

The filings for SUNY Upstate this week were more than $100,000 higher than the highest single week total (all filings, all providers) so far this year.

Single filings each for a local regional medical center and an anesthesia practice in Illinois accounted for the remaining $23,296.

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

Knock Knock. Who's There? Fractured Democrats.

Fractured Democrats who?

Fractured Democrats who, it seems, are bound and determined to make their party look as silly as the Republicans this election cycle.

We've heard all along about how Hillary delayed her announcement long enough to make it practically impossible for anyone else to get in the race early enough to get big-donor support and super delegats aligned.  And we've heard about how the DNC, under the 'leadership' of Debbie Wasserman Shultz, has been trying to make the nomination a slam-dunk for Hillary Clinton. The DNC had shut the Sanders camp out of their own donor database after the campaign 'inadvertently' accessed the Clinton donor database; the inadvertent access happened because the DNC had crappy firewalls between the two and didn't keep them separated, according to the Sanders folks.

And we've heard about how the initial very limited debate schedule (six I think?) was set up on purpose to favor Clinton, with debates in locations and at times that were favorable to her constituency and unfavorable to the Sanders constituency. You know, like scheduling one at 9PM on a Saturday night during the college football playoffs, leaving only old people to watch the political 'playoff', or at 9PM on a Sunday night when I think everyone but me was settling down for the last season of  Downton Abbey.

Now the camps are trying to work out having a debate in New York, the actual home state of the Vermont Senator and the adopted home state of She Who Wears the Cloak of Inevitability. After finally agreeing to at least have a discussion about scheduling a debate in a delegate-rich state that is, surprisingly, still relevant in April, there were some dates offered by both sides and rejected by both sides.

One was Monday night, April 4th. The night that the NCAA men's college basketball championship will be played. At the time the debate discussions were being held, the Sanders camp noted that it was sort of ridiculous to pick that night, generally, and specifically since Syracuse was in the hunt for the championship (sadly, we were knocked out by UNC last night). Shout out to the #FeelTheBern team on that.

According to the Clinton camp, they offered a time that would have allowed the debate to end before the start of the game, and the Sanders people turned that down. Um, do they know anything about college sports over in Hillaryville?

Surely she must remember this picture of her husband, right?  She was the first lady of Arkansas, for heaven's sake. Does she actually think that anyone in the entire state of Arkansas would watch a debate in the hours leading up to a Razorbacks game, in any sport?

Hell no -- they're in sports bars and man caves getting ready, not sitting home waiting eagerly for a debate.

And, pretending for a second that they could get their heads around a disciplined discussion on trade or immigration while wearing their game day attire, is the thinking that after the debate, they' all go racing out to said sports bars and spend the first half of the game trying to find a parking space?

Of course not. And I can assure you New Yorkers are the same. You want a7:30 debate on Final Four Monday? Good lord.

One of the other times was on Thursday evening, April 14th. Bernie has a huge rally scheduled for that day, so clearly he's less than interested in debating before or after the rally, right? Or first thing in the morning on the 15th.

Yep -- first thing in the morning (an idea discussed and maybe even agreed to by both camps) on Good Morning America. Let that sink in for a moment.

The best time for a presidential debate is between 7AM - 9AM on a Friday morning? In what country? In what century?  Who's the target audience for this one, stay at home moms? That's the target voting cohort they're trying to reach? And no, I'm not picking on stay at home moms; Hillary already did that, several years ago. I'm just questioning that demographic as a specific group to reach for a presidential candidates debate.

There have even been arguments made that there shouldn't be a debate during the last few days of the tax season, because people won't be able to focus on the political stuff as they sweated out their income tax returns. I kid you not.

Even with our primary being moving from Super Tuesday (where it was in 2008), to mid-April, Democrats in New York still have a chance to actually make a difference, to have a say in picking the standard-bearer of our party, and this is what the candidates offer us?

Maybe relevance isn't all it's cracked up to be. And maybe, the Dems are closer in ridiculousity to the Reps than they wish we knew.