Abortion politics is weakening America's democracy

Now here’s an interesting twist that would make sure pro-life Republican legislators win elections.  I guess they figure the tea party vote won’t be enough now that redistricting is about to change their power entrenchment in Florida.
 
In this Legislative session, six abortion bills have passed in the Republican-controlled Florida House to place additional limits on abortion rights. We know pro-lifers won’t rest until they make abortion altogether illegal in the U.S.  That’s why they have to make sure more pro-life politicians are elected to public office.
 
However, because redistricting might not work on their favor due to the Fair District amendments to the Florida Constitution passed last year, they have figure ways to curtail the vote of younger people, minorities and low-income residents who most likely would vote Democrat.
 
Rep. Dennis Baxley, the Ocala Republican who sponsored a bill to shift the revenue of Choose Life license plates’ from counties to the Ocala-based Choose Life Corporation is the same guy who has sponsored a convoluted bill geared at ripping apart election laws that in the past have made it easier for Floridians to vote, and replacing them with laws that could bring election outcomes in the Republicans' favor.
 
The “Election Transparency and Accountability” bill calls for far less time to vote as it cuts the two-week early voting to two days. Early voting enhances turnout, and usually greater voter turnouts can favor Democratic candidates.
 
The bill also makes it far more difficult to vote. For 40 years, Floridians who've recently moved have been able to update their addresses at the polls on Election Day. You won’t be able to do that anymore.
Rep. Baxley insists that obliterating the address-change option at polls would curb voter fraud. What? Has fraud ever been fraud tied to updating addresses at the polls?
 
It just so happens that college students, low-income and minority voters disproportionately fill the ranks of those who ask to update their addresses on Election Day. These tend to vote Democrat.
 
Voter registration will be more difficult. Vote registration organizations like the League of Women Voters will have to submit applications within two days instead of 10 — or get hit with financial penalties. What? Isn’t quite the opposite true — that everything should be made easier for people to register and vote?
 
This country is being held hostage by the pro-life crowd, and because of that Americans are facing a debilitating democracy.

John Paul II beatification a disgrace

If there’s any dignity left in the Catholic Church, the beatification of Pope John Paul II, set for May 1, should have followed the church’s strict guidelines for sainthood instead of fast tracking it as a political move to continue the silence of the Church’s pedophile scandal.
 
In the Catholic Church, becoming a saint is a long and complex process that takes many years. In the case of John Paul II, however, Pope Benedict XVI waved a rule requiring a five-year wait to even start the process of beatification.
 
Pope Benedict XVI couldn’t wait the required time to beatify his predecessor yet it took him at least 25 years to convince the hierarchy in Rome to remove Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado from the priesthood.
 
Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, a Mexican-born priest who worked mostly in Spain and Italy, was found guilt of raping an inordinate number of underage males, had two women and fathered six children dating back to 1956.
 
John Paul II was a close friend of Maciel, and he remained silent throughout his papacy. On John Paul II’s three visits to Mexico, Maciel stood at his right hand. Later, John Paul II referred to him as “an efficacious guide to youth” and he heaped praise on Maciel on the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in 2004.
 
It was not until John Paul II’s death that the Vatican finally followed up on the allegations, which resulted in Maciel’s removal from the priesthood.
 
The scandal of pedophile priests is not just the conduct of the priests themselves but also the cover up of the Catholic hierarchy, which not only failed to report abuse allegations to the civil authorities but also continued to reassign the offenders to other parishes.
 
So is the Catholic Church now naming John Paul II as the patron of pedophile priests?

Cracking down on illegals bad for Florida economy

Rep. William Snyder’s (R-Stuart) Arizona-style immigration bill passed the Economic Affairs Committee, setting the stage for a full House vote.
 
This is one more effort to attract tea party conservatives to Republican ranks.
 
The problem is the Florida core economy (agriculture, construction and tourism) would probably collapse without the “illegal” cheap labor.
 
So the GOP’s paradox is that the people who mainly oppose an Arizona-style immigration law are at the same time the GOP business community.
 
Let’s see the economics of cracking down on illegals in Florida:
 
Businesses continually compete for good workers at good “prices” (low wages). Technological breakthroughs and mechanization along with a great pool of workers often creates greater productivity, meaning less worker pay for a better product.
 
A large pool of workers (legal or illegal) is causing that some sectors of the Florida economy are becoming more like Third World economies, based on low-wage, low-skill and low capital investment.
 
If given the choice, most business people would prefer lower immigration and a somewhat tighter labor market for their businesses if they could be sure that their competitors would be operating by the same rules.
 
The problem is that in this global economy businesses cannot afford to compete unless they adjust to the wage and worker condition levels of the rest of the world.
 
This is why it’s important for the federal government to come up with an immigration control bill that is consistent to the needs of today’s global conditions.
 
Pandering to tea party followers with being tough on immigration is really very stupid.

Deregulation good for economy. Maybe.

Floridians might have jobs galore pretty soon if all the deregulation bills now in the Legislature pass for the governor’s signature.

It’s open, free for all market. Just be sure as a consumer what you’re getting into when you shop for services in Florida.

Supporters say the idea is to make it easier for small business owners to set up shop. For example, interior designers who can’t get a license will now be able to expand their business. They accuse currently licensed designers of being a “cartel” that monopolizes the market.

Opponents say regulations protect consumers while giving them a way to know if services are properly delivered.  For example, SB 1330/HB 0885 would take away the Office of Insurance Regulation's ability to approve rate hikes and would allow companies to increase rates by 30 percent or less each year.

CS/HB 5005, “Deregulation of Professions and Occupations,” is a massive deregulating bill that affects athlete agents, auctioneers, auctioneer apprentices, barbers, body wrappers, charitable organizations, community association managers/firms, condominiums and cooperatives, dance studios, employee leasing companies, hair braiders, hair wrappers, health studios, home inspectors, interior designers, interstate movers, landscape architects, nail specialists, mobile home lots, mold-related services, motor vehicle repair shops, professional geology, professional surveyors and mappers, rooming houses, travel agents, talent agents, telemarketing, timeshares, yacht and ship brokers, water vending machines, television tube labeling, sales representative contracts.

CS/SB 524, “Seaports,” deletes provisions relating to statewide minimum standards for seaport security.  And SB 436, “Seaport Security,” deletes provisions requiring the Department of Law Enforcement to establish a statewide seaport access eligibility reporting system.

Deregulation is a difficult balancing act. It is true that that an unregulated marketplace opens opportunities for entrepreneurs. However, it also opens the doors to scams, exploitation, fraud and rip offs.

(This is good news for the TV guy “for the people.”)

As much as we hate it, the “heavy hand of government” often slaps the citizenry when businesses get carried away and abuse consumers.

Take for instance, HB 451, “Commercial Parasailing,” now in the Legislature, which provides licensing and liability insurance for persons conducting commercial parasailing operations. This bill comes in response to 27-year-old Alejandra White’s injuries last year, after she was dragged at 40 mph when a towline connecting the sail to a speedboat snapped off Clearwater Beach.  She smashed into several umbrellas - before finally slamming into a 4-feet wooden volleyball pole.

I believe deregulation is a good idea in general. It’s good economics at this time. I just hope the efficiency of the marketplace works out and people don’t blow it.

Performance benchmarks for excellence in teaching

Now that Gov. Rick Scott has signed into law the merit pay system, school districts have to submit their evaluation methods before June 1. They must make sure teachers are paid according to how well their students perform.

May I suggest that as part of an evaluation method, individual, quantifiable goals are set for every school and indeed for every classroom at the start of the school year, and hold the teacher accountable at the end.

Classrooms with students of varied levels of intelligence and language skills, and economic and cultural backgrounds are difficult to measure on an equal basis.

Teachers have often pointed out that this diversity is what prevents them from accurately measuring how a teacher performs.

I submit that it’s the other way around. A diverse classroom should serve as a benchmark of excellence in teaching. 

When my children attended school, I could recall as good teachers those who made an extra effort with students who didn’t master the English language, the ones with learning handicaps or those children from households with problems.

We are usually too quick to stress that parents should be more involved with the school. Yes, no doubt parents are key to their children’s education, but nowadays, only the parents who can afford to do so are fully involved in their children’s education. Most parents have to juggle with a bundle of obstacles and limitations.

I’m not justifying irresponsible parents. Some are. But most are parents who would love to have the means to stay home 24/7, have a partner that shares responsibility or enough money coming at the end of the month to pay the bills.

I think it’s good to give teachers incentive to achieve or reward good performance. Forget about seniority and focus on specific goals for each classroom. You achieve your goals, you’ll be rewarded accordingly. You don’t, maybe teaching is not for you.

Catholics, please don't come home

The Catholic Church has been running a series of advertising asking Catholics to “come home.”

I don’t think many Catholics will come home unless the Church provides divorced couples with “amnesty.” The Church’s process of “annulment” is a joke.

But this is just one of the many reasons Catholics have departed the Church, by far not the most important.

The biggest reason Catholics have abandoned Rome’s institution is because they are disgusted with the way bishops throughout the world under the precise orders of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have handled the sexual abuse of minors by priests. (And they want to canonize John Paul II?)

In this the season of Lent, Catholics are asked to pray, repent and do almsgiving, yet the Church’s hierarchy continues to exist in a sinful manner, showing no repentance or at least Christian compassion to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. They are more interested in the safety of the criminals than the children who have suffered their abuse.

Organizations like the Voice of the Faithful and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have been the only Catholic groups that have responded to the cry for help by the victims. Yet, these organizations are constantly vilified and censored by bishops.

So now the Church figures it can run sweet commercials to touch Catholics who’ve quit the Church.

Please!

My question is why haven’t more Catholics left the Church or at least called their bishops accountable for the crimes that priests have committed against children and adolescents?

If Catholics were loyal to the teachings of the Church, the hierarchy should have been completely disbanded by now in demonstration of Christian compassion toward thousands of children’s suffering.

My advice to all Catholics would be to go to www.Catholicscomehome.org and express your disgust and why you’re not going to come home.

U.S. salary levels closer to developing world

Not too long ago, if you were looking for employment, you would rather work in the private sector not only because your salary would be higher but the benefits were abundant.

Much has changed in the last, say, 20 years.

Today, the public sector often “steals” the good workers from the private sector, enticed by salary levels as well as great benefits.

In a simplistic view of things, I believe two things have happened at the same time:

1. With so much partisan entanglement in the nation, the public employee has sought to secure his or her job from the whims of such a political environment through their unions. Tempted by this de facto tenure, the public sector has been able to hire the brightest and the best of the professional world, which in turned responded to the increasing demand for good customer service from the small municipality to the more complex federal agency. And of course, these well-paid employees were not likely to accept bribes in order to compensate for low pay.

2. The economic downturn over the last few years has forced the private sector to keep salaries stagnant and eliminate benefits such as retirement pensions paid for entirely by the company. Instead, they have shifted to providing benefits through 401(k) saving plans or similar systems where the employee must contribute.

Also, the workplace has been getting tighter, to the employer’s advantage. The tight job market makes it difficult to negotiate a better wage. In a job market like today where there is a big pool of applicants and a small number of openings, companies are able to leverage the pay and benefits on their terms. Ironically, workers have not been able to benefit from an increased level of productivity (read exploitation).

The current cry of several state governors around the nation to cut the states’ pension programs is just an effort to lower salary and benefit levels in order get closer to the private sector’s remuneration levels.

However, this might be dangerous in the long run.

Decreasing salary levels around the nation may result in households not able to keep up with the cost of living. Then, the decline in consumer spending could prolong the economic recovery.

What we ought to do is increase the level pay in the private sector with the creation of industry in the U.S. that would offer meaningful employment to Americans instead of having the public sector absorb the professional pool.

On the other hand, U.S. salary levels might be at last getting closer to those of the under developed world. Then, we can bring back the manufacturing that other counties have stolen from us with cheap wages.