Why I Won't Vote Republican

In May of this year, I began writing on this blog about why I won't vote Republican. I had intended to carry that explanation through several blog posts, but here I'm keeping my reasons to a list:

• I don't believe in governments' torturing prisoners of war, or any other type of prisoner. Mitt Romney's national advisers are some of the same assholes who advised the Bush administration to torture prisoners.  [See Charlie Savage's article in The New York Times: "Election May Decide When Interrogation Amounts to Torture," 27 September 2012.] While I am not at all happy with how President Obama has continued some of the Bush national security policies, I know that a Republican-led government would not improve on these issues. President Obama has, at least, banned "enhanced interrogation" (torture!) and closed the CIA black sites. A second Democratic presidency will give us the opportunity to argue for re-examining those other issues. In addition, Mitt Romney's foreign policy technique, as illustrated by his visit to Great Britain during the London Olympics, dispels confidence in his ability to represent our country.

•  I don't trust a party that refuses to compromise for the good of the country, that is so focused on gaining power for itself that it is willing to damage or to destroy the lives of its citizens. I have written more about that here: "Reasons not to Vote Republican: Part 1."

• I believe that we are ALL mutually interdependent upon government (which is WE, the people).  This idea so loudly trumpeted by Republicans that citizens are divided between the Makers and the Takers, between those who are dependent upon government and those who are independent Boot-strappers-by-God-built-that-myself-ers is a skewed perception of democracy. As my husband so eloquently puts it: "That whole world view is bullshit!"  (This world view is particularly laughable in that all those titans of finance who imagine themselves "Makers" took a lot--even individuals' life savings--from folks to whom they condescend and just about bankrupted the country. WHY DO PEOPLE NOT REMEMBER THIS?) Public education that provides people with knowledge to become workers and business owners; police forces that maintain law and order; state and interstate highways (subsidized with our taxes) that guarantee national commerce;  a coast guard to protect those waters full of off-shore drilling rigs, commercial fishing boats, and pleasure and sport craft; a huge military complex that provides protection to many U.S. businesses abroad as well as those of us at home--these are just a few things from which we all profit, even the 1%. So, no, I don't support someone who denies this interdependency by disparaging, condescending to, or demonizing those who are so poor they don't pay federal income taxes (though they pay other taxes--state taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes). [See David Corn's article in Mother Jones, "Secret Video: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors what He Really Thinks of Obama Voters," 17 September 2012.] And Romney's last minute apology about his categorization of half of the U.S. is not convincing, especially since he double-downed on that statement several times immediately after it became public.

• Along with the condescending attitude toward the poor comes a willingness to deprive the poor of government support in healthcare. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian culture that promoted the idea that one was required to help those less fortunate, and so I don't get all bent out of shape about my taxes' going to welfare programs, such as Medicaid. Though I no longer participate in organized religion (a disaffection that came to a head during the Bush administration, as I witnessed church leaders and their congregations hurrahing torture and a war based on lies), I still believe in the ethic to care for those who cannot care for themselves, and I think government (which means US--corporations, whose wealth depends upon a stable government, and citizens) has a moral obligation to help those in need. One of my grandmothers spent her last years in a nursing home, her care supported by Medicaid. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would gut Medicaid. [See Kevin Drum's comments here: "The Romney-Ryan Plan to Obliterate Medicaid."] Medicaid is not just there for the very poor; it's available for the elderly who live middle-class lives and who find their life's savings destroyed by medical costs as they age. Mitt Romney's statement that the poor can always get medical care in the emergency room is bitterly out-of-touch. President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction in providing healthcare for most Americans and in reducing costs of healthcare. Mitt Romney has promised to repeal what could use some tweaking, not destroying.

•  I am dismayed by the increasing hostility toward science in the Republican Party. From climate change to contraception, Republicans have loudly and vociferously denied scientific research and the consensus of scientists. In the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney criticized over and over President Barack Obama's economic support of green energy, and his running mate, Paul Ryan,

  has consistently voted against government efforts to tackle climate change. Like many House Republicans, he has voted to block efforts by the EPA to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions. He approved an amendment that would bar the Department of Agriculture from studying how best to adapt to a warmer planet. Ryan voted to defund various climate-advisory positions within the White House. He also voted for an amendment, proposed by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), to cut $50 million from funding for ARPA-E, which funds long-shot energy research and development. [Brad Plumer, on Ezra Klein's Wonkblog, 14 August 2012]

  I mean, really.... voting to bar studies and research to determine how we can adapt to a warmer planet? How short-sighted is that!?

• Despite the financial crisis of 2007-2008, created in large part by the high-risk excesses of Wall Street and a corresponding lack of regulation, the Republican platform still calls for minimum regulation of Wall Street. I guess this explains why a CNNMoney Survey found that "[a]n overwhelming majority — 70 percent — of investment strategists and money managers in the survey say a Republican president would be better for the stock market"--even though, "as CNNMoney notes, stocks have historically performed better during Democratic administrations" [Michael Kling, "CNNMoney Survey: Wall Street Wants a Republican in the White House," 6 April 2012.]  See also how Republicans have worked to prevent implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank's Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by slashing the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: Jack Kemp, "Wall Street and Republicans Team Up to Curb CFTC," Reuters, 7 June 2012.  Or you can read Public Citizen's report of May 2012: "Forgotten Lessons of Deregulation: Rolling Back Dodd-Frank's Derivatives Rules Would Repeat a Mistake that Led to the Financial Crisis."

•  Barack Obama and Joe Biden are not perfect men or perfect leaders, but I am not going to vote for president of this country a man who made millions of dollars saddling companies with debt. You can do a song and dance about that choice of careers all you want, claim that it's all-American in its worship of profit for investors (while workers lose their jobs), but I can't admire it. I'll choose the community organizer, conciliator, post-post partisan, introverted lawyer and current president. Also, as his chameleon performance in the first presidential debate illustrates, Mitt Romney's real beliefs are tough to pin down. Romney governed as a moderate Republican in Massachusetts but became increasingly more conservative on the campaign trail, eschewing even his own Massachusetts healthcare plan. Then, in the debate, he suddenly became moderate again, walking back on claims he had made over and over in the previous months. His running mate? Paul Ryan's world view seems to have been too much influenced by Ayn Rand. And, really, is Paul Ryan vice-presidential material, a heartbeat away from the White House?

•  I support environmental regulations; the Republican party would like to gut the Environmental Protection Agency. [See: David Roberts, "The Environment," in The Washington Monthly; Politico's "Mitt Romney Intensifies EPA Attacks"; and Think Progress' response to the Politico article, "Things Mainstream Reporters Can't Say: Mitt Romney is Lying about the Environmental Protection Agency".] Anyone who lived through the 1960s and 1970s (even I, who was only just old enough to vote in 1976) remembers the ecological damage that our country suffered--acid rain, polluted rivers, chemically-fogged skies, Love Canal, lead gasoline. The Environmental Protection Agency gives government a necessary tool to regulate pollution and to prepare for climate change (if we and our leaders only had the political will to do the latter).

•  I am a strong supporter of public lands; today's Republican Party (no longer the party of Teddy Roosevelt) and Mitt Romney are not so much. [See Timothy Egan's "The Geography of Nope; "Giving Reins to States over Drilling," in The New York Times; "Conservation Update: Romney Energy Plan Would Give Drilling Control on Federal Lands to States," in Field and Stream.]

• I am appalled by the Republican tactics of voter suppression. See Ruth Rosen's piece at George Mason University's History News Network: "Voter Suppression: The Unraveling of American Democracy." Or listen to local voices, such as those of The Plain Dealer's editorial board in Cleveland, Ohio: "Republicans want to limit last-minute early voting, which in 2008 was most heavily used by less-affluent, minority voters." Or listen to the voices of state Republican leaders--links in Timothy Noah's piece: "'47 Percent'--Voter ID Link Proved." See The Atlantic's piece on True the Vote: "The Ballot Cops,"; Common Cause's "Bullies at the Ballot Box"; Justin Levitt's "The Truth About Voter Fraud," on the Brennan Center for Justice website.  Get updates on voter ID laws here: "Voter Identification Requirements," on the website of The National Conference of State Legislatures.

• I support marriage equality. Making it legal for adults of the same sex to marry neither threatens our democracy nor my own (34-year) heterosexual marriage, and it provides legal protection for gays and lesbians who want to raise families, to support one another financially, and to care for one another in sickness and health. Although there may be "a growing awareness among prominent Republicans that embracing marriage equality could broaden the party’s base and soften the party’s image in crucial ways," the leaders now on marriage equality are Democrats [Frank Bruni, "The G. O. P.'s Gay Trajectory," The New York Times, 9 June 2012].

•  I believe that abortion should be legal and that the decision to have an abortion be a private matter between a woman, her medical provider, and her own conscience. The Republican Party's platform states that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed" and that "the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children."  That strongly-worded statement pretty much turns over a pregnant woman's decision making to the federal government. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or mother's medical condition. Imagine the consequences if such a view became law. 

• I am mightily suspicious of the support of these guys and these guys of the Republican Party. What they expect to gain can only hurt the rest of us democratic, freedom-of-religion types.

•  We had eight years of a disastrous Republican presidency under George W. Bush. Mitt Romney is proposing nothing substantially different from a Bush presidency.  His message contains the same warmongering, regulation cutting, tax cutting mantra that brought us two wars, a horrendous deficit, and a financial crisis that almost blew up the country. As my husband says, "Willard" is just W-2.

Animal Feces--or Worse--in Your Water?

The New York Times has an interesting article on violations of the Clean Water laws, of the EPA's lax oversight during the Bush administration, and of the consequences of that laxness: "Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering." In interviewing "more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists," New York Times journalists have discovered that "an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways." The article describes the consequences of water pollution on the health of one family in West Virginia who live just seventeen miles from the state capital and on the career of one lawyer who joined West Virginia's environmental protection agency, where, he discovered, "everyone was terrified of doing their job." He eventually lost his job because he did his job; powerful industry lobbyists used their leverage with state politicians to get him fired.

In West Virginia, as in Washington, the corruption of those hired to keep the state's water safe can be seen in the revolving door of the state's environmental agencies: regulators "leave for higher-paying jobs at the companies they once policed." Pressure from the EPA has been seriously lacking, too:

Enforcement lapses were particularly bad under the administration of President George W. Bush, employees say. “For the last eight years, my hands have been tied,” said one E.P.A. official who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “We were told to take our clean water and clean air cases, put them in a box, and lock it shut. Everyone knew polluters were getting away with murder. But these polluters are some of the biggest campaign contributors in town, so no one really cared if they were dumping poisons into streams.”

The New York Times has gathered data on "more than 200,000 facilities that have permits to discharge pollutants and collected responses from states regarding compliance." Want to see how your state measures up?: "Find Water Polluters Near You." I clicked through the pages of companies in Georgia that have permits to discharge pollutants and was surprised by the number of violators who hadn't been fined for their violations. Uh.... okay....maybe I wasn't surprised. Just disgusted.

Here is another interactive map: "Clean Water Violations: The Enforcement Record." Enforcements in Georgia: 48.2 per 100 violations. Enforcement Record for my home state of Texas: 7.6 per 100 violations. Big surprise.

Other Consequences of Lack of Regulation

The Bush administration leaves office in January with a shameful record of governance. We've already seen the consequences of lack of regulation of the market and of financial institutions; now we're seeing the consequences of lack of environmental regulation. I've been following the story of the collapse of the lagoon holding coal sludge in Tennessee since the event occurred. The story finally received more national attention in an article in The New York Times, as authorities realized the spill was "three times as large as originally estimated." That "actual amount

was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.

The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards. [Shaila Dewan, "Tennessee Ash Flood Larger than Initial Estimate," The New York Times, posted December 26, 2008.]

As Sue Sturgis reports in Facing South (h/t truthout), Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans warned the government earlier this year in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources that "the federal government's broken pledge to regulate disposal of the potentially dangerous material threatened the health and safety of communities across the country." She further emphasized that

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in its Regulatory Determination on Wastes from the Combustion of Fossil Fuels published in 2000 that federal standards for disposal of coal combustion waste were needed to protect public health and the environment.

Environmental activists have been trying to warn the public and our leaders of this danger for some time: See "Activists Say EPA Ignoring Threat from Coal Ash," by Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 9, 2007.

Of course, the regulation-allergic Bush administration did little for the environment in its eight years of governing (See here and here) and it is gutting what it can of environmental regulations as it begins to vacate its offices. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Oh, and my favorite? A change to the Endangered Species Act that "reduces the number of scientific reviews of projects performed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service." The Bush administration has squashed scientific inquiry and conclusions many times during the past eight years. (See "The Ungreening of America: Dirty Secrets" in Mother Jones.)

Of course, this isn't the first coal slurry spill on Bush's watch, and the results of that spill illustrate the administration's antipathy toward environmental regulations and sympathy for businesses violating those regulations. A spill in 2000, in Inez, Kentucky, was being investigated and charges of criminal negligence being brought against the company at fault when the Bush administration moved into its offices and dramatically narrowed the focus of the investigation. (See Salon, "Dirty Business," by Philip Babich, November 13, 2003.) The experienced mining engineer, Jack Spadaro, was originally in charge of the investigation, but the Bush administration replaced him, and an investigation was implemented to get Spadaro dismissed:

The apparent vendetta against [Spadaro], and a mass of other evidence including damning off-the-record comments by officials involved in the investigation and a heavily-redacted report, raise serious questions as to whether Bush administration officials, ranging from mining safety officials all the way to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, orchestrated a coverup to whitewash Martin County Coal of any serious responsibility for the coal slurry disaster.(Babich)

Bush had also stacked the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration with former mining executives:

Lauriski, MSHA's chief, was an executive with Energy West Mining. Deputy assistant secretary John Caylor worked for Cyprus Minerals, Amax Mining and Magma Copper. MSHA's other deputy assistant secretary, John Correll, worked for Amax Mining and Peabody Coal.(Babich)

And that has been the Bush administration's modus operandi for most of its oversight appointments. Finally, however, our new president is turning once again to scientists and experienced environmental regulators for his environmental appointments. Maybe something will really be done about potential catastrophes such as the coal sludge spill in Tennessee.