Lou Roffman: Our Own American Hero
• August 22, 2012

We all knew Lou Roffman at the Georgetowner. He had special standing here because he was our former publisher Dave Roffman’s uncle, hence the nickname Uncle Lou. He was Uncle Lou, also, to still more who had occasion to hear stories about him from Dave or to meet him on his occasional visits from out West. He was Uncle Lou at the Midway and World War II Memorials, and he was Uncle Lou at the Nats game a couple of years ago.

Even if he had another name, but the same life and history, there’s more than enough to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of Lou Roffman Aug. 10 at age 94. A World War II veteran in the Army Air Corps, he made history, being one of the rare American soldiers to serve at both Pearl Harbor and Midway, the first a military tragedy for the United States, the second a battle that turned the tide against the Japanese in the Pacific.

That wasn’t the whole story. Roffman was a flight engineer with B-17 bombers of the 31st Bomb Squadron at Hickam Field on Dec. 7 when the Japanese attacked. Later, he fought at the Battle of Midway. Later still, he was wounded in a bombing mission. He received a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in mission in which he landed a plane after the pilot had been killed.

Reading Uncle Lou’s obituary, you can sense the full life well and long-lived, something of a true and wonderful life which might have made an inspiring movie. He served in the military until 1968, retiring from the Air Force with the rank of senior master sergeant.

During retirement, he and his wife Irene began a whole new life in Riverside, Calif., where he owned a pool hall and three bars, was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Elks Club and Hollywood’s Magic Castle and perhaps more fittingly the Optimist Club, of which he should have been president.

In California, he practiced magic, a passion of his. He would perform for children in children’s hospitals, regale then with stories and magic tricks and remind them of the stories of the greatest generation of which he was an honored member.

Around here, we remember Uncle Lou, slowed a little by age in his latter years, a smiler and laugher and story teller. We remember him at the Midway commemoration, where former sailor Tony Curtis, the movie star at 80, wearing cowboy boots and hat, kissed a female autograph seeker. Lou came up behind him and Curtis asked him “Do you want a kiss, too?” Lou said, emphatically, “Hell, no! Just the autograph.” But we do remember Uncle Lou accepting kisses from the girls at the restaurant after the dedication of the World War II Memorial. We remember when his nephews Dave, Randy and Phil gathered here to fete Uncle Lou at the new Nationals Park, where his name sparkled on the scoreboard.

We remember Uncle Lou, an old soldier and airman whose memory will not fade away.
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Egypt’s President Morsi, Firmly Behind the Wheel
•

In his excellent Middle East travelogue, “Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia,” Tony Horwitz writes:

“In Egypt, aggression and impatience are frowned upon. The unofficial Egyptian anthem, ‘Bokra, Insha’allah, Malesh’ (‘Tomorrow, God Willing, Never Mind’), isn’t just an excuse for laziness. In a society requiring millennial patience, it is also a social code dictating that no one make too much of a fuss about things.”

This sentiment seemed alive and well in Cairo as Mohammed Morsi was sworn in as Egypt’s president last month. Not even the first choice of the Islamist Group, the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi was widely viewed as an accidental president of sorts, and therefore destined to be a figurehead president. It was widely believed that real power would continue to reside, as it always had, in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—or SCAF.

But early last week, Morsi took everyone by surprise—including the United States. In a lightning-fast series of maneuvers and brokered deals that would make Machiavelli proud, Morsi removed his political and military rivals, and nullified a constitutional decree that gave the military council ultimate authority over Egypt’s administration, security and, significantly, the government’s purse strings.

Simultaneously, Morsi issued a constitutional edict granting himself full authority over the executive and legislative branches of government. Knowing a bridge too far when he saw one, he left the judiciary alone. To preempt any potential dissent from the judiciary, Morsi appointed reformist senior judge Mahmoud Mekki as his vice president.

The ostensible catalyst for the shakeup was the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in northern Sinai earlier in the week, but it seems obvious that this was only a convenient excuse for actions already planned. Morsi quickly exploited the incident, and replaced his defense minister, the army chief of staff and each of the service chiefs.

It is the moral equivalent of a U.S. president firing his Secretary of Defense and all of his Joint Chiefs of Staff in one fell swoop.

Morsi’s stunning consolidation of power followed a sequence that caught the occupants of Washington’s “C” suites and cabinet secretaries completely off-guard. Reluctant to admit a lack of advance knowledge of Marsi’s power-play, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said:

“We obviously did know that there were discussions ongoing about a new defense team — with regard to the precise timing, less so.”

In retrospect, the move should have been fully anticipated. The obvious historical examples of past presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarek are clear evidence that staying power in Egyptian politics requires strength. Morsi was understandably motivated to reclaim the political power that the military had seized in the wake of the Arab Spring uprising last year.

To calm those at home and abroad, Morsi delivered a radio address, insisting,

“I never meant to antagonize anyone… We go on to new horizons, with new generations, with new blood that has long been awaited.”

Assuming an apparent wait-and-see posture, the White House has yet to offer any substantive reaction to Morsi’s dramatic power-grab, except to issue non-specific diplomatic statements about “shared interests” and the new appointees being “well known” to them.

Their silence on the real issues at hand is what’s so significant. Indeed, if the aim of the White House’s long-range goal was Egypt’s “full transition to civilian rule,” as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has articulated it, the end result has been hardly worthy of celebration. Any vision of a secular democracy in Egypt has been relegated to virtual-mirage status.

While the administration would like to calmly portray Morsi as doing what is necessary to place Egypt back on the road to democracy, it should be worried. Morsi’s actions point to a far more ominous course now underway.

A judge in Egypt’s Higher Constitutional Court (HCC), immediately responded to Morsi’s actions, saying, “A president does not have the power to abrogate a constitution, even a temporary one….”

With his newfound authorities in place, and with the ability to rewrite the new constitution, the process of Islamizing Egypt’s domestic policy is almost sure to follow.

Despite Morsi’s personal assurance to media chiefs that press freedom would not be restricted, actions to suppress media criticism against Morsi are now fully underway. The day after Morsi’s “Sunday Coup,” police attempted to confiscate all copies of newspapers critical of the Muslim Brotherhood and suspended the broadcast license of a television station that has actively criticized Morsi in the past. Last week, Egypt’s upper house of parliament appointed new editors for the country’s 50 state-run newspapers, effectively placing the media under Brotherhood control.

Morsi now has control of all executive and legislative levers of powers, and has reinforced his authority by imposing control of the media. In such an environment, and given the stated long-term goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, the implications for Israel’s security and the future of the Camp David Accords are obvious.

To even the casual observer of Egyptian politics, Morsi is now fully in the driver’s seat as president. As such, Horowitz’s continued observations of the “Bokra, Insha’allah, Malesh” anthem seems entirely, metaphorically, relevant:

“Egyptians undergo an odd personality change behind the wheel of a car. …But put an Egyptian in the driver’s seat, and he shows all the calm and consideration of a hooded swordsman delivering Islamic justice.”

Getting nothing for $5 Billion
• August 21, 2012

$5 Billion!

Fifty-some laws. Most were meaningless.

That’s the Congressional record for 2012.

Largely dominated by the newly energized “Tea Party,” this Congress came to Washington two years ago with great expectations and promises to change Washington.

For sure, a few enormous changes have occurred since President Obama was elected four years ago. On his way out of office, President Bush sought and received $700 billion to bail out the big banks. President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus saved the auto industry and propped up state and local governments hit by the Great Recession. Obama also pushed through his signature health care law.
All that happened four years ago, before this Congress came into office.

Since then, nothing.

The Legislative Branch Appropriation now exceeds $5 billion per year, or more than $10 billion for each two-year session of Congress.

In the last two years, gridlock has only worsened and any pretense of compromise has disappeared.
In 1948, President Truman railed against a “do nothing” Congress. That Congress passed over 900 laws, relatively normal for the times. President Truman’s real complaint was not about how much Congress did. He simply opposed the laws Congress passed. He vetoed 75 of them, and Congress overrode his veto six times.

In more recent decades, Congress has passed approximately 400 new laws per session. This Congress has passed about 135 new laws, about eighty in 2011 and fifty-some this year. That’s 15% of what President Truman’s “do-nothing” Congress accomplished.

President Obama has vetoed only two laws, both three years ago. The last time a president vetoed only two laws was in 1881 by President James Garfield who was in office for only six months before being assassinated. Why so few vetoes with a President and Congress at odds with each other? Congress can’t get anything done. Congress has passed nothing for the President to sign into law or to veto.

So, what taxpayers get for $5 billion?

18 laws naming or renaming buildings.

25 non-controversial laws that did things such as approving negotiated real estate deals with states and cities, maintenance on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and increased prosecution of smugglers who build or finance tunnels into the US.

A handful of existing laws were extended for another year such as this year’s Social Security tax cut and rehiring temporary bankruptcy judges to handle the huge backlog of cases.

Five laws fall into the genuinely “new” or “big” category. Five? FIVE!!! Several were mostly about jobs — building highways and airports and reducing regulations on small businesses. Another prohibited Congressmen from trading on insider information.

That’s $5 billion.

That’s not to say that Congress hasn’t been busy. For the past few decades, approximately 8,000 to 9,000 new bills have been introduced during each two year term of Congress. This Congress introduced over 10,000, more than 1,000 more than ever before. In years past, Congress passed about 5% of laws introduced. This year, less than 1.5%.

Most of those 10,000 bills were mere grandstanding, intended to make a statement or enhance a voting record for re-election purposes. (I know. I worked in the Senate for three years and did just that.) For example, this Congress introduced dozens of bills to repeal Obama’s health care law and voted three dozen times, knowing that they would fail.

Even so, this Congress worked fewer hours. Most Congresses are in session about 2,500 hours every two years. This Congress was in session for 1,900 hours, and has declared that the year over, awaiting the election.

Many want Congress do less, to pass fewer laws. Some suggest a part-time Congress. Maybe that’s what we have, though we pay for the full freight.

This Congress kicked the can down the road as never before, but it also painted itself into a corner. Next year will be different by necessity and isn’t going to be pretty.

Expiring Bush tax cuts will force tax changes, like it or not.

The debt ceiling will be reached again and will require action, like it or not.

Automatic, but unidentified, $1.2 billion in spending cuts that Congress passed last year go into effect in January. Those changes will not happen silently or easily. And may be undone.

Next year, Congress has nowhere to hide and much to do.

Whither the Corcoran?
• August 10, 2012

For a few months now, rumors and facts about the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the College of Art and Design have been swirling through the press, among bloggers, students, local artist and Corcoran members.

The historic Flagg buildings which houses the gallery has been put on the market. Board of trustees’ chairman Harry Hopper III acknowledged as much again in a letter sent to Corcoran members on July 20 and stated that no decision to actually sell the classic, much admired property had as yet been made.

The Corcoran scheduled two town hall community meetings in August, the first of which was held last week featuring a panel that included faculty member, and noted artist Bill Dunlap, performance artists and poet Holly Bass, Philip Brookman, the Corcoran’s chief curator, and Mark Schwartz, the Corcoran’s director of development and communications, who moderated the affair.

The auditorium at the Corcoran was about 75 percent full for the meeting, and most of the people there, many of them members or students, were plainly frustrated, angry and puzzled. Because Corcoran officials, including Hopper, had indicated that there was some consideration about actually selling the Flagg building and moving the Corcoran and presumably its collection to the suburbs, either in Virginia or Maryland, many people became alarmed. “You would be committing suicide if you do such a thing,” one member said. Dunlap, whose career was helped by having exhibitions of his work at the Corcoran, said that the Corcoran was losing touch with its institutional memory and the local arts community. “Where are the exhibitions of local artists today?” he asked. “An institution that loses its connection to the community is going to lose its soul.” Dunlap suggested that a serious attempt be made to get philanthropists and businesses to donate. “People like that can keep a sale like that from happening,” he said. “I mean, this isn’t just a business. It’s a treasure. It’s part of the heart and soul of the community. You can’t start selling things off like it’s some mergers and acquisition deal.”

Brookman suggested that the Corcoran might perhaps consider re-inventing itself. “I think this must become a modern art museum, full-service, with interaction from the community and with visitors, programs that encourage people to come and get a full experience.”

“It would be a tragedy if the Corcoran were to sell this building,” Bass said.

Schwartz assured people that the Corcoran would continue to hold its scheduled exhibitions through 2014. “No decision has been made on the sale. There is no imminent closing or sale or anything like that. “
Even so, there was a sense of urgency at the meeting, a sense of something imminent. It’s true that the Corcoran has been having its share of problems. It’s been under critical attack. Its planned renovation and extension with a Frank Gehry-designed project fell through, and it is now on its third director over a short period of time.

The fate of the Corcoran’s own large collection was not mentioned, save for assurances that selling it off was not being considered.

A search firm is now working on finding a replacement for temporary director Fred Bollerer, a banker who focused on the Corcoran’s financial issues. In fact, it’s the gallery that’s losing money while the school has been financially sound and successful.

“What we’re doing here is opening a community dialogue, we want to listen to what you have to say,” Schwartz said. “No decision on the sale has been made.”

Another community meeting, focusing specifically on the college of art and design, is scheduled for Aug. 23.

Jim, Carl and Myself and Our Embrace of Civility
• August 8, 2012

Please don’t tell anyone, but some of my friends are evangelical conservative Republicans, my political polar opposites.

I am a talking voice on an Internet radio political talk show in small rural southern county begun and moderated by an Episcopalian vicar.

I am an unapologetic Democrat on a program that broadcasts to an audience that is close to 65-percent Republican. Two of the local county commissioners, Jim and Carl, are unabashedly evangelical conservatives who, despite a federal court ruling to the contrary, open county commissioner meetings with Christian prayers. They led the opposition to same sex marriage.

Regardless, I like Jim and Carl.

I’ve known Jim for 40 years. If I were drowning, I bet he would be the first to dive in to save me. I knew of Carl – I didn’t really like him – but I met him across the table every week as one of the Republican talking voices, and I now really enjoy being with him.

Most of the time, I find myself swimming upstream advocating my theories that government is important, does good and is critical to helping make tomorrow better than today. That makes me a liberal. In today’s world, I cannot be called much worse. Carl and Jim generally believe the best government is the least government and support traditional values, that is, that yesterday was better than today.

The U.S. political axis shifted in the 1960s. We put a man on the moon, but we also expanded the social safety net and waged a failed War on Poverty. Voters began shifting to conservatism. President Richard Nixon exploited the politics of division. When he declared that he was not a crook, government became the enemy, not the friend, of the people, even though the government is us.

Carl and I laugh way too much. We and the other talking voices share humorous emails during the week.
We also agree on a surprising number of issues, or at least, find a lot of middle ground. Maybe too much. Every week, I find myself saying, “If anyone hears that I agree with Carl, it may ruin my reputation.”

Carl jokes likewise.

That’s not to say that Carl and I don’t disagree. We do, but we are never disagreeable or nasty toward each other. I miss Carl when he is not there. He genuinely believes what he believes and that makes me think. And we laugh.

One question last week was, “What is necessary to revitalize our county’s economy?”

I said: “For decades, the county’s economy was dependent on textiles. Almost 10,000 jobs are gone and are not coming back. Independent drug stores like my family’s are being crushed or swallowed by CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. The only answer, in my opinion, is to have a strong education system that produces a highly qualified workforce and strong leadership that aggressively chases smart businesses because we offer them a workforce and lifestyle no one else can. Amazon is opening 140 new warehouses around the country. Why not here?”

Carl talked about reducing regulations and the importance of widening the interstate highway in the county. I agreed having been through a regulatory purgatory but reminded him that building highways was a government action.

Carl and the other participants on the broadcast are different than I am. They put their names, their ideas and their reputations on the ballot. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Only the test of fire makes fine steel.” They face the heat of public opinion. I only write about it.

Certainly, I’ve disagreed with Jim and Carl – particularly on the public prayer issue – and have said so to them publicly. But, if I ever ran for office and won – both very unlikely – I’m confident that we would get along, find a lot of common ground and have some laughs along the way.

A few weeks ago, I met Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe on MSNBC. He talked about how “vile” Washington has become because congressmen no longer know each other personally. He talked about his first term as a Republican congressman when he was hell-bent against a Democrat who had proposed new legislation. One day, he picked his daughter up at kindergarten and learned that her best friend was the Democrat’s daughter. He thought, “Oh, my God, he’s a nice guy. I can’t attack him.” He toned down his rhetoric and worked out a compromise.

President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill were on opposite sides of the political spectrum but famously shared drinks and laughter after dark.

Washington must find a way to be pleasant to each other again. Only then will government work again.

See you next week, Carl.

The Dancing Monkeys of Libor
• August 7, 2012

Aesop tells the fable of a prince who had trained some monkeys how to dance. As natural mimics, they soon proved to be very good dancers. And when dressed in rich clothes and masks, they danced as well as any of the human courtiers. The spectacle at the lavish parties the prince held became wildly popular throughout the land and was repeated each night to great applause from the partygoers.

Applied today, at a time where the extremely affluent are today’s self-appointed royalty, the prince could be the CEO of any of the world’s superbanks: Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, or Deutsche Bank. No commercial arena has consolidated more power, influence and wealth. In that glamorous world of hedge fund managers and investment executives, the monkeys—the lowest-of-the-low (with the low bonuses and salaries to prove it)—are the money market traders.

Until the financial boom began to show signs of slowing, there was no real incentive for the royals of finance to pay any attention to their money market traders. With their princes awash in cash, this band roamed the dense jungles of finance from The City of London to Wall Street, happily feeding off scraps. One day in 2007, however, the jungle caught fire and began to consume their collective habitat. Cash flew out of high rise windows. Banks began to fail. Panic ensued.

A few years earlier, Thomas Haye, and Philippe Moryoussef, both former derivatives traders, began to form loose cells of fellow traders from the other superbanks to manipulate interest rates. They had one goal: to obtain advance knowledge of the benchmark interest rate. Together, they communicated with the money market traders—the monkeys—and then colluded to rig the world’s benchmark interest rate, called the “Libor.” The adjustments were slight—usually just fractions of a percentage point—with the specific intent to eliminate any uncertainty in the rise or fall of the core interest rate.

It was a dazzling and grand scheme. Today, the Libor is tied to up to an estimated $800 trillion in financial derivatives and instruments worldwide.

And so it went. Suddenly, the prince’s monkeys found themselves in the spotlight, with a key role in eliminating uncertainty for the superbankers—the princes. They were now thrust on center stage.

The advanced rigging was often done in bars and pubs over champagne.

“Come on over; I’ll open a bottle of Bollinger,” one trader emailed his colleague after a triumphant Libor rigging session. To another monkey trader he exclaimed, “Dude. I owe you big time!

… I’m opening a bottle of Bollinger.”

What’s the harm in a little Bollinger?

When I recently asked one veteran Wall Street friend his thoughts on the Libor scandal, he shrugged. “Nothing significant will be done about it because the adjustments were done mostly on the downside, not the upside.”

It’s taken me a while to frame my thoughts on this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that my Wall Street friend is wrong. Libor matters to everyone. Everyone who borrows money—whether it’s a car loan, student loan, credit card, mortgage or personal loan is affected by what happens to the Libor, because it affects the cost of money for all of us. So, if the Libor rate was artificially high when you took out any of those loans, you were effectively ripped off.

Many pension funds are also pegged to the Libor. Cities like Baltimore are suing the superbanks involved with artificially rigging interest rates because of the adverse affects the rigging had on their city pension funds.

Superbanks who were in relatively weak financial shape arranged through the growing Libor cartel to artificially inflate or deflate their interest rates to give the false impression that they were strong and creditworthy.

What’s perhaps most intriguing about the Libor scandal is how brazenly and open the collusion was:

“Hi Guys, We got a big position in 3m libor for the next 3 days. Can we please keep the lib or fixing at 5.39 for the next few days. It would really help. We do not want it to fix any higher than that. Tks a lot.”

–Senior trader in New York to submitter

Senior Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve Officials openly admitted that the Libor was “deeply flawed,” and yet proceeded to use the same rigged rates for federal bailout programs like TARP, knowing that in doing so, they were saving the superbanks billions and billions of dollars.

So, even if you still don’t know what Libor is, know this: it’s a very big deal, and we’re all affected. “This is the banking industry’s tobacco moment,” said one bank’s CEO. “It’s that big.” An investigating official recently remarked, “It’s hard to imagine a bigger case than Libor.”

Aesop’s fable goes on to relate how the prince’s monkey’s were received with great applause, until on one occasion a courtier, bent on mischief, took from his pocket a handful of nuts and threw them upon the stage. The Monkeys at the sight of the nuts forgot their dancing and became (as indeed they were) Monkeys instead of actors.

Pulling off their masks and tearing their robes, they fought with one another for the nuts. The dancing spectacle came to an end amidst the laughter and ridicule of the audience.

Let’s hope that the Libor Cartel Show has come to an end, and that the Glass–Steagall Act is being brought back to replace it.

Aurora: Is This the Price That We Must Pay?
• July 27, 2012

It is now day five of the national, Colorado and personal tragedy to which we—all of us, we pundits the least of them—are responding to the horror that occurred at a movie theatre at a screening of the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colo.

On Friday, in the a.m. minutes of midnight, a lone gunman, armored to the max in protective gear, and armed with two glocks, a shotgun and an assault rifle, commenced on a shooting rampage which ended up with 12 persons dead and 58 wounded.

Because we live in a time when communication is instant, terrifically mobile, digitalized, able to leap from cellphone to iPad to cellphone to computer by tweet and text, we became enveloped a little faster on our screens, large, flat or telephone sized. The tragedy this way becomes more fluid, the static impenetrable, the desire to guess, gauge our feelings, voice our opinions, our anger growing, until it is stifled by the over all sadness.

But here were are, thinking of past events, watching what’s going on now. This, like Columbine and Virginia Tech, before it, is a different event, in magnitude, in speed of information travel, in reaction, in just about anything you can think of.

This was an event that occurred in the middle of a national election campaign and several things happened because of that. Both campaigns immediately curtailed the airing of political commercials, most of which these days are attack ads from both the Romney and Obama campaigns but only in Colorado. The ads played endlessly in the rest of the country, interrupting and trailing the tragedy like a surreal pack of feral and viral dogs. Even the reaction to the tragedy statements by Romney and Obama seemed appropriately solemn and similar.

The fact that the president came to Aurora to comfort the victims on Sunday was not nearly as important as the fact that Brian Williams was there on Friday, along with all the other anchors, reporters, experts and intoners. The experts—shrinks, psychologists, criminologists, profilers—were on hand, trotting briskly out of some generic office to offer their opinions about the suspect, and clarifying nothing much.

The appearance of James Holmes in court on Monday—bewildered, sleepy, apparently, disengaged, likely—did not help matters, and whatever details emerged about his life and childhood in the end matter very little. He is who he is, and he is not the two kids at Columbine, the shooter at Virginia Tech or the officer at Fort Hood.

Warner Brothers, which produced the Batman series and the midnight showings, offered to participate in a fund for victims. Midnight screenings are a lucrative, and deliberate experience created as a kind of communal event in which audience goers get to be first to see and interact, with people dressing up in costumes waiting in hours in line.

Here’s a thought for Warner Brothers: why don’t you give ALL of the midnight screening receipts (reported to be more than $30 million) as a show of empathy, and sympathy for the victims. It would be a smart and right thing to do.

Here’s another suggestion. Can we see a few politicians (including President Obama and Mr. Romney) stand up even if their knees are shaking and take on the National Rifle Association and propose a ban on automatic firearms and better screenings for gun purchases? The NRA is not some universal rod and gun club, it’s a very, powerful lobbying group and it’s about money, not Second Amendment rights.

And speaking of that, all you principled folks who see a conspiracy to take away your hunting rifle, your home and person protection glock or your anti-tank weapon, and who think that the occasional crazy event with multiple victims is the price we pay for liberty, here’s a suggestion.

Go to Aurora, visit the friends, loved ones, relative, father, mother, wife, children of one of the victims, and you make that argument in person. Look them in the face. You tell them that the death of that little girl, or the death of the person they love, or the memories that will never leave them is the price we pay for liberty. You might want to bring a gun. Things could get dicey. ?

Court Ruling on Obamacare Gets Personal for This Father
•

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m OK,” my son slurred into my phone.

I was at lunch with a friend. It was THE call every parent fears.

“What’s wrong, Ari? Where are you?”

“I can’t talk,” he mumbled. “Here’s Mom. Your bike’s OK.”

“My bike?”

“Ari was hit by a car while riding his bike to work about two hours ago,” Fiona said. “We’re in the trauma unit at George Washington Hospital.”

“Huh?” I stammered.

“His helmet saved his life. There’s a spot on his brain. He’ll have another MRI in six hours. The doctors think it’s just a bruise and not brain damage. His upper jaw is crushed, and he lost all his front teeth. He’s got years of dental problems. But he’s alive.”

Ari was a hit and run victim on a street with a marked bike lane. He dragged himself onto grass, found his cell, called 911, and memorized the car’s tag as it drove away. A nearby taxi did the same.

A spot on his brain, a crushed jaw, four to six front teeth gone? I was numb.

I excused myself from lunch and headed to Washington.

For the next 375 miles, my mind was a jumble of thoughts. My son? What if the spot on his brain doesn’t go away? What if he’s brain damaged? Will he have headaches forever? What do you fix a crushed palate? Can he chew? How are teeth attached to a crushed palate? What else is broken? What’s he going to look like? What will he look like when it’s over? How much pain is he in? How is he going to eat? How long will he be in the hospital? Have the police been notified? Have they found the driver?

By the time I arrived, the second MRI showed no spot. No brain damage. He’s alive. All else was irrelevant. Either of those would have changed his life, and mine, irreparably worse forever.

Ari was released that night. Immediate attention by the trauma dentist was recommended. The next day, with incredible skill and an array of unimaginable technology, Dr. Singer reconstructed a temporary palate with bone tissue from a cow and six temporary teeth within two hours. It’s not as pretty as thousands of dollars of orthodontia, but it’s better than no front teeth.

The dental bill that day: $15,000. Cash. Money Ari didn’t have. (My bank floated me an immediate loan.) The estimated cost to finish his oral reconstruction: another $30,000 to $80,000.

I’ve not seen the bill for the ambulance, 14 hours in the trauma unit at George Washington University Hospital, two MRIs, several ER docs, X-rays, readings and exams by a radiologist, neurologist, orthopedist, and trauma dentist, and a gaggle of IVs, wires, and tubes.

Certainly, not cheap. Call his mom and me poor health care consumers, but it never occurred to us to enter “the market” to shop for the right—best or cheapest or most convenient or other market factor—hospital, ambulance, trauma unit, specialty doctors and so on.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was preparing to issue its opinion on Obamacare. Ari will be 26 in a few months. Suddenly, Obamacare became very personal.

If the Court threw out Obamacare, would it be retroactive? Would Ari, who is on his mother’s health care plan, suddenly have no insurance?

Would Ari suddenly be saddled with more than a hundred thousand dollars of medical bills?
Is this now a pre-existing condition? When he turns 26 in a few months, would he be able to get health insurance? At what cost?

Will his insurance company be allowed to cancel his insurance? Will his insurance have a maximum coverage limit?

Ironically, opponents of Obamacare support those key provisions. A number of Congressmen who voted against and openly oppose Obamacare use it to cover their children between ages 21 and 26.

Obamacare was the brainchild of conservative Republicans who opposed President Clinton’s health care plan. Insurance companies bought in. Governor Romney proposed and adopted it in Massachusetts. President Obama decided that the only way to reform health care for the nation was to follow the Republican approach. Most parents embrace their children, but because Republicans oppose Obama, they now oppose the health care solution they conceived.

If the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, my son was OK. If it didn’t, he wasn’t.

Thank you, John Roberts. My son is covered. I have peace of mind.

No parent wants their child to be in my son’s situation without Obamacare. ?

JACK EVANS REPORT: TAXICAB BILL’S UBER AMENDMENT KEEPS D.C. TECH-FRIENDLY
•

Last week, the Council received an unusual
amount of attention when it considered
how a pending bill regarding taxicab
modernization might impact a new car service
called “Uber.” Anyone who was not familiar
with Uber before the debate likely is by now, and
I personally received about 5,000 emails from
concerned residents who want to make sure they
can continue to enjoy this transportation option.

Though there were strong opposing views on
the underlying taxicab bill, it sought to address
issues of importance to anyone who has ever
ridden in a D.C. taxi and wished for a better
experience. For example, the bill would move us
toward credit/debit card readers in all taxicabs, a
passenger information monitor displaying a trip
map and other content, and a driver information
monitor with an electronic manifest and GPS
navigation. In other words, as in so many areas
of our government, the District is finally moving
toward meeting baseline expectations that even
much smaller jurisdictions have been requiring
for years.

So how does this impact Uber? Uber is
a technology company that connects licensed
sedan drivers with consumers who want a convenient,
high-quality transportation option, through
the use of a smartphone app. Apparently, Uber’s
pricing model, which uses both a time and distance
factor for calculating rates, has been viewed
by the taxicab commission as operating in a legal
gray area despite existing regulations seeming
to permit such a rate. It was my position that
Uber’s status should be clarified in order to make
the service explicitly legal, but I disagreed with
Councilmember Cheh’s approach, which would
have mandated a minimum price for Uber that is
a full 5 times that of a taxi.

Councilmember Cheh presented her goal as being to simply maintain
status quo by memorializing the pricing structure
currently in place, but her draft would have also
subjected many other aspects of the business,
such as advertising and types of vehicles offered,
to taxicab commission regulation. Uber asserted
that any price floor would be counterproductive,
preventing them from being able to provide
lower costs to consumers if possible within their
business model.

I agree. When Councilmember Cheh was confronted
by other Councilmembers about the significance of making
this type of change to the proposed law
without an additional public hearing,
she removed all Uber provisions from the
bill pending further discussion in the fall.

Unfortunately, unless another change was
made to the bill, Councilmember Cheh’s action
would have forced Uber not only to continue to
operate in this gray area, subject to unfair ticketing
by the taxicab commission, but also subjected
them to additional regulation contained
in the larger taxi bill being passed that day.

To fix this situation, I offered an amendment, with
the support of my colleagues Tommy Wells,
David Catania, and Michael Brown, to explicitly
authorize Uber’s operations while providing
reasonable safeguards to protect the public.
Specifically, my amendment requires that: (1)
an estimated fare is available to the user when
the application is used to book a sedan; (2) the
method for calculating the fare structure is provided
by the business to the user of the mobile
application prior to booking a sedan; (3) upon
completion of the trip, the customer is provided
a receipt that lists the pick-up point, drop-off
point, and total fare paid; and (4) the business
providing the mobile application uses sedans that
are licensed.

After extensive debate and minor tweaks, my
amendment was accepted by the full Council,
with the exception of Councilmember Graham.
This part of the law will sunset on December
31, 2012, however, at which time we will have
to either extend the law or move a new consensus
legislative solution for Uber.

Advocates for additional government regulation will say that
all transportation services need to be heavily
regulated, but I would point out that the service
offered by Uber is a far cry from the days when
any D.C. resident or tourist getting a ride
to the airport in a taxi could count on only one
thing – that they would be charged a different
fare than the last time they went, even
from the same location, with no articulated rationale.

Uber provides clear pricing details tied to time and GPS
tracking, as well as a receipt containing a map of
the actual route taken, and its future competitors
undoubtedly will provide that level of information
as well. Inefficient routes are scrutinized by
customer support staff and adjusted if necessary.

Any attempts to overcharge would quickly be
remedied as consumers voted with their feet by
choosing other companies, filing a class action
lawsuit, or simply filing a complaint with their
credit card company. Absent that, it is not much
more difficult to file a suit in small claims court
than to make a taxicab commission complaint,
and by all accounts the outcomes are fairer in
the former venue.

A better arena for regulation is to address
the real need of preventing discrimination by
drivers in passengers picked up or destinations
serviced–unfortunately for those who are
pro-taxi commission, this factor also counsels
against subjecting Uber’s full business to taxi
commission oversight. While I hear anecdotal
evidence of taxi drivers making discriminatory
decisions as to which potential riders to stop and
pick up, Uber cannot be “hailed” but is rather is
pre-arranged at a pickup location. And while taxi
drivers concentrate their services in the central
business district and popular evening entertainment
areas, Uber will service any location within
the District. As Councilmember Alexander said
on the dais, Uber will pick up passengers east of
the Anacostia River routinely, and their final destination
is already confirmed before the pickup is
made. With a taxi dispatch, despite rules to the
contrary, I hear stories of folks waiting for two
hours, never to be picked up. And as to safety, all
of Uber’s drivers are licensed as sedan or limo
drivers in D.C., Virginia, or Maryland, and drive
routes predetermined through an iPhone application
and logged in the company’s GPS tracker
– adding an additional layer of regulation would
be akin to making lawyers pass bar exams, and
then saying their law firms have to somehow
take the exam, too, rather than simply apply for
the appropriate type of business license.

In addition to looking at Uber, it is important
to study the full landscape of transportation
options, including taxis, and I am pleased that
Councilmember Cheh is planning an additional
hearing in the fall. If the argument for a more
regulated Uber is that it otherwise places taxicabs
at a competitive disadvantage, perhaps we
need to explore ways to improve the quality and
thus competitive position of our taxis. I understand
that Uber partners with taxi drivers in
Chicago to accomplish this very purpose, which
might be a positive development here as well.
As with the LivingSocial debate, I would rather
encourage technology companies to have a presence
in the District than create incentives for
them to leave. Please let Councilmember Cheh
and your other elected representatives know of
your support for Uber’s service, and the need to
allow a new business to create jobs and operate
without unnecessary government interference. ?

Gray’s Smoke Becomes a Fire: Time to Evacuate?
•

In politics, it’s often amazing how fast a political scandal can turn into a firestorm.

In the District of Columbia, the bubbling, ever ongoing Vincent Gray mayoral campaign scandal has heated up big-time, in the space of a few days. If the scandal were a forest fire, you could call it Colorado. In other words, there’s a hot time in the old town tonight.

Consider this: Tuesday, Jeanne Clarke Harris admitted in U.S. District Court that she helped distribute funds in the amount of more than $600,000 from D.C. Jeffrey Thompson to the late-charging 2010 mayoral campaign of then D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray in what turned out to be a convincing win over incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty. Harris, a 75-year-old public relations professional, made the admissions in a plea bargain with the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr., who had called these efforts, already part of the ongoing scandal, as a “shadow campaign” for Gray, with undocumented and unaccounted for donations.

Harris was the third person to plead guilty to some form of campaign irregularity. Thomas W. Gore and Howard L. Brooks, both members of the Gray campaign, admitted to planning and executing a scheme which saw minor candidate Sulaimon Brown being paid to stay in the race and attack Fenty.

Just like that, the story heated up. Gray, during a bi-weekly press conference, answered some questions about the latest developments in a half-hearted manner, asking the press to separate the campaign from the record of the administration. He also said, when asked if would finish his term in office, that he had “no plans to do otherwise.”

By nightfall, things had changed rapidly, as in the Channel 9 anchor who opened with “Should Mayor Vincent Gray resign? News 9 wants to know.”

Well, who doesn’t? Only now has the “R” word — only whispered about or gossiped about at Starbucks and street corner chit chat in various neighborhoods or not for quotation talk among politicians — gotten bandied about in a serious way. No less than three council members called for Gray’s resignation.

At-large councilman David Catania charged that the Gray campaign was “involved in the largest single criminal conspiracy in the history of modern home rule” and said Gray should resign. Ward 4 councilwoman Muriel Bowser also called for Gray’s resignation. Bowser, a Fenty choice to succeed him in his ward has also made noises that she has mayoral ambitions.

Most difficult and problematical for Gray is the fact that Ward 3 councilwoman Mary Cheh also called for his resignation, in what seems to the most difficult and perhaps most principled of such calls. Cheh, after all, backed Gray in his run against Fenty, while her constituency in the end voted overwhelmingly for Fenty. She did so with obvious reluctance but without any doubt.

The Washington Post, went into full-pads, full-court press mode on the story by July 12, with editorials blasting Gray and calling for a full accounting by him and what it headlined — on its editorial page — as “A Tainted Administration” along with further damaging stories and details and a column in which the writer called him “mayor-for-now.”

Watching a video of the press conference, you have to wonder what is going on with Gray. He held the conference in Northeast, presenting a report on greening of the city’s alleys, made jokes about so many reporters showing up for this event. But, Gray, who has never talked in detail about the ongoing scandal on advice of his attorney, other than at first to say he was innocent, and then not to say anything at all, answered a few questions. Asked about the campaign, Gray replied, quietly, that “This was not the campaign we set out to run.” His separation of his campaign and his administration struck some observers as odd. Nevertheless, that’s what’s been happening during the course of the Gray era — which may yet turn out to be one of the shortest ever.

Since Gray’s January 2011 inauguration, the ensuing two and a half years or so have been characterized by an influx of new residents, the balancing of the budget and successes in crime fighting. However, the foreground has always been seized by indictments, the departure of two prominent members of the District Council, including its chairman Kwame Brown, and sporadic news about charges and indictments into the mayor’s campaign. The fire kept right on burning.

With the indictment and admissions of Harris, it appears a kind of Rubicon has been crossed — or a flashpoint reached. Gray’s silence throughout this mess has been oppressively loud and deafening. Asked to comment on talk that “the mayor is corrupt,” Gray responded: “I know who I am. I get up every morning and look in the mirror, and I see someone I respect.”

The fire storm is still burning. For Gray, it must feel as if his political house is burning down around him. Is it time for him to evacuate? People want to know.