Thursday, October 15, 2015
Where's Waldo-A Brief History
Th’ Raypublican Party broke ye, but now that ye’re down,
we’ll not turn a cold shoulder to ye. Come in an’ we’ll keep
ye-broke. — Finley Peter Dunne, Mr.Dooley’s Opinions
We all know how dispiriting it must be to have the party held up to ridicule because a conservative part of the party continues to make trouble for the few of its members who have a semblance of (if often difficult to discern) good sense. The purpose of this column is to remind Republicans that this is not the first time they have found themselves at a place where a Speaker of the House decided to resign because of intra-party fighting. To refresh memories it is only necessary to go back to the departure of Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House in 1998.
Mr. Gingrich’s departure was precipitated by the 1998 election in which Republicans unexpectedly lost a number of seats in the House that they had expected to win. He was blamed by some in his party for the loss and a few hours before Mr. Gingrich announced his intention to step down, Bob Livingston, a Republican from Mississippi, announced his intention to challenge Mr. Gingrich for the position of Speaker of the House at the election scheduled for November 18, 1998. In announcing his resignation, Mr. Gingrich, used words that sounded very much like those John Boehner would use almost 20 years later. Addressing the press, he said: “Today I have reached a difficult personal decision. The Republican conference needs to be unified, and it is time for me to move forward where I believe I still have a significant role to play for our country and our party.” In a conference call with Republican colleagues he said, “We need to purge the poisons from the system.” (On January 3, 1999, Mr. Gingrich resigned from Congress.) Mr. Boehner, in explaining his resignation, said he was not being forced out by his colleagues but: “When you’re the Speaker of the House your number one responsibility is to the institution. And having a vote like this in the institution I don’t think is very healthy. “ The question on everyone’s lips is whether the successor to Mr. Boehner will prove to be of more admirable character than the person who was elected to replace Mr. Gingrich but never served or the person who was elected and served four years notwithstanding his subsequently discovered character flaw.
Following Mr. Gingrich’s resignation, Bob Livingston was selected as the Speaker-elect by the members of his caucus. He resigned before taking office. He succumbed to the effects of a campaign put on by Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler Magazine. The debate over the impeachment of President Clinton was going on and Flynt, critical of the self-righteous Republicans attacking Mr. Clinton for his affair with Monica, offered one million dollars for each story about sexual indiscretions by members of Congress he was given. One such story pertained to Mr. Livingston, and it revealed that although married, he had had affairs during the preceding ten years. Following that disclosure Mr. Livingston resigned as Speaker-elect and relinquished his House seat in May 1999. (Mr. Livingston was replaced in the House by David Vitter who subsequently became the first popularly elected Republican U.S. senator from Louisiana. While serving as a senator he admitted to having been involved in a prostitution ring several years earlier but said that he had requested and received forgiveness “from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling.” He also received forgiveness from his constituents. He continues to serve in the U.S. Senate.)
Since Mr. Livingston resigned from the House, it was necessary to find a successor to serve as Speaker. Determined to find someone with unimpeachable credentials, the caucus settled on Dennis Hastert and he served from January 7, 2003 to January 3, 2007. He was liked by all and was well qualified to serve. Just before his election he was instrumental in getting legislation passed to prevent use of the Internet to encourage sexual acts with children. A report in Politico said that at an Internet forum he held in his home district he said: “We must continue to be proactive warding off pedophiles and other creeps who want to take advantage of our children.”
On September 28, 2015 it was announced that he and his attorneys were engaged in discussions seeking a possible plea deal to dispose of two felony counts facing Mr. Hastert that were brought against him in June 2015 by Chicago’s U.S. attorney. A report in “Politico said Mr. Hastert had allegedly paid an unidentified former male student $3.5 million over a period of years to keep the individual from disclosing “what was reportedly past sexual misconduct by Mr. Hastert.” The past misconduct may be the kind of conduct his legislation sought to prevent. On October 15, 2015 it was announced that on October 28 he would plead guilty to at least one of the charges that had been brought against him. The settlement will spare Mr. Hastert a trial in which details of alleged past sexual conduct might become public.
I’m sure that all my readers join me in wishing the Republican caucus good luck in finding a new Speaker of unblemished character. They may want to do some background checks since, as the foregoing suggests, being a member of Congress does not mean the member is of good moral character.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
The NRA (Again)
One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.
—Anton Chekhov, Letter to Lazarev-Gruzinsky
Once again we are confronted with a school shooting, the 45th in 2015 and the 142nd since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. We have, of course, grown accustomed to shootings in which four or more people are killed in one incident. Those events are considered to be mass shootings by Mass Shooting Tracker, a group that studies these events. After each mass shooting followers of those events await words of comfort from the NRA, since many in the country attribute the frequency of those events to the zealous support of gun rights by the NRA. Being the guns’ best friend, no one is in a better position than that organization to reassure the country that lenient gun laws have nothing to do with the frequency of these tragedies.
As eager as we are to receive reassurances from the NRA’s executive director, Wayne LaPierre, following these events, it is unrealistic to expect him to offer words of comfort after every mass shooting. Given the fact that there have been 295 mass shootings in 2015 alone, if we expected Wayne to offer solace after each of those events he would have to hold press conferences almost every day of the year and come up with different words of sympathy for the victims and those traumatized by these events. Even if he were to only comment after school shootings, the need for him to appear publicly would be unnecessarily burdensome and deprive him of the opportunity to do other meaningful work for the NRA. Since there have been 45 school shootings in 2015 alone, that would mean more than 4 press conferences a month and at some point people might start to think that if Wayne has to explain away each such tragedy perhaps the problem is really the omnipresence of the gun rather than the mentally unbalanced shooter. And, of course, if it’s comfort we want we can always go back to his historical comments about school massacres.
Following the Newtown school massacre, the NRA’s first response, issued four days after the shooting, was quiet and reasonable. It simply said: “We were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown. Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting. The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.” Three days later, a full investigation having apparently been completed to the NRA’s satisfaction, Wayne held a press conference in which he announced the NRA’s meaningful contribution. He suggested that to avoid future school shooting there should be armed police officers in every school in this nation. That has not happened and explains why school massacres continue to occur.
There have been no formal announcements from the NRA following the South Carolina or Oregon massacres. Following the Charleston massacre, NRA spokesperson, Jennifer Baker, said the NRA would have nothing to say, “until all the facts are known.” All the facts are still not known by the NRA and it has nadnothing further to say about that massacre. The same is true for the Oregon massacre. Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesperson for the NRA was asked for a response to President Obama’s criticism of Congress for its inaction with respect to the manufacture and sale of guns. Mr. Arulanandam used the same words the NRA spokespeople had earlier used saying that the NRA’s policy is “not to comment until all the facts are known.” Although the rest of the country thinks all the facts are known, the NRA does not, and neither Wayne nor his spokespeople have issued any comments. (One person has commented, however-presidential candidate and neurosurgeon, Ben Carson. He suggested that President Obama was politicizing the Oregon massacre by embracing the families of the dead. In a Facebook question and answer session described in the New York Times he offered his version of comfort to the families of the victims saying: “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.”)
Here is one bit of trivia that may have escaped readers’ notice and give them comfort. Following the Sandy Hook massacre, NRA membership dues income increased from $108 million to $176 million, a 62% increase. The organization’s surplus went to $57 million. Since the NRA is a 501©(3) organization it pays no income tax. If history is an instructor, we can be confident the Oregon massacre will boost membership in the NRA and increase the number of citizens of walking around with guns. That, the NRA would say, makes us all safer. Readers may decide for themselves whether it’s right.
Mea culpa. Thanks to readers who observed that I did not seem to know the difference between Beatles as a musical phenomenon and beetles from the insect world in titling last week’s column.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Nuts and Beetles
—Sir William Schwenk Gilbert, The MikadoMy object all sublime,
I shall achieve in time-
To let the punishment fit the crime.
Although I have never met Martin Winterkorn, the purpose of this column is to offer him the reassurance I am sure he badly needs. The news about his company’s misfortune came out at almost exactly the same time we learned of the sentencing of Stewart Parnell. News of that sentencing has probably given Mr. Winterkorn considerable concern. It needn’t. That’s because there is a difference between how the U.S. Justice system deals with criminal conduct involving cars and criminal conduct involving peanuts.
Stewart Parnell is the 61-year-old millionaire owner of the now defunct Peanut Corporation of America who was just sentenced to 28 years in prison. It all happened because of peanuts. In 2008 there was a salmonella outbreak that killed 9 people and sickened 714 others. The outbreak was traced back to peanut butter paste that Mr. Parnell’s company shipped to its customers. At the time of the shipments the company knew the shipments were contaminated with salmonella. At his criminal trial in 2014, Mr. Parnell was convicted of 72 counts of fraud, conspiracy and the introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce. The sentence was a good news-bad news scenario for Mr. Parnell. The bad news was that he was the first corporate executive of a food company to be convicted of felony charges arising out of food poisoning caused by the company’s product. The good news was that he was only sentenced to 26 years in prison. The conviction could have resulted in a sentence of 803 years in prison but the judge decided Mr. Parnell was entitled to leniency and imposed a shorter sentence than the maximum allowed by law. Bill Marler who represented some of the victims of Mr. Parnell’s criminal conduct said: “Although his sentence is less than the maximum, it is the longest sentence ever in a food poisoning case. This sentence is going to send a stiff, cold wind through board rooms across the U.S.” Although not in the U.S., a boardroom in Wolfsburg, Germany may be feeling the chill and one of the occupants feeling the stiff cold wind may be Mr. Winterkorn. If recent events are a guide, however, he doesn’t need a sweater to protect him from the cold. The American justice system will do the trick.
At almost the same time that Mr. Parnell was sentenced, we learned that Volkswagen, a pillar of the automobile industry, had engaged in a different kind of corporate misbehavior from the peanut folk. It didn’t kill anyone outright. It just contributed more pollution to our world than anyone except a few people at Volkswagen, realized. Volkswagen’s transgressions are well known by now and need no reiteration here. Mr. Winterkorn and other Volkswagen executives who read about Mr. Parnell’s sentence may be worried that notwithstanding the absence of deaths as a result of their misconduct, they may nonetheless be facing long jail terms if found guilty of criminal conduct. They needn’t be concerned. That is because peanuts are different from cars,
There are two recent examples of corporate misbehavior by executives of car companies that have resulted in multiple deaths. General Motors executives, for example, knew that the company was installing faulty ignition switches in several models of cars it made. These switches caused the deaths of 124 people and severe injuries to another 275. Readers skilled in numbers will immediately note that the faulty ignition switch had much more serious consequences than the bad batches of peanut butter. Nonetheless, shortly before Mr. Parnell got his 28 years, General Motors agreed to pay a $900 million fine and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the government. No executive in that company will face criminal charges.
In 2014 Toyota agreed to pay a $1.2 billion penalty to settle the criminal probe into how it dealt with the consequences of the unintended acceleration problems that not only resulted in the deaths of a California Highway Patrol officer and three of his family members but the recall of 8.1 million vehicles. In announcing the Toyota settlement, then attorney general, Eric Holder, said: “Put simply, Toyota’s conduct was shameful.” At the time of the settlement of the criminal probe there were 400 wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits still pending because of the defect in Toyota’s vehicles. As a result of the settlement of the criminal probe, no one at Toyota needs to worry about facing any time in prison.
The foregoing is simply historical. All it is intended to do is to show Mr. Winterkorn and his colleagues that, although the Volkswagen Company may end up paying billions in fines and penalties, if history is a guide, no one in the company will go to prison, irrespective of what criminal investigations may disclose. And there is even a bright side to the fines that the company will have to pay. Although they will reduce the profitability of the company for the years in which the fines are paid that simply reduces the amount of money available to pay dividends to shareholders. It is a win-win situation. No one goes to jail and shareholders, rather than the executives, suffer the financial losses. That’s a great example of good old American know how. Christopher Brauchli can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com