Tag: Obama

July 4th 2023

I know I wrote in my last post that I was taking a break and that I would resume regular posting on July 21. Life and shit happens so here I am. In honor of July 4, I am posting something from 2008 when I, the country, and the world were so hopeful because Barack Obama had been elected.

Today it is hard to recapture that feeling since the Republicans and the Supreme Court are determined to return our country to a mythical past where Barack Obama could never had become President, women have no rights and the only people who count are white Christian men.

Another reason I decided to post today is I read about Childe Hassam in an email about art I received. Some of Hassam’s most famous pictures are of flags and this post has one. The promise of America is always present. We need to fight to retain and expand it. Happy July 4th.

November 23, 2008

Patriotism

This is a copy of a letter I wrote to the Amherst Bulletin. I loved the way the flags looked that day and it reminded me of a Childe Hassam painting. Hassam was one of my mothers’ favorite painters. I think it is very unfortunate that patriotism has become the province of the right. People of all political persuasions can be patriotic.

Nov. 10, 2008

Childe Hassam, Allies Day, May 17

To The Editor,

I know that the flying of the American flag in downtown Amherst has been a controversial subject; I confess that I have not paid that much attention to the issue. Today, Monday November 10th, I drove into town and was struck by the beauty of all the flags flying to commemorate Veterans Day on November 11th. The sight filled me with pride and love for my country which has just achieved the amazing feat of electing Barack Hussein Obama president. Our country is an ongoing endeavor but on November 4 we progressed further than I would ever have thought possible. Let us hope, pray, and work for such progress to continue throughout the – hopefully – eight years of the Obama administration.

Sincerely,

Amy Mittelman

 

 

ATF Appointment

This past July, Steven Dettelbach became the first permanent director that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and explosives has had in seven years. Dettlebach was not President Biden’s first choice, but he turned out to be the nominee who the Senate was willing to confirm. You can read about that here.

The ATF has always been a federal agency under attack from the NRA and the gun lobby. President Obama also had trouble staffing the Bureau. You can read my blog post about that, from 2013, here.

Dettelbach’s appointment pleased gun control and safety advocates who also had a victory with modest gun legislation passing this past summer. President Biden’s agenda for the ATF under Dettelbach includes cracking down on ghost guns and better oversight of federally licensed gun dealers.

This past week news broke that indicates Biden and his new director are making a difference. The revocation of guns has occurred at the highest rate since 2006. You can read more about the ATF’s work here. Hopefully, both the appointment of Dettelbach and President Biden’s commitment to meaningful gun control will lead to a reduction in gun deaths and mass killings.

Smoking

Any practicing nurse in Massachusetts has to renew his or her license every two years. As part of the license renewal process every nurse has to have done 15 hours of continuing education credits otherwise known as CEU’s. Before I retired it was very easy for me to acquire those 15 hours because of trainings and in service workshops that the agency I worked for provided.

This year the renewal process snuck up on me and I had to figure how to meet the CEUs requirement. There are places online that allow you to fulfill the requirements by reading scholarly articles on various topics and then filling out a questionnaire. One of the essays I chose was about tobacco and smoking cessation.

I found the article informative. Something that stood out is that young people are continuing to become smokers. This is concerning because once you have the habit it is very hard to break it. Reading the essay about tobacco reminded me that in 2009 I had written a blog post about the liquor industry facing new regulations that the Obama administration had passed. I am reposting it below.

The interesting thing about the original post was that I discussed how tobacco’s fortunes had fallen while brewers and distillers were enjoying a great deal of public support. Public health advocates were not gaining much traction in their attempts to convince the public to drink less.

Society approval of the liquor industry, particularly beer, has only continued to increase in the 13 years since I posted about those tobacco regulations. Not only did the liquor industry get a tax break from the Trump legislation but most municipalities are thrilled to have a craft brewery in their town or city.

Neither the article I read for my CEUs or the blog post from 2009 talk about marijuana, but marijuana has also gained in public approval as many states including Massachusetts where I live now have recreational sale of THC.

Tobacco Legislation

6/16/2009

Last week, Congress passed, and President Obama signed legislation that greatly enhances federal regulation of the tobacco industry. As a historian, I generally think change happens slowly but the rapidity with which American society has transformed from cultural acceptance, even approval of smoking, to a completely negative view is startling.

When I was growing up, my parents and almost all the adults I knew smoked. As a teenager and young adult smoking was both everywhere – bars, restaurants, public events, and arenas – and heavily advertised on television. In the forty-five years since the Surgeon General’s report on the harm smoking causes, there has been a warning label, a ban on television advertising, the creation of smoke-free indoor space and, recently, smoke-free outdoor spaces.

The newspaper stories discussing the pending legislation use the term “addiction” to describe the practice of smoking. This also represents significant change. For much of American history, society has characterized nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol as legal, primarily harmless habits. Alcohol was usually the most problematic of the three. Now, nicotine, although legal, falls under the broad category of psychoactive, addictive substances, similar in their effects on the body.

Moralists have always viewed smoking as undesirable behavior. This attitude kept women from smoking for many years. When smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke became a public health issue, the battle lines changed. If alcohol use and or abuse ever became predominantly a public health issue rather than one of individual choice or morality, brewers and distillers could face more of an uphill battle to maintain the legitimacy of their industry.

 

A New Day

In 2009, I went to President Obama’s first inauguration. It is lovely memory which I have been reflecting on this week. There is also a poignancy to thinking about that day since my brother was alive and well then but has been gone for over 7 years now.

I watched all of the inaugural festivities on Wednesday and thought they were perfect and beautiful. Obama’s first inauguration represented a new beginning and so does Biden’s. Four year of our worst president ever who also happened to be a fascist has erased what a bad president George W. Bush was.

Let us take the hope Biden’s presidency has inspired and turn it into action to defeat COVID, systemic racism and economic inequality. Here is my post from January 22, 2009, exactly 12 years ago.

Change Has Come

I went to Washington for the Inauguration. It was amazing. My husband and I were there from Saturday until yesterday. Saturday evening we went to a Fairfax County Democratic Ball which was very interesting. It is great that Virginia went Democratic for the first time since 1964.

Sunday we went to see a Lincoln exhibit at the National Museum of American History and also saw Julia Child’s kitchen. She had two copies of Joy of Cooking which I guess means that book was as indispensable to her as to the rest of America. We also met the director of the museum. He gave us directions.

Then we walked toward the Washington Monument to try to attend the We are One concert. We hooked up with a lovely young woman named Rima and her sister. Rima is a Washington native so she was very helpful and extraordinarily nice. The whole time in Washington everyone was very nice. We wound up being pretty close to the stage at the Lincoln Memorial, and I did see with my own eyes, not on the JumboTron, the bottom half of Obama walk to the podium so I guess that we can count that as my Obama sighting.

The concert was very exciting. Garth Brooks was the best. When Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sang “This Land is Your Land” everyone was singing. One person near me was pledging allegiance. The concert built as it went along and Obama’s speech was very good. Beyonce closed the concert which was very entertaining.

On Monday we walked completely around the Tidal Basin and saw both the Jefferson Memorial and the Roosevelt Memorial. The Martin Luther King Junior Memorial will also be on the Tidal Basin which is where the Cherry Blossoms are in the spring. The scenery was beautiful. (I will put up pictures in the next few days.) Since it was Martin Luther King Day and President Obama said it should be a day of service, we went and picketed in front of a Hilton Hotel with the workers from the hotel. Apparently they have been working without a contract for a year and a half. All of the candidates for governor of Virginia were there including Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. He was the biggest celebrity we saw on our trip. He was passing out cookies.

Tuesday morning we go up at 3:15 in the morning and made our way to a subway stop parking garage in Northern Virginia. Even that early there was a line and many, many people on the Metro. We went to my sister-in-law’s office which is relatively close to the Capital. We ate some breakfast and had some coffee then set out to get to the Mall to see the swearing-in. There were more people on the street then I have ever seen and it was only 6:30 in the morning.  My brother had two tickets but very nicely gave them away to stay with us and his children, who are eighteen and fifteen. We were trying to get to 7th and Independence which was the start of the non-ticketed standing area on the Mall. At one point a truck needed to get by and everyone had to squeeze together. Near 7th a guard told us that we should go on to 12th or 14th. We wound up getting on to the Mall at 12th – there was no security- and watched the whole on a JumboTron between 9th and 12th.

I feel so fortunate that we actually got onto the Mall and saw the whole thing live. It was very cold and we stood there from 7 a.m. until 1p.m. They showed the concert again as a warm-up and then the ceremony started at 10 a.m. The crowd was enormous  and very friendly. There were millions of flags and every time there was anything to cheer about everyone waved them at the same time. It was so moving to see the flags and to feel so good about my country. To be in Washington for a positive reason and share that with so many people was truly a blessing. When Obama spoke and stood up for the Constitution and civil liberties it was thrilling. Reverend Lowery’s benediction was stunning and it was a great feeling to say Amen with everyone else. Only my feet got cold and I put hand warmers in my shoes. Attending the swearing in feels like I got a  gift. Yes We Can! Yes We Did! Yes We Will!

September 11, 18 years later

This is a post from ten years ago. That fall we were spending a month in New York City. This fall I am at home. In the past ten years, a lot has happened to both me and the country.

What is very surprising to me is that we are still involved in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We also have a president who has no clue how to run foreign policy. I fervently hope Trump will be a one-term President and then we can try to undo all the harm he has done.

My sympathy goes out to all who suffered a loss on that terrible day. May all of their memories be for a blessing.

September 11, 8 Years Later

Today is the eighth anniversary of the terrible events of September 11 2001. This is a particularly poignant day because we are in New York. Eight years ago, I had been in New York the day before, September 10, and woke up, at home. on the morning of the 11th to hear my husband’s voice on the answering machine, ” I don’t know if you have heard what happened in New York but my parents are okay.” As everyone knows, September 11 2001 was a picture perfect New York fall day and the 10th was as well. I felt very steeped in my New York roots because I had spent the evening of the 9th reading about the  pending city elections while I waited for my friend who I was visiting to come home.

Today, September 11, 2009, is not a beautiful day. The weather is  very bad, with high winds and heavy downpours. Because of these bad conditions, we have been unable to attend any commemorative event. Many of them were outdoors.

Despite that, since 2001, I have felt that this day should not be like every other day.  Apparently President  Obama and Congress agree with me. In March the federal government designated September 11th as a National Day of Service and Remembrance.  I really hope that this takes root and becomes how  people commemorate September 11th in future years.

My thoughts are with all the people who suffered a loss on that fateful day and it is my sincerest wish that nothing like that will ever happen to any person or country again.

Re-post: The Road from Repeal: The Three Tier System

As a followup to last week’s post about the impending tax legislation and it’s effect on the brewing industry, I am re-posting a blog from December 2008. At that time, in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition, I wrote a series of posts about  Repeal and it’s aftermath. This one was about the three-tier system. It is relevant to what I wrote last week because I discussed Cindy McCain and her family’s wholesale liquor business. I wrote about that in the context of John McCain’s run for president. As I mentioned last week, you can probably draw a straight line from Hensley & Company to McCain’s support of the tax legislation.

The Road from Reform: The Three Tier System.

Prior to Prohibition distribution and sales of beer took place in variety of ways. Many brewers owned saloons which functioned as retail operations. The brewers supplied their beer to the saloon keeper.  Shipping brewers who operated on a national level maintained distribution outlets at various railroad stops. Although there were different federal fees for wholesale and retail dealers as well as excise taxes on brewers there was a lot of blurring of the lines between these different areas of the beer industry. Brewer ownership of saloons was the most problematic example.

As the federal government contemplated the return of legal liquor in 1932 and early 1933, alcohol advocates argued for a very distinct separation of production, wholesale distribution and retail sale of alcoholic beverages. Thus they established the three-tier system. Under federal law a brewer can not be the wholesale distributor of their product or the retail seller. Some aspects of this 1933 legislation had to be altered to allow the opening of brew pubs.

One outcome of this legislation was the development of a large group of beer wholesalers. Since 1938 they have had a national organization, the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA). There are 2,750 wholesalers. This year the focus of the organization has been celebrating the 75th anniversary of Repeal as well as continuing to pursue permanent repeal of the estate tax, a rollback of beer excise taxes, prevent alcoholic equivalency labeling and avoid paying for public service announcement against under-age drinking. In the past leaders of the NWBA have advocated a reduction in the minimum drinking age.

Cindy McCain, wife of recent presidential candidate John McCain, is heir to one of the largest beer distributors in the country. A New York Times article in August 2008 examined the role of her family business in Arizona politics. Hensley & Company is the third largest Budweiser distributorship in the country. The mega breweries, Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors, have all achieved their dominance partly through creating deep and wide-spread distribution networks. Budweiser’s are the deepest of course. It is this distribution capacity and its resulting shelf space that InBev desired to purchase. It will be interesting to see if they use it to continue to sell Bud or to attempt to place some of their other beers on the same shelves.

Cindy McCain is an absentee owner and does not directly run any aspect of Hensley and Company. All of her children hold shares in the company. Her stepson, Andy McCain is a top executive and also president of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. Hensley & Company makes significant contributions to local politicians and contributes money to fight any potential increases in state excise taxes. The last increase was in 1984, only the third increase since Prohibition and, at sixteen cents a gallon is below the national median of nineteen cents. Hensley & Company, of course, belongs to the NBWA and supports its federal legislative agenda. Thus some observers wondered if John McCain as president would be able to be neutral on issues that related to the beer industry. Luckily we will never have to find out. As a senator he has received more money from the beer lobby than almost any other politician.

On the state level Hensley & Company have been successful in preventing taxes increase even when they have been proposed to help finance early childhood education or pediatric hospitals. The company is now supporting legislation that would make any tax increase more difficult to enact because passage would require a majority  of all registered voters not just those who vote.*

The role that Hensley and Company plays in Arizona as well as the role the NBWA plays on the national scene illustrates the changed political landscape for the brewing industry in the past seventy-five years. As the brewing industry consolidated there were fewer and fewer brewers and the larger numbers of wholesalers began to play a larger role in politics. There are many more wholesalers than there are brewers, even counting craft brewers, so they are likely to be a larger political force.

* For more information on beer and Arizona politics see the Phoenix Business Journal.

 

The Art of the Deal

I consider myself a fairly astute political observer but I will confess I am extremely puzzled and concerned by the deal Trump and Democrats struck over raising the debt ceiling. Failure to raise the debt ceiling would result in the country defaulting; the deadline was looming. Since defaulting would obviously have very negative consequences for our economy, I assume the longer we could go before having to raise it again the better.

Apparently Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Republicans wanted eighteen months. Although that seems like a good idea, I don’t trust the Republicans so I assume they had ulterior motives or a hidden agenda, The Democrats counter offer was three months and they didn’t budge. Since there was no back and forth of offers and no compromise in the middle you can’t really call it a deal. It is more like Trump caved.

However the media seems to be spinning it as an example of Trump’s deal making. Trump sees it as a win and is ecstatic about positive press coverage. This is one of the things that concerns me about the deal. I think independents may look at it and think Trump is being bipartisan, something Obama couldn’t achieve. Of course, the reality is that Democrats generally care more about governing and it is therefore easier for a Republican president to be bipartisan. Republicans revel in being in the opposition, don’t really care about governing and are usually really bad at it. All of that made it very hard for Obama who wanted bipartisanship to achieve it.

I don’t want this to improve Trump’s approval level in polls and increase his chances for reelection. I don’t know why the Democrats are helping him to get a win. Apparently they wanted the short time frame to maintain or increase leverage on DACA and other key issues.This feels like a gamble to me since there is no guarantee that in December there will be enough Republicans to form a coalition with Democrats to pass the Dream Act in the House. The extreme political nature of this is upsetting. The short time period before the debt ceiling has to be raised again and Trump getting a win are both bad for the country which is my bottom line.

Beer and Taxes

At the end of January Congress introduced the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act. The bill would reduce the tax rate for large and small brewers. Both the Beer Institute which primarily represents mega brewers such as Anheuser Busch InBev and the Brewers Association which is the trade organization for craft brewers support the legislation. Similar legislation was proposed in the last Congress but did not pass. The prior bill had bipartisan support as does the current legislation.

Small brewers who produce less than two million barrels (a barrel is thirty-one gallons) annually would have a reduced rate of $3.50 a barrel for the first 60,000 barrels. All other would have a reduced rate of $16 per barrel for the first six million. The current rate of $18 a barrel would remain for companies that produce more than six million barrels a year.

The beer industry has been trying to reduce their taxes since 1991 when the rate of $9 a barrel, in effect since 1951, doubled to $18. The small brewers differential, enacted in 1976,  defines small brewers as those who produce less than two million barrels. These producers currently pay a reduced rate on their first 60,000 barrels.

The proposed legislation keeps that definition but creates another tier for brewers who produce between two and six million. Thus there is something for everyone in the bill. Mega brewers get some tax relief, small brewers who represent the vast majority of the 4,269 American breweries keep their differential  and some craft brewers like Boston Beer who have outgrown the current small brewer definition also get some relief and more importantly  get to maintain the cachet that goes along with being a craft brewer rather than a large brewer, It is not an accident that the name of the legislation includes the phrase “Craft”.

Although brewers are hopeful that the proposed legislation will succeed in the  current Congressional term, it is not clear that , after twenty-six years, they will finally achieve their goal of tax reduction. The current President is a teetotaler and he will need revenue for some of his deficit enlarging schemes such as a massive tax cut for the rich, the border wall and infrastructure projects.

Excise taxes are a very stable source of revenue that the federal government has relied on to supplement internal revenue since the 1930s. Time and again from the Civil War on, when the state has faced a shortfall they have  looked to the liquor industry to make up the gap. If the bill was not successful during the Obama administration I  don’t see why it will be any more likely in 2017.

A Time To Break Silence

I have been doing research on Anne Bennett, wife of John Bennett, president of Union Theological Seminary from 1963-1970. Anne was a committed anti-Vietnam War activist. Her husband was a founding member of Clergy and Laity Concerned. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a founding member.

In 1967 he gave this speech to a meeting of the group at Riverside Church, New York City. The speech is amazing and makes me realize, once again, what a great man he was and what a loss his assassination was.

King showed tremendous courage in speaking out against the Vietnam War. I wonder where such a leader is today. We deeply need someone who can connect the issues of militarism and imperialism to issues of social justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bad Deal

I just watched this video from the Obama campaign about the debt ceiling deal and wrote this email in response.

I am sorry but I am not buying it. The Republicans got every thing and the American people got nothing. The President should have insisted on a clean up or down vote on the debt ceiling and if that failed used the 14th Amendment. I am seriously considering withdrawing my support. I worked very hard for his election in 2008 and donated more money than I ever have to anyone. I am very disappointed.

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