Am I a descendant of illegal immigrants?

My great-grandfather, John J. R. Magree, was supposedly born in Brooklyn, New York, at least according to all the census records from 1870 on, his obituary, and other records.  Brooklyn has no record of his birth.

Because John C. Magree was a mate in New York harbor in the 1850 census and master of the Ship Ivanhoe in Jan. 1851, I assumed that John C. Magree was his father.  The Brooklyn city directories of the 1850s list a Margaret Magree, widow.  Was she the abandoned wife of John C. Magree?  John C. Magree was still alive during the Civil War.

However I did find records of the marriage in Liverpool, England, of John C. Magree and Margaret Pope, and then of the birth to this couple of John James Richard Magree.  Given the rarity of the name Magree, isn't the probability rather strong that this is the John James Richard Magree who became known as John J. R. Magree as an adult?

But I can find no record of Margaret Magree and John J. R. Magree traveling on John C. Magree's ship or any other ship.  Did John C. bring them as unlisted passengers?  Did they not need to be on the manifest because they were the master's family?  As far as I can tell, the same manifest did not list any of the crew, either.

So, do we follow the rule that Barack Obama, born in Hawaii of an American mother and a Kenyan father, is not born in America?  Or do we follow the rule that Ted Cruz and John McCain, born in Canada and the Panama Canal Zone, respectively, of at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen, are born in America?  I guess, sarcastically, since I am white we follow the Cruz/McCain rules.

However, if we follow the "Obama" rule, then I am the descendant of illegal immigrants.  Not only was my great-great grandmother presumably born in England, but we have have no birth certificate to prove that John C. Magree was born in the United States.  The only "proof " is that on his marriage application in England, John Cornelius Magree gave his father's name as Vinsent Magree.  There was a Vincent Magree in the 1840 census with at least one male around 12 years old.

That's all rather slim evidence that my paternal line has been born of legal immigrants.

If that makes me an illegal immigrant too, where should I be deported to?  England, Germany, Poland?  I have traced ancestors to all three of those countries.

Illegal political contributions from multi-national corporations?

This little note was inspired by "Corporations can't pledge allegiance", Frances Moore Lappe, Huffington Post, 2012-08-16.

The Supreme Court "issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections", "Supreme Court Retains Ban on Foreign Campaign Donations", John H. Cushman Jr., New York Times, 2012-01-09.

This decision was against two individuals who were working temporarily in the United States.  Foreign nationals may not make contributions to candidates or parties and may not make independent expenditures in elections.

If corporations are people, then shouldn't this same ruling apply to many large corporations.  Corporations also have foreign nationals on their boards.  For example, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, a Swiss corporation, sits on the board of Exxon.

In 2011 Exxon gave $226,700 to candidates and caucuses and its employee/retiree PAC gave more than $747,000.  See http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/about_issues_political.aspx.  Before "liberals" get too smug, Exxon donated $117,946 to Obama's 2008 campaign and a lesser amount to McCain.  I guess they believed in equal bribery, er, covering all the bases.  See "Exxon, Chevron, BP Greased Obama's Campaign", Paul Bedard and Danielle Kurtzleben, US News, 2011-03-14.

So, if the Chairman of Nestlé, an Austrian citizen, is on the board of Exxon, wouldn't he have some say in how Exxon makes its political contributions?  If so, isn't that a foreigner "making contributions to influence American elections"?

Following Michele Bachmann's reasoning about ancestry leads us to...

Michele Bachmann claims that an aide of Hilary Clinton, Huma Abedin, may have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  I'll let you try to follow this path with

"McCain defends Clinton aide against allegations", Associated Press, Donna Cassata, 2012-07-18  and other sites
"Michele Bachmann Lies About Her Own Family History To Sound More Iowan", Chris Rodda, Dispatches from the Creation Wars

I guarantee if you are not a lawyer or a historian, your mind will be boggled by all the twists and turns.

However, using her own reasoning, how can we be sure she didn't support the German Occupation of Norway?  After all, Quisling was a Norwegian.   And when you go back seven generations in a country the size of Norway, just about everybody is a cousin at that many levels.

Her last name is Bachmann, a German name.  How do we know her husband is not a cousin at some level to officials of the Nazi Party?  For example, Christian Bachmann, a major in the Waffen SS, or Erich Bachmann, a lieutenant in the Waffen SS.

Many have accused Bachmann about being a neo-Nazi.  That is a bit of a stretch, and even if true, I doubt that her current beliefs come from her ancestry or family relations.  She was probably shaped by the current version of the Republican Party as much as she is trying to shape the Party.

Oh, wait a minute!  George Seldes in the "The Great Quotations" gave a couple of quotes from Adolph Hitler about business.  Since those quotes seem to parallel Michele Bachmann's thinking, she must be a Nazi.  But I can't find my copy of "The Great Quotations".  Besides, I saw some indications on the Web that Seldes wasn't always accurate in his quotations.

The moral: it is bad thinking to put too much into a single quote and it is bad thinking to write too much about a simple idea.

When does "objectivity" become "subjectivity"?

One of the major problems with "the media", at least "the mainstream media" is that in the effort to be fair to "both sides", they don't call out distortions of truth. Thus, we get politicians, corporations, and even individuals making statements that are misleading or even patently false.

For a rather long analysis, see "Romney Ad Exposes Media's Chronic Inability To Use The Word 'Lie'", Jason Linkins, Huffington Post, 2011-11-22.

The Romney ad in question uses Barack Obama's quoting a statement by the McCain campaign as if Obama had said it.

There are at least two fact checking sites - FactCheck.org: A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and PolitiFact.com of the St. Petersburg Times. The latter is known for its Truth-o-meter. It might be worth your while to add bookmarks for these sites and include them in your daily online news reading. You do read a lot, right?

Many views on how to support the Iranian people

The comments on the Lede of the New York Times are all over the map: unquestioning support of the Iranian demonstrators, unquestioning support of the Iranian government, ignore the Iranians, stop the Iranian government, and more.

Those calling for no support believe that the Iranians are the enemy, government and people alike. This is the terrorist mindset: all of the X are the enemy, and so they all deserve to die.

The hard-nose cold warriors: they don't understand how foreign interference rallies people to support their government and backfires. Sen. John McCain faults President Obama for not doing enough. See "President Obama Reiterates Concerns about Iranian Election", New York Times, 2009-06-16. “He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election,” Mr. McCain said in an interview on NBC’s “Today.” “The Iranian people have been deprived of their rights. We support them in their struggle against a repressive, oppressive regime.”

Boy, am I glad I voted for Obama! This is not the kind of talk we need coming from a President.

“We make sure that the world knows that America leads,” Mr. McCain said.

Wait a minute! If the Iranian election was corrupt and flawed, in what election was American chosen as a leader of the world?

There are the overly sympathetic meddlers: they call upon people to join a denial of service campaign against Iranian government sites. But denial of service on a few sites also reduces the available bandwidth in the local network and hinders outgoing messages. It is also stooping to the level of your opponent. In fact, one should avoid any Iranian site; the foreign traffic decreases the available bandwidth. Internet access in Iran has become very slow. Depend on non-Iranian sites to aggregate.

There is the reasoned approach: President Obama gave restrained support for people without undue criticism of the government. See the above article quoting John McCain. Also, note that Richard Lugar, Ind.-R, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agrees with Obama. “For the moment, our position is to allow the Iranians to work out their situation,” Mr. Lugar said in an interview Tuesday morning on CBS’ “Early Show.” “For us to become heavily involved in the election at this point is to give the clergy an opportunity to have an enemy and to use us, really, to retain their power.”

Obama not the first minority president

Barack Obama is not the first minority president! All presidents in recent memory have been minority presidents. Turnout has rarely exceeded 60% of the eligible voters. That means that about 40% or more of the eligible voters voted "I don't give a damn" or "none of the above".

According to the Washington Post over 131 million people voted in 2008 elections, or 61.6% of eligible voters. That means there were 213 million eligible voters. Infoplease, based on New York Times figures, says there were 231 million eligible voters. Whichever figure is used, that means 90 to 100 million eligible voters did not show up!

CNN gives the final totals as 66,883,230 for Obama and 58,343,671 for McCain. I don't know who to feel more sorry for, Obama for coming in second or McCain for coming in third. Well, Obama can take some comfort that with his 29-31% of the eligible voters he did somewhat better than Reagan did with his supposed 1980 landslide with 28% of the eligible voters. See "If you don't vote, you have only yourself to blame".

Yes or No! No Ifs, Ands, or Buts!

Creationism vs. evolution, anti-abortion vs. pro-abortion, pro-Americanism vs. anti-Americanism, “you’re for us or against us”, “my way or the highway”, Democrat or Republican! On and on it goes for issue after issue – taxes, gun control, and war. Loud voices drown out reasoned voices. Slogans overwhelm discussion.

Now the election is over and we shall see if we get more partisanship or more governance. If McCain has won, we’ll definitely see more partisanship and less governance; each side working to show how they “know best”. If Obama has won, we may see less partisanship and a bit more governance. Even then, with our “imperial presidency”, there will be grandstanding both in Congress and in the Executive Office to show how “hard everyone is working for the people.”

Whoever has won, we will see many shortsighted solutions. On one hand, we’ll see “free market knows best” solutions with a lot of government breaks for favored industries. On the other hand, we’ll see “the people know best” solutions with a lot of government breaks for favored industries.

Charles Wheelan, author of “The Naked Economist”, recently wrote “The Twilight of Free-Market Ideology”. He faulted those who promoted lessening regulations to let business thrive, especially those who say government should get out of businesses’ way. He wrote that, at a minimum, we need government for when we want to sue somebody.

Many of the comments that followed on finance.yahoo.com were extremely vituperative. Almost any hint of government involvement is seen as socialism or communism. Fortunately, we have few public voices that are espousing either of these extreme ideas of government involvement in the economy.

In health insurance, McCain has been promoting individual choice and wants to tax employee-provided insurance. He seems to forget all the fraternal societies founded in the 1800s to provide various forms of assistance to members as well as help to others. At one time insurance companies were owned by policyholders; that’s why they included the name “Mutual”.

Obama has a several-point plan on reducing costs and providing insurance for more people. However, it will take a lot of jawboning on the part of the Federal government to implement many of these ideas.

Wouldn’t a better way be to encourage states to improve health care and insurance costs? This way a lot more ideas can be tried sooner with a lot less hassle than a national plan.

“Obama will take our guns away.” Other than an ill-advised, off-the-cuff remark about some people finding solace in having guns, I don’t think Obama has said much about gun control. Even if some future president and Congress wanted to take guns away, does anyone think they will succeed? President Bush hasn’t been able to take guns away from people in Iraq and Afghanistan in over five years. And there are enough Democratic hunters in Congress to block any extreme action in the U.S.

“Gay marriage will destroy marriage!” “All couples should be treated equally!” Hm! I find both positions tiresome. Gay marriage surely will not destroy my marriage of 48 years. And everybody has the right to marry a person of their choice of the opposite sex. However, there are many living arrangements that require more legal support than is currently available. How about two widows living together to save costs?

As for the Biblical basis of marriage being one man and one woman, what about Solomon and his 700 wives and 300 concubines?

Every abortion is a difficult choice. To criminalize abortion is to assume that the federal government knows best; strange coming from the party that wants “to get government off our backs.” Criminalizing abortion will work no better than prohibition of alcohol or drugs. We would be much better off working to reduce abortions by providing more non-governmental counseling, just like is done with substance abuse.

“The two-party system” is the king of “yes or no, no ifs, ands, or buts”. We are bamboozled into making a choice between two candidates, both of whom may cause more problems than they will solve. “Don’t throw your vote away!” “A vote for Nader was a vote for Bush!” It was? More Democrats stayed home than voted for Nader in 2000 in Florida. Nader got 9,000 votes and over 100,000 Democrats stayed home.

I hope you didn’t stay home on Nov. 4 but cast your vote as you saw fit, whether it was for McCain or Obama, Barr or Nader, or whoever else was on the ballot. If you didn’t like any of them, I hope you voted for “None of the above”. You didn’t see it on the ballot? It’s there in two ways. In Minnesota, you can write someone in (remember to give two names when voting for President) or you can leave the boxes blank for any given office.

This election may see the rise of a viable national third party. There may have been enough Republicans, dissatisfied with the McCain-Palin candidacy or with the ideological hardening of the Republican Party, who will split off into a new party. Don’t forget that the Republican Party was started by dissatisfied Whigs.

As the first and last real Republican said, “As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew.”

Republicans calling the kettle black on Democratic control

The Rovebaughlicans are complaining that we need to have a Republican president to offset a Democratic Congress. This is a bit hypocritical. In 2000 and 2004 Newt Gingrich and others were looking for a permanent Republican majority in Congress along with a Republican president appointing Supreme Court judges.

Millionaires' crocodile tears for the middle class

Obama, Biden, McCain, and Palin are trying to out-shout their opposition in how much they are working for the middle class. Give me a break, all four of them are millionaires.

Candidates are not apples and oranges

Comparing candidates is not like comparing apples and oranges. There are distinct differences in candidates' styles, history, knowledge, and skills. Candidates strengths and weaknesses are not a product of their politically parties.

I'm led to these thoughts by newspaper comparisons of the 2004 and the 2008 elections, generally about how various areas of the country went for Bush or for Kerry in 2004. Party affiliation is the wrong measure of future success.

In the 2004 debates, George Bush often came across as folksy and engaged with his audience. John Kerry was often wooden and detached. He also was a bit self-centered. I groaned each time he said, "In my plan" or "I have a plan..."

In 2008, John McCain is exciting people with narrow interests that they perceive he supports, but Barack Obama is exciting people with a larger vision of what our problems are and of where we should be headed.

One might say both the 2004 and the 2008 elections hinged on vision versus me-first.

The fleeing elite

Republican partisans apparently have used the word "elite" to describe those who disagree with them too many times. Now the Republican-leaning elite are distancing themselves from the McCain-Palin candidacy:

David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and now Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell. Now if some prominent politicians would do the same. Maybe we will get a strong, new moderate party.

Will McCain's health proposal cost most people less?

I find it hard to believe that McCain's health proposal will cost most people less. McCain is proposing to discourage employer-sponsored health insurance in favor of individually purchased insurance

Employer-sponsored health care is group health insurance. True, this could be more expensive for the young and healthy. Until they are married and have kids. Group health insurance is a better deal for people who are not so healthy. People who have some health issues in their family are going to pay a lot more for individual health insurance.

Group health insurance can be cheaper than individual health insurance because of sales costs. If you get health insurance online these costs may be very low. However, if you get health insurance from an agent, that agent may get a cut of your premium for as long as you hold your policy. This is also called a performance award; the more policies an agent sells the bigger his or her award.

(We should pay teachers the same; as long as their students are getting an income, the teachers should get a cut of the students' income taxes.)

McCain's five-thousand dollar tax credit is a joke. My wife and I are paying $6,941.40 per year for Medicare B, Medicare Drug Plan, and supplemental insurance. What would a family of four or five with known health issues pay?

Health savings accounts are also a joke. A single night in a hospital now costs $1,000, each time a doctor sees you in the hospital could be $200 or $300. How many people are going to have that much money in their health savings accounts?

There is already a tax deduction for all health expenses over a small percentage of income. Why not make it a tax credit?

If you would like to read more about both candidates' health plans, see "Health Care Spin" at factcheck.org.

Who on Wall St. is contributing to Obama's campaign?

Several critics have questioned the sources of contributions to Barack Obama's campaign, one of these criticisms being that many contributions are coming from Wall St. firms.

Contributors to political campaigns are required to give the names of their employers and their occupations. Is anybody breaking down these contributions from Wall St. firms into those from executives and those from others, say janitors, clerks, accountants, and brokers. Consider the following:

More generally, this year's registration tilt is part of a broader shift since 2004 away from Republican affiliation, particularly among younger and Hispanic voters and among college-educated professionals in former GOP strongholds such as New Hampshire, Colorado, and the suburbs of Philadelphia and Northern Virginia.

- "Registration gains favor democrats", Washington Post, 2008-10-06

Could it be that many of the donations from Wall St. are from these young professionals? Could it be that the sum of their donations to Obama exceeds that of their executive bosses?

Who has the right "experience"?

John McCain keeps hammering away that he has foreign policy experience and that Barack Obama is inexperienced. McCain claims that Obama is willing to meet Iranian President Ahmadinejad "without preconditions". Obama responds that "Ahmadinejad is not the most important man in Iran and may not even be the right person to talk to."
- Duluth News Tribune, 2008-10-03

Notice Obama's use of "may not". I'd rather have someone who is ready to adapt his foreign policy to others' reactions than someone who sings "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

Unbalanced "balanced" reporting

We were only able to watch the Biden-Palin debate for about a half-hour. After about the third time that Gov. Palin refused to answer a question and went on to something else, we turned the TV off and went to do other things.

I was amazed later in the evening to find hardly any mention of this in online commentary. I was still amazed when the Duluth News Tribune gave both fairly good marks for their performance. It was only when I got to the very end of an article about UMD students watching the debate did I find this:

“She keeps changing the subject, cutting off the issue, like she’s trying to hide something or doesn’t have an answer,’’ [Josh] Clarke said. “She just shows a lack of experience, kind of naive.’’
- Duluth News Tribune, 2008-10-03

Fortunately, similar comments are appearing today. And surprise, more of it is coming from so-called conservative or centrist commentators. So-called liberals seem to be afraid of any criticism of Palin; that would make them part of the "biased media."

I'm sorry, but if most people understand there is a problem, and one candidate states there is no problem and another states we must address this problem with thoughtfulness; shouldn't we be more critical of the first?

What kind of gadgets would the presidential candidates be?

I meant to publish this on Sept. 19; somehow I saved it as a draft instead.

CNET News has a poll on what kind of gadget would McCain be. Last week they had one for Obama: iPhone - 43.3%, Windows Vista - 27.5%, Facebook - 19.3%, and Baby's First Walkman - 10%

This week's poll on McCain is at

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10046468-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

and the choices are

Panasonic Toughbook (ruggedized laptop)

Phonograph

Leatherman multi-tool

Presto (HP's device that receives and prints e-mail for those that don't have a PC)

I chose phonograph because it is so dated (yeah, I still have one and lots of LPs, but hardly ever use it). The result when I voted was over 56% out of over 1440 votes.

Subtle racism in the presidential campaign

Mark Penn, an aide to the Clintons, wrote a memo about Obama's "lack of American roots." According to E. J. Dionne, Washington Post, 2008-08-14, "Clinton thankfully declined to take up this idea, but John McCain's ads are now subtly toying with it."

Let's see, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which some maintain disqualifies him from the presidency. And has he forgotten the "No Irish need apply" signs of the past?

Vote! Even if you don't like the choices

I was just reading "Conservatives Ready to Battle McCain on Convention Platform", Washington Post, July 7, 2007. It made me think of all those Republicans who say they will sit out this election because they don't like McCain's policies. And also of those Democrats who are disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the nomination.

I think it is more likely that the Republican no-shows will help Obama win than the Democrat no-shows will help McCain.

To both groups of no-shows, I say vote anyway. You still have a third choice, even without the Libertarian Bob Barr. You can leave the presidential ballot blank. You at least get counted for showing up. If you stay home, you are not counted. One could even say a stay-at-home doesn't even count in the election.

Remember, Reagan's "landslide" was with less than 30% of the eligible voters. What would his "mandate" have been if the 40-plus percent who stayed home had actually cast a ballot?

At a minimum, let's hope reporters give more weight to no-shows.

We now have a three-party system

I read Frank Rich's "One night, two Americas" in today's New York Times.

He essentially writes that Clinton and McCain are of the past and Obama is of the future. From this I thought of how both the left and the right are stuck in battles and world views of the past; Obama has captured the hopes of those who look to the future. My quick diagram of this is

|| –

The vertical lines are the parties of the past, stuck in the past; the horizontal line is the party of the future moving forward. Another way to look at it is the right is the party of globalization of business but of anti-globalization of politics (we know best) and the left is the party of anti-globalization of business but of globalization of politics. They are also stuck in the polarization of ideas many Americans would rather not take a firm stand on: gun control, abortion, immigration, and so on.

I think that Obama will win in a landslide because he represents the future. He will win because he will get more people voting than ever. He will win because he has built a strong organization of average people rather than of Washington insiders. He will win because he is a better speaker and thinker. Finally, he will win because people do want change.

Just who's voting for Clinton?

It seems to me that Hillary Clinton has been "winning" more primaries since John McCain gained enough delegates to clinch the Republican nominaton.

Could it be that people who call themselves Republicans are voting for Clinton because they think she will be easier to beat than Barack Obama?

If so, will these voters be there for her in November if she does win the Democratic nomination?