Time to scrap Selective Service System -- Feb. 28, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Few may have noticed when a federal judge ruled that requiring only men, and not women, to register for the draft is unconstitutional now that all military jobs are open to women.

“While historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination, men and women are now ‘similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft,’” U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller wrote.

The ruling issued Friday in Houston doesn’t change anything, but it does raise a larger question: Why should anyone – male or female -- have to register for the draft in 2019?

The last man was drafted into military service in 1973. And yet today, male citizens and residents of the United States ages 18 through 25, including documented and undocumented immigrants, still must register for the draft – or risk fines and prison time. On paper, anyway.

No one has been prosecuted for failing to register since 1986, the Congressional Research Service reported in January in a study of selective service and the draft issues for Congress.

Many young men register for the draft automatically when they get their driver’s license or apply for federal student aid. 

The Selective Service System -- 124 full-time employees “complemented with a corps of volunteers and military reservists” -- keeps a database in a Chicago suburb with 78 million records, CRS reported.

The data – names, addresses, Social Security numbers -- are retained until a registrant turns 85 – yes, 85! -- in case the information is needed to certify someone is eligible for federal student aid, training, government jobs and security clearances.

The Selective Service annual budget of nearly $23 million is peanuts by federal standards, but it’s wasteful to spend even that much on an unused and unneeded agency. The rationale that we might need to mobilize manpower quickly with a draft is antiquated in the age of modern warfare, critics say.

And the Pentagon?

“We don’t want a draft,” then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who opened all military jobs to women in 2015, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2016.

“We don’t want people chosen for us. We want to pick people. That’s what the all-volunteer force is all about. That’s why the all-volunteer force is so excellent,” Carter said.

The Trump administration hasn’t taken a stand, but Congress has wrestled for decades with the Selective Service System and the draft. It finally punted.   

Congress created the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service in 2017 to come up with recommendations. As the name suggests, the commission is charged with finding ways to weave various kinds of service into the fabric of American life.

The commission spent last year listening to people across the country and has more hearings scheduled. A final report and recommendations are due to Congress in March 2020. Read more at www.inspire2serve.gov.

“Our conversations underscored that while service is encouraged by many families, schools and communities, there is no widely held expectation of service in the United States,” commission Chairman Joe Heck, former Republican congressman from Nevada, a physician and brigadier general in the Army Reserves, wrote in an Interim Report in January.

“As a result, military, national and public service is the exception rather than the rule,” he wrote.

While many agree that shared voluntary service for young people especially is a worthy goal, the report laid out challenges.

Whether someone wants to join the military or not, it’s a national disgrace that only about 30 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds meet the physical, mental and moral requirements for the military.

The Army failed to reach its recruiting goal last year for the first time since 2005, partly because fewer young people even think of joining the military.

As for national service, few Americans know about the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and Teach for America, the report said.

So, if the Selective Service System is a dinosaur – and it is – let’s scrap it and dedicate our resources to making voluntary service a shared expectation.

Let’s return to a time-tested, 20^th century ideal: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” That would make America truly great.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Say yes to bees in your backyard -- Feb. 21, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

If you’re gloomy about the way the country’s headed, there is something you can do to make things better.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, Republican or independent.

It’s not voting or running for office – though the first is necessary and the second admirable. Nor do you need to contribute to a candidate, make calls, collect signatures or march in the street. 

This transformative act is simple, close to home and far more effective than fulminating on Twitter: Choose to have a garden and plant native plants.

Tending a garden won’t solve the political mess, of course, but it will get you outside, and, more importantly, it will help bees.

You might not think a backyard garden would amount to more than, well, a hill of beans in our helter-skelter world of stressed bees, declining insects and changing climate, but biologists say what you do on your patch of the planet matters.  

“Bees need just a little space,” says Sam Droege, wildlife biologist at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, part of the U.S. Geological Survey, and one of the nation’s top experts on bees.

“Bees are tiny; one bush or one clump of perennials is often all it takes to foster native bees in your yard,” he writes in his article “Quick Background on the Mid-Atlantic Region’s NativeBees.”

“Within a mile of your yard (urban or rural) there are at least over 100 species of bees looking for the right plants,” he writes.   

When Droege, an evangelist for bees, and naturalist Alonso Abugattas spoke in Arlington the other night on bee-friendly gardening, the meeting room was packed.

The basic buzz: Plant the right flowers and flowering bushes, and native bees will come.

This might be a good time to mention that most native bees don’t sting.

They aren’t aggressive and would rather fly away than attack. Most nest in the ground, so you likely have stepped on thousands upon thousands of nesting bees over time, without knowing it, Droege said.

The plight of the honey bee worldwide is well known. Colony collapse disorder made news in 2006, alarming scientists, the government and the public. Honey bees are farmed in hives, are important pollinators in agriculture and provide honey.

Of the more than 4,000 species of wild, native bees in the United States, about 450 species have been identified in Virginia. Native bees were here long before the European honey bee was brought to Jamestown in the 1600s.

Unlike European honey bees, native bees are solitary and don’t live in a hive with a queen. Native bees are more interested in pollen than honey bees who really go for nectar.

Native bees actually are better pollinators than honey bees and are important for fruits and vegetables.   

The orchard mason bee is a super pollinator. One of these native bees can visit up to 60,000 flowers in its lifetime, Eric Day, entomologist at Virginia Tech, writes in his article “Native and Solitary Bees in Virginia,” adding that this bee is very docile and suitable for urban settings.

Some native bees can become a nuisance, however. Leafcutter bees like to build their nests in door or window frames, and beneficial bumble bees sometimes nest near and get in houses. Day writes.

Native bees prefer native plants – asters, coneflower, goldenrod and a host of others. 

About 35 percent of native bees are specialists, meaning they will feed only certain pollen to their young.

For a bee-friendly garden, choose your sunniest spot and plan your garden so 

something is always flowering. A rule of thumb is it takes five flowers to support one baby bee.

If you can part with some of your lawn, so much the better. You can even leave a patch of bare dirt for the bees. Avoid insecticides and pesticides.

Consult your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office, public gardens, Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists and their reliable websites for advice, lists of bee-friendly plants and how-tos on building nest structures for the 30 percent of bees that do nest above ground.  

Everybody wins when we make our backyards better for bees.  

©Marsha Mercer 2019. All rights reserved.

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McConnell sets Green New Deal trap -- Feb. 14, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been in the Senate longer than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has been alive.

That imbalance became clear Tuesday as McConnell set up a vote to make Democrats pay for their reckless embrace of the Green New Deal.

McConnell, who turns 77 Wednesday, arrived in the Senate in 1985. Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989.

At 29, she is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, a wizard at social media with 3.1 million Twitter followers. A video of her House Oversight and Reform Committee “Lightning Round” take-down at the of lax ethics and campaign finance rules is an internet sensation.

But her rollout of the much-anticipated Green New Deal was a disaster.

To recap, her office released and then retracted a frequently-asked-questions sheet that included the goals of economic security for people “unwilling to work,” and eventually ridding the country of flatulent cows, airplanes and various industries.

None of those ideas is in the actual resolution, H. Res. 109, but they were the first many people heard about the Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t help matters when she falsely said there were “doctored” FAQ versions on the internet.

The resolution is non-binding but would indicate support to set the federal government on the path of a “10 year national mobilization” to fight climate change and remake the economy.

Among the goals: “Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.” It also guarantees jobs, education, food and health care for everyone.

Such sweeping changes need serious consideration with months, if not years, of hearings, and compromises. By rushing out a resolution in her first month in office, Ocasio-Cortez delighted her fans but walked into a trap.

The conservative media and President Donald Trump quickly blasted the Green New Deal as ridiculous.

“It sounds like a high school term paper that got a low mark,” Trump said at a campaign rally in El Paso. “I really don’t like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane rights, of ‘Let’s hop a train to California,’ or you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!”

Ocasio-Cortez rightly could have said her manifesto wouldn’t do any of those things. It doesn’t include any specific proposals. But she lobbed her response by tweet: “Ah yes, a man who can’t even read briefings written in full sentences is providing literary criticism of a House Resolution.”

Meanwhile, McConnell, a veteran of many political wars, was setting the trap.

He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary when he announced the Senate would vote on the Green New Deal resolution. A resolution identical to Ocasio-Cortez’s was introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts.

“We’ll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,” McConnell told reporters. 

Mischievous Mitch used to say he would only bring measures to the floor that would get Trump’s signature. This time he means to get Democrats on the record so Republican candidates can hammer them during 2020 campaigns.

Half a dozen Democratic senators are running for president, and nearly a dozen Democrats face tough Senate re-election bids.

The botched rollout has made more than Ocasio-Cortez look amateurish. So too do the presidential hopefuls who jumped on the bandwagon. 

Six cosponsors are announced or likely presidential contenders -- Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who may run again, is also a cosponsor.

In contrast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 78, a wily congressional veteran who came to the House in 1987, has kept the Green New Deal at arm’s length.

“It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

Pelosi saw early what’s now dawning on less savvy Democrats: The Green New Deal wasn’t ready for prime time. It created a political opening for Republicans and a liability for Democrats.   

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Fair pay law for women early test for Democratic Congress -- Feb. 7, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The most memorable visual from the State of the Union was the most joyous.

We’re used to Republican members of Congress popping up from their chairs and dutifully applauding President Donald Trump – and to Democrats, with rare exceptions, sitting glumly.    

On Tuesday night, though, dozens of Democratic women wearing “suffragette white” to show solidarity and to honor the legacy of the suffragette movement, became a wave of celebration.

The women were largely quiescent until Trump began touting the economy.

“No one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the new jobs created in the last year,” he said.

The women – many of them newcomers to Congress – perked up. Smiling, they looked around, stood and applauded, pointing to themselves and each other. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beamed.

“Don’t sit yet. You’re going to like this,” Trump said. “And exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before,” he said.

At that, the women -- many of whom ran for Congress and won because of their outspoken opposition to Trump’s policies – rejoiced in their triumph with energetic fist-pumps, high fives and hugs. Their jubilation was infectious.

Now they need to harness their enthusiasm to succeed in the hyper-partisan capital. 

The Democratic House must deliver on promises to make Washington work for everybody.

It’s exciting to think the new members actually will build coalitions and pass bills that better the lives of women and families. Even Trump says he favors paid family and medical leave, although there’s nothing to show for it.  

One of the first tests for Congress is ensuring women get equal pay for their work. Finally.

Equal pay has been the law of the land since the 1960s, but the gender pay gap – the difference in median earnings of a man and a woman each working full time -- persists.

A woman in 2017 earned about 20 percent less than a man, according to the most recent Census Bureau figures. The wage gap is worse for black women and Hispanic women.

This isn’t a fluke or women working in “women’s” jobs that pay less. Men’s median weekly pay exceeds women’s in almost every occupation -- from chief executives to janitors and building cleaners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The Paycheck Fairness Act was first introduced more than a decade ago. It would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and make employers more accountable for their pay practices.

It would end pay secrecy and retaliation – workplace rules that keep workers from asking about others’ wages and disclosing their own; allow workers to sue for damages from pay discrimination; strengthen penalties for equal pay violations, and update the federal role in education, research and data-collection to combat gender discrimination.  

The House first passed Paycheck Fairness in January 2009, but the bill died in the Senate. It has been reintroduced repeatedly and has always failed.  

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, reintroduced the measure Jan. 30.

In the House, every Democrat and one Republican are cosponsors. In the Senate, there are 45 cosponsors – all Democrats and Bernie Sanders, independent. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia are cosponsors.

Rep. Bobby Scott, Democrat of Virginia, is now chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and plans to fast-track the legislation with a hearing this month and a House vote soon after. The goal is to have a bill on Trump’s desk by early April.

But passage is hardly assured. Even though more women serve in Congress than ever, they still make up only about a quarter of the total membership.

What’s needed is a thaw in the Republican-controlled Senate. Republicans oppose the bill as unnecessary, saying it burdens employers and could even harm women,  if employers are reluctant to hire them.

But surely in 2019 equal pay for women doing equal work is an issue we all can agree on.

It’s time for Congress – new members and veterans – to turn to the hard work of governing and get the job done.

  ©2019 Marsha Mercer All rights reserved.

Meddling in 2016 election just a warm up for 2020 -- Jan. 31, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

So, you see a video of President Donald Trump doing something truly outrageous, what do you do?

Or, you hear an audio clip of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris saying something beyond the pale, what then?

Rush to share it. Fly into a furious tweetstorm. Post and rant on Facebook. I know, it happens all the time.

But what if the video or audio you sent ’round the world was fake, bogus, a trick?

I don’t mean fake news but a deepfake: digital audio or video created by artificial intelligence so realistic we can’t tell it’s fake.

In our brave new cyberworld, voters should know what we see and hear may not always be real. As in, no, you can’t believe your lying eyes – or ears.

In 2016, Russia and others used fake web sites and impersonated Americans on social media to divide us and sow discord. As if we needed help in that department.

By 2018, Russia, China and Iran all tried to manipulate and polarize us. Fortunately, they were unable to compromise the elections, the U.S. government says.

But that likely was just a warm-up.  

“We expect (foreign actors) to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.  

One big, new threat is deepfakes, which made news in 2017, when people swapped actresses faces for porn stars and made sex videos.

Almost anyone can make deepfakes now, and they have the potential for creating havoc on the national and world stage.

Today, while the algorithms are complex, “there are user-friendly platforms that people with little to no technical expertise can use to create deepfakes,” Charlotte Stanton, director of the Silicon Valley office of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, wrote in a report released Monday.

“The easiest among these platforms allow anyone with access to the internet and pictures of a person’s face to make a deepfake. Tutorials are even available for people who want step-by-step instructions,” Stanton said.

Canadian start-up Lyrebird claims it creates “the most realistic artificial voices in the world” from just one minute of speech. To show how realistic – and scary this is – the lyrebird.ai website has sample “voice avatars” of Donald Trump and Barack Obama. You’d never guess they’re fakes.

Make no mistake, there are laudable uses for such technology. Lyrebird works with ALS patients to create a digital voice copies so they can still communicate in their voice if they lose the ability to speak.

But the bad guys are out there, and the Pentagon and academics are researching how to identify and stop deepfakes. The AI technology evolves so fast it makes detection ever more difficult.

Congress is alarmed, and some lawmakers are weighing legislation, although it’s important not to create new problems while fixing one. Sen. Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, wants to make it illegal to create or distribute malicious deepfakes.

“Deepfakes – video of things that were never done with audio of things that were never said – can be tailor-made to drive Americans apart and pour gasoline on just about any culture war fire,” Sasse told Axios.

Government can’t save us from being gullible. Each of us needs to guard against those who want to weaken our democracy and make truth a relic of the past.

What can we do? First, be skeptical. As always, consider the source before you share.

Look closely. In some deepfake videos, the people don’t blink -- but blinking doesn’t guarantee one is legit.

And take a breath. It’s easy to fly off the handle and repost the things that confirm our worst nightmares.

“Let us remember that while Russia can amplify our divisions, it cannot invent them,” Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, co-chairman of the Intel committee, said at Tuesday’s hearing.

“When a divisive issue like the `take a knee’ NFL controversy or a migrant caravan dominates the national dialogue, these are issues that can be – and are – taken advantage of by Russian trolls. Let’s not make their work easier,” Warner said.

Excellent advice. It won’t be easy, but we need to unite on this one thing: stopping deepfake tricks in their tracks.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Shutdown weighs on Trump -- Jan. 24, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won the battle over the State of the Union.

President Donald Trump acceded to Pelosi’s decision to postpone the address until the federal government reopens.

“This is her prerogative,” he tweeted late Wednesday night, reversing course.

Hours earlier he’d said he was looking for another venue after Pelosi said he couldn’t make the speech in the House chamber as long as the government is partially shut down. Then he changed his mind.

“There is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber,” he tweeted.

He’s right. Trump can draw a crowd of enthusiastic supporters wearing red MAGA hats to an arena anytime. But the State of the Union address is one of the rare occasions all three branches of government and the diplomatic corps gather in one august room as a captive audience while TV cameras roll.

Trump could have avoided all the drama had he agreed with Pelosi the speech was a bad idea while a quarter of the government was closed. She cited security concerns, but the administration insisted there was no problem with security.

Instead, he tried to bully her, saying he would deliver the speech despite her request to postpone. She then refused to allow the House to vote for the resolution authorizing a joint session of Congress.

And so the president who hates to be seen as weak looked weak. Three new polls, including one by his favorite network, Fox News, show his job performance ratings are slipping.

Fox found only 43 percent of voters approve of the job Trump is doing overall, down 3 points from December. He is also under water on border security, immigration and foreign policy, Fox reported. 

“TRUMP BLINKS” Fox blared in a headline on its website as conservative commentators criticized his State of the Union turnabout.    

“Bad decision,” Laura Ingraham of Fox News said. She said she’d give three State of the Union speeches around the country. 

But the real question is not where Trump will give the State of the Union address but when.

Presidents use the prime-time address to lay out their legislative priorities for the coming year. By postponing, Trump all but announced his agenda is going nowhere in Congress during the shutdown and perhaps after that.

Thus Trump is learning even the president has limitations in a country with three equal branches of government. Republican congressional leaders have been afraid to stand up to him, but the Democratic-controlled House has a speaker who’s keen to use her power.

Meanwhile, the country is enduring the longest federal government shutdown in history with more than 800,000 federal workers going without pay because the president has refused to compromise on his demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall.

Democrats refuse to meet his demand, contending that, if they give in now, Trump will use the shutdown threat to force passage of future initiatives. Democrats  floated the idea of $5.7 billion for enhanced border security – just not for a physical wall, which they see as ineffective.

Trump’s attempt to bring Democrats to the table failed because he offered only a temporary fix for the young people called Dreamers who came to the country as children – and no compromise on wall funding.

So far, Democrats appear to be winning the shutdown battle.

Pelosi got a higher rating for her handling of negotiations for the shutdown than Trump in a CBS News poll, which found 47 percent approve of Pelosi and 35 percent of Trump.

Republicans and Democrats each want their leaders to keep fighting, which explains the current congressional gridlock. Lawmakers are unlikely to budge unless they feel political pain.

But it’s the independents who often determine elections, and 60 percent of independents disapprove of Trump’s job performance, the highest share among those voters since Trump took office, the Politico/Morning Consult poll reported.

Is a border wall worth the shutdown? CBS asked. A whopping 71 percent of independents said no. For Trump and Senate Republicans, that’s an ominous number looking to 2020.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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One King to honor, another to shun -- Jan. 17, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Two men named King are in the news.

First, let us turn to a King who deserves our admiration and respect. A federal holiday Monday honors the life and memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The slain civil rights leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35 for his nonviolent campaign against racism, would have turned 90 on Jan. 15. He was 39 when his life was cut tragically short by a sniper April 4, 1968.

It’s instructive, given recent events involving another man named King, to remember the MLK Jr. holiday was hard won.

Congress dithered for 15 years, and Sen. Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, filibustered the bill with 300 pages of documents accusing King of being a Marxist with communist leanings.

Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York declared the papers “filth.”

Eventually Congress did the right thing and sent the bill to President Ronald Reagan, who signed the King holiday into law in 1983. The first observance was in 1986. Still some states lagged. Arizona did not recognize the holiday until 1992 and New Hampshire 1999. 

Now, though, every year on the third Monday in January, people gather for prayer breakfasts and worship services, read King’s writings and tell his stories to younger generations. Choirs sing, bells toll and people march. Many devote their time to volunteering on the national day of service.

The day demands action because Martin Luther King Jr’s work is far from done.

 “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” he said.

And that brings us to the other, lesser, King in the news.

Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa, after a career of racist rhetoric, has finally been punished. He was kicked off the powerful Agriculture, Judiciary and Small Business committees and has been urged to resign from Congress.

The furor stemmed from a Jan. 10 interview in The New York Times.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive?” King said. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and civilization?”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, suggested King “find another line of work” if he didn’t understand why his comments were offensive. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the remarks “abhorrent.”

King tried to tamp down the outrage by insisting he did not advocate white nationalism or white supremacy, had been misquoted and his remarks taken out of context

Rep. James Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, the top African-American congressional leader, introduced a measure to condemn the substance of King’s remarks, pointing out it was MLK Jr.’s 90^th birthday. Clyburn referred to a “tale of two Kings.”

The House voted 424 to 1 for the resolution. Even King voted for it. The only no vote was Rep. Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, who thought the resolution too weak and wanted the house to censure King.

Other House Democrats thought censuring a member of Congress for speech outside Congress could be a bad precedent, especially given the new crop of outspoken Democratic members.

The full House punted on censure on a voice vote, referring the matter to the House Ethics Committee.

Steve King is at least isolated and immobilized. Several newspapers in Iowa say he has embarrassed the state long enough and should resign. He says he won’t resign, which is always what people say until the moment they do.  

So let Steve King stew in his bitter juices, and let us shun him and his boneheaded ideas while we celebrate the inspiring life of Martin Luther King Jr.

The open-air Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and bookshop in Washington remain open during the partial government shutdown. Among the MLK quotations on his memorial is this from 1959:

“Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. 

You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.”

Those are words to live by on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and every day.

©2019, Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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