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y now, every self-respecting political pundit, columnist, television talking head and member of Congress has had his or her say on Russia, Crimea, Ukraine. That some of us may be surprised by Russian aggression is a bit surprising. Russia is doing what it has done for centuries — defending and aggrandizing the Russian nation, whether driven by an ideology, like socialism and communism for half a century, or from self-interests, like the need to protect or acquire resources, or defend itself against international terrorists. Now Ukraine is feeling the weight of the Russian bear, but it is as predictable as the U.S. protecting its interests in the Caribbean so close to home, and so long associated with the U.S. “sphere of interests.” Ukraine, and especially Crimea, has long been imbedded in Russian history. T he Soviets dominated the world they had conquered after the end of World War II. They stuck their noses and guns and tanks into many sovereign and previously independent countries during the Cold War and now have pushed with impunity back into Crimea, loosely aligned within Ukrainian sovereignty. The Russians have had their reverses. In 1962, Fidel Castro in Cuba invited the Soviets to plant some missiles on the island aimed at the United States. We were then locked in the middle of a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and it suddenly got very hot. President John F. Kennedy told his counterpart in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev, to pull the missiles out, or else. In 1979, they invaded Afghanistan and fought a long, protracted war, finally admitting defeat in 1989 after a debilitating campaign financed and directed in a significant way by the CIA. It was sometimes called the Soviet’s Vietnam. Today Russia under Vladimir Putin still sees itself as a defender of the world’s peoples against her old imperialist competitors for empire, like Great Britain, for hundreds of years, and the United States of late. It can create some complicated “alliances,” where old antagonisms are swept under the rug to keep the Americans off balance. That today Iran and Russia would see anything, for example, through the prism of common interests is pure cynicism, SEE CLAYTON | 6D
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ecently, a bizarre scene unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives that would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced that he had decided to go it alone in areas where Congress refused to act to his satisfaction. In a system of shared powers, one would expect an outcry or at least stony silence when a president promised to circumvent the legislative branch. Instead, many senators and represent at ives er upted in rapt urous applause; they seemed delighted at the notion of a president assuming unprecedented and unchecked powers at their expense. Last week, Obama underlined what this means for our system: The administration unilaterally increased the transition time for individuals to obtain the level of insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act. There is no statutory authority for the change — simply the raw assertion of executive power. The United States is at a constitutional tipping point: The rise of
@ED7J>7D JKHB;O an uber presidency unchecked by the other two branches. This massive shift of authority threatens the stability and functionality of our tripartite system of checks and balances. To be sure, it did not begin with the Obama administration. The trend has existed for decades, and President George W. Bush showed equal contempt for the separation of powers. However, it has accelerated at an alarming rate under Obama. Of perhaps greater concern is the fact that the other two branches appear passive, if not inert, in the face of expanding executive power. James Madison fashioned a government of three bodies locked in a synchronous orbit by their countervailing powers. The system of separation of powers was not created to protect the authority of each branch for its own sake. Rather, it is the primary protection of individual rights because it prevents the concentration of power in any one branch. In this sense, Obama is not simply pos-
ing a danger to the constitutional system; he has become the very danger that separation of powers was designed to avoid. A glance at recent unilateral moves by Obama illustrates how executive power has expanded, largely at the cost of legislative power. The suspension of a portion of the ACA is only the latest such action related to the health-care law: N The heart of the health-care law was a set of minimum requirements for insurance plans. After Obama was embarrassed by the cancellations of millions of nonconforming plans (when he had said no one would lose a plan they had and liked), he created first one temporary exemption and then, last week, another, adding two years to the compliance deadline set by law. N On his own authority, Obama also chose other dates for compliance with the employer mandate. N Congress ended a subsidy for members of Congress and their staffs so that they would obtain insurance under the ACA on the same terms as other citizens. SEE T URLEY | 6D
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oab T homas, who died on March 3 at the age of 81, was an excellent botanist, whose advice was worth listening to. He once told me that my newspaper columns on ecology had too few plant examples compared to animals. That’s because, on the whole, animals tend to be action figures whereas plants are mostly inert unless the wind is blowing. But intriguing plants do exist, and I dedicate this column to Joab. Plants kill and eat millions of animals every year. In addition to having a wide diversity of insects on the menu, carnivorous plants eat other animals, including small birds, frogs and mammals. Plants that capture and digest animals occur in many parts of the world, and several kinds can be found in North
America. Pitcher plants, in which insects fall into a highly effective pitfall trap, are a mon g t he b e st known. In some, the column, or “pitcher,” is only a few inches PABM high, but it can be al@B;;HGL most 3 feet tall in the yel low t r umpet pitcher plants. With downward-pointing hairs around the lip of the column and digestive liquor at the bottom of the flask, pitcher plants mean certain death for many insects. The bug that makes a misstep over the edge of the tube will soon become part of the plant world, as it is digested and absorbed. The most spectacular pitcher plants are
from Mount Kinabalu National Park in Borneo, a region with the greatest concentration of pitcher plant species in the world. One of these, the rajah pitcher plant, has tubular flasks large enough to capture rats, and it can hold more than a quart of digestive fluid. Some plants produce their own heat internally, a trait usually reserved for birds, mammals and a few other animals. Perhaps the best known U.S. plant with heat producing properties is the eastern skunk cabbage. In the Northeast, skunk cabbages are among the earliest plants emerging in the spring, often pushing directly up through a covering of snow that is melted by their generated heat. Some skunk cabbages have been reported to raise their temperature 45 degrees higher
than their environment. Another heat-producing plant is the voodoo lily, a tropical species of Southeast Asia. With a beauty typical of other lilies, the voodoo lily has a striking purple flower and reaches a height of almost 3 feet. Despite their ornamental appearance, voodoo lilies have a trait that might diminish their popularity in the garden. During the period of pollination, the flowers heat up. Temperatures inside a flower in the cool shade can reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit, at which time the plant smells like rotting meat. One animal trait we are often interested in is size. How long is a python? How tall is a polar bear standing on its back legs? How much does a largemouth bass weigh? What about SEE E COVIEWS | 6D
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nder the Obama administration, “reforms” to federal assistance programs have simply increased the programs’ recipients and spending rather than implementing more oversight or accountability. Specifically, the administration has taken proactive steps to recruit A mericans into programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and water down eligibility requirements for the Temporary s s is t a nc e for D :MA>KBG> A Needy Families @K>>G Program. Work KH;>KMLHG requirements for recipients, previously tied to TA NF eligibility since 1996, were rendered optional by the Department of Health and Human Services for state enforcement in 2012. These work requirements have now been waived by nearly every state in the union. Categorical eligibility has been shamelessly promoted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an effort to increase SNAP participation by individuals who would not meet SNAP eligibility requirements standing alone, but are deemed automatically eligible given their participation in other assistance programs. And, of course, all of this expansion requires more taxpayer dollars year after year. It is perplexing that the executive branch of a country that is $17 trillion in debt appears to want more Americans in a very expensive system that can lead to a lifetime of government dependency and no pressure to work. Still, the federal government’s pocketbook is not the only one to be considered when it comes to welfare and food stamps. In FY2012, the state of Alabama spent roughly $80 million in state money on TANF and $40 million on SNAP. Of course, these numbers do not scratch the surface of what the state spends in total on entitlement programs each year. While welfare caseloads expectedly increased during the recession, many states have sustained these increased numbers even six years later. As such, both traditionally conservative and liberalleaning states have looked for opportunities to tighten eligibility requirements and put in place policies that they hope will get more individuals back into the work force. Currently, states have the greatest flexibility over the administration of TANF. This session, we have seen Alabama’s Legislature consider several proposals to bring Alabama’s TANF programs in line with practical reforms of other states. SB115, by Sen. Arthur Orr, RDecatur, would require TANF applicants to apply for at least three positions of employment prior to their eligibility determination, in addition to the job search requirements already in place for ablebodied TANF recipients. Similar requirements for applicants have recently been considered by the legislatures of both Massachusetts and Maine in the past year as a result of significant reductions in caseloads for states with the provision already in place. Orr’s SB116 would ban the use of TANF debit funds for purchase of alcohol or tobacco and would prohibit their use in tattoo parlors, casinos or adult entertainment establishments. This bill has been offered in two previous sessions and would help satisfy a federal requirement that states restrict the use of welfare benefits for certain purchases or risk losing some federal block grant money for TANF. Lastly, SB114 would criminally punish fraud in obtaining public assistance. There is no indication that an about-face on growing our welfare system will come from Washington anytime soon. While the U.S. House managed to gain some concessions on food stamp reform in the 2014 farm bill, the final version fell far SEE R EFORN | 6D