Let’s talk about “payroll cards.” If you’re low-income, you already know what they are. They are proof that you’re not in charge of your own life.

To be low-income in today’s America is to do without. It’s your fault if you can’t make ends meet, say the Tea party folks. 

You drove uninsured because you couldn’t afford car insurance and you need your car to get to work ? Too bad; pay the fine, pay to reinstate your driver’s license. Pay, pay, pay. That’s just about all that the low-income person hears in America today. Pay.

Such is the context in which “payroll cards” now enter your life.

What are payroll cards ? They’re a kind of prepaid debit card onto which some employers deposit their workers’ weekly wage. The gimmick is that almost all payroll cards have fees attached. You can’t take money off a payroll card without paying a withdrawal fee. Want to use your payroll card as a savings vehicle instead of withdrawing the money ? Some cards charge an “inactivity fee.”

That’s fine, if workers CHOOSE to use a payroll card. If they make that choice, they agree to the fees attached.

What isn’t fine is that some employers make it mandatory for their workers to receive wages on a payroll card; or, they offer direct deposit or check but either don’t tell their employees or make clear that they frown on an employee making that choice.  The payroll card is a favorite especially of firms that pay its workers minimum wage or just above minimum. For their workers, it’s payroll card or nothing — or a displeased boss.

It is unlawful for an employer to require workers to pay fees to access their wages. It matters economically, too: because to a $ 7.50 an hour worker taking home $ 265 a week, a $ 2.00 withdrawal fee cuts into vital cash. The only way to do it is to withdraw one’s entire pay check at one time and keep the cash at home, just like in the 18th Century before banks existed. Some payroll card employers are doing just that. And if that cash gets stolen — by a family member; it happens often — well, that’s just the way it is when you are low-income in today’s America.

The firms that insist on paying by payroll card, with all the fees that come with them, argue that many of their workers don’t have bank accounts and that the fees attached to payroll cards cost far less than those charged by check cashers. This is true; but the argument is a fake one, because the reason that employers use payroll cards has nothing to do with saving their workers some money. It’s about saving the EMPLOYER money.

It is much cheaper for a large firm to pay its thousands of low-wage employees by payroll card than by electronic deposit or by check.That, and not the convenience of workers, is why the payroll card is this season’s hot employer item. Payroll cards are yet another example of how many of  today’s large employers view their employees not as an asset but as a “cost item.”

Payroll cards do work for social security recipients, because Federal law prohibits card issuers and ATM companies from charging any fees to social security recipients paid by card. If this Federal law cannot be extended to cover cards used by private employers, then payroll cards simply should never be mandatory or pretended to be so. The Attorney General of New York is suing to force companies headquartered in his state to offer payment by direct deposit or check. Good for him.

No-fee payroll cards should be required everywhere in today’s America. It is hard enough to be low-income without having fees unavoidably attached to one’s (mostly) minimum wage paycheck.

—– The Editors / Here and Sphere

In Florida the trial is well under way now of Gerorge Zimmerman, who is charged with second degree murder for shooting dead a 17-year old named Trayvon Martin.

You may recall the case. Martin was visiting family in the town of Sanford. He had gone to he store at night to buy a soft drink and sone Skittles and was on his way back when unexpectedly he found himself being followed by a man who was armed — not clear if Martin knew this — and who at no time identified himself to Martin other than to ask “what are you doing here ?” And that only after Martin had asked, “why are you following me ?” Martin, thinking that this unidentified man meant him harm, defended himself. Zimmerman, thinking that Martin was up to no good, kept pressing. A fight ensued, ended only when Zimmerman, having gotten much the worse of the fight and being afraid for his life — his testimony — he took out his gun and shot Martin dead.

It transpired that Zimmerman was a volunteer for the gated community’s security watch patrol. It also was learned that Zimmerman had noted Martin walking across the gated grounds and called the Sanford police, telling them he intended to follow the Martin. The police advised him not to do so; but he did it anyway.

These are all the relevant facts in the case.

A huge outcry went up when the American public learned that the Sanford police decided not to arrest Zimmerman, who claimed that he shot Martin in self-defense; as a result of that outcry, the police did arrest him, and the state of Florida set in motion the prosecution that has now reached trial.

The outcry and its consequences — lots of public accusation and recrimination — has led to a focus on the fight that took place and not on the events that led up to it. This is a mistake and quickly distracts the mind from a proper consideration of criminal culpability on the part of Zimmerman. As it happens, Zimmerman is unmistakably culpable. Let us see why :

1. He is armed with a loaded gun. A loaded gun is something that the law terms a “dangerous instrumentality.” Our tort law imposes a strict liability upon those who use dangerous instrumentalities, be these explosives, lethal chemicals, waters in a private reservoir, or loaded weapons. And for very good public policy reasons. Our criminal law similarly imposes a like duty upon those who use dangerous instrumentalities; except that criminal liability for their use is not strict; it only arises if the dangerous instrumentality is misused recklessly or, obviously, intentionally). For example, if I drive my car at 60 mph in a 30 mph zone and doing so kill a pedestrian, I am guilty of reckless conduct resulting in a death and am criminally responsible.

2.  He disregards police advice and initiates a train of events that leads to a fight and a killing. Being armed, and following young Martin, in the mistaken belief that Martin is up to no good, persists in following without identifying himself. He allows — induces — Martin reasonably to conclude that he, Zimmerman, means him harm. What actually followed was almost forseeable, just as forseeable as that if I drive 60 in a 30 zone, in disregard of posted speed limit signs, an injury and even death will occur.

3.  His belief that Martin is up to no good is entirely mistaken. The likelihood of mistake — while being armed — is why he owed Martin a legal duty to identify himself. He has no idea who Martin is other than that Martin is walking across the gated community’s grounds.He has no evidence at all to the contrary. If he was going to follow Martin — despite being advised not to — while being armed, he owed Martin a duty to identify himself. Had he done so, none of what ensued would likely have happened.

Zimmerman’s defense is that he shot Martin in self-defense while being beaten pretty badly. However, the self-defense assertion  cannot stand. You cannot initiate a train of criminally reckless train of events and then, when events go against you, claim the rightful man’s defense.

There really is nothing further to this case. The death that took place was the direct result of a train of events set in motion entirely by Zimmerman. His conduct from the beginning was reckless — the mistaken assumption, the disregard of police advice, the failure to identify himself — and, as he was armed, his recklessness was criminal. The only difficulty is in deciding whether Zimmerman is guilty of second degree murder, as the State of Florida charges, or of manslaughter.

As manslaughter is a death caused by criminally reckless conduct, without regard to who is killed, the facts here readily meet that standard.

Second degree murder, however, requires an animus specifically against the person killed. As Zimmerman did not know Martin, the only way to reach the second degree murder standard is to prove that Martin had a generalized animus against people unidentified walking at night across the gated grounds. His original statements to police after the killing make clear that he plenty of such animus. But are these pre-arrest statements admissible evidence ? Probably not. The state is going to have to prove animus from the bare facts of the events of the case. As Zimmerman is unlikely to testify, it will be difficult, we think, to establish the extent of his animus.

Manslaughter it likely is.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

We at Here and Sphere aren’t fixated on crime, and we don’t find the doings of sports stars red-letter news. Still, the saga of Aaron Hernandez, until recently one of the New England Patriots‘ major players, commands our attention. Last August he signed a $ 40,000,000 contract with the Patriots — $ 26 million of it guaranteed. Yet now, accused not just of one murder but of three, in two incidents separated by almost a year, Hernandez looks, from the evidence so far released by the police and District attorney in Bristol County, in a huge peck of trouble. If anybody gets that $ 26 million, it’ll be his lawyers.

His eventual prosecution and trial is a matter for the law and courts; and when the trial begins, Here and Sphere will definitely report from it. For now, all we want to do is ask some questions. Questions that arise from the various police narratives already put into the news. These questions do not convict him; they only ask.

These are puzzling questions that defy glib answers :

1. How does a man who plays a violent, utterly demanding sport for a coach who brooks no insubordination of any kind become someone who kills people if they make him “unhappy’ with them ?

2. If he decided to kill Odin Lloyd — his likely future brother in law — because he was “unhappy’ that Lloyd had spoken to people that he, Hernandez, “had troubles with,” what was it that Lloyd and the other men talked about that called for a killing ?

3. They were at a noisy club that we know well : Rumor, in downtown Boston. How did Hernandez hear what Lloyd was supposed to have said ?

4. If Hernandez felt, about Lloyd talking to those men, that now “he couldn’t trust anyone any more,” how come he asked two men to come up to Massachusetts, to accompany him when he went to pick up Lloyd for a talk ? Evidently he DID trust at least SOMEONE still…

5. If, as is now asserted, he is the main suspect in a shooting of two men last July — while they were stopped at a stop light after leaving a bar (Cure, another that we know well) where they had gotten into a fight with a group that included Hernandez — why did the silver SUV with Rhode Island license plates, that was seen pulling alongside the two men who got shot, not get dumped somewhere, instead of being found yesterday, in Hernandez’s home city of Bristol, CT, no less ?

6. Why, with Odin Lloyd in the car with three other men, was Lloyd able to text to his sister that he was “with NFL” and, shortly after, “Just so you know” ? According to the timeline, those texts went out a bare seven minutes before Hernandez was seen, on his home’s surveillance camera, returning with a gun in plain view. No one thought to not let Lloyd use his cell phone during that obviously not a fun drive ?

7. The above suggests that the shooting of Lloyd was an unexpected, impulse act; that the drive was intended only to be a frank talk. But if that was so, why did Hernandez need to have two guys along with him ? Were they to be just talkers ?

8. He rents the drive-car in his own name, gets seen on surveillance cameras everywhere, is accompanied on the drive by two guys who will surely rush to testify against him to save themselves; buys bubble gum and, next morning, upon returning the rental car, hands some of it to the rental agency gal – gum that is also found in the rental car along with a shell casing from a .45; shoots two guys from a car that can be traced and now has been : did he think that being the Great Aaron Hernandez, $ 40 million sports star, that no one would ever suspect him of being a  stone killer easy to anger ? To this question, the answer must be “yes.” It had worked until the killing of Lloyd.

9. Lastly : how could he do all this, putting his fiancee and child at total risk ? Ms Jenkins was photographed at Court totally crying. Her life will never be the same (though at least she is alive). And what of her sister, who was dating Odin Lloyd ? What does she do ? Are women, in that world, just collateral damage ?

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

Ed Markey (D), Congressman from the 7th District, was elected our state’s new Senator yesterday, defeating Gabriel Gomez (R). The final totals show the race wasn’t even close. The percentage margin was exactly 10 : 54.8 to 44.8.

642,988 people voted for Markey, 525,080 for Gomez. Add in the small vote won by a third candidate and you find that about 1,200,000 of us voted — more or less 35 % of all our registered voters. This was much less than the nearly 60 % of us that voted in January 2010, when Scott Brown (R) won his now legendary, 5 point victory over Martha Coakley.

The low turnout was no surprise. Both candidates seemed to want it that way. Markey, so that he could tiptoe to victory on Democratic enrollment numbers while keeping Republicans unaroused; Gomez, so that he might lull Democratic “low information” voters (as GOP bloggers call them) asleep while whispering “pssst, I’m a Republican” in GOP voters’ ears.

Gomez’s strategy didn’t work. Markey’s did.

The State’s Democratic party is happy to tout its estimable GOTV operation for the result. It had, so is claims, from 7500 to 15,000 volunteers — depending on who is doing the claiming — working the Markey campaign during the final week. And the state’s GOP is happy to congratulate itself on producing a mere 10 point defeat “in this deep blue state,” as it calls Massachusetts, for the party’s first-time candidate who never ran for office before. (Actually, he did — for selectman in his town of Cohasset, a race that he lost.) Of course the GOP assertion is wrong. Ten points is a big loss in any open-seat race. Major GOP statewide candidates in our state have done quite a bit better these past six years. As for the Democratic party’s claim, it too over-reaches. Volunteers cannot make votes; they can only bring voters to the polls. The voters do the deciding; and in this election, having seen and heard both Markey and Gomez in three debates, they did decide. They chose Markey.

Why did 55 % of us choose Markey ? Two reasons stand out. First, Markey touted his long experience in Washington; Gomez decried it. But Massachusetts voters value long experience in Washington. it’s how we get Federal dollars delivered to our defense and technology industries and to our educational institutions, which employee huge numbers of us. Long experience in Washington is also how the policy priorities of Massachusetts voters get enacted into law. Gomez was never able to make a case why Markey’s long experience was a detriment.

Second, Markey made clear to the voters that he fully supports (1) the rights of women to make their own reproduction decisions and (2) solid gun control legislation, including an assault weapons ban. Gomez offered half a loaf : the abortion decision, but with limitations and qualifications; on gun control, background checks but no assault weapons ban. On these two issues, our voters chose the full deal, not the half-price.

Can there be any doubt, after Scott Brown’s defeat last year, much because of his half-way on women’s issues, that Massachusetts voters will not vote for a half slice of these two issues ? And there was a deeper weakness in his campaign : as a Republican running in Massachusetts for national office, he had to bear the totally toxic blot that the national GOP means to our state’s voters today. Only by running a campaign of full insurgency, AGAINST the national GOP — including against Mitch McConnell as Senate leader — could he have made a case to Massachusetts voters. It might not have worked. Maybe it COULD not have worked. but the attempt needed to be made. It wasn’t.

The vote shows just what Gomez gave up by running a campaign of “pssst…” and issue dilution. Solid Republican towns like Douglas, Sutton, Tolland, Granville, and Charlton heard his “psst…” He carried them by 50 points — just as well as Scott Brown did in 2010. He carried some almost as Republican Merrimack valley border towns — Methuen, Dracut, Tyngsboro — by 30 points; again, very like the margins won by Brown in 2010.

Everywhere else, however — in the swing suburbs between Route 495 and 128 and in the Boston core — Gomez did worse, much worse than Brown. Brown won Peabody by 20 points; Gomez by 2. Brown won Haverhill by 30 points, Gomez by 11. Brown won Marblehead and Quincy; Gomez lost both. Brown lost Boston two to one; Gomez lost it 7 to 2. Brown lost Cambridge 4 to 1; Gomez by 8 to 1. Brown lost western Massachusetts 2 to 1; Gomez, 3 to 1 and in some towns, much worse. Gomez came nowhere near Brown’s percentages in most of our outlying, old mill cities. Brown lost Salem by 8, Gomez by 25; Lynn by 2 tlo 1 instead of 5 to 3. Brown did respectably in Springfield; Gomez lost it by 30 points. Brown almost carried Worcester; Gomez lost it by 18 points. Gomez was trounced in New Bedford and Fall River.

One formerly Democratic old mill city does seem to have moved itself to the GOP. Brown carried Chicopee by 8 points; Gomez won it b y 6. For political campaign planners, is matters. For the rest of us, looking statewide, not much considering the state’s stand on the issues that concern our voters most.

Markey’s victory speech and Gomez’s concession summed up the two campaigns. Markey talked issues; Gomez talked SEAL and veterans. Markey spoke like a Senator, Gomez like a Navy pilot returning from a deployment overseas. His heroism we applaud. But politics it isn’t and wasn’t — and won’t be, if Gomez makes another run for major office in Massachusetts.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere