Day: May 17, 2011

57 Years Ago Today, The Most Significant Supreme Court Decision Of The 20th Century!

On this day in 1954, 57 years ago, the United States Supreme Court transformed America in a way never matched by any other decision of the entire 20th century!

The Court unanimously declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown V. Board Of Education Of Topeka, Kansas, a decision that ushered in the civil rights movement, not only in education, but in all areas of American society.

How far we have come, to the point that we have a black President, and have seen the successes of integration in American society to the point that there are many mixed race couples and children, and most Americans don’t even bat an eyelash at the changes that have come about.

Sure, there are still people in America who are racist, and that is true of all races. But the country is much better off for the courage of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who convinced the Justices of the Court of the absolute need for unanimity on the decision, and Associate Justice Hugo Black, who overcame his earlier Ku Klux Klan membership, to do the RIGHT THING!

It is hard to imagine a scenario whereby this decision had not come about, and to believe it possible that segregation would still be the law of the land.

This Brown decision is an example of the best that the Supreme Court has brought us in its 222 plus years of its history, and this is a moment to salute the Court and America for the wonderful event that occurred in 1954, and which we celebrate today!

The Suicide Of Newt Gingrich Equals The Suicide Of The Republican Party!

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who just announced his candidacy six days ago, has already committed suicide in regards to his campaign for President, by what he said in his Sunday interview on Meet the Press.

Regarding Paul Ryan’s plan to wipe out Medicare as we know it in ten years, something all but four Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for, Gingrich said it was radical, and that a personal mandate for all, which he had supported, as most Republicans did in the 1990s, was essential.

In so stating, Gingrich was actually agreeing with the personal mandate aspect of Barack Obama’s Health Care plan, something which all Republicans have been railing against for the past two years.

By attacking the House GOP plan and backing a personal mandate, which actually makes total sense, Gingrich has destroyed his candidacy for President, not that he was seen as having a real chance, what with his constant controversial statements over the years and recently, and his private life, which certainly does not measure up to the family values enunciated by his party, no matter how hypocritical such assertions might be!

But the suicide of Newt Gingrich, and the insistence of the Republican Party that any candidate MUST be against the personal mandate and support the end of Medicare as we know it, is for sure the road to destruction of any chance the party has to win power in 2012!

The bitter reaction of voters in polls and at Town Halls against the Paul Ryan plan is causing an uproar that has shocked the party faithful, but the idea of supporting Gingrich in his statement that the personal mandate is being responsible–as much as having auto insurance–is totally unacceptable as party philosophy.

So the destruction of Gingrich will, ironically, cause the suicide of the Republican Party in the 2012 Presidential Election!

John McCain Vs The Bush Administration And Rick Santorum

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 GOP Presidential nominee, spent five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison, and suffered horrible torture.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other figures in the Bush Administration NEVER suffered torture, and neither did former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who is one of the group of Republicans seeking the Presidency in 2012.

But the Bush loyalists and Senator Santorum continue to assert that waterboarding, a form of torture, helped to bring about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden two weeks ago, despite clearcut evidence from CIA head Leon Panetta that waterboarding had no role in bringing about the demise of Bin Laden.

Senator McCain had the courage last week to condemn those who think torture is an acceptable and useful method to gain information from detainees. McCain has always been against the breaking of international law which the Bush Administration was engaged in by using waterboarding as a method to try to force information from captives in the War on Terror.

If John McCain, who suffered for this country, and CIA head Leon Panetta, both claim that torture did not work, and undermines our values, that should be enough to stop the propaganda endorsing torture, and it is good that Barack Obama has repudiated such a policy in the future, as it diminished the image of the United States as a nation that exists under law and a sense of morality.