Archive for March, 2012
Conservatives Who Support The Obama Health Care Law: Charles Fried, Laurence Silberman, Jeffrey Sutton
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on March 31, 2012
Three major conservative leaders have made clear by statements and actions that they believe the Obama Health Care law is constitutional under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Charles Fried, who was Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, was highly critical of some of the questioning by conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court this past week. Fried said health care is interstate commerce, and that Congress has the right to regulate interstate commerce. The arguments utilized in questioning are “phony rhetoric” in Fried’s mind.
Judge Laurence Silberman of the DC Court Of Appeals upheld the Obama Health Care law as constitutional in one of the cases brought by states before circuit courts on the way to the Supreme Court, decided on November 8, 2011. He has been a federal judge for 27 years, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and is a good friend, of all people, of Justice Clarence Thomas, who is seen as a guaranteed vote against the Obama Health Care law.
And Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the 6th Circuit Court Of Appeals upheld the health care law on June 29, 2011, and is seen as a leader of the conservative Federalist Society! He was appointed by George W. Bush, and is considered a disciple of Justice Antonin Scalia! He is well known as a states rights advocate!
So go figure!
This tells us ANYTHING can happen on this Court decision, and not to come to a conclusion this early that the Obama Health Care law is going to be overturned!
March 30: Important Date In History In Many Ways, Including A Personal One!
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on March 30, 2012
Today, March 30, is a very significant date in American history.
It is the day in 1981 that President Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, but survived, recovered, and went on to serve two full terms as the 40th President.
It is also the day in 1867 when Secretary of State William Seward signed the treaty arranging for the purchase of Alaska from Czarist Russia for $7.2 million, becoming infamously known as “Seward’s Folly”, It was fortunate that the United States bought Alaska, because if it had remained Russian, imagine the security problems for Canada and the United States during the Cold War years with the Soviet Union!
And it was the day in 1870 that the 15th Amendment, granting African American men the right to vote, was finally ratified and added to the Constitution. Sadly, the South would soon disobey the amendment, and successfully take away the right to vote until the passage of the Voting Rights Act under President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, guaranteeing federal intervention to insure everyone’s right to vote. Now the Republican Party in many states, including, most grievously the state of Florida under Governor Rick Scott and a dominant state legislature, is making it more difficult for people to register and vote, particularly the elderly, the poor, college students, and the poor.
And, in the mind of this author, March 30 is MOST significant because in 1984, his younger son Paul was born, and has brought joy and pride to his father and brother and uncle now for 28 years!
Trying To Fathom The Supreme Court On Health Care: The Court Under The Microscope
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on March 28, 2012
Yesterday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court led many observers to think that the Court is about to declare the Obama Health Care law unconstitutional this coming June.
Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen! This is hysteria and panic before the fact, with plenty of opportunity after the Court decision, if it is, indeed, negative!
Emphasis was put on Justice Antonin Scalia’s sarcastic comments about mandating broccoli, a totally ridiculous statement! But one must remember that Scalia is a showboat, a maniacal egotist who loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and get everyone’s attention, and one must remember that the Court was issuing an audio of the oral arguments immediately after the event, a very rare circumstance, and that had to be on Scalia’s mind!
Scalia was thought to be a possible vote, but if it is not, so what, as Scalia is, arguably, a hypocrite who is constantly contradictory, utilizing a broad interpretation of the Constitution, when he wishes to, and other times, pontificating on “originalism”, the idea that we must literally follow the Founding Fathers as they saw things in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention.
More importantly, the view of Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts will be the crucial votes, and although Kennedy and Roberts both expressed some reservations about the Obama Health Care bill and the mandate contained within it, there were also key comments by both that indicated a mind open to consideration of the constitutionality of the law.
Kennedy is usually the swing vote, and seemed conflicted, which can be seen as a good sign, and Roberts seemed very evenhanded, and is known to want to be in the majority, and probably write this most important decision of the past decade, and aware that the Supreme Court does not look very good in the eyes of many people based on recent cases, particularly the Citizens United Case of 2010, on top of the Bush V. Gore case of 2000.
The argument is that if Kennedy goes to the majority, then Roberts will join, and the vote would be 6-3.
And one must point out that the four defenders of the legislation were excellent in their arguments supporting the legislation, with Justice Stephen Breyer, a true intellectual, particularly outstanding in his arguments, but joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
So, with one more day of oral arguments, it is not time to give up on support of the legislation, and also realize that one cannot always judge how members of the Court will vote, based on oral argument alone, as often, what is being done is to test both sides in the case, and sometimes, purposely mislead on intentions, in the process of asking the lawyers in the case to defend their side.
This decision is far from certain, but progressives should feel optimistic about it at this point, and simply wait patiently to see the result, knowing that the cause is just and compassionate, and that those of us who support it are on the right side of history with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society!
The Horrific Racial Record Of Florida: From Rosewood To Trayvon Martin!
Posted by Ronald in News and Politics on March 27, 2012
Florida is in the center of controversy again, due to the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman a month ago.
This is another example of African Americans being killed without a sense of justice in a state with a horrific record historically on the issue of race.
We like to think, particularly those of us who live in the Sunshine State, that Florida has come a long way from the “Old South” mentality of the past.
But in actual fact, much of the state, north of Palm Beach County, is still perceived as different from South Florida, with an attitude and mentality more like Alabama or Georgia, if not Mississippi! And even South Florida has its ghosts of prejudice and racism!
This is the state that has tried to hide its racial past, both then and even now!
This is the state of Rosewood, a black settlement on the Gulf of Mexico, 140 miles west of Sanford, where the town was destroyed and multiple numbers of blacks were killed by a white mob in 1923, simply on the suspicion that a black man had assaulted a white woman. This was a well hidden story until recent years, when the few survivors were paid compensation for what they went through.
This is the state that in 1934 saw one of the most heinous lynchings of a black man, Claude Neal, in this case in the Florida Panhandle, who was castrated, tortured for hours with tremendous cruelty, and his fingers displayed as souvenirs.
This is the state where a spokesman for the NAACP was killed, along with his wife in 1951, by a bomb exploding under their bed, because they were trying to register voters and get equal wages for black teachers.
This is the state of a lynching by Fort Lauderdale police officers in 1960, and of Miami police killing a motorcyclist in 1979, arrested for speeding, but being handcuffed and beaten with nightsticks until he expired.
In all of the above cases and more, juries found the perpetrators not guilty, or there was no trial at all.
Florida has a lot to answer for, and this Trayvon Martin case may be going down the same path, as George Zimmerman was not questioned by the police at the time; he was not tested for drug use; he was not given medical care for his wounds, which might have explained what really happened a month ago; Treyvon Martin’s body was not identified as more than John Doe for a few days, as the police failed to call the last callers on his cell phone; and the police department now seems to be out to trash Trayvon Martin for his youthful shortcomings, rather than look at what George Zimmerman did against the statements of the 911 contact who told him to stop interfering and leave it to the police to investigate the purpose of Trayvon Martin being in the gated community in Sanford.
Florida will take a long time, if ever, to recover from the damage done to its reputation by yet another racial bias case, nearly as heinous as its long disgraceful racial history, as outlined above!