Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

Strike the rebel flag in S.C.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has done what she had to do.

She signed a bill that brings down the Confederate battle flag that flew in front of the statehouse in Columbia, S.C.

Yes, it’s a mere symbol. However, it’s a powerful symbol … of hate, bigotry, tyranny and enslavement.

The South Carolina legislature debated the issue passionately, but decided ultimately to do what it had to do.

It needed to come down. The context, of course, is the horrifying massacre in that Charleston, S.C., church in which a gunman killed five African-American church members — including its pastor. A young man, Dylann Roof, has been accused of the crime and what we know about young Roof is that he is an avowed racist who waved the Confederate battle flag proudly as a demonstration of his intention to start what he called a “race war.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/south-carolinas-governor-signs-confederate-flag-removal-bill/ar-AAcLNgx

The flag is down and I’m glad about that.

However, one can take this campaign too far. I think it’s starting to veer into some tricky territory. TV Land has stopped showing “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns because the car that Bo and Luke Duke drove in the show had a battle flag emblem on its roof.

Now comes talk of removing Confederate military figures’ statues.

There is a certain historical significance in many of these monuments. These individuals were answering a call to duty. Yes, they were fighting to break up the Union. It’s good, though, to remind ourselves of our nation’s dark moments.

I have no problem with the battle flag coming down in places like South Carolina, where the Civil War started in 1861. The flag has become the emblem of hate; you see it flown at Klan rallies. The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles banned the flag from appearing on license plates, and the Supreme Court upheld the state’s right to issue that prohibition.

The flag is a hateful symbol. But not all monuments dedicated to the Confederacy conjure up the same level of intense loathing among so many Americans.

So, let’s seek to dial back the knee-jerk responses to other symbols that carry historic significance.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Change the federal judicial system? Please, no

What is it with some American politicians?

A court ruling or two doesn’t go their way and they want to toss aside one of the basic tenets of our federal government? They want to elect federal judges, make them stand for “retention” if they make a decision that upsets some of us?

That’s the view of a leading so-called “conservative” U.S. senator who’s also running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Take it away, Ted Cruz of Texas.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruz-chris-matthews-supreme-court-119891.html

Cruz jousted this week with MSBNC’s Chris Matthews over the setup of the federal judiciary. Cruz doesn’t like the two recent Supreme Court rulings that (a) upheld the Affordable Care Act and (b) legalized gay marriage in the United States.

The junior senator from Texas now thinks Supreme Court justices should stand for retention to enable voters a chance to decide if they want them to keep their jobs.

Matthews, not surprisingly, went semi-ballistic — which is part of his shtick. He brought up the Bush v. Gore decision that settled the 2000 presidential election. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to stop the Florida recount. Texas Gov. George W. Bush was leading by 537 votes at that moment over Vice President Al Gore. Gov. Bush was awarded Florida’s electoral votes, which were enough to elect him president of the United States by a single electoral vote.

The five Republican-appointed justices’ overruled the four dissents cast by the Democratic-appointed justices. Politics? Gosh, do you think?

Conservatives hailed that decision. And why not? It was all done according to precisely the manner allowed by the U.S. Constitution. Some of us might not have liked the outcome, but that’s how it goes. The justices made the call.

Cruz didn’t object then, Matthews reminded him.

The nation’s founders set up a system in which the federal judiciary is intended to be free of political pressure. The president appoints judges and Supreme Court justices, who then are subject to approval by the Senate. They get lifetime jobs and, therefore, are able to rule according to how they interpret the Constitution.

This idea that we should now subject justices to the political will of the people is simply not in keeping with what the founders intended when they wrote the Constitution.

Political conservatives, such as Sen. Cruz, keep harping on “original intent.” Well, the founders’ “original intent” was to separate the judicial branch of government from the political tug-of-war that exists in the legislative and executive branches.

Cruz said he is “reluctant to call for elections,” and said it “makes him sad.” He added that he has made that call because “a majority of the justices are not honoring their judicial oaths.”

Yes they are, senator.

Let’s leave the judicial system alone.

national news

Two memories: distinct yet related come to mind

Once in the bluest of moons strange thoughts cross my mind, involving distinctly different memories but which somehow — oddly — are tied together in my heart and mind.

My late grandmother and my hometown newspaper have come to my mind this evening.

I got word today that The Oregonian is going to shut down its presses, darkening the production operation in downtown Portland, the city of my birth and where I came of age. It makes me sad.

And on July 4, tomorrow, I will mark the 37th year since my beloved grandmother, Diamontoula Filipu, passed away. She died on the Fourth of July. I think of her almost daily. I think of her on Independence Day because Yiayia, as we called her, was a great American, a loving matriarch, the best cook who ever lived and was a proud American. She chose to live in the United States and never took for granted — not for an instant — the blessings she accrued when she moved here from Turkey not long after the turn of the 20th century.

My wife told me that Yiayia likely timed her passing just to be sure that we’d remember it. Boy, do we ever.

OK, so how are these two things related?

Here goes.

My wife and I hadn’t been married all that long. She was working in the circulation department on the ground floor of The Oregonian building. We had produced one son already; he was about a year old. Then we learned we were pregnant again.

With this news fresh in our minds — and with little time to inform anyone of it — my wife went to work one morning and told a colleague of hers about our big news. Well, it turns out that her friend’s grandmother was a good friend of Yiayia’s. This friend, apparently, told his grandmother later that morning in a phone call. Her colleague’s grandmother than reportedly called Yiayia to congratulate her on becoming a great-grandmother again.

One issue, though, arose: Yiayia didn’t know about it until her friend told her.

Later that evening, my wife and I walked into our little rental house. The phone rang. It was Yiayia.

She was “mad” that we didn’t tell her first about our big news. She proceeded to “scold” me, telling that she had to be kept informed before anyone else when the news involves something so huge as the impending birth of a new family member.

She then laughed and told me she loved me.

That was Yiayia. Was she a busy-body? Sure. But old-country women are entitled

It might be a stretch to combine these two memories, but they’re in my heart tonight as I think of a longstanding tradition in my hometown going away — and of one of the many happy remembrances I have of my beloved Yiayia.

I miss her every day.

local news, national news, political news, religious news, State news

County clerk stands on principle … and quits

Dana Guffey is a principled public servant.

Do I agree with a particular principle that caused her to quit her job as a county clerk in Arkansas? No — but that’s not the point of this post.

My point is that Guffey quit her public service job because she opposes the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalizes gay marriage across the land.

She should be applauded for her principled decision, which has far more integrity than the idea promoted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said it is just fine with him if county clerks declined to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Paxton’s view has been endorsed by Texas Republican officeholders.

These county clerks can stay on the job. They just don’t have to fulfill their oath.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2015/06/arkansas-clerk-will-resign-over-moral-objection-to-issuing-samesex-marriage-licenses/

To their credit, Potter and Randall counties’ clerks — Republicans Julie Smith and Renee Calhoun, respectively — have said they will issue licenses to same-sex couples when the opportunities present themselves. They’ve chosen to fulfill their oath, which means they vow to uphold national and state laws.

Meanwhile, Cleburne County, Ark., Clerk Dana Guffey has chosen to quit rather than do something with which she disagrees.

The Roosevelt County, N.M., clerk quit her job as well when New Mexico legalized gay marriage in 2013. I had no problem with her resignation, either. It, too, became a matter of principle.

No one says a public official must continue to hold a job if they disagree with fulfilling any of its required duties. The highest court in America has determined that since gay marriage is now legal, that it is constitutional — as opposed to state laws prohibiting it. Thus, issuing marriage licenses to gay couples becomes part of the job description.

If you cannot do the job, you quit.

That is what Dana Guffey did.

national news, political news

U.S. Constitution alive and well

There are those who say the U.S. Constitution is carved in stone.

Others say it is a living document.

I will side with the living document folks.

Consider this, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that legalizes gay marriage across the nation.

The Constitution, when it was written, granted full citizenship rights to just a portion of the population.

* Men were allowed to vote. Not women.

* Black people were the property of white people; they were considered to be three-fifths of a human being.

Eventually, the Constitution underwent change.

The 19th Amendment gave women got the right to vote. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 24th Amendment barred poll taxes as a requirement to vote in federal elections.

The courts stepped in on a number of fronts. The Supreme Court tossed out a state law that prohibited interracial marriage; it tossed out “separate but equal” provisions in public education, resulting in integration of our public schools; it ruled that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

Now it has ruled that same-sex couples are as entitled to marry as heterosexual couples.

The Constitution has evolved over time.

I believe the evolution will continue with this latest ruling.

 

national news

Nightmare ends in N.Y. … good job

A million bucks a day.

That’s one estimate of the cost of hunting down two escaped murderers. Yes, there were some eyebrows raised over the cost of the manhunt.

However, I am reckoning today that no one is going to gripe out loud about the cost. One of the bad guys, Richard Matt, is dead; the other, David Sweat, is in custody.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/troopers-hunting-escapees-scrambled-to-save-1-they-captured/ar-AAcgwNV

They had crawled out of a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, the first such escape in the history of the century-old lockup. At least two prison employees are accused of aiding in the men’s escape.

But this story, which has all the earmarks of a potential movie or TV dramatization, was hair-raising in the extreme for residents living anywhere near the prison.

The men didn’t get very far before the police caught up with them.

Matt resisted arrest and was gunned down. The police didn’t waste any time with Sweat; a lone officer spotted him walking along a rural road a little more than a mile from the Canadian border. Sweat started running and the officer shot him twice, injuring him critically.

These two are bad men. Both were serving life sentences for committing brutal crimes. To say they were considered “dangerous” is to commit a serious understatement.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — perhaps channeling the late President Ford — declared at a news conference, “The nightmare is finally over.”

Good job all around.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Trump favors ‘traditional marriage’

The Donald opened himself up for some snickering.

I’ll admit that I snickered a bit when I heard Donald Trump declare that he favors “traditional marriage” and that he disagrees with the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage.

Trump: ‘I’m for traditional marriage’

I won’t pass judgment here. Members of my family have been married more than once.

But this is the kind of thing that The Donald will face as he answers questions from the media while he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.

He’s on his third marriage. He’s been divorced twice. Trump’s life is now officially an open book — not that it wasn’t before he declared his presidential candidacy.

When the host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Jake Tapper, pressed him on the traditional marriage matter and whether he was qualified to speak on it, given his own marital history, Trump talked of how his business activity got in the way of his relationships.

To his credit, Tapper told Trump he didn’t care to hear why his first two marriages failed.

When The Donald, though, steps into some of these particularly tricky issues, he’d better watch where his foot lands. There could be a political land mine or two out there.

 

national news, religious news

Constitution reads like … the Bible

The eruption of interpretations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s two blockbuster rulings this week brings to mind a thought about two quite famous pieces of writing.

The U.S. Constitution and the Bible have something in common. You can take from either document what you want to take from them.

The court affirmed the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage. It upheld the federal subsidies critical to the ACA and it declared that gay couples can marry legally anywhere in the United States.

“Strict constructionists” have declared that the court overstepped in both rulings. More liberal thinkers say the court ruled correctly.

It reminds a bit of the debate over Scripture between the fundamentalists and those who view the Bible a bit more, um, interpretatively.

You can read both documents in accordance with your own view of the law or of your own faith.

Furthermore, you can argue that your version of the truth is correct and the other side is wrong. How many times have you had that discussion about the Bible? I’ve had it more than a few times over many years.

I am guessing we’re entering a new phase of constitutional interpretation that will be just as fierce.

national news

This wasn’t a parody

The Onion takes great pleasure in offering parodies of news events.

The link attached here talks about a black man who supports flying the Confederate flag — and who has just tripled his media appearance rates to tell  his story.

http://www.theonion.com/article/black-man-support-confederate-flag-triples-his-med-50727

It’s a hilarious send-up of a current news story.

However, it brings to mind a woman I met many years ago while covering a governor’s race in Louisiana. If only she had been pulling my leg at the time. She wasn’t.

The year was 1991. I was working in Beaumont, in the southeastern corner of Texas, about 25 miles from the Louisiana border. The Beaumont Enterprise was covering “regional news” back then, and still sold newspapers all the way to Lake Charles, La. I thought I could get an interesting commentary out of the governor’s race in the state next door, so I ventured across the Sabine River and went to Vinton, La., where voters were casting ballots.

The two candidates were the Democrat, former Gov. Edwin Edwards and the Republican, David Duke — yes, that David Duke, the Ku Klux Klansman.

I went to a polling place and talked to voters walking away. I approached a middle-aged African-American woman and asked her about the race — expecting fully to get the kind of response I’d heard from other African-Americans about a contest between a colorful former governor and the intensely controversial opponent, Duke.

What I got damn near bowled me over.

The woman said she voted for Duke!

The KKK stuff didn’t bother her, she said. His white supremacist views weren’t the deal-breaker, she explained.

Why did you vote for him? I asked. It was his stand on welfare, she said.

I truly thought she was kidding. I pressed her some more about her political leanings and she insisted that she was sincere. David Duke was her man because he wanted to get people off welfare, that she was tired of paying for other people’s food and housing. If they really wanted to work, she said, they could find a job.

Wow! Who knew?

Looking back on 24 years on that amazing encounter, I can read The Onion parody and wonder: Is it really a joke?

Hmmm. Yeah. It is.

 

national news

Let’s get to the hard task of tackling racism

I follow a blog that has produced a most interesting essay.

It comes from Adele Stan, writing in the American Prospect.

The essay says, in summary, that removal of the Confederate flag and other symbols of a dark time in our nation’s history, is worthwhile and necessary. But it’s the easy part. The hard part is tackling the issue it represents: insidious racism.

Here it is:

“We Must Examine Our Own Prejudices”: Removing The Confederate Flag Is Easy; Fixing Racism Is Hard

The essay concludes with this: “So, yes, remove the Confederate flag — that standard of dehumanization, treason, and murder — from our sight. But proof of our intention demands great change in the way in which we lead, the way in which we live, the way in which we think; we must be willing to truly open the riches of progressive society and culture to all. To do that, we must — each and every one of us — examine our own prejudice, and be determined to transcend it. Then the real work of a just society can begin.”

It’s good that we’re having this discussion in the wake of the Charleston tragedy. I’m glad to see public opinion overwhelming the minority that still seeks to find legitimacy in symbols of hate and bigotry.

But as it is noted in the essay attached here, we need to look within to rid ourselves of “our own prejudice.”