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.”

 

legal news, medical news

Obamacare upheld … once again

Federal court rulings aren’t supposed to be viewed as bipartisan or partisan, given that federal judges technically aren’t politicians.

They hold these jobs for life and, thus, are able to rule without regard to party affiliation. That’s how it’s supposed to go, if I’m to assume correctly.

However, today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the federal subsidies that were one of the keys to the Affordable Care Act, must be seen as a bipartisan victory for the ACA, aka Obamacare.

The ruling was a 6-3 affirmation of the act, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court’s liberal wing. Roberts was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush; Kennedy was selected by the late President Reagan, the patron saint of the modern conservative movement.

So, there you have it. The ACA remains intact. The Supreme Court, which the Constitution established as the final ruling on the constitutionality of federal law, has upheld the subsidies.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/supreme-court-upholds-nationwide-health-care-law-subsidies/ar-AAc77eU

It’s a huge victory for President Obama. As The Associated Press reported: “Nationally, 10.2 million people have signed up for health insurance under the Obama health overhaul. That includes the 8.7 million people who are receiving an average subsidy of $272 a month to help pay their insurance premiums.”

Denying the subsidies would have cost millions of Americans their health insurance obtained under the ACA. Roberts wrote in his majority opinion: “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.”

It is my sincere hope that we can end this foolish effort to overturn, revoke, discard or otherwise gut what’s now becoming — with each court decision — established law.

Tinker with it? Make it better? Sure. There have been few, if any, landmark laws that have been perfect from the moment they receive the president’s signature.

Enough, already, with these court challenges!

 

media news

Now comes Louis Farrakhan to weigh in on flag

Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show the other day that liberals are next going to seek to take down the Stars and Stripes.

The conservative talk show voice was making some point about the furor over the Confederate flag in the wake of the Charleston church massacre.

Now comes a voice from the equally remote far left of the spectrum. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said we, indeed, need to take down the American flag.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/24/farrakhan-i-dont-get-debate-over-confederate-flag-we-need-to-put-the-american-flag-down/

Those who march under and behind Old Glory have been subjugating African-Americans, Farrakhan said.

That is utter crap!

A former colleague of mine said I owe Daddy Dittohead an apology for tweeting that he should “shut the bleep up” over his remarks about the Stars and Stripes.

I’ll pass on the apology. As for Farrakhan, he, too, needs to shut his pie hole.

 

political news

The Donald is now 2nd in GOP polling?

How have times changed in this country?

Consider that a three-times married (and twice divorced) real estate mogul, host of a reality TV show, self-proclaimed “very rich” guy, someone who puts his name on skyscrapers and brags about it is now the No. 2 candidate among all the Republicans running for president of the United States of America.

Trump surges to second in 2016 GOP poll

The latest Fox News poll puts Donald Trump in second place behind a more serious candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Roll that one around.

Donald … Trump. He’s No. 2 in a field of 13 and growing.

Oh, my.

political news

Jindal makes it a baker’s dozen … and counting

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is now among the growing horde of Republicans running for president of the United States.

We all thought he’d go hard after Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner (for now, at least).

But, no-o-o-o. He saved his heaviest fusillade for John Ellis Bush, the former Florida governor aka Jeb, son and brother of former presidents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bobby-jindal-2016-presidential-announcement-119378.html?hp=t4_r

Jindal is one of the many 1 percenters running for the GOP nomination — that’s 1 percent in the public opinion polling to date. He’s got to make some noise, so he did so today.

“You’ve heard Jeb Bush saying we need to be able to lose the primary to win the general election. We’re going to help him do that,” Jindal said, launching his campaign.

Jindal said of Bush: “He is saying that we need to hide our conservative ideals. But the truth is, if we go down that road again, we will lose again.”

He calls himself a Christian who’s unafraid to proclaim his faith; he favors small government, less tax, strong defense, family values. Gosh, have we heard all this before? Do any of the GOP candidates oppose any of those things? Hardly.

Jindal’s the 13th Republican to declare his or her candidacy for the White House. More are on the way into the center ring. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is coming in; so is Ohio Gov. John Kasich. By my count that makes 15. Hey, there might be even more.

Democrats have just four candidates. How boring that primary could be if Clinton smokes the field. Then again, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, is making a serious move on HRC, at least in neighboring New Hampshire, site of the first primary.

Man, oh man. This campaign is going to be loads of fun.

 

national news

Not your house, Mr. President; it belongs to us

I’ve needled President Obama over the years about his overuse of the first-person singular pronoun.

He did it again today during a ceremony at the White House and I have to call him on it.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/246061-obama-to-hecker-youre-in-my-house

He was speaking at an event honoring LGBT citizens when a woman stood up and heckled him about his administration’s deportation policies.

The president scolded the heckler, telling her, “You’re in my house.”

To which I would respond: What do you mean your house? It’s my house; it belongs to the citizens; you and your family are tenants until Jan. 20, 2017. Then you move out. You look for a place to live. You’re on your own, Mr. President.

This illustrates one of the major beefs I have with the president, his willingness to take personal possession of things that don’t belong to him.

I cite the White House as an example.

According to The Hill: “As a general rule, I am just fine with a few hecklers,” Obama said. “But not when I am up in the house. My attitude is if you’re eating the hors d’oeuvres, you know what I’m saying? And drinking the booze? I know that’s right.”

The heckler was out of line to interrupt a public event. The people came there to hear the president of the United States, not some disgruntled individual who dislikes a policy.

Let’s refrain, though, from declaring the White House someone’s personal property.

It isn’t. It’s the “people’s house,” correct?

 

national news, political news

There’s a silver lining in this flag debate

Wait! I think I see a silver lining beginning to shine through as the nation continues this debate over the meaning of a flag.

Americans — all of us — finally might begin to understand the meaning of the Confederacy, why it was formed in the first place and why its place in history has to be put completely in its proper context.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/

The debate has ignited in the wake of the Charleston, S.C., church massacre. South Carolina legislators have agreed “to debate” whether to take down the rebel flag that flies on the statehouse grounds in Columbia. Let ’em debate, then take the thing down.

But the broader issue must be to determine the Confederacy’s place in American history.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in Atlantic magazine: “The Confederate flag is directly tied to the Confederate cause, and the Confederate cause was white supremacy. This claim is not the result of revisionism. It does not require reading between the lines. It is the plain meaning of the words of those who bore the Confederate flag across history. These words must never be forgotten. Over the next few months the word “heritage” will be repeatedly invoked. It would be derelict to not examine the exact contents of that heritage.”

I’ll stipulate here, as if it needs stipulation, that I am not a Southerner by birth. I was born and reared in Oregon, way up yonder in Yankee territory. Oregon became a state on Feb. 14, 1859 and sent troops to battle to fight to preserve the Union. But for the past 31 years, my family and I have lived in Texas, which was one of those Confederate States of America, those states that committed the treasonous act of seceding from the Union and fighting tooth and nail to preserve something called euphemistically “states rights.”

It has been papered over by Confederate apologists ever since that the underlying reason for going to war in the first place was to keep black Americans subjugated. The individuals who governed these Dixie states wanted to maintain the right to flout federal law and that if state officials felt it was OK to allow slave ownership, then they would be willing to fight to the death to preserve that right.

They did. They lost that fight. Yet the justification for going to war remains central to this discussion of “Southern heritage.”

The article attached to this post lays out clearly the intentions of those who decided to go to war with the United States of America. Read the notations taken from that time and you’ll understand why this discussion is important to have and how the tragedy in Charleston has opened up this effort to remind us of why Americans went to war against fellow Americans.

The shooting has stopped but the battle endures. Those who keep insisting that the Civil War was about protecting state sovereignty are going to lose this one, too.

 

political news

Fox dumps Palin … imagine that

The Fox News Channel says it has parted company with Sarah Palin, the former half-term Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee.

But it hasn’t. Not really. Palin will continue to get guest spots on Fox. She’ll get to have her voice heard. She’ll also be free to appear on other news and commentary outlets — have you put her on your speed dial, MSNBC?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/sarah-palin-dumped-by-fox-119357.html?hp=l2_4

She remains a hot commodity among TEA party conservatives. She speaks their language, whatever that is.

But she also has become a political circus act. The reality TV appearances haven’t delivered any broader appeal. The drama involving some of her family members has created more snickers and ridicule than any politician should want. Her bombastic rhetoric has become tiresome and, frankly, quite repetitive.

However, in this age where public policy intermingles with pop culture, Sarah Barracuda will remain among us.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona chose Palin to run with him in 2008, seeking a “game-changer” in the race for the presidency. Her selection might have changed the game, all right, but not necessarily in the way Sen. McCain expected or hoped — especially as American began hearing the things that flew out of her mouth. Remember the “death panels”? And those amazing stumbles while being interviewed by what she calls the “lame-stream media”? Priceless.

As Politico reports: “When Palin was at her zenith, she made frequent appearances, and Fox installed a camera at her house. But executives consider her less relevant now, and her appearances were sometimes hampered by the vast time difference with Alaska.”

Is she going away? Not any time soon. If ever.

 

national news

Symbols matter, but keep eye on big picture

confederate flag

The Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred, racism and human bondage.

So are the statues of Confederate “heroes” that populate public property throughout the Deep South.

It’s good that governments are taking aim at these symbols. Indeed, many pundits — and I include myself in that gang — have gone overboard to cry out for the removal of flags and statues.

It’s important that we rid ourselves of these visible, tangible and identifiable symbols. They need not stare us in the face and remind us of the path we’ve taken as a nation.

The bigger issue, though, lies in what they represent. The racism. The belief that some of us are better than others merely because of the pigment of our skin.

We’ve had a lot of intense discussion about these issues in the past several days. A young white man walked into a black church, sat down next to black Christians and joined them in a Bible study. The young man then pulled out a gun and shot nine of his acquaintances to death. Dylann Roof has been accused of the crime and we’re learning more about the young man each day, about his hatred of African-Americans and the deep-seated racism he harbored deep within what passes for his soul.

Is he alone? Hardly.

How do we rid society of this kind of evil? That remains the 64 bazillion-dollar question today as we continue to grieve over the deaths of those people in Charleston, S.C.

Yes, the symbols must be taken down. The Confederate battle flag belongs in museums, as President Obama noted. Indeed, removing these symbols doesn’t mean we ignore the things for which they stand. It means we must redouble our vigilance against those who would do the kind of harm against fellow human beings that was done this past week in that Charleston church.

The campaign against hate must continue.

 

national news, State news, Uncategorized

Private prisons taking needed heat

1 Comment

Columbia University has ended its investment program with privately run prisons.

Why? Too many reports of abuse by prison officials.

The report of Columbia ending this particular relationship brings to mind an issue that’s stuck in my craw for years. I’ve never liked the principle of turning over corrections to private businesses.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/06/23/3672903/columbia-divest-private-prisons/

My belief is that corrections completes a public obligation circle that ought to remain part of the public’s responsibility.

I’m likely to take heat for thinking this, but that’s what I believe.

I look at this in a straightforward way, in my view.

The public pays law enforcement to catch criminals, to arrest them, book them into jail and file detailed reports on what the suspect allegedly did.

Then the public pays the salaries of prosecutors to make the case for the state or the county that the individual is guilty of the crime for which he or she has been accused of committing.

The public also conceivably might pay the salary of the defendant’s lawyer if he or she cannot afford private counsel. It’s part of the Miranda rights text that all criminal suspects are supposed to hear while they’re being arrested.

The judge who presides over a criminal trial is paid from the public trough. The public also pays the jurors — admittedly not much — to determine the suspect’s guilt or innocence.

If jurors convict the defendant, then in my mind it falls on the public to pay for the incarceration of that individual for as long as the publicly paid jury determines he or she should spend in prison.

I’ve long been suspicious of private firms running correctional institutions because the public needs to have ironclad guarantees of its oversight responsibility. The public needs full, complete and unfettered access to everything that goes on behind those walls.

We’ve marched a long way down the road already toward turning over much of our corrections operations over to private firms. I wish we could reverse course.

I didn’t have a particular problem when Texas went on a prison-building boom in the early 1990s to make more room for prisoners. A federal judge had ruled the state had violated inmates’ constitutional rights against “cruel and unusual punishment” by cramming them into prison cells. So, it fell on the state to make it right.

Would a private prison firm be compelled to respond in such a manner?

The public pays for suspects’ arrest, prosecution and sentencing.

The public has a responsibility, therefore, to complete its duty by housing these individuals.

 

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