Below is an editorial from Today's New York Times about Justice Brandeis and the most important contribution he may have made to the law, namely, forcing the Justices to contemplate the factual real world consequences of their decisions. Worth reading in this era of constant carping about "activist judges."
Looking Back on Louis Brandeis on His 150th Birthday
By ADAM COHEN
Published: November 14, 2006
In 1908, Louis Brandeis turned American law on its head with the “Brandeis brief.” The Supreme Court was in the midst of the notorious Lochner era, in which a pro-business majority routinely struck down laws protecting workers’ health and safety. Brandeis was defending an Oregon law that limited women’s workdays to 10 hours. It seemed likely the court would rule, as it just had in a similar case, that maximum-hours laws violated employers’ “right of free contract.”
In his brief, Brandeis devoted just two pages to legal analysis. He spent more than 100 pages setting out statistical and sociological data on the harm that long workdays did to women. His use of facts and sociological arguments was both shocking and enormously successful. The court upheld Oregon’s law, 9 to 0.
Brandeis, whose crusades against insurance companies and banks earned him the title “the people’s lawyer,” was born 150 years ago this week. He has many claims to fame: champion of the New Deal, first Jewish Supreme Court justice, creator of the legal doctrine of privacy. But it is Brandeis’s insistence on injecting facts and real-world analysis into the law that is his most lasting achievement, and one that resounds especially strongly today, when “reality-based” logic is so embattled.
Brandeis was born in Louisville, Ky., shortly before the start of the Civil War. As a Southerner and the son of a small merchant, he grew up with a Jeffersonian mistrust of big business. He entered Harvard Law School in 1875, and after graduating first in his class, remained in Boston to practice law. As a young lawyer, he co-wrote an article for the Harvard Law Review, “The Right to Privacy,” that Roscoe Pound, dean of the law school, would later say “did nothing less than add a chapter to our law.”
Brandeis was drawn to social causes. His first major victory was blocking a company from securing a monopolistic right to operate Boston’s subway system. Later, as special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission, he took on the railroad barons, insisting that they should not get rate increases “so long as the vicious system of interlocking directorates makes it impossible to know how much of the money is honestly and efficiently spent.”
And he fought for workers. The Brandeis brief may not look particularly progressive by contemporary standards. It emphasizes women’s feeble physical condition compared with men’s, and quotes such authorities as a cotton mill machine operator who told a Senate committee, “I have noticed that the hard, slavish overwork is driving those girls into the saloons.” But the brief was perfectly calibrated for the Supreme Court of its day. In appealing to the justices’ paternalistic concern for women, it found a chink in the court’s pro-business armor.
Brandeis was so enamored of facts and real-world consequences that he found himself moonlighting as a journalist. He wrote a fine series of muckraking articles on the “money trusts” for Harper’s Weekly, which were later published as the book “Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It.”
When President Woodrow Wilson nominated Brandeis to the Supreme Court in 1916, conservatives worried that he would inject radical new ideas into the law. He did, on subjects ranging from civil liberties to workers’ rights. (In 1937, he was part of the five-member majority that finally ended the Lochner era by upholding a state minimum wage law.) But it was his methodology, as much as his end results, that shook up the legal world. To Brandeis, every opinion — even on a subject as mundane as whether a state can require ice sellers to get a permit — was a chance to hold forth on the case’s practical importance.
For Brandeis, raw data was always key. Oliver Wendell Holmes, his distinguished senior colleague, once complained that Brandeis “drove a harpoon into my midriff by saying that it would be for the good of my soul to devote my next leisure to the study of some domain of fact — suggesting the textile industry.” Holmes protested, “I hate facts,” but grumpily took a government report along with him on his summer vacation.
The Brandeis brief today bears the truest mark of a transformative idea: as radical as it was in its time, today it looks thoroughly conventional. Generations of litigators were quick to adopt its approach. The civil rights lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education prevailed in large part because of their Brandeisian briefs that presented social science data on the effect of segregation on black children.
We are living in an era when facts, and rational analysis, are on the ropes. The president has been inhabiting a world, Ron Suskind wrote in a 2004 New York Times Magazine article, that scorns “the reality-based community.” Congress routinely adopts policies that cater to special interests, which are then justified by the sort of smarmy, fact-free spin that the comedian Stephen Colbert has labeled “truthiness.”
But courts operating on the Brandeis model have, at their best, been a check on this disturbing trend. In its proudest moments, from the civil rights rulings of the 1960s to recent decisions reining in the Bush administration’s war-on-terror excesses, the Supreme Court has insisted on focusing resolutely on the facts, and on the practical effect of the challenged policies on real people.
Decisions like these are Brandeis’s true legacy. His greatest lesson was that — as he wrote in a famous dissent, excoriating the majority for not letting government do more to battle the Great Depression — “in the exercise of this high power, we must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.”
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Election Celebration
How WONDERFUL to have been so happy the week after an election instead of in mourning. The first election I was able to vote in was 1980 - the beginning of the last 26 years of the pendulum swinging conservative - and away from me. Now, I hope it is beginning to swing back. The excesses of the 60s combined with Watergate and the turmoil of the Carter years seem to have scared people to death, so they were thrilled by Reagan's promise of a "shining city on a hill." Unfortunately, the conservatives have failed miserably at shining up America. Mostly, they just managed to keep people distracted with side issues while they pick the pockets of the average American. Abortion and Gay Marriage are the political equivalent of the bump and stumble that pick pockets use.
I hope that America is finally waking up, realizing that if they don't face the truth now, the national debt will simply continue to baloon beyond control and none of our REAL problems, health care chief among them will get solved.
Of course, the current crop of democrats will need LOTS of help and a back-bone implant if they are going to solve these problems. But the most important thing is for the PEOPLE to wake up, then we can wake up the politicians who are willing to listen and replace the others.
I hope that America is finally waking up, realizing that if they don't face the truth now, the national debt will simply continue to baloon beyond control and none of our REAL problems, health care chief among them will get solved.
Of course, the current crop of democrats will need LOTS of help and a back-bone implant if they are going to solve these problems. But the most important thing is for the PEOPLE to wake up, then we can wake up the politicians who are willing to listen and replace the others.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
The importance of questioning
Below is the text of a speech delived brilliantly as usual by Spencer Tracy at the end of the trial portrayed in "Judgment at Nuremberg." It enscapsulates the message of the movie- that even good people who go along with tyranny must be held responsible for not having stood up for what was right. One of the men on trial, Ernst Janning, played by Burt Lancaster, was clearly a very intelligent and at heart a very decent man, who nonetheless cooperated with and ran the judicial branch under the Nazis.
Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary -- even able and extraordinary -- men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat at through trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen.
There are those in our own country too who today speak of the "protection of country" -- of "survival." A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient -- to look the other way.
Well, the answer to that is "survival as what?" A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult!
Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.
Later, Janning asks to see the Judge played by Tracy to insist to him he knew nothing of the holocaust, saying:
"Those millions of people, I never dreamed it would come to that."
Tracy's character responds:
"Herr Janning, it came to that the very first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."
We must remember that it isn't morality that prevents the US from becomming Nazi Germany, it's the continued questioning of one's government and demanding that it live up to the ideals on which it was founded.
Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary -- even able and extraordinary -- men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat at through trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen.
There are those in our own country too who today speak of the "protection of country" -- of "survival." A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient -- to look the other way.
Well, the answer to that is "survival as what?" A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult!
Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.
Later, Janning asks to see the Judge played by Tracy to insist to him he knew nothing of the holocaust, saying:
"Those millions of people, I never dreamed it would come to that."
Tracy's character responds:
"Herr Janning, it came to that the very first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."
We must remember that it isn't morality that prevents the US from becomming Nazi Germany, it's the continued questioning of one's government and demanding that it live up to the ideals on which it was founded.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Jack's House - New York Times
This poem from this morning's NY Times is EXCELLENT!
Jack's House
Article Tools Sponsored By
By HART SEELY
Published: March 31, 2006
These are the men
That fleeced the tribes
That paid the money
That made the bribes
That purchased the Congress that
Jack built.
This is the Duke
That sailed the yacht
That raised the eyebrows
And got him caught,
Who helped Mitch Wade,
Who bought Duke's land
And kicked in 700 grand;
Which raised Duke's taxes,
And gave Duke pain;
So Wade paid the tab
On Duke's capital gain.
Bigger than Abscam:
Randy "Duke" Cunningham!
Top gun in the Congress that
Jack built.
This is Bob Ney,
Who knew the fine print
That could pass a casino
And rev up its mint,
Who spawned the e-mail
Where Jack foretold:
"Just met with Ney.
"We're [expletive] gold!"
And Ney in 2000,
A moment quite checkered
Ripped magnate Gus Boulis
In the Congress'nal Record.
His tirade was meant
To frighten the fellow,
Who cops say was shot
By Big Tony Moscatiello,
Who got a small fortune
From Jack's pal in D.C.,
A guy Ney said was known
For his "honesty."
Their pal was indicted
And then copped a plea
Guilty of fraud
And conspiracy.
For creating the vibes
That condoned the bribes
That corrupted the Congress that
Jack built.
This is DeLay,
Who built the machine
That redrew the districts
And raised the green,
That decided the races
That claimed the new seats,
That made the new friends
That owned luxury suites,
That held big galas
That brought the donations
That helped him to greet
The great Coushatta Nation!
With 800 members
And fund-stream support
From the famous Coushatta Casino Resort!
Which paid several million
For Jack to abort
A rival tribe's parlor
In nearby Shreveport,
Which prompted the letter
That outlined their claims
That went to Gale Norton,
Co-signed by these names:
Tom DeLay, Eric Cantor,
Roy Blunt, the chief whip,
Speaker Dennis Hastert.
That's the House leadership!
That played the game
And wears the shame
That hangs over the Congress that
Jack built.
This is the Jack,
Jack Abramoff,
Who bought the souls,
Then sold them off,
Who shook the hands
And financed the houses
And feted the staffs,
And hired the spouses,
And fleeced the tribes
And spread the bribes
That ransomed the Congress that
Jack built.
Hart Seely is the editor of "Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld."Jack's House - New York Times
Jack's House
Article Tools Sponsored By
By HART SEELY
Published: March 31, 2006
These are the men
That fleeced the tribes
That paid the money
That made the bribes
That purchased the Congress that
Jack built.
This is the Duke
That sailed the yacht
That raised the eyebrows
And got him caught,
Who helped Mitch Wade,
Who bought Duke's land
And kicked in 700 grand;
Which raised Duke's taxes,
And gave Duke pain;
So Wade paid the tab
On Duke's capital gain.
Bigger than Abscam:
Randy "Duke" Cunningham!
Top gun in the Congress that
Jack built.
This is Bob Ney,
Who knew the fine print
That could pass a casino
And rev up its mint,
Who spawned the e-mail
Where Jack foretold:
"Just met with Ney.
"We're [expletive] gold!"
And Ney in 2000,
A moment quite checkered
Ripped magnate Gus Boulis
In the Congress'nal Record.
His tirade was meant
To frighten the fellow,
Who cops say was shot
By Big Tony Moscatiello,
Who got a small fortune
From Jack's pal in D.C.,
A guy Ney said was known
For his "honesty."
Their pal was indicted
And then copped a plea
Guilty of fraud
And conspiracy.
For creating the vibes
That condoned the bribes
That corrupted the Congress that
Jack built.
This is DeLay,
Who built the machine
That redrew the districts
And raised the green,
That decided the races
That claimed the new seats,
That made the new friends
That owned luxury suites,
That held big galas
That brought the donations
That helped him to greet
The great Coushatta Nation!
With 800 members
And fund-stream support
From the famous Coushatta Casino Resort!
Which paid several million
For Jack to abort
A rival tribe's parlor
In nearby Shreveport,
Which prompted the letter
That outlined their claims
That went to Gale Norton,
Co-signed by these names:
Tom DeLay, Eric Cantor,
Roy Blunt, the chief whip,
Speaker Dennis Hastert.
That's the House leadership!
That played the game
And wears the shame
That hangs over the Congress that
Jack built.
This is the Jack,
Jack Abramoff,
Who bought the souls,
Then sold them off,
Who shook the hands
And financed the houses
And feted the staffs,
And hired the spouses,
And fleeced the tribes
And spread the bribes
That ransomed the Congress that
Jack built.
Hart Seely is the editor of "Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld."Jack's House - New York Times
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage? - New York Times
Read Maureen Dowd's column from today - (copied below). Maybe it isn't too early for Barak Obama? But what's really interesting is that Maureen Dowd realizes what so few members of the "Democratic Leadership" seem able to grasp: WE DO NOT WANT HILLARY CLINTON AS OUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN 2008!!!!!!!!!!! Don't they see how much baggage she has? Her husband can't keep it in his pants, She's got the personality of a headmistress and she has the worst of her husband's political failings - his tendency to waffle -- whithout any of his charm. She is quite simply un-electable as anyone who is blue in a red state could tell these alleged leaders if they would bother to listen.
What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage? - New York Times
March 15, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
There's only one reason I continue to brave Washington's dreary formal press dinners, which are so calcified they're a bad cross between a zombie movie and those little Mexican Day of the Dead sculptures.
I find it highly instructive to hear politicians make humor speeches. It's difficult, and few pols do it well.
It took Bill Clinton almost two terms to make a funny speech. He kept letting a petulant tone creep in. Even though W. would probably rather spend the night in Baghdad than go to a banquet, way past his bedtime, where he's getting lampooned by reporters still able to drink, he was a master right from the start.
Lynne Cheney is a practiced speaker, but a bit tone-deaf on humor. At the Gridiron dinner here on Saturday, she said of her husband: "He has a great sense of humor. Just the other day I asked him, 'Do you know how many terrorists it takes to paint a wall?' And he answered right back, 'It depends on how hard you throw them.' "
People laughed, but it felt creepy, the kind of humor that makes more terrorists.
Everyone was curious to hear Barack Obama, the Democratic speaker. He arrived last year as a star, then lapsed into a cipher, even getting punk'd by John McCain last month. In the capital's version of "Dancing With the Stars," Senator Obama won, turning in a smooth, funny performance that lifted him from his tyro track.
He tweaked fellow Democrats, telling the white-tie crowd: "Men in tails. Women in gowns. An orchestra playing, as folks reminisce about the good old days. Kind of like dinner at the Kerrys."
He mocked the president's unauthorized snooping, saying he'd "asked my staff to conduct all phone conversations in the Kenyan dialect of Luo." He advised W. to "spy on the Weather Channel, and find out when big storms are coming."
After saying he'd enjoyed the Olympic biathlon of shooting and skiing, he, deadpan, turned to Dick Cheney: "Probably not your sport, Mr. Vice President."
It may be true that Americans, as one Democrat told me, "will never elect a guy as president who has a name like a Middle East terrorist." And it may be true that Democrats are racing like lemmings toward a race where, as one moaned, "John McCain will dribble Hillary Clinton's head down the court like a basketball."
But the clever, elegant performance by Mr. Obama — who is intent on keeping his head down in the Senate until he, too, can be a tedious insider — underscored the Democratic vacuum. Not only do the Democrats "stand for anything," as Mr. Obama semijoked, but they have no champion at a time when people are hungry for an exciting leader, when the party should be roaring and soaring against the Bushies' power-mad stumbles. They should groom an '08 star who can run on the pledge of doing what's right instead of only what's far right.
The Republicans won with Ronald Reagan and W. by taking guys with more likeability and sizzle than experience. They figure they'll win in a McCain-Hillary duel by running a conservative beloved by the media and many Democrats against a polarizing Northerner who can't win any red states despite pandering to conservatives.
The weak and pathetic Democrats seem to move inexorably toward candidates who turn a lot of people off. They should find someone captivating with an intensely American success story — someone like Senator Obama, Tom Brokaw or some innovative business mogul who's less crazy than Ross Perot — and shape the campaign around that leader. Barack Obama is 44. J.F.K., who had a reputation as a callow playboy and lawmaker who barely knew his way around the Hill, was 43 when he became president.
With seniority comes dullness. And unless you can draw on it in desperate times, promise is merely a curse.
Democrats think Senator Potential's experience does not match Senator Pothole's. Much of hers is as a first lady who bollixed up chunks of domestic policy. They also suspect she may be more macho than he is. They fret that the freshman Illinois senator would wilt against the Arizona senator's foreign policy experience — and he probably would. But Mr. McCain, a big hawk on Iraq, has talked of sending more troops, and his mentor was Henry Kissinger. These are not recommendations.
W. had the foreign policy "dream team," and it shattered our foreign policy, ideals and self-image. Despite hundreds of years of combined experience, the Bushies rammed through cronies and schemes that were so destructive, it will take hundreds of years to straighten out the mistakes.
The Democrats should not dismiss a politically less experienced but personally more charismatic prospect as "an empty vessel." Maybe an empty vessel can fill the room.
What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage? - New York Times
March 15, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
There's only one reason I continue to brave Washington's dreary formal press dinners, which are so calcified they're a bad cross between a zombie movie and those little Mexican Day of the Dead sculptures.
I find it highly instructive to hear politicians make humor speeches. It's difficult, and few pols do it well.
It took Bill Clinton almost two terms to make a funny speech. He kept letting a petulant tone creep in. Even though W. would probably rather spend the night in Baghdad than go to a banquet, way past his bedtime, where he's getting lampooned by reporters still able to drink, he was a master right from the start.
Lynne Cheney is a practiced speaker, but a bit tone-deaf on humor. At the Gridiron dinner here on Saturday, she said of her husband: "He has a great sense of humor. Just the other day I asked him, 'Do you know how many terrorists it takes to paint a wall?' And he answered right back, 'It depends on how hard you throw them.' "
People laughed, but it felt creepy, the kind of humor that makes more terrorists.
Everyone was curious to hear Barack Obama, the Democratic speaker. He arrived last year as a star, then lapsed into a cipher, even getting punk'd by John McCain last month. In the capital's version of "Dancing With the Stars," Senator Obama won, turning in a smooth, funny performance that lifted him from his tyro track.
He tweaked fellow Democrats, telling the white-tie crowd: "Men in tails. Women in gowns. An orchestra playing, as folks reminisce about the good old days. Kind of like dinner at the Kerrys."
He mocked the president's unauthorized snooping, saying he'd "asked my staff to conduct all phone conversations in the Kenyan dialect of Luo." He advised W. to "spy on the Weather Channel, and find out when big storms are coming."
After saying he'd enjoyed the Olympic biathlon of shooting and skiing, he, deadpan, turned to Dick Cheney: "Probably not your sport, Mr. Vice President."
It may be true that Americans, as one Democrat told me, "will never elect a guy as president who has a name like a Middle East terrorist." And it may be true that Democrats are racing like lemmings toward a race where, as one moaned, "John McCain will dribble Hillary Clinton's head down the court like a basketball."
But the clever, elegant performance by Mr. Obama — who is intent on keeping his head down in the Senate until he, too, can be a tedious insider — underscored the Democratic vacuum. Not only do the Democrats "stand for anything," as Mr. Obama semijoked, but they have no champion at a time when people are hungry for an exciting leader, when the party should be roaring and soaring against the Bushies' power-mad stumbles. They should groom an '08 star who can run on the pledge of doing what's right instead of only what's far right.
The Republicans won with Ronald Reagan and W. by taking guys with more likeability and sizzle than experience. They figure they'll win in a McCain-Hillary duel by running a conservative beloved by the media and many Democrats against a polarizing Northerner who can't win any red states despite pandering to conservatives.
The weak and pathetic Democrats seem to move inexorably toward candidates who turn a lot of people off. They should find someone captivating with an intensely American success story — someone like Senator Obama, Tom Brokaw or some innovative business mogul who's less crazy than Ross Perot — and shape the campaign around that leader. Barack Obama is 44. J.F.K., who had a reputation as a callow playboy and lawmaker who barely knew his way around the Hill, was 43 when he became president.
With seniority comes dullness. And unless you can draw on it in desperate times, promise is merely a curse.
Democrats think Senator Potential's experience does not match Senator Pothole's. Much of hers is as a first lady who bollixed up chunks of domestic policy. They also suspect she may be more macho than he is. They fret that the freshman Illinois senator would wilt against the Arizona senator's foreign policy experience — and he probably would. But Mr. McCain, a big hawk on Iraq, has talked of sending more troops, and his mentor was Henry Kissinger. These are not recommendations.
W. had the foreign policy "dream team," and it shattered our foreign policy, ideals and self-image. Despite hundreds of years of combined experience, the Bushies rammed through cronies and schemes that were so destructive, it will take hundreds of years to straighten out the mistakes.
The Democrats should not dismiss a politically less experienced but personally more charismatic prospect as "an empty vessel." Maybe an empty vessel can fill the room.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
KR Washington Bureau | 02/28/2006 | Intelligence agencies warned about growing local insurgency in late 2003
Big suprise -- the Bushies have known for two years (along with everyone else with any intelligence) that the insurgence in Iraq had roots in sectarian violence that had nothing to do with being loyal to Saddam or foreign radicals! The stupidity and incomptence of these people is almost incomprehensible.KR Washington Bureau | 02/28/2006 | Intelligence agencies warned about growing local insurgency in late 2003
Friday, February 24, 2006
War of the Worlds - New York Times
Good piece by Tm Friedman today. It's true that the Bushies totally deserve the mess they are in over this port thing, but the level of nationalist tension in the world today is reminiscent of pre-WWI. VERY SCARY. I read the other day that someone in Iran renamed Danish Patries to something Mohammed pastries in response to the cartoon mess. It was "freedom fries" all over again, which makes it clear where this xenophobia began, here, post-9/11 thanks to Bush and company. It's dangerous and it is spreading.War of the Worlds - New York Times
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
The Silencing Of Science
This is CLASSIC Bush administration. I've read dozens of articles over the last 5 years outlining the way this administration has politicized science more than any other administration ever has.The Silencing Of Science
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Who's Hormonal? Hillary or Dick? - New York Times
Thank You Maureen Dowd for recognizing that Hilary Clinton has no clothes on - politically speaking, but she's still not as evil as Cheney and Co.Who's Hormonal? Hillary or Dick? - New York Times
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Helping Bill O'Reilly - New York Times
This is AWESOME - fund a trip to Africa for Bill O'Reilly so he can see what real injustice looks like as opposed to the nonsense he complains about on his show.Helping Bill O'Reilly - New York Times
Tax Cut Lunacy
Here's an excellent op-ed piece about the need for tax increases combined with national health insurance. Both are absolutely necessary to our future and virtually impossible to achieve with today's leadership!Tax Cut Lunacy
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Texas Never signed the treaty
Embarrassment may lie ahead for our embarrassment of an Attorney General, Alberto Gonzoles. Most people know him as the man who decided that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint." But his pro-torture memos weren't the first suspect legal opinions he provided for George W. While Bush was Governor, Gonzales insisted that Texas did not have to follow the terms of an Vienna Conventions signed by, among others, the USA and Mexico, that defendants in capital cases have the right to contact their nation's consular after arrest. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case, (article) which means that even people who don't read blogs might find out that Mr. Gonzales stated, with regard to this case, that: "Since the State of Texas is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, we believe it is inappropriate to ask Texas to determine whether a breach ... occurred in connection with the arrest and conviction[.]" This is an absolutely absurd statement. Anyone who has been to law school, scratch that, anyone who passed 8th grade social studies, knows that whent the United States government signs an international treaty it binds all of the individual states. For a better description of his faulty legal analysis check out this Nobember 2004 post on Democratic Blog Swarm. Perhaps Mr. Gonzales forgot that Texas is no longer an independent Republic. I admit that I often daydream that this is the case, but then I fucus and remember the reality - that Texas is a part of my country. Ah, well.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Terry Schiavo will never wake up -- will the US citizens?
This tempest in a teapot over what should be a private family issue is appalling! I want to find the list of which Democrats went along with this farcical piece of unconstitutional legislation -- they are KILLING our party. This was a perfect opportunity for Democrats to point out to the people the game that the Republicans have been playing for YEARS. Using Abortion and other "religious issues" to appear compassionate, while what they really care about is allowing the rich to get and remain richer on the backs of the working people.
The Republicans have been reducing the tax burden on the richest members of our society for 20+ years. In the 1950s the top marginal tax rate was 90% --- that doesn't mean, of course that someone subject to that rate would pay 90% of all the money they earn, only that they would pay 90% of earnings above a certain EXTREMELY luxurious level. Had we not allowed these rich people to keep more and more of their money out of the public coffers, we could have joined EVERY other developed country in providing unversal health care for our citizens. We could spend more money on our educational system so that we could stop falling further and further behind in the world in Math and Science.
I don't doubt that people have VERY strong feelings about abortion and right to die with dignity, BUT I challenge the wisdom of choosing federal officials based ONLY on these issues of personal beliefs. I resent the fact that these issues have been dominated only by extremists. I resent that conservatives like to tell people that we have "abortion on demand" in this country -when anyone knows that we only have anything resembling that for first trimester fetuses. These conservatives love to panic people into believing that fully viable children are being aborted regularly be women in this country -- they are NOT. I know that even first trimester fetuses are precious life in the view of some people, but MOST people realize there is a difference. The fact is that life is so fragile at this point that couples are often told not to tell people they are expecting until they've made it past the first trimester because miscarraige is so common during that period.
ON the other hand, I resent liberal supporters of Roe who insist on opposing even a miniscule restriction on abortion rights. Had Clinton signed the bill regarding partial birth abortions instead of leaving it for Bush, the law would have contained an exception for when the life of the mother is threatened. Democrats should have let the partial birth issue go long ago, it is far to good a PR issue for the Republicans. We have to start recognizing that most people are in the middle of these issues. If we carve out the middle, we can make the Republicans look excessively extreme and they can no longer use these wedge issues to distract!
One of the MOST appalling voices in this is Bill Frist. This man lost any credibility as a physician when he quibbled about whether tears and sweat could transmit AIDS on "This Week." Anyone with the slightest medical knowledge knows that no such transfer can or ever has happened, but Frist pandered to the evangelicals by abandoning his hypocratic oath -- OH, YEAH he did HARM! Then this week he stands up and insists that from studying some videos he can tell that Terry S. is not in a persistent vegitative state. What a joke. I can't tell whether all this nonsense is about pandering to the christian right or is designed to distract from the theiving of Tom DeLay.
The Republicans have been reducing the tax burden on the richest members of our society for 20+ years. In the 1950s the top marginal tax rate was 90% --- that doesn't mean, of course that someone subject to that rate would pay 90% of all the money they earn, only that they would pay 90% of earnings above a certain EXTREMELY luxurious level. Had we not allowed these rich people to keep more and more of their money out of the public coffers, we could have joined EVERY other developed country in providing unversal health care for our citizens. We could spend more money on our educational system so that we could stop falling further and further behind in the world in Math and Science.
I don't doubt that people have VERY strong feelings about abortion and right to die with dignity, BUT I challenge the wisdom of choosing federal officials based ONLY on these issues of personal beliefs. I resent the fact that these issues have been dominated only by extremists. I resent that conservatives like to tell people that we have "abortion on demand" in this country -when anyone knows that we only have anything resembling that for first trimester fetuses. These conservatives love to panic people into believing that fully viable children are being aborted regularly be women in this country -- they are NOT. I know that even first trimester fetuses are precious life in the view of some people, but MOST people realize there is a difference. The fact is that life is so fragile at this point that couples are often told not to tell people they are expecting until they've made it past the first trimester because miscarraige is so common during that period.
ON the other hand, I resent liberal supporters of Roe who insist on opposing even a miniscule restriction on abortion rights. Had Clinton signed the bill regarding partial birth abortions instead of leaving it for Bush, the law would have contained an exception for when the life of the mother is threatened. Democrats should have let the partial birth issue go long ago, it is far to good a PR issue for the Republicans. We have to start recognizing that most people are in the middle of these issues. If we carve out the middle, we can make the Republicans look excessively extreme and they can no longer use these wedge issues to distract!
One of the MOST appalling voices in this is Bill Frist. This man lost any credibility as a physician when he quibbled about whether tears and sweat could transmit AIDS on "This Week." Anyone with the slightest medical knowledge knows that no such transfer can or ever has happened, but Frist pandered to the evangelicals by abandoning his hypocratic oath -- OH, YEAH he did HARM! Then this week he stands up and insists that from studying some videos he can tell that Terry S. is not in a persistent vegitative state. What a joke. I can't tell whether all this nonsense is about pandering to the christian right or is designed to distract from the theiving of Tom DeLay.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
BUSH -- WHAT A MORON
UNBELIEVABLE - The great thing about Bush is that you never know when he is going to display his stupidity/ignorance in an even more astounding way.
The following appeared on Howard Dean't "Blog for America" having been submitted by Jesse Jackson, Sr.
During the first weekend of March, in Selma, Alabama, marchers commemorated the 40th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that city. The violence unleashed by Southern sheriffs and racial vigilantes on that day galvanized President Johnson to push through the Voting Rights Act, giving blacks the right to vote in the South for the first time since the brief reconstruction period after the Civil War.
Now, 40 years later, that right to vote is once more at risk. When President Bush met with the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.—I report with some pride—asked him if he would support extension and strengthening of the Voting Rights Act when it comes up for renewal in 2007.
President Bush responded that he did not support voting rights for the District of Columbia. Rep. Jackson said that was not what he asked; he asked about extending the Voting Rights Act. Bush replied that he was not aware of the act and would look at it when it got to his desk. The president's passivity would enable House Majority leader Rep. Tom "the Hammer" DeLay to torpedo the act, just as he has real voting-rights reform.
For the younger people reading this, you have to remember that Bush graduated from High School the year this historic legislation was passed. It's not like it didn't make the papers, and it's not like it wasn't HUGE news. Before signing this bill, Lyndon Johnson said he was delivering the South to the Republican Party for the next 40 years.- Why? Because the white Democrats in the south would be FURIOUS with him for having signed this legislation.
"I'M NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" what a MORON.
Link
The following appeared on Howard Dean't "Blog for America" having been submitted by Jesse Jackson, Sr.
During the first weekend of March, in Selma, Alabama, marchers commemorated the 40th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that city. The violence unleashed by Southern sheriffs and racial vigilantes on that day galvanized President Johnson to push through the Voting Rights Act, giving blacks the right to vote in the South for the first time since the brief reconstruction period after the Civil War.
Now, 40 years later, that right to vote is once more at risk. When President Bush met with the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.—I report with some pride—asked him if he would support extension and strengthening of the Voting Rights Act when it comes up for renewal in 2007.
President Bush responded that he did not support voting rights for the District of Columbia. Rep. Jackson said that was not what he asked; he asked about extending the Voting Rights Act. Bush replied that he was not aware of the act and would look at it when it got to his desk. The president's passivity would enable House Majority leader Rep. Tom "the Hammer" DeLay to torpedo the act, just as he has real voting-rights reform.
For the younger people reading this, you have to remember that Bush graduated from High School the year this historic legislation was passed. It's not like it didn't make the papers, and it's not like it wasn't HUGE news. Before signing this bill, Lyndon Johnson said he was delivering the South to the Republican Party for the next 40 years.- Why? Because the white Democrats in the south would be FURIOUS with him for having signed this legislation.
"I'M NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" what a MORON.
Link
Friday, February 25, 2005
Must See Movies
A young woman I work with mentioned the other day that she had never seen Tootsie. It reminded me of the need to broaden the horizons of the classic movie impaired. Long before TCM started it's series "The Essentials" I had a movie club so that my friends would have a chance to see the movies that one must see in order to keep up with good coctail party conversation. Most people have seen the best known of these, such as:
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Other must sees, though are less universally known, such as (in no particular order):
Dr. Strangelove
Chinatown
Singin' in the Rain
The Philadelphia Story
Duck Soup
The Godfather I and II (NOT III)
The Graduate
City Lights
Born Yesterday (the real one with Judy Holiday - the remake is best not discussed)
Barefoot in the Park
The Best Years of Our Lives
Lawrence of Arabia
Gilda
His Girl Friday
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Notorious
Roman Holiday
Some Like it Hot
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
To Catch a Thief
White Heat
Woman of the Year
I'm not saying that these are the best movies ever, or even my favorite movies. They are however, all classic movies that many people haven't seen. Sometimes it is only one segment of the population that hasn't seen it, for example, good luck finding a man who hasn't seen both Godfather movies, but MANY women haven't. The opposite is true of Roman Holiday.
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Other must sees, though are less universally known, such as (in no particular order):
Dr. Strangelove
Chinatown
Singin' in the Rain
The Philadelphia Story
Duck Soup
The Godfather I and II (NOT III)
The Graduate
City Lights
Born Yesterday (the real one with Judy Holiday - the remake is best not discussed)
Barefoot in the Park
The Best Years of Our Lives
Lawrence of Arabia
Gilda
His Girl Friday
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Notorious
Roman Holiday
Some Like it Hot
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
To Catch a Thief
White Heat
Woman of the Year
I'm not saying that these are the best movies ever, or even my favorite movies. They are however, all classic movies that many people haven't seen. Sometimes it is only one segment of the population that hasn't seen it, for example, good luck finding a man who hasn't seen both Godfather movies, but MANY women haven't. The opposite is true of Roman Holiday.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Ronald Reagan
My mother told me years ago about how when John Kennedy died one of her few Republican friends was not at all sad, possibly a little happy. She said everyone wanted to kill her. Now I'm the one in that position. Gloria is barely speaking to me. I still remember when I first learned that she had voted for Reagan -- I was appalled! Our politics are fairly similar in general moderate to liberal. I'm a little to the left of her, but not by much. The major difference, I think, was our age. She's only two years younger than me, but in this instance I think those years made all the difference. I voted against Reagan the first time in the Fall of my Sophmore year in college. She was still in Highschool then, a senior I think. I spent very little time watching or reading the news when I was in college. All I knew of Reagan before I voted was that he was VERY conservative, and that he was so stupid he confused carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide and said that trees create more pollution than cars! That was enough for me. I honestly can't remember anymore whether I voted for Carter or Anderson I was still debating on the bus on the way to the polls. When Reagan won Yale College mourned. People like the Bushies notwithstanding, Yale College was VERY liberal when I was there. It had been the Berkeley of the East during the Viet Nam war protests and the student body was overwhelmingly liberal. One guy I knew was for Reagan and we banned him from our room the day after election day because his glee was too annoying.
The next time I gave much thought to Reagan was when he was shot. I was walking past the common TV room that day and saw an inordinately large crowd, I stopped to ask what had happened, they told me Reagan was shot! Wow, I said, "Is he dead?" No, they replied, indicating that he was supposed to be OK. My response was "bummer" which got a huge laugh, not because I was so funny, but because I was about the 10th person to react in just that way. I came into the room and watched the coverage for a while and another 5-10 people after me had the same conversation with the crowd, until we started pre-empting them by answering "What happened" with "Reagan was shot, no he's not dead, and yes it is a bummer."
We didn't really wish him dead, don't come after me secret service, it's just that there was a little part of us that knew that life for the minority populations in the country would be a lot better if he were.
I am neith black nor gay, but many of my best friends are and so I relate to these two groups who will NEVER forgive RR for the suffering they endured as a direct result of his policies. There is little question that he was both mildly racist and rabidly homophobic. No doubt he comforted himself that the latter would suffer during the apocolypse that he truly believed would come to Earth some day. He steadfast refusal to do ANYTHING about AIDS, not even mentioning the word until 1985 cost millions their lives. With sufficient funding and proliferation of information, the US deaths from AIDS could have been GREATLY reduced. I will always hate him for that.
I personally felt the pinch of Reaganomics a few months after his inauguration. In my first two years of College, when you took out a student loan for $2500 you received, oddly enough, $2500. Not after Reagan. Then you recieved $2350 approximately. You were pre-paying interest, we were told. We were having to pay points like we were buying a home, we knew. It was a gyp, one of thousands that he inflicted on the people who need government the most.
The next time I gave much thought to Reagan was when he was shot. I was walking past the common TV room that day and saw an inordinately large crowd, I stopped to ask what had happened, they told me Reagan was shot! Wow, I said, "Is he dead?" No, they replied, indicating that he was supposed to be OK. My response was "bummer" which got a huge laugh, not because I was so funny, but because I was about the 10th person to react in just that way. I came into the room and watched the coverage for a while and another 5-10 people after me had the same conversation with the crowd, until we started pre-empting them by answering "What happened" with "Reagan was shot, no he's not dead, and yes it is a bummer."
We didn't really wish him dead, don't come after me secret service, it's just that there was a little part of us that knew that life for the minority populations in the country would be a lot better if he were.
I am neith black nor gay, but many of my best friends are and so I relate to these two groups who will NEVER forgive RR for the suffering they endured as a direct result of his policies. There is little question that he was both mildly racist and rabidly homophobic. No doubt he comforted himself that the latter would suffer during the apocolypse that he truly believed would come to Earth some day. He steadfast refusal to do ANYTHING about AIDS, not even mentioning the word until 1985 cost millions their lives. With sufficient funding and proliferation of information, the US deaths from AIDS could have been GREATLY reduced. I will always hate him for that.
I personally felt the pinch of Reaganomics a few months after his inauguration. In my first two years of College, when you took out a student loan for $2500 you received, oddly enough, $2500. Not after Reagan. Then you recieved $2350 approximately. You were pre-paying interest, we were told. We were having to pay points like we were buying a home, we knew. It was a gyp, one of thousands that he inflicted on the people who need government the most.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Iraq I
OK, I've no idea what to do here, but lately, I've been frustrated about the news out of Iraq that is supposed to be surprising, but it seems I knew about a lot of this months if not years ago. However, I have no record of what I knew when before this stupid war. Therefore, I'm going to use this blog to keep track of my world view as it evolves then I'll be able to look back.
News for the day: Ashcroft announces lots of terrorist chatter. They know nothing concrete, of course, but they aren't even raising the alert level, so what does it mean??? who knows. Another CYA announcement. Also, some are claiming that it is politically motivated -- scare people into returning their support to Bush. NOT gonna work.
I'm not sure whether Bush will be remembered as the worst President ever, but I'm confident he will be in the bottom 5. He has no idea what he is doing. Instead he goes by his gut, which he interprets as divine inspiration!! I wonder how many decades we will suffer as a result of this Iraq folly. If we had ONLY stayed in Afghanistan, built up that country and really cripled Al Quada, think where we might be today.
Tonight I watched "The Fog of War" -- documentary about Robert McNamera (sec'y of Defense under Kennedy & Johnson). He states that we should never invade another country unilaterally. That if we cannot convince other countries with similar interests (ie: Western Europe) that what we want to do is necessary, than we should re-examine our need to go to war. Basically saying that the disagreement of major allies should be a red flag that we are NOT on the side of the angels, and might not accomplish our goal. GOD how I wish Bush would have seen that movie before he invaded Iraq. Almost 800 soldiers have died there so far, Lord knows how many have been wounded, and how many dead and wounded Iraqi's are there. Soooo sad. What must God feel when events like this occur. The sheer waste of human life must be heartbreaking!
News for the day: Ashcroft announces lots of terrorist chatter. They know nothing concrete, of course, but they aren't even raising the alert level, so what does it mean??? who knows. Another CYA announcement. Also, some are claiming that it is politically motivated -- scare people into returning their support to Bush. NOT gonna work.
I'm not sure whether Bush will be remembered as the worst President ever, but I'm confident he will be in the bottom 5. He has no idea what he is doing. Instead he goes by his gut, which he interprets as divine inspiration!! I wonder how many decades we will suffer as a result of this Iraq folly. If we had ONLY stayed in Afghanistan, built up that country and really cripled Al Quada, think where we might be today.
Tonight I watched "The Fog of War" -- documentary about Robert McNamera (sec'y of Defense under Kennedy & Johnson). He states that we should never invade another country unilaterally. That if we cannot convince other countries with similar interests (ie: Western Europe) that what we want to do is necessary, than we should re-examine our need to go to war. Basically saying that the disagreement of major allies should be a red flag that we are NOT on the side of the angels, and might not accomplish our goal. GOD how I wish Bush would have seen that movie before he invaded Iraq. Almost 800 soldiers have died there so far, Lord knows how many have been wounded, and how many dead and wounded Iraqi's are there. Soooo sad. What must God feel when events like this occur. The sheer waste of human life must be heartbreaking!
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