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Posts Tagged ‘U.S. SUPREME COURT’

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TAKING BACK OUR BORDERS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2016 at 1:30 am

In 2014, President Barack Obama issued an executive order, declaring that illegal aliens living in the United States since 2010 could become citizens or lawful residents, thus shielding them from deportation.

Texas challenged that executive order, claiming that Obama had acted unconstitutionally by encroaching on the duties of Congress. Another 25 Republican states joined the lawsuit.

The case went to the Supreme Court–which, on June 23, blocked the implementation of Obama’s executive order. 

The Justices deadlocked on the issue 4-4, thus returning the case to the lower court in Texas that ruled against the administration’s carrying out the policy.

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U.S. Supreme Court

In doing so, the Justices denied at least 4 million illegal aliens the right to remain in the country without fear of deportation.  

For Republicans, the ruling upheld the separation of powers.  

Donald Trump–the presumptive Republican nominee for President–issued a statement: “Today’s 4-4 Supreme Court ruling has blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president.”  

And House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis) declared:

“The Supreme Court’s ruling makes the president’s executive action on immigration null and voice. The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws—only Congress. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers.”

Obama quickly expressed his disappointment, saying that the decision “takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.”  

Other Democrats were equally upset by the Court’s decision.  

One of these was Rep. Barbara Lee of California, who wrote on Twitter: “Deeply saddened by divided #SCOTUS decision in #USvTexas. We should be keeping families together, not tearing them apart!”  

Another was Hillary Clinton–the presumed Democratic Presidential nominee–who used the Court’s decision as a way to troll for Hispanic votes. 

“[Donald] Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama’s executive actions on his first day in office,” Clinton said.  

“He has called Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers.’ He has called for creating a deportation force” to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes. I believe we are stronger together.”

Both Lee’s and Clinton’s accusations ignored a blunt reality: Families of illegal aliens did not have to break up.

Some members did not have to stay in the United States while others were deported.  Instead, they could leave together and live together in the Latin or Central American country of their origin.  

Illegal immigration has always been a highly emotional issue for conservatives.  But it’s been given added impetus this year.

For years, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the subject of illegal immigration.

Democrats favor wholesale grants of unearned citizenship to the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens who brazenly violated the law when they sneaked across American borders. 

And Republicans favor beefing up security against future waves of such invaders. 

But the brutal truth is that neither Democrats nor Republicans truly want to end these invasions. Nor do they want to deport the millions of illegals who have already taken up residence here.  

They don’t care that these illegals:  

  • Flood the United States with millions of poor non-citizens who don’t speak English.
  • Overwhelm the public school system with children–who also don’t speak English–who require bilingual education.
  • Overwhelm the public healthcare system–especially emergency rooms–with poor illegal aliens. As a result, urgently-needed medical care is often denied to legal American citizens.

Democrats, primarily governed by liberal ideology, believe it’s racist for whites to demand control of their own national borders. They also see illegal aliens as a huge constituency. 

And Republicans want them as low-skilled, low-wage fodder for their major campaign contributors–such as corporate-farms and retail outlets like Wal-Mart.  

Unlike Democrats, however, Republicans like to feign outrage at the presence of so many illegal aliens within their midst. 

It’s the Republican base that’s demanding an end to illegal immigration. 

Those masses of alienated and angry whites who find themselves living in a nation that’s increasingly alien from themselves. And who have made Donald Trump their overwhelming choice for President in 2016.

Meanwhile, both Democrats and Republicans ignore a blunt reality: Mexico–America’s largest source of illegal aliens–strictly enforces control of its own borders.

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

  • in the country legally;
  • have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • not destined to be burdens on society;
  • of economic and social benefit to society;
  • of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • contribute to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

  • immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • foreign visitors who enter under ralse pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned are deported;
  • those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Mexico uses its American border to rid itself of those who might otherwise demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.  

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REPUBLICANS: EXTORTION IS US: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2016 at 12:04 am

In September, 2013, President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats refused to knuckle under to yet another Republican extortion threat: Defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or we’ll shut down the government.

Republicans claimed it was Obama and Senate Democrats who refused to see reason and negotiate. 

But then a Republican accidentally gave away the real reason for the shutdown.

“We’re not going to be disrespected,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told the Washington Examiner. “We have to get something out of this.  And I don’t know what that even is.”

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Marlin Stutzman

In short, Republicans–as admitted by Martlin Stutzman–were out to get “respect.” A member of the Crips or Bloods couldn’t have said it better.

The shutdown began on October 1, 2013–and ended 16 days later with even Republicans admitting it had been a failure.

President Obama, a former attorney, denounced House Republicans as guilty of “extortion” and “blackmail.” Had the President acted to prosecute such criminal conduct, the results would have been:

  • Facing lengthy prison terms, those indicted Republicans would been forced to lawyer-up. That in itself would have been no small thing, since good criminal lawyers cost big bucks.
  • Obsessed with their own personal survival, they would have found little time for engaging in the same thuggish behavior that got them indicted. In fact, doing so would have only made their conviction more likely.
  • Those Republicans who hadn’t been indicted would have realized: “I could be next.” This would have produced a chilling effect on their willingness to engage in further acts of subversion and/or extortion.
  • The effect on Right-wing Republicans would have been the same as that of President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers: “You cross me and threaten the security of this Nation at your own peril.” 

True, some prosecuted Republicans might have beaten the rap. But first they would have been forced to spend huge amounts of time and money on their defense.

And with 75% of Americans voicing disgust with Congress, most of those prosecuted might well have been convicted.

It would have been a long time before Republicans again dared to engage in such behavior.

The ancient Greeks believed: “A man’s character is his fate.” It is Obama’s character–and America’s fate–that he is more inclined to conciliation than confrontation.

Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s winning of the White House in his book Renegade: The Making of a President. He noted that Obama was always more comfortable when responding to Republican attacks on his character than he was in making attacks of his own.

Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans. But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction.

At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and applied what Niccolo Machiavelli famously said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:

Niccolo Machiavelli

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved. 

For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain. 

As long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote.  But when it approaches, they revolt…. 

And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.

By refusing to vigorously prosecute acts of Republican extortion, President Obama has unleashed twin disasters upon himself and the United States:

First, Republicans have been encouraged to intensify their acts of aggression against him.

Their most recent act: Refusing to meet with federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Obama’s designated nominee to the Supreme Court after the February 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.  

Kentucky United States Senator Mitch McConnell has flatly stated: There will be no Supreme Court hearings–not during regular business or a post-election lame-duck session.

Had Obama proceeded with indictments against Republican extortion in 2011 or 2013, McConnell–who supported the extortion attempts of those years–would now be desperately meeting with his lawyers.

Second, Republicans have unleashed their tactics of extortion against one another.

Donald Trump, their front-running Presidential candidate, has openly threatened to aim violence at Republican delegates who do not accept him as their nominee.

As Philip Klein, the managing editor of the Washington Examiner, recently wrote:

“Political commentators now routinely talk about the riots that would break out in Cleveland if Trump were denied the nomination, about how his supporters have guns and all hell could break loose, that they would burn everything to the ground. It works to Trump’s advantage to not try too hard to dispel these notions.”  

Thus, those who submit to the aggression of criminals only encourage contempt–and increased aggression–from those same criminals.

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REPUBLICANS: EXTORTION IS US: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 24, 2016 at 12:30 am

On July 9, 2011, Republican extortionists threatened the Nation with financial ruin and international disgrace unless their demands were met.

President Barack Obama could have countered that danger with the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Among the crimes it authorizes for prosecution: Extortion.

Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”

And if President Obama had believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11.  

Happy Birthday, Patriot Act

President George W. Bush signs the USA Patriot Act into law – October 26, 2001

In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism. Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:

“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place. President Obama needed only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.

Prosecuting members of Congress would not have violated the separation-of-powers principle. Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.

Such prosecutions–and especially convictions–would have served notice on current and future members of Congress that the lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage as part of a negotiated settlement.

On August 1, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,”  wrapped up his program with a search for “options” to avoid another round of Republican extortion tactics.

Chris Matthews

“I want to know what steps the president ‘could’ have taken to avoid this hostage-taking.

“…Is there another way than either buckling to the Republicans or letting the government and the country crash?

“How does he use the power of the presidency, the logic, emotion and basic patriotism of the people, to thwart those willing to threaten, disrupt, even possibly destroy to get their way?”

The answer to his questions–then and now–is: Replace the law of fear with the rule of law.

But there was another way Obama could have stood up to Republican extortionists: By urging his fellow Americans to rally to him in a moment of supreme national danger.

President John F. Kennedy did just that–successfully–during the most dangerous crisis of his administration.

Addressing the Nation on October 22, 1962, Kennedy shocked his fellow citizens by revealing that the Soviet Union had installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Forty Years Ago: The Cuban Missile Crisis | National Archives

John F. Kennedy

After outlining a series of steps he had taken to end the crisis, Kennedy sought to reassure and inspire his audience. His words are worth remembering today:

“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”

President Obama could have sent that same message to the extortionists of the Republican Party.

Yet this was another option he failed to exploit. And he and the Nation have continued to pay the price for it.

In the fall of 2013, Republicans once again threatened to shut down the Federal Government unless the President agreed to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as “Obamacare.

They were enraged that millions of uninsured Americans might receive medical care on a par with that given members of the House and Senate.

So on September 20, the House voted on a short-term government funding bill that included a provision to defund Obamacare.

That provision was a no-go for Senate Democrats and President Obama. If the House and Senate couldn’t reach a compromise, many functions of the federal government would be shut down indefinitely on October 1.

The official reason given by Republicans: They wanted to save the country from bankruptcy–although the Congressional Budget Office stated that the ACA would lower future deficits and Medicare spending.

After passing the House and Senate, the ACA had been signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.

On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court–whose Chief Justice, John Roberts, is a Republican–had upheld the constitutionality of the ACA.

Yet House Republicans continued searching for a way to stop the law from taking effect. By September, 2013, they had voted 42 times to repeal “Obamacare.”

But their efforts had failed; the Democratic-led Senate made it clear it would never go along with such legislation.

Finally, unable to legally overturn the Act or to legislatively repeal it, House Republicans fell back on something much simpler: Threats and fear.

Threats–of voting to shut down salaries paid to most Federal employees. Most, because they themselves would continue to draw hefty salaries while denying them to FBI agents, air traffic controllers and members of the military, among others.

And fear–that would be generated throughout the Federal government, the United States and America’s international allies.

On October 1, 2013, House Republicans made good on their threat. They “shut down the government.”

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REPUBLICANS: EXTORTION IS US: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 23, 2016 at 12:01 am

On July 9, 2011, Republican extortionists threatened the Nation with financial ruin and international disgrace unless their demands were met. They refused to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to massively cut social programs for the elderly, poor and disabled.

If Congress failed to raise the borrowing limit of the federal government by August 2, the date when the U.S. reached the limit of its borrowing abilities, it would begin defaulting on its loans.

As Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, explained the looming economic catastrophe: “If you don’t send out Social Security checks, I would hate to think about the credit meeting at S&P and Moody’s the next morning.

“If you’re not paying millions and millions and millions of people that range in age from 65 on up, money you promised them, you’re not a AAA,” said Buffett.

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 Warren Buffett

A triple-A credit rating is the highest possible rating that can be received.

And while Republicans demanded that the disadvantaged tighten their belts, they rejected any raising of taxes on their foremost constituency–the wealthiest 1%.

To raise taxes on the wealthy, they insisted, would be a “jobs-killer.” It would “discourage” corporate CEOs from creating tens of thousands of jobs they “want” to create.

Republicans knew this argument was a lie. And so did the editors of Time. The difference between them: The editors of Time were willing to reveal the truth.

In its June 20, 2011  cover-story on “What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths,” Rana Foroohar, the magazine’s assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business, delivered this warning: Profit-seeking corporations can’t be relied on to ”make it all better.”

Wrote Foroohar:

“There is a fundamental disconnect between the fortunes of American companies, which are doing quite well, and American workers, most of whom are earning a lower hourly wage now than they did during the recession.

“The thing is, companies make plenty of money; they just don’t spend it on workers here. 

“There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home.”

As the calendar moved ever closer to the fateful date of August 2, Republican leaders continued to insist: Any deal that includes taxes “can’t pass the House.”

One senior Republican said talks would go right up to–and maybe beyond–the brink of default.

“I think we’ll be here in August,” said Republican Rep. Pete Sessions, of Texas. “We are not going to leave town until a proper deal gets done.”

President Obama had previously insisted on extending the debt ceiling through 2012. But in mid-July, he simply asked congressional leaders to review three options with their members: 

  1. The “Grand Bargain” choice—favored by Obama–would cut deficits by about $4 trillion, including spending cuts and new tax revenues.
  2. A medium-range plan would aim to reduce the deficit by about $2 trillion.
  3. The smallest option would cut between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, without increased tax revenue or any Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

And the Republican response?

Said Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “Quite frankly, [Republican] members of Congress are getting tired of what the president won’t do and what the president wants.”

Noted political analyst Chris Matthews summed up the sheer criminality of what happened within the House of Representatives.

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” on July 28–five days before Congress reached its August 2 deadline to raise the debt-ceiling–Matthews noted:

“The first people to bow to the demands of those threatening to blow up the economy were the Republicans in the House, the leaders. The leaders did what the followers told them to do: meet the demands, hold up the country to get their way.

Chris Matthews 2011 Shankbone.JPG

Chris Matthews

“Those followers didn’t win the Senate, or the Presidency, just the House. But by using the House they were able to hold up the entire United States government. They threatened to blow things up economically and it worked.

“They said they were willing to do that–just to get their way–not by persuasion, not by politics, not by democratic government, but by threatening the destruction of the country’s finances.

“Right. So what’s next? The power grid? Will they next time threaten to close down the country’s electricity and communications systems?”

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With the United States teetering on the brink of national bankruptcy, President Obama faced three choices:

  1. Counter Republican extortion attempts via RICO–the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
  2. Make a “Cuban Missile Crisis”-style address to the American people, seeking to rally them against a criminal threat to the financial security of the Nation.
  3. Cave in to Republican demands.

Unfortunately for Obama and the Nation, he chose Number Three.

But he could have countered that danger via the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

In 1970, Congress passed RICO, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968. Its goal: Destroy the Mafia.

U.S. Department of Justice

RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys. Among those crimes: Extortion.

Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”

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REPUBLICANS: EXTORTION IS US: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2016 at 12:01 am

On March 16, Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, issued a warning to his fellow Right-wingers: If he didn’t win the GOP nomination at the convention in July, his supporters would literally riot. 

“I think we’ll win before getting to the convention. But I can tell you if we didn’t, if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400…I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think you’d have riots.

“I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”

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Donald Trump

An NBC reporter summed it up as follows: “As Trump indicated, there is a very real possibility he might lose the nomination if he wins only a plurality of delegates thanks to party rules that allow delegates to support different candidates after the initial ballot.

“In that context, the message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.”

Anyone who’s ever watched a Mafia movie has heard similar threats: “You really ought to think about paying that protection money. Nice family you got–it would be a shame if anything happened to ’em.”

Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, was quick to respond.  

On March 17, he said that it was “unacceptable” for Trump to suggest there would be rioting if he was not chosen as the Republican nominee.

“Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.”

Paul Ryan

And Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich chinned in. “Leaders don’t imply violence,” Kasich told “Face the Nation” on March 20.

“When he says that there could be riots, that’s inappropriate. I think you understand that, okay? Secondly, while we have our differences and disagreements, we’re Americans. Americans don’t say, ‘Let’s take to the streets and have violence.’

Governor John Kasich.jpg

John Kasich

“I don’t even want to use the word ‘riots’ or ‘violence.’ That’s inappropriate. Our kids are watching. Now…that doesn’t mean I’m not running a positive campaign, but those kind of comments are way out of bounds. Frankly, they’re outrageous,” said Kasich.”

Yet, for all their public outrage, Republicans are no strangers to the uses of extortion and threats. Their tactics are straight out of the playbook of Adolf Hitler.

Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described the “negotiating” style of the Nazi dictator thus: 

“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.  He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”

In 1994, Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, shut down the Federal Government. Officially, the reason was a budget impasse with President Bill Clinton.

Unofficially–and in reality–the reason was altogether different: Clinton had forced him to sit in the back of Air Force One on a trip to Israel for the funeral of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“This is petty,” Gingrich confessed to startled reporters. “I’m going to say up front it’s petty, But I think it’s human.

“When you land at Andrews [Air Force Base, in Washington, D.C.] and you’ve been on the plane for 25 hours and nobody has talked to you and they ask you to get off by the back ramp….You just wonder, where is their sense of manners, where is their sense of courtesy?”

Gingrich’s childish verbal tirade was a public relations disaster for the Republicans. “Cry Baby,” screamed the New York Daily News, next to a picture of Gingrich in a diaper.

When House Democrats brought a poster-sized image of the cartoon onto the floor, the Republican majority forced them to remove it.

But the damage was done, and Republicans paid a fearful price at the polls for the shutdown and Gingrich’s candor about the reason for it, losing heavily in the House and Senate.

Still, the Republicans continued their policy of my-way-or-else.

In April, 2011, the United States government almost shut down over Republican demands about subsidized pap smears.

During a late-night White House meeting with President Barack Obama and key Congressional leaders, Republican House Speaker John Boehner made this threat:

His conference would not approve funding for the government if any money were allowed to flow to Planned Parenthood through Title X legislation.

Facing an April 8 deadline, negotiators worked day and night to strike a compromise–and finally reached one.

Three months later–on July 9–Republican extortionists again threatened the Nation with financial ruin and international disgrace unless their demands were met.

Sign of The Black Hand

President Obama had offered to make historic cuts in the federal government and the social safety net–on which millions of Americans depend for their most basic needs.

But House Speaker John Boehner rejected that offer. He would not agree to the tax increases that Democrats wanted to impose on the wealthiest 1% as part of the bargain.  

John Boehner

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FETUS FANATICS UNLEASHED

In Bureaucracy, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 11, 2015 at 11:57 am

Republicans love fetuses.

In fact, they love them so much they’re willing to jeopardize the lives of pregnant women on their behalf.

On April 23, a Republican lawmaker in the Texas State House of Representatives offered an amendment that would force pregnant women to carry to term fetuses that can’t survive outside the womb.

The debate had started on a completely different subject–how to retool the State’s social safety net for the poor.  But as usually happens when Republicans hold a majority in a legislature, the subject quickly turned to abortion–and how to ban it.

Rep. Matt Schafer (R-Tyler) proposed an amendment that would make it illegal for a woman to have an abortion after 20 weeks–even if a fetus has “a severe and irrevsersible abnormality.”

Matt Schafer

This would force a woman to carry a dead fetus to term, even if a doctor warned that this could endanger her life.

Schafer justified his proposal on the grounds that suffering has been “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”

A highly probable consequence of that suffering could be the death of a woman from sepsis–a whole-body inflammation caused by an infection–by carrying a nonviable fetus.

Schaefer’s amendment actually passed, but he removed it for full committee review after Trey Martinez Fischer, the House Democrat from San Antonio, filed a legislative point of order.

Rep. Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) had an entirely different take on the proposal.

She called this year’s state legislature the most misogynistic she’s seen in her 21 years as a state representative,

“Women are leaders of their families, whether some men in this room do not recognize that,” she said after her male Republican colleagues refused to support a bill that would expand access to breastfeeding.

Click here: Texas House Proposal Would Force People to Carry to Term Non-Viable Fetuses

Schafer’s is just the latest Republican to try to insert government into the vaginas of American women.

An earlier one was Scott Walker–the current governor of Wisconsin and a Koch brothers favorite for donations as a 2016 Presidential candidate.

Scott Walker

As a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Walker introduced AB 538 in September, 1997.

This would have allowed doctors to withhold from a woman information about a fetal disability while abortion was still an available option.

In short, doctors would have been allowed to lie to her.

At the time, if a health care provider withheld information about a fetal disability while abortion was still an available option, s/he could be liable for the child’s future medical expenses. But AB 538 would have changed that.

According to the proposed bill:

“This bill creates an immunity from a wrongful birth or wrongful life action for a person who commits an act or fails to commit an act and that act or omission results in the birth of a child because a woman did not undergo an abortion that she would have undergone had the person not committed the act or not failed to commit the act.”

AB 538 was not passed, ultimately dying in April 1998 without receiving a floor vote.

So Walker and 28 colleagues tried again in 2001.

They re-introduced the same legislation as AB 360.  Although approved by the Orwellian-named “Family Law Committee,” it similarly failed to receive a floor vote.

In 1998, Walker introduced  “conscience clause” legislation that would have allowed medical professionals to cite religious reasons in denying patients medical services such as contraception.

The bill failed to pass, so he introduced it again in 1999.  This attempt also failed.  In 2001, he introduced it a third time–when it similarly failed.

During the 2012 Presidential race, Right-wing broadcaster Rush Limbaugh furiously denied that Republicans were waging a “war on women,” as charged by Democrats.

On November 5, 2012, Limbaugh said on his program:

“Now, this War on Women.  You know, it’s been fascinating to watch this in one regard, maddening, too.

“But supposedly [Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt] Romney and [Wisconsin Representative Paul] Ryan are gonna reverse Roe v. Wade and they’re gonna take contraception away from you, and that’s the essence of the War on Women.

“Romney, Ryan, Republicans are gonna take abortion away from you and they’re going to make sure that you don’t get contraception so that you have to get pregnant and you can’t get an abortion and therefore you have to stay home, stay in the kitchen.

“….Well, just as I said, reversing Roe v. Wade is nothing a president can do.  A president cannot touch it.  A president has no role in constitutional amendments.”

Click here: The Left’s War on Women Lies – The Rush Limbaugh Show

Limbaugh neglected to mention, however, that a President can appoint Justices to the United States Supreme Court–who could overrule Roe v. Wade.

He also failed to note that overturning Roe v. Wade–which legalized abortion in 1973–has been a top Republican goal for the last 42 years.

The coming 2016 race for President will doubtless see banning abortion take center stage in Republican agendas.

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FASCISTS FOREVER, JUDGES NO MORE: PART TWO (END)

In History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 2, 2014 at 12:00 am

If Newt Gingrich becomes President, he has big plans for the American federal judiciary: To arrest and remove all those judges who do not follow his right-wing agenda.

Adolf Hitler laid out his plans for remaking Germany and the world in his book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

And would-be Fuehrer Gingrich has openly proclaimed his own dictatorial intentions.

In a December 18, 21011 appearance on “Face the Nation,” Gingrich spoke candidly with host Bob Schieffer about his hatred for much of the American federal judiciary.

Schieffer: Mr. Speaker, the old saying in legal circles is that the Supreme Court is not last because it’s right, it’s right because it’s last.

There comes a point where you have to accept things as the law of the land. How do you decide, how does the President decide what’s a good law and I’m going to obey the Supreme Court or what’s a bad law and I’m just going to ignore it?

Gingrich: I think it depends on the severity of the case. I’m not suggesting that the Congress and the President review every decision.

I’m suggesting that when there are decisions….in which they’re literally risking putting civil liberty rules in battlefields, it’s utterly irrational for the Supreme Court to take on its shoulders the defense of the United States. It’s a violation of the Constitution.

* * * * *

Schieffer: …. Next year the Supreme Court is going to take up Obama’s healthcare proposal. What if they throw it out? Can President Obama then say I’m sorry boys, I’m just going to go ahead and implement it. Could he do that?

Gingrich: The key question is, what would the Congress then do? Because there are three branches….

Schieffer: But could he do that?

Gingrich: He could try to do that. And the Congress would then cut him off. Here’s the key — it’s always two out of three.

If the President and the Congress say the court is wrong, in the end the court would lose. If the Congress and the court say the President is wrong, in the end the President would lose.

And if the President and the court agreed, the Congress loses. The founding fathers designed the Constitution very specifically in a Montesquieu spirit of the laws to have a balance of power, not to have a dictatorship by any one of the three branches.

Schieffer: ….And a number of conservatives, including two of George Bush’s attorneys general, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mulcasey, both said and I’m going to just quote what Mr. Mulcasey said.

….He told Fox News, he said “Mr. Gingrich’s proposal is dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off the wall, and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle.”

Now that’s a conservative judge or a conservative attorney general. How do you respond to that?

Gingrich: I think many lawyers will find this a very frightening idea. They’ve had this run of 50 years of pretending judges are supreme, that they can’t be challenged. The lawyer class defines America.

We’ve had rulings that outlawed school prayer, we’ve had ruling that outlawed the cross, we’ve had rulings the outlawed the 10 Commandments, we’ve had a steady secular drive to radicalize this country away from all of its core beliefs.

I mean what got me into this was the 9th Circuit saying that one nation under God is unconstitutional.

* * * * *

On June 30, 1934, Hitler ordered his private army, the SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squad) to purge his other private army, the S.A., or Brown Shirts.

At least 200 men and women were murdered throughout Germany.

Some died by firing squad. Others were executed in prison. Still others were shot down in their homes.

Afterward, Hitler appeared before the German parliament, the Reichstag, to justify his actions:

“If someone asks me why we did not use the regular courts, I would reply: At that moment I was responsible for the German nation. It was I, alone, who, during those 24 hours, was the Supreme Court of Justice of the German people.”

It took a six-year war that cost the lives of 50 million men, women and children to finally oust this “Supreme Court of Justice for the German People.”

Apparently Newt Gingrich believes it’s a title well worth resurrecting–here in America.

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FASCISTS FOREVER, JUDGES NO MORE: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 1, 2014 at 12:08 am

Republicans have a love/hate relationship with Adolf Hitler.

On one hand, they repeatedly accuse President Barack Obama of being another Hitler. They decorate his poster with the toothbrush mustache worn by Germany’s Fuehrer. They dismiss Obama’s eloquence with: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”

Adolf Hitler

On the other hand, they run candidates whose power-lust and ruthlessness match that of Hitler or any of his henchmen.

Among these in the past have been such notorious figures as Senator Joseph “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, President Richard M. Nixon and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

And now a figure from that past is once again planning a last, desperate grasp for absolute power in 2016: Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich

In a half-hour phone call with reporters on December 17, 2011, Gingrich said that, as President, he would abolish whole courts to be rid of judges whose decisions he feels are out of step with the country.

“Are we forced for a lifetime to keep someone on the bench who is so radically anti-American that they are a threat to the fabric of the country?” Gingrich asked.

“What kind of judge says you’ll go to jail if the word ‘invocation’ is used? If this isn’t a speech dictatorship, I’d like you to show me what one looks like.”

And appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Gingrich said the President could send federal law enforcement authorities to arrest judges who make controversial rulings in order to compel them to justify their decisions before congressional hearings.

When host Bob Schieffer asked how he would force federal judges to comply with congressional subpoenas, there occurred this telling exchange:

Schieffer: Let me just ask you this. You talk about enforcing it because one of things you say is if you don’t like what a court has done, the congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before congress and hold a congressional hearing.

Some people say that’s unconstitutional but I’ll let that go for a minute. I just want to ask you from a practical standpoint, how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol police down to arrest him?

Gingrich: If you had to or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal. Let’s take the case of Judge Biery. I think he should be asked to explain a position that radical.

How could he say he’s going to jail the superintendent over the word benediction and invocation?

Because before…because then I would encourage impeachment. But before you move to impeachment, you’d like to know why he said it. Now clearly since the congress has the power.

Schieffer: What if he didn’t come? What if he said, no thank you, I’m not coming?

Gingrich: Well that is what happens in impeachment cases. In an impeachment case, the House studies whether or not, the House brings them in, the House subpoenas them. And as a general rule they show up.

I mean, but you’re raising the core question, are judges above the rest of the constitution? Or are judges one of the three co-equal branches?

* * * * *

The politicizing of the judiciary was one of the major hallmarks of Hitler’s Germany. Those judges who refused to hand out the types of verdicts Hitler desired were quickly removed.

They were replaced by judges like the infamous Roland Freisler, who chaired the First Senate of the People’s Court, and acted as judge, jury and prosecutor.

Roland Freisler

About 90% of all defendants appearing before him were sentenced to death or life imprisonment. The sentences had often been determined before trial.

Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were handed out. Of these, 2,600 were issued by the court’s First Senate, which Freisler headed.

Freisler was infamous for humiliating defendants. Several defendants in the July 20, 1944 bomb plot against Hitler appeared before him. One of these was Ulrich-Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld.

Schwerin, brought to court without a belt and tie, tried to preserve his dignity by holding up his pants. Freisler mocked him as a pervert for “playing” with his trousers.

When Schwerin said that he had come to oppose Hitler because of “the many murders in Germany and abroad” he was furiously interrupted by Freisler, who finally shouted him down.

On September 8, 1944, Schwerin was hanged in prison in Berlin.

On 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People’s Court, when American bombers attacked Berlin.   A hit on the courthouse unloosed a heavy beam that crushed his skull, instantly killing him.

Adolf Hitler laid out his plans for remaking Germany and the world in his book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). Newt Gingrich has openly proclaimed his own dictatorial intentions.

Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925–eight years before he became Germany’s Fuehrer in 1933.

Five years before the 2016 election, Gingrich has given warning of his own dictatorial plans for remaking the United States in his own image.

Most Germans who detested Hitler refused to take him seriously–until it was too late.

History will judge whether Americans act more responsibly than their German counterparts.

END OF PART ONE

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GOVERNMENT AS IT REALLY WORKS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 22, 2014 at 12:40 am

In 1972, 41 years before Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was spying on the Internet, David Halberstam issued a warning about government secrecy.

As a young reporter for the New York Times covering the early years of the Vietnam war, Halberstam had repeatedly confronted government duplicity and obstruction.

David Halberstam (on left)

Halberstam arrived in South Vietnam in 1962.  Almost at once he realized that the war was not going well for the United States Army and its supposed South Vietnamese allies.

The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was ill-trained and staffed with incompetent officers who sought to avoid military action.

Reports to military superiors were filled with career-boosting lies about “progress” being made against Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers.

“Screw up and move up” was the way Americans described the ARVN promotion system.

Halberstam soon learned that the phrase applied just as much to the American Army as well–for reasons of the same incompetence and duplicity.

Returning from Vietnam and resigning from the Times, Halberstam set to work on his landmark history of how the United States had become entangled in a militarily and economically unimportant country.

He would call it The Best and the Brightest, and the title would become a sarcastic reference to those men in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations whose arrogance and deceit plunged the United States into disaster.

Halberstam outlined how the culture of secrecy and unchecked power led American policymakers to play God with the lives of other nations.

Out of this grew a willingness to use covert operations.  And this meant keeping these secret from Americans generally and Congress in particular.

This ignorance allowed citizens to believe that America was a different country.  One that didn’t engage in the same brutalities and corruptions of other nations.

Thus, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed to be the peace candidate during the 1964 election.  Meanwhile, he was secretly sending U.S. Navy ships to attack coastal cities in North Vietnam.

When North Vietnam responded militarily, Johnson feigned outrage and vowed that the United States would vigorously resist “Communist aggression.”

The history of covert operations has had its own in- and -out-of seasons:

  • During the Eisenhower Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the governments of Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954).
  • During the Kennedy Administration, the CIA repeatedly tried to assassinate Cuba’s “Maximum Leader,” Fidel Castro.
  • During the Nixon Adminisdtration, the CIA plotted with right-wing army leaders to successfully overthrow Salvador Allende, the Leftist, legally-elected President of Chile (1973).
  • In 1975, the CIA’s history of assassination attempts became public through an expose by New York Times Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh.
  • Following nationwide outrage, President Gerald Ford signed an executive order banning the agency from assassinating foreign leaders.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney decided to “take off the gloves.”

The CIA drew up an ever-expanding list of targets and used killer drones and Special Operations troops (such as SEALs and Green Berets) to hunt them down.

Predator drone firing Hellfire missile

And when these weren’t enough, the CIA called on expensive mercenaries (such as Blackwater), untrustworthy foreign Intelligence services, proxy armies and mercurial dictators.

In his 2013 book, The Way of the Knife, New York Times national security correspondent Mark Mazzetti traces the origins of this high-tech, “surgical” approach to warfare.

Within the course of a decade, the CIA has moved largely from being an intelligence-gathering agency to being a “find-and-kill” one.

And this newfound lethality came at a price: The CIA would no longer be able to provide the crucial Intelligence Presidents need to make wise decisions in a dangerous world.

While the CIA sought to become a more discreet version of the Pentagon, the Pentagon began setting up its own Intelligence network in out-of-the-way Third World outposts.

And, ready to service America’s military and Intelligence agencies at a mercenary’s prices, are a host of private security and Intelligence companies.

Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel, warns of the potential for trouble: “There is an inevitable tension as to where the contractor’s loyalties lie.  Do they lie with the flag?  Or do they lie with the bottom line?”

Mazzetti warns of the dark side of these new developments. On one hand, this high-tech approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a low-risk, low-cost alternative to huge troop commitments and quagmire occupations.

On the other hand, it’s created new enemies, fomented resentments among allies and fueled regional instability.  It has also created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability in wartime.

Finally, it’s raised new and troubling ethical questions, such as:

  • What is the moral difference between blowing apart a man at a remote distance with a drone-fired missile and shooting him in the back of the head at close range?
  • Why is the first considered a legitimate act of war–and the second considered an illegal assassination?

In time, there will be answers to many of the uncertainties this new era of push-button and hired-soldier warfare  has unleashed.  And at least some of those answers may come at a high price.

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GOVERNMENT AS IT REALLY WORKS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2014 at 1:03 am

Millions of Americans are outraged to find that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been running a program to spy on the Internet.

National Security Agency

Created in 1952, the NSA is the largest signals-intercepting and code-cracking agency in the world, using specially designed high-speed computers to analyze literally mountains of data.

Headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, the NSA dwarfs the better-known Central Intelligence Agency in both its budget (which is classified) and number of employees (40,000).

NSA’s program–entitled PRISM–collects a wide range of data from nine Internet service providers, although the details vary by provider.

Here are the nine ISPs:

  • AOL
  • Microsoft
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • PalTalk
  • Apple
  • YouTube

And here is what we know (so far) they provide to the ever-probing eyes of America’s Intelligence community:

  • Email
  • Videos
  • Stored data
  • Photos
  • File transfers
  • Video conferencing
  • Notification of target activity (logins)
  • Online social networking details
  • VolP (Voice Over Internet Porocol)
  • Special requests

“Trailblazer,” NSA’s data-mining computer system

The program has been run by the NSA since 2007.  But its existence became front-page news only in early June, 2013, when a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, leaked its capabilities to The Guardian, a British newspaper.

While millions of Americans were surprised at this massive electronic vacuuming of data, at least one man could not have been.

This was Neil Sheehan, the former New York Times reporter who, in 1971, broke the story of the Pentagon Papers.  A secret Pentagon study, it documented how the United States became entangled in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.

Its existence had been leaked by Daniel Ellsburg, a former defense analyst for the RAND corporation.

Among the Pentagon Papers’ embarrassing revelations:

  • Four Presidents–Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson–had misled the public about their intentions.
  • At least two Presidents–Kennedy and Johnson–committed increasing numbers of ground forces to Vietnam out of fear.  Not fear for the South Vietnamese but fear that they (JFK and LBJ) would be charged with being “soft on Communism” and thereby not re-elected.
  • Kennedy knew the South Vietnamese government to be thoroughly corrupt and inept, and plotted to overthrow its president, Ngo Dinh Diem, to “save” the war effort.
  • During the Presidential campaign of 1964, Johnson decided to expand the war but posed as a peacemaker.  He claimed that his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, wanted to bomb North Vietnam and send thousands of American soldieers into an unnecessary war.

A memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration summed up the duplicity behind the war.  It listed the real reasons for American involvement: “To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.”

  • 70% – To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
  • 20% – To keep South Vietnam and the adjacent territory from Chinese hands.
  • 10% – To permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
  • ALSO – To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
  • NOT – To ‘help a friend’.

The study implicated only the administrations of Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

But then-President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, saw the release of the papers as a dangerous breach of national security.

After the New York Times began publishing the study, Nixon ordered the Justice Department to intervene.

For the first time in United States history, a federal judge legally forbade a newspaper to publish a story.

The Times frantically appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Meanwhile, the Washington Post (having gotten a second set of the documents from Ellsburg) rushed its own version of the story into print.

On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government had failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of press freedom.

For Sheehan, reading the Papers was an eye-opener, a descent into a world he had never imagined possible.

As David Halberstam wrote in The Best and the Brightest, his best-selling 1972 account of how arrogance and deceit led the United States into disaster in Vietnam:

Sheehan came away with the overwhelming impression: that the government of the United States was not what he had thought it was.

Sheehan felt that he had discovered an inner U.S. government, highly centralized, and far more powerful than anything else.  And its enemy wass not simply the Communists but everything else–its own press, judiciary, Congress, foreign and friendly governments.

It had survived and perpetuated itself, often by using the issue of anti-Communism as a weapon against the other branches of government and the press.  And it served its own ends, rather than the good of the Republic.

This inner government used secrecy to protect itself–not from foreign governments but to keep its own citizens ignorant of its crimes and incompetence.

Each succeeding President was careful to not expose the faults of his predecessor.

Essentially the same people were running the government, wrote Halberstam, and so each new administration   faced virtually the same enemies.