Yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that detainees are entitled to habeas corpus reminds us that our constitutional rights hang in the balance in this election. The four dissenters--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito--are all likely to survive any new president's term. The same cannot be said of the five person majority, unfortunately. Most likely at least two of these justices will die or retire during the next president's term. They must be replaced by justices who appreciate that human beings have rights. The dissenters in yesterday's decision basically do not accept the self-evident principle, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that human beings are born with fundamental rights. Instead, they believe that people have only the rights that the government decides to grant them.
The Supreme Court decision yesterday reflects two competing visions of how to win the so-called war on terror. We have to recognize that both visions have power, but the majority's vision is superior because it is consistent with our highest principles. The dissenters support a strategy whereby the United States can lock anyone up for an indefinite period of time without ever having to justify its actions to anyone. We do not even have to accord these people the rights of prisoners of war, even though we say we are fighting a war, and we certainly do not have to grant them the rights of citizens of any country. Although this strategy demonstates our power and may strike fear into the hearts of some of our enemies, it undermines the principles that we are supposedly fighting for. The strategy of the majority is to reflect those principles, to win the so-called war on terror by reaffirming our commitment to the rule of law and demonstrating that we respect the rights of all human beings, even if some of our enemies do not. Some may fear that we look weak by recognizing people's basic rights, but I do not see how we can demonstrate the superiority of our principles if we abandon them.
There is a better way.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has spent millions in an honest effort testing the feasibility of home ownership for low-income families. There are success stories right here in Columbus.
By contrast, the proposed vouchers are given for one year and must be renewed, a very insecure feeling for sure. Aside from a very few, the existing residents will be uprooted from the only security they have: their homes.
An opportunity for the residents to own and control their existing home is more than feasible, and it would be a win-win for everyone.
The cost of 1,700 vouchers will be more than $4 million per year. The tear-down will cost more millions. Like all housing authorities across the country, CMHA has become bloated with high payrolls and expenses that it cannot control.
My plan to let the tenants own the units will give them needed relief. HUD will save many millions of our tax dollars here and across the country.
The cost of operation of the structures will be minute compared to the huge expenses now funded, using our government taxes.
The residents win because they will become empowered and proud that they have a role in their own future and security.
I know from personal effort and experience that this is reality.
CHARLES L. ADRIAN President Capital City Community Urban Redevelopment Corp.
Columbus
Aloha! This is not an endorsement of our candidate by the Vogel family or their sponsors, but I wanted to share this with everyone I can, as an example of what ordinary people can do to make learning relevant and exciting--and how our social networking can be an instrument in the process!
My family has been the owner/operators of an internet center for the past five years. Through the course of business, I have been in contact with a diverse social network throughout the world. One of these persons is Nancy Vogel, a school teacher whose family has embarked on some amazing adventures on bicycles. This year, they are leveraging the latest in technology and have received non-profit funding to provide school teachers, home-schoolers and families with geography lessons, and more, all along their route--from the northern most tip of Alaska to the southern most tip of Argentina! I hope you will distribute to colleagues, pass on to classroom teachers and share with your families: http://familyonbikes.org/
As I've said in previous posts here, Education has always been my issue, so I hope this helps the cause!
First of all, thank you, North Carolina. The momentum in the presidential campaign had been in Senator Clinton’s favor for the past few weeks, and Senator Obama’s manner had lost some self-confidence. With yesterday’s big win in North Carolina, while keeping the loss in Indiana to a very narrow margin, Obama has the momentum and self-confidence back. He is now nearly certain of getting the Democratic presidential nomination.
This means that we can focus more on the general election contest against Senator McCain. The Republicans were smart this year, by nominating the one contender who actually has a chance of winning the election in November. Understandably, McCain has a lot of appeal with independents, and it will be important for Obama to get a substantial majority of the independent vote. For those independents or Clinton supporters who have been considering voting for McCain in November, please read the article in this link:
I had been contemplating whether I would vote for McCain or Clinton (if she was the Democratic nominee), in case Obama’s campaign failed. There are some areas where I prefer McCain over Clinton, and even one or two specific policy issues where I prefer McCain over Obama. However, while I respect McCain as a person, he would still be part of the long standing Republican pattern of attempting to pack the federal judiciary with political right wingers.
There are already four right wingers on the Supreme Court (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito) now, and it is quite likely that, of the remaining five Court seats, there will be at least three vacancies created over the next four years. I do not mind the presence of a couple of right wingers on the Court, but it would be very bad for our country if they become an effective majority. We are close to that point already, but not yet there. By the way, I do not suggest that “conservatives” are right wingers. Justice Anthony Kennedy, appointed by President Reagan, is conservative but a very respectable member of the Supreme Court. I may be a little unfair in characterizing Chief Justice John Roberts as a right winger. He seems to have a good judicial temperament, but as far as I can tell, he has been a reliable ally of President Bush’s efforts to exceed his constitutional authority. I am not so concerned with “liberal” or “conservative” policy outcomes from the Court, but I do expect the Court to rule against abuse of executive or legislative authority, whether it comes from the left or right. Mr. Bush seems to have four allies on the Court who are quite willing to give him a blank check to do whatever he pleases, in the name of being commander-in-chief. If John McCain is elected this year, he will appoint all federal judges over the next four years, and an already perilous situation would certainly get much worse. In case you are confident that President McCain would never abuse his authority, can you say as much for the others who contended for the Republican nomination this year, and who might succeed him as president?
One of the sad parts of the debate Wednesday night was when both candidates tried to top each other on who wouldn't raise taxes the most. Other than saying that they would restore the tax rates for the wealthy in effect before Bush's tax cuts, it seems to be unacceptable even for Democrats to admit the possibility that we might have to raise taxes. Of course this means that we have to keep financing the federal budget by massive borrowing, but that seems to be ok with everyone until we max out the national credit card.
Even worse was when Clinton said that we could fix the Social Security system without reducing benefits and without increasing payroll taxes. Now of course everyone who has studied this issue knows this is an impossibility, but no one really called Clinton on this. I was watching the debate on the Internet where they had some kind of meter showing an audience response to the debate, and it was disheartening to watch the meter go up when Clinton pledged to fix Social Security without raising payroll taxes and without reducing benefits. It was like an audience applauding a magic trick! And then when Obama made an attempt to introduce the audience to reality, by pointing out that the last time a commission had fixed the Social Security system, they had been required to raise the retirement age, the needle started drooping down. So I guess this means that the electorate wants to continue to deny the reality of our deficit-financing system as long as possible, which I guess means as long as investors around the world continue to be willing to hold Treasury bonds.
The problem with the Democrats' failure to confront the realities of our fiscal situation is that the Republicans will continue to get away with saying that they are the party that can be trusted to reduce taxes, because when they say they will cut taxes they really mean it, and they have proven they just don't care about how much they increase the national debt. When Obama goes up against McCain, will he be able to point out that you can only continue borrowing as long as others are willing to loan you money? Will he be able to make people understand that it is unfair and immoral to pass this problem on to our children? It may be difficult to do this since the Democrats are now in the same box about raising taxes that the Republicans have been in for years.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that Kentucky’s use of lethal injection to execute prisoners is constitutional. Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and is the longest serving Justice on the Court, expressed his personal opposition to the death penalty, although he voted with the majority to uphold its legality. It is now widely assumed that many states, which had held off executing convicts while this case was pending, will resume regular use of the death penalty. Many newspapers carried the story. Here is the link to my source:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/chi-death-penaltyapr16,0,131329.story
Capital punishment is often made a major issue in presidential campaigns, although that has not been the case so far in 2008. It is properly much more of a state than federal issue, as executions under federal authority are quite rare. Barack Obama’s web site does not (as far as I could tell) address the issue of capital punishment, and I see no reason why it should. I did have a brief exchange of letters with Senator Obama two years ago on that subject, and his letter indicated that his view is quite similar to mine. That is, he is not completely opposed to the existence of the death penalty, but it should be extremely limited in its use. As an Illinois state senator, he supported the moratorium on executions in Illinois until it is determined that the state judicial process produces a burden of proof in death penalty cases that eliminates the possibility of error. He added that he thought the same standard should also apply at the federal level.
The standards that I had suggested as the necessary conditions that should be satisfied in order to make the death penalty permissible included the following: First, while criminal conviction requires a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the death penalty should only be an option if the state has met the higher burden of proof beyond any doubt whatsoever. Second, convictions that depend on jailhouse confessions should be ineligible for the death penalty, because that kind of evidence must be regarded as at least slight grounds for doubt about their reliability. Third, while seemingly minor imperfections with the arrest or trial might not derail a conviction, execution should only be a possibility after due process that has had no imperfections at all. Fourth, I would not permit the execution of children or the mentally ill or retarded. I am no fan of the insanity defense as a barrier to conviction, but I would allow it as a barrier to execution.
These four conditions say nothing about the nature of the crimes committed. Senator Obama suggested that the death penalty might be appropriate – assuming that all proper procedures were followed – following the conviction of serial or terrorist murderers.
An interesting side story in this week’s Court case, and which has gotten almost no attention, is that Justice Stevens went on record as being personally opposed to the death penalty, but he joined the majority of the court in ruling that it was constitutional. Justice Stevens will undoubtedly get a lot of criticism for this, but I have a lot of respect for what he did. I have not seen the details of his opinion, but it appears from the newspaper story that Stevens expressed the personal opinion that the death penalty is poor public policy. However, it is not a judge’s job to rule based on his personal opinion of the policy. He could find nothing in the Constitution, or anywhere else, that suggested that the death penalty was unconstitutional, so as a judge, he decided differently than he would have had he been the state legislature. President Bush and other so-called conservatives claim to want judges who rule on the law (“strict constructionists” is the phrase that Mr. Bush likes to use, although I doubt that he has much of an idea what that means), but how often do the Justices Mr. Bush claims to admire (Justices Scalia and Thomas, for example) actually decide cases in a manner that differs from their own political preferences? Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old, and obviously has little time left on the Court. He has been a fine justice, and a conservative in the best sense of the word. I want Barack Obama, who has been an instructor in constitutional law at a prestigious (I was going to say “elite” but that seems a poor word choice right now) university, to be the one to appoint Stevens’ successor.
The presidency of George W. Bush is likely to face a severe verdict by future historians, and for a variety of reasons. Most obvious is his ill-considered decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (at least, the invasion was in 2003; the decision may have been earlier), compounded by extreme managerial incompetence in executing the war. Mr. Bush has bragged about his tax cut legislation, but I see nothing to brag about. Like the war, even if it was the right idea in the first place (and I do not accept that premise), it has been handled with his characteristic incompetence. For one thing, spending immense resources on the war while restricting the government’s ability to pay for it is not really a tax cut, but rather a tax increase. We are sending the bill to our children, while in the meantime financing our deficits by selling bonds to cash-rich foreign governments, whose agendas are not necessarily compatible with ours. In addition, the so-called “tax reform” did not touch the alternative minimum tax. The AMT takes away many of the benefits (such as the low tax rate on long term capital gains) that were supposed to encourage investment, which in turn was a major justification for the tax cuts in the first place.
Actually, the subject of today’s rant is not the war or the tax cuts. The third major legacy of this president has been his extreme politicization of areas of the government where partisan politics does not belong. The good news about this is that, unlike the war and the tax legislation, this problem is easily fixed as soon as the next president takes office. In particular, the Justice Department is the one major executive department that should be administered in a non-partisan manner. Mr. Bush has had two attorneys general, and both have been a disgrace to that office. On the other hand, many of his predecessors have selected personal cronies, chosen more for their political loyalty to the president than for their competent administration or even-handed dedication to law enforcement. Without passing judgment on the merits of Robert Kennedy in general, President John Kennedy should not have appointed his own brother to be the attorney general. It raises justifiable doubts that justice and the law will be enforced independently of whether or not the subject is a political ally of the president. Richard Nixon appointed his old law partner, John Mitchell, to be his attorney general, after his (Nixon’s) successful campaign emphasizing his commitment to “law and order.” Mitchell, of course, was possibly even worse than the two men who have filled that office in the current administration, although I do not recall that he fired U.S. Attorneys for not being sufficiently partisan. Mitchell violated the constitutional rights of those who opposed Nixon, and he later spent some well-deserved time in prison for Watergate-related crimes.
The point is that it is very important that the American people can have confidence that justice is being administered without regard to partisan politics. In this particular regard, I believe that Gerald Ford was an underrated president. Whatever good or bad he did in other aspects of his presidency, Ford appointed as attorney general Edward Levi, a law professor and university administrator who had once worked in Franklin Roosevelt’s Justice Department. After all the corruption of the department under Nixon, Ford made a non-political appointment to restore some badly needed integrity to the Justice Department. I am not claiming that Ford belongs on Mt. Rushmore, but this was an important positive element of his presidential record, and it came at a critical time.
If Barack Obama becomes president, he should appoint an attorney general who would be reminiscent of Edward Levi, a person highly respected by Democrats, Republicans, and independents. For a specific suggestion – I have no idea whether he would be interested in the job – I recommend Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is originally a native of New York, and came to Chicago in 2001 to be the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois. He also served as a special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. He is apparently nominally a Republican, but has never shown any hint of partisanship in his job of prosecuting crime. He has convicted both high profile Democrats and Republicans, including Scooter Libby. My belief is that Patrick Fitzgerald would make an excellent attorney general, and one of his better qualities is that I believe he would run the department in the same way whether the president was a Democrat or Republican. That might not be what we want in other cabinet posts, but it is what we should want in an attorney general.
I count myself as an enthusiastic supporter of Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy for president, but I believe he is wrong on one major issue. In the recent debate in Cleveland, Senators Obama and Clinton were trying to outdo each other for the distinction of which one is more opposed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA was one of the significant positive accomplishments of the Bill Clinton administration. It is ironic to me that Hillary Clinton, who tries to portray herself as a major player in her husband’s administration, is repudiating an important element of its economic legacy. The more extreme protectionist candidates – such as John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich – are now out of the race, and I am very glad for that. I can understand that NAFTA is unpopular in Ohio, but I hate to see the two remaining Democratic candidates going on record as being ready to tell Canada and Mexico that they are ready to give the required six months notice to end NAFTA. I don’t know about Clinton, but Obama surely knows better. Protectionism is very bad economics, and Barack Obama knows it.
NAFTA is blamed for the importation of poisoned dog food or lead painted toys from China, even though NAFTA is irrelevant to issues of trade with China. That is kind of like blaming (and invading) Iraq because some Saudi terrorists were given safe haven in Afghanistan. NAFTA also gets blamed for the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio and elsewhere. Manufacturing output has increased, even though the number of manufacturing workers has declined. This is what happens when productivity rises. The decline in manufacturing jobs would have occurred whether NAFTA passed or not. Even China is losing manufacturing jobs, believe it or not.
Some years before NAFTA, there was already a similar free trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada. NAFTA basically added Mexico to the earlier agreement. NAFTA lowered or eliminated trade barriers between the participating countries. Since the U.S. already had low import duties, we arguably got the better of the deal, since we had less to give up. Lowering trade barriers is good for American consumers. We have more choices and can pay less (for a given product and quality) than we would have to pay if we restored the trade barriers from the bad old days. Lowering prices is the equivalent of a pay increase or tax cut. In addition, many American jobs depend on exports.
NAFTA and other agreements that lower trade barriers benefit the society as a whole. Many new jobs are created. This does not mean that everybody benefits. There are some jobs lost as a result of what are otherwise good trade deals. There are also jobs lost due to other changes in the economy. For those people who do lose their jobs due to trade agreements or other factors, we should put sufficient resources into retraining them for jobs in the new economy. What we should not do is prevent economic progress, just because some jobs might be lost. Modern transportation has brought about incredible economic progress, but there is now much less need for blacksmiths than there was 150 years ago. Would anybody seriously argue that we should never have allowed the automobile industry to exist, because it might throw a few blacksmiths out of work? Retrain them to be mechanics, and we can all benefit.
Barack Obama has some economic advisors who are pro-trade, and I hope that his anti-trade rhetoric of recent days does not reflect his true beliefs, or at least that he is open to reconsidering his position on trade matters. I think he is wrong on this issue, but Senator Clinton is equally wrong, and I have some reason to hope that Obama will listen to both sides of the issue, and perhaps reconsider. NAFTA has been good for America in general. For those individuals who have been hurt by NAFTA, it would be better to have programs designed to help those people adjust to the changes than to scrap a good program. There may be some areas in the agreement which could be improved. I do not know if this is the case, but as one possible example, if the U.S. ever decided to get more serious about pollution control from cars and trucks, it would be reasonable to insist that cars and trucks entering the U.S. would be subject to the same vehicle emissions standards as the cars which were sold in the American market. Other than minor things like that, I believe that NAFTA should not be tampered with.
Smoker Jon Hemminghaus is Supporting and Defending the Constitution (and fighting for Change against governmental oppression of smokers by the time-honored method of civil disobedience). Support by any and all methods available to you and your imagination is requested, and encouraged.
http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2008/02/26/front_page/23514989.txt
Clarence Jones wrote a piece that brings together recent commentary by Gloria Steinam and statements by Hillary and Bill Clinton:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clarence-b-jones/clinton-vs-obama-lest-w_b_81667.html
A timely piece for Martin Luther King Jr. day arguing that Steinem ignores the reality of African American experience from the Middle Passage until today and the Clintons' comments demean the history of African American struggle for rights.
Jones surmises that "... the Clinton presidential campaign's apparent blind ambition for power runs the risk of destroying Clinton's reservoir of earned political integrity and affection among black people."
I have joined the group but found that it doesn't work with my email (sabonomo@sbcglobal.net)
So I signed up for the daily digest.
crossroadsteam.org
Steve Bonomo
The Clinton Plan would:
Establish a $30 Billion Emergency Housing Crisis Fund to assist states and cities.
Set a 90-day moratorium on sub prime foreclosures and an automatic rate freeze on sub prime mortgages of at least five years
Provide $25 billion in emergency energy assistance for families facing skyrocketing heating bills
Accelerate $5 billion in energy efficiency and alternative energy investments to jumpstart green collar job growth:
Invest $10 billion in extending and broadening unemployment insurance for those who are struggling to find work.
I used to put together fiscal stimulus packages as a career civil service employee in the budget office of several presidents of both parties. Here are some guidelines that have proved useful.
Keep the purpose clearly in mind, which is to offset some of the temporary drop in spending caused by people being thrown out of work in a recession. This argues for adding temporarily to the disposable income of people who will spend it. On the tax side this means either rebates in temporary drops in withholding. On the spending side it means one-shot increases in existing income support programs such as social security and veterans benefits.
It also argues for measurers that expire or otherwise self-destruct. Otherwise expenditures will trail on in future years creating a fiscal hangover effect.
Programs that respond automatically to raising unemployment, such as unemployment insurance, food stamps and medicaide face another problem. They are administered by states and localities, which have not always had the staff on hand to process unexpected increases in claims. Dealing with this problem needs to be part of any effective package.
Among the things that do not work are public works and direct investment incentives. Public works take too long to get going. States and localities often claim they have projects on the shelf ready to go, but experience indicates that in reality they simply substitute federal funds for their own money which they then use later on some other purpose such as a subsequent project
Attempts to increase direct private investment through investment tax credits or lower capital gain taxes do not work either. Honest businessmen will tell you that they are glad to get the money, but investment decisions take too long to turn into cash payments to help much in a recession.
Both Obama and Clinton have proposed stimulus plans. The summaries below have both been taken from each candidate’s web sites.
The Clinton Economic Stimulus Plan would:
Set a 90-day moratorium on subprime foreclosures and an automatic rate freeze on subprime mortgages of at least five years
Acceleratie $5 billion in energy efficiency and alternative energy investments to jumpstart green collar job growth:
Barack Obama's Would:
Provide an immediate $250 tax cut for workers and their families.
Provide an immediate, temporary $250 bonus to seniors in their Social Security checks.
Provide an additional $250 tax cut to workers and an additional $250 to seniors if the economy continues to worsen
Provide relief to homeowners hit by the housing crisis.
Provide aid to states hardest-hit by the housing crisis to avoid a slash in services. Extend and expand Unemployment Insurance.
The Clinton plan can only be judged on the merits of each item. It is not a short-term fiscal stimulus package. All the items except energy assistance would take too long to enact and carryout. Energy assistance would come just as the North is warming up and the South has not yet turned on the air-conditioning. I am not sure we want large subsidies for energy consumption even for low income people.
The Obama plan is what a fiscal stimulus program is supposed to look like. Fast and simple, with cash out the door and in people’s pockets.
DGM in Washington January 14, 2008
