Crisis in the Federal Courts

Another example of the effect of irresponsible, intransigent ideological posturing now substituting for rational governance in Congress. They ignore their oaths and placate uneducated minorities while driven by self-aggrandizement or sitting in cowardly obstructionism.  We would do well with our own "American Spring" movement. 

"The nation’s independent federal court system, though hardly perfect, is central to American democracy and the rule of law. Its current crisis was created by Washington politicians, and Washington politicians hold the power to solve it. The letter from the judges asks that Congress approve the $496 million increase in funding for the judiciary recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee even if a continuing budget resolution is enacted this fall keeping government spending at its current level.

That would be the reasonable thing to do, even though reason is in short supply in today’s Washington."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/opinion/federal-courts-in-crisis.html?_r=0

"Hero" Is An Earned Honor

The death of Mr. Tayvon Martin was a tragedy.  As Mr. Zimmerman’s attorney put it, the conviction of Mr. Zimmerman as charged would have been a travesty. The Martin family had every right to press the authorities for full consideration of the facts. However, both self-appointed and positioned spokespersons for black Americans fed an undisciplined, unprofessional and self-serving media juggernaut with hyperbolic and false racist allegations prior to and during the trial. THIS frenzy assuredly prompted the prosecution to overcharge with Murder when, as shown by all of the evidence at trial, there existed insufficient evidence even to arrest on that charge. The verdict of the jury is unassailable given the facts as presented at trial.

Now in the aftermath of the trial the same black “leaders” and media present hyperbole, conjecture and racist fear mongering in an attempt to justify their earlier wrongs to the system and Mr. Zimmerman and to further their own agendas.  I heard one black high official in the NAACP state that Trayvon Martin will occupy the same status and image as Medgar Evers, a black-American civil rights activist assassinated for his work in Mississippi in 1963. That angers and sickens me and should every American – particularly black-Americans.

  

Eyewitness evidence put Martin on top of and beating down on Zimmerman; Zimmerman’s injuries were consistent with that observation; Zimmerman claimed Martin initiated the physical encounter with a punch to the face; Zimmerman sustained a broken nose; there were no significant inconsistencies in Zimmerman’s statements; Zimmerman said the Martin had looked like he was on drugs; Martin in a store video seemed to weave; Martin had marijuana in his system; nothing showed racial bias or racial “profiling” by Zimmerman.

Conjure, speculate, twist and ignore what you will, Trayvon Martin deserves no honors for his conduct that night.  Certainly, neither does Zimmerman.  And don’t dare for political self-aggrandizement or action mention Martin’s name alongside that of Medgar Evers. To do so belittles the true heroes.

A form of democracy in Egypt

Some thoughts while switching from CNN to MSNBC to al Jazeera to Fox News and back around...

In Hong Kong, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt and other countries, existing governments and their ideologies are challenged by hundreds of thousands of citizens assembling and protesting in the streets.  There is often no right to, belief in or patience for an electoral process to bring about change.  Of course, the "mobs" may be manipulated and in the minority.  They may be deceiving or destructive.  They may have force of arms or not.  They may hold the will and desires of the majority of citizens or not.  Where there is protest there may be counter-protest.  Where there is success, the governments either change or adjust.  Repression or relief may follow.

On a vastly different scale Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protesters expressed their own challenge within our democracy.  To this point, it is our assumptions that the primary offices, the congress, the executive and the Supreme Court understand, accept, appreciate and apply the rules of law drawn from the Constitution for the Common Welfare.  Whiskey and tea advocates aside, we accept the primacy and legitimacy of the ballot over the street.  At least for now.

Is Egypt an example of what form "democracy" must take there (and elsewhere) if it is to have any existence where assumptions such as ours are not held by the people?  Does the faith in or the need for the Egyptian Army as the core of the nation compare to our faith and need for the Constitution?  The Egyptian people have found a way to express and demand their pluralistic interests through freedom of assembly.  "Democracy" evolves or will kill itself.

Just Mining Data

Commenting on  http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1

I wrote

Why do we, as Americans - no, we as distinct human beings, invite "Big Brother" to watch each of us to the extent they are now doing? Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, all associates, friends, businesses are identified in telephone records, all investigations, studies, inquiries, curiosities, interests, concerns are revealed in computer data. And all are retained and undoubtedly catalogued for whatever use this or another Big Brother (person or ideology) may deem "necessary for state security."

How indifferent, stupid, fearful or calculating have we become to allow this to happen and continue. The government claims that such data helped thwart a terrorist effort. They do not say the data was critical, nor decisive nor anything more than one element relevant to a success. What price did we pay for that one element to keep three, twenty, or five-hundred citizens alive? In my days as a federal prosecutor I sought as much information about a suspect as permitted by law. There was always the desire for more evidence though the case sufficient.

One politician argues the value "as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.” Yet, if they are dealing with the "known or suspected" the search must be limited to less than millions. If they are "just looking" then there is no reason not to suspect each citizen will have a dossier. Information feeds power. Feel the safety of Big Brother's arms.

President Obama's Speech, May 23, 2013

THIS IS THE CORRECT ACTION AND LONG OVERDUE.

"For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future. ... the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled, as it always was before 2001, primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. That shift is essential to preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United States is fighting, ... ."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/opinion/obama-vows-to-end-of-the-perpetual-war.html?pagewanted=1&hp

A Burial Virginians Should Respect

"Tamerlan, 26, and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, are believed to have set off two bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264.

After Tamerlan died in a shootout with police on April 19, disposition of the ethnic Chechen's remains became controversial with local cemeteries refusing to accept them, while some family members sought to have them transported overseas. Massachusetts officials, including the city manager in Tsarnaev's hometown of Cambridge and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, called for the body to be buried outside their communities.

On Friday, an official death certificate released by Menino's office showed that Tsarnaev had been buried in a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, near Richmond."  http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-deserved-notice-bomb-suspect-burial-funeral-director-212654413.html

And Virginia and Virginians have objected.

Why? A technicality? Religious intolerance? Moral indignation? A technicality in the transfer of the remains: certainly merely correct the forms. Religious intolerance: certainly Virginia, the first guarantor of religious freedom, would not object. Moral indignation: certainly Virginians have laid to rest the remains of those condemned for more heinous acts. What doctrine, philosophy, morality, false piety would deny the human respect for a dead man in a dignified burial. We bury dogs and cats in "pet" cemeteries, do the remains of any man deserve less.

Guns for Grandma?

The NRA portrays and defends private sales of firearms as merely among family and friends. From a public notice on May 3rd by the U.S. Attorney's office in Virginia: "Kimberly Yvette Dinkins, 44, of Manassas, Va., was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, for dealing firearms without a license. ... According to documents filed in connection with the case, Dinkins purchased 31 firearms – all handguns – on three consecutive weekends from Nov. 17 through Dec. 1, 2012. ... the firearms bought and sold by Dinkins were eventually recovered from juveniles and felons who utilized the firearms during drug trafficking schemes."

Wake Up, Senator

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has written of the Boston bombing suspect:  "If captured, I hope Administration will at least consider holding the Boston suspect as enemy combatant for intelligence gathering purposes." and "The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to "remain silent."
 
All this Senator is doing in arguing for application of an "enemy combatant" status is to further diminish the confidence of some Americans in the law. Contentions like this coming from a United States Senator become grist forming the extremes of radical political beliefs. The need to arm with military arsenals and challenge with lies, fabrications and implicit threats of force ("2nd Amendment remedies") a government perceived only as an enemy, all grow from a profound disrespect for existing law. A United States Senator sworn to "support ... the Constitution" defiles his office by failing to support the fundamental structure of the law as set out in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. The Preamble to our Bill of Rights states "the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution." Suggesting that the Constitution would be an impediment to justice in this case is to suggest that the foundation of our law no longer serves nor defines America. Senator Graham needs to focus on his fundamental responsibility to the Constitution.

Senator Stupidity - A Note

U. S. Senators voting down the rational revisions to gun laws are self-centered, political hacks lacking in courage and character. And, I will add that the small percentage of non-thinking, ignorant conspiracy driven persons who believe that the most important aspect of our Constitution is to strengthen their personal ability to use force at some imagined future time to destroy a Constitutionally elected government and impose BY FORCE their own views are the real danger. 

All while thousands die by gun violence.

Medals for Drone Operators Canceled

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/politics/medals-for-drone-warriors-canceled.html?ref=us

With all due respect ... Outfinstanding!  One, it seems to me, has to credit Hagel's personal combat experience in Nam, his character and also his responsiveness to outside pressure groups.  Yes, I know that I just suggested a positive value to outside pressure groups.  I was initially conflicted when I wrote that because my current perspective has been of the "moneyed" groups successfully exercising influence in both executive and legislative matters to the detriment of the general welfare of the nation.  Here, the groups were assemblies of veterans and their supporters who influenced some in Congress and to some degree Sec. Hagel.  Here these veterans, in groups and individually, brought petitions on an issue relevant to them yet not for their personal selfish advancement and not merely with checkbooks. Certainly, there is the inherent political element of the number of votes at issue but that is and should be the nature of this beast.  For once, it worked righteously.

Second Amendment Remedies for Traitors

No guts. No rationality. No integrity. No assault rifle ban. Congress, a failure in all but hypocrisy.
These are merely citizens exercising "Second Amendment Remedies."

From the article: "last August ... Aguigui, 21, recruited and led a group of disgruntled Army soldiers who plotted attacks ranging from bombing a park fountain in Savannah to poisoning apple crops in Washington state. They said the group also wanted to assassinate an American president, though prosecutors never specified if the target was President Barack Obama."

The article continues: "Prosecutors said Aguigui used the insurance payments from his wife's death to buy $87,000 worth of semi-automatic assault rifles, other guns and bomb-making materials recovered by investigators."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/04/05/soldier-charged-in-killing-of-pregnant-wife.html?ESRC=eb.nl

"Cleanin' up and I'm gettin' down"

Anyone interested in a subject for provocative discussion with or among women, try this one. A study published a couple of weeks ago appears to answer the question, as one critic put it, "Is feminism making us fat?" Results of the study, say its authors, suggest that the decrease in "the sum of time spent in food preparation, post-meal cleaning activities (e.g., dish-washing), clothing maintenance (e.g., laundry), and general housework " accompanying a sedentary lifestyle may have contributed to the increasing prevalence of obesity in women during the last five decades." Think of all the money that might have been saved if not spent on all those alternatives to weight loss and more women had merely hung there laundry outdoors. I jest, of course. (Or, do I ?) Since the number of men involved in "home ec" over the same period was, I expect, minimal, the results of the study would be inapplicable to them except for future consideration. Scrub the floors America!

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056620

Distinguished Service Medal Ranking is Disgusting

This article begins:  "Barely 24 hours after the Pentagon announced its new medal for cyber warriors and drone pilots, the Veterans of Foreign Wars is demanding the decoration's ranking be lowered.

"The Distinguished Warfare Medal is ranked above both the Bronze Star with Combat "V" and the Purple Heart – medals typically awarded for combat in which the servicemember's life is at risk."  http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/02/14/vfw-wants-new-medal-ranked-lower.html?comp=700001075741&rank=2

I could have written that the ranking of this award above the Bronze Star with "V" and the Purple Heart is "unbelievable" but I am too cynical and have to argue that the ranking is disgusting.  Those who wear or know the circumstances of others who wear or were buried with the BS w/"V" awarded under direct combat conditions should be angered and insulted by this ranking.

To place such as award above the Bronze Star with "Valor" device, an award presented for valor in direct, face to face, ground combat is ridiculous and an insult to those who wear or went to their graves earning the Bronze Star award for valor. To place the award above the Purple Heart which is awarded for wounds received in direct combat and often the only award presented posthumously to a soldier killed in action is morally reprehensible and unjustifiable.

A Fool Speaks of Combat

 One Eliot Cohen has written an opinion piece in the Washington Post this January 9th.  It is a criticism of the appointment of former Senator Chuck Hagel to become the Secretary of Defense. You can look the article up if you wish but I have no desire to further publish this man's writing.  I will focus on only two lines because having read them I was immediately held in astonishment and anger.  My astonishment grew when I researched and found out Cohen's background, a search I will again leave to you.

"Does combat service uniquely produce empathy with the troops, an awareness of the horrors of wounds and violent death? Visits to a military hospital will bring one to that. " This is the statement, to be respectful of his career, of an academician. This is also, to be accurate, the statement of a fool who has never served as an infantryman in life and death combat. Deficient as he is in judgment and understanding, he is adept at rhetorical babble. Ask a soldier or veteran about the pride in wearing a Combat Infantryman Badge such as the one Hagel earned. Ask a veteran who has been shot at or blown into the air with metal fragments piercing his body and tearing off the head of the man next to him just what comparison there is in a "Bob Hope" walk down a hospital ward. I am surprised that Cohen, someone who has purported to have studied generic "war" would make such an inane comparison. I am perplexed as to how someone holding such a view could be accepted as some sort of expert in military matters. I am angered and insulted, as an Infantry combat veteran as is Hagel, by his statement. Someone sitting on a Congressional panel before which he will undoubtedly testify should demand an apology on behalf of combat veterans before accepting his credentials on anything much less war.

Sent To Rep. Eric Cantor Today

As a senior citizen, combat veteran, attorney and resident of your District, I am disgusted and angry that you persist in leading an unjustifiable obstruction to reasoned governance. 

I see the Senate bill that you are considering today as a step in the direction of improving the confidence of the markets, the businesses, the citizens and the world in the ability of our Democracy to govern itself.  Neither "side" is celebrating the substance of the Senate Bill but the people in the District that you represent deserve to feel that YOU can compromise for the general welfare.  The ideological golems and sycophants they seduce are far outnumbered by the working and middle class in our District.  The 41% who voted against you this last time will, I assure you, grow in ranks unless you show that you understand your responsibility to ALL.  And I will work vigorously to see you defeated if you do not.

As a long-time "Independent" I have been pushed to the Left increasingly over the last three years by histrionic lies, distortions and ideological obstructionism that you either fostered or silently countenanced.  I hope for, no, I demand your enlightenment to your approach to governing and your re-assessment of the relative value to this District and to our Democracy of your own personal political ambition.