Tag Archives: supreme court

Political Rants

Next round.

Sure, I’m surprised that the Affordable Care Act survived this past Thursday. I thought the mainstream media was going to talk it to death, frankly. Talk about wind-ups … by the time 10:00 a.m. rolled around, I was too bleeping sick of the issue to even care, and let me tell you – that’s quite a distance for me. It’s just that the horserace coverage of every political issue gets under my skin in the worst way. The merits of a given issue are never deeply examined; it’s always he said this, she said that. No way to work out which is closer to the truth.

They did this with health care, pretty much all day. After the decision was handed down, NPR had some guy from Cato and a policy wonk from the administration. Basically just put them in a room and watch them spar. Of course, Cato guy is much further to the right than the Obama person is to the left, so it’s kind of a straw man argument at best. How is this news? They pulled the same thing with the “Fast and Furious” faux-scandal. Even though Fortune Magazine blogger Katherine Eban blew a hole in the standard story about this a full day before, NPR, NBC, and other mainstream outlets were still framing the argument the same way – the GOP want documents, Holder and Obama say no. He said, they said.

What about the merits of the Affordable Care Act? I was never a big fan. It is, of course, a conservative idea, like cap and trade – market-based policy designed to head off something saner and more effective. Basically profit insurance in its purest form. Nevertheless, it establishes the concept of national health insurance for the first time, so that’s a minor step forward. The mandate requirement includes a penalty that the Supreme Court has called a tax; there’s a shocker. I wrote about this herein a few times, I think, most recently in March. Arguably any cost the government imposes can be described as a tax. I would go so far as to say that the failure to provide affordable universal coverage is a kind of tax, since everyone ends up paying through the nose as a result of its absence.

The G.O.P. is crowing because it thinks it has a tax issue for the coming election. All I can say is that, for all their bluster, they are responsible for the single largest tax hike I have ever had – their refusal to renew the “Making Work Pay” tax credit cost me $800 last year, as it did millions of other Americans. Where’s your tax issue now, boys?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

American take-away.

It’s official: if you get pulled over for an out-of-date inspection or soft tires … or perhaps nothing at all, you can be strip searched. Thank you, Anthony Kennedy. Thank you, George W. Bush.

Why George W. Bush? Because he appointed a right-wing chief justice when Rehnquist had to step down in 2005. In truth, I should blame voters in the 2004 election for reelecting a right-wing imbecile to the presidency – one who would be there to appoint Scalia clones as needed. The Roberts appointment was particularly crucial in that Supreme Court Justices – who are imagined to be somehow magically apolitical – always seem to delay their retirement until the presidency is held by someone who shares their ideological world-view. Because of failing health, Rehnquist would have retired in 2005 no matter who won the 2004 election. Ergo, that election was our last opportunity to shift the balance of the court back from right-wing extremism, and we basically blew it.

That’s as it may be. But this FLORENCE v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF COUNTY OF BURLINGTON ET AL. decision is truly odious, particularly at this moment in our political-cultural history. Think of it: we are in the grips of a national debate about the Trayvon Martin killing – a young man who likely would be alive today if he hadn’t been black. The Martin case is far from unique. Democracy Now! has been reporting on a remarkably heinous police killing of a 68-year-old Marine veteran with a heart condition who rolled over on his medic-alert badge – a false alarm that for some reason brought on the equivalent of a SWAT team from the White Plains PD. (He too was, of course, African-American.) It seems our society is going out of its way to demonstrate how little it values the lives of black people in general, and black men in particular.

That’s how the Supreme Court made a bad thing worse. The “Florence” in Florence v. Board is Albert Florence, a black man riding in the passenger seat of his BMW (his wife was driving) when they were pulled over by the White Plains police. They arrested Florence for a purportedly unpaid fine – which he had paid, and for which he had proof of payment handy when stopped by the police – and took him in, strip searching him (twice) before releasing him after the error was confirmed (presumably by a trustworthy white person). This was just fine with the 5 conservative justices on the court. Now, every black person in America knows what this means – it’s a green light for abusive practices in custody, the humiliation of repeated strip searches. And it will fall disproportionately on them, because they are arrested at a much higher rate than are white people.

It’s the cherry on top of the shit sundae. Just more confirmation of the thesis of The New Jim Crow and Slavery by Another Name. Criminalization of blackness is once again validated at the highest level of our “justice” system.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Life and death.

This was a week when national health insurance was equated with cruciferous vegetables; when purveyors of deadly gun violence played the victim and had the law on their side. What a week, eh?

First, the Affordable Care Act being considered by the gang of nine (robes division). There are a great many things that might be said of the judicial theater we were all treated to this week, but from my perspective – a limited one, to be sure – they boil down to the following points:

Health Care: Still Not A Vegetable. This is one of those vacuous, tea-party type arguments that has been thrown around since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was considered by Congress. Jesus freaking christ on a bike, Justice Scalia … no, health care is not the same as freaking broccoli. You can live your whole miserable life without eating a single floret of broccoli, but god damn it you will certainly end up in a hospital at some point, and someone is going to pay for it. And no, it’s not a cell phone either, damn it. Some people have never used one; my 85-year-old mother for one. Neither cell phones nor broccoli are essential or inevitable like medical care in America.

Pick Your Constitutional Overreach. Justice Kennedy – a.k.a. he who will decide whether millions can see a doctor or not – appears to think that the ACA fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and the people. Many take this as confirmation that it is constitutional overreach. But even if it were, why pick that out of the crowd? We have undeclared wars that last ten years and more. We have routine violations of fourth amendment rights. Our government kills, detains, and spies on people at will without any discernible limit. Why aren’t these same people attacking those excesses? Or is it just that they are attacking the ACA because they disagree with it politically? Thought so.

Where’s Thomas? I’ve heard the audio from these sessions, mostly on NPR, and I have heard comments from every justice but Thomas. Every single one had something noteworthy to say except Thomas. Has someone tried shaking him or poking him with a stick lately? I’m not sure he’s responsive at this point. Strange, strange justice.

The outcome of this life or death question could take any of a number of shapes, but my money is on their striking it down, mostly because conservatives (i.e. reactionary statists) are in the majority, thanks to George W. Bush and the ignorant people who re-elected him. They showed their impartiality with Bush v. Gore and Citizen’s United … and it doesn’t bear close scrutiny.

Re: Trayvon Martin. The police video shows that Zimmerman is not only an extreme exaggerator, but also a good deal more athletic than we’d been led to imagine. But the real perps here are the Florida legislature, former governor Bush, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), and the NRA – authors of the “Stand Your Ground” legislation that has made such slaughter legal. Time to shoot the law, Florida. It’s a question of self defense.

luv u,

jp