Thursday, March 28, 2024

Rules, Law, And Constitution Seem To Be Different For Trump


 

55% In U.S. Now Disapprove Of Israeli Military Action In Gaza



The charts above are from the Gallup Poll -- done between March 1st and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,016 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Gag Order

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers at Tinyview.com.
 

Biden Wants To Tax The Rich More & The Public Agrees

 

Since 1990, the number of billionaires has risen from about 70 to nearly 700. Those additional billionaires have not sprung from the middle or working classes, but from the already rich. Republican policies have allowed some millionaires to become billionaires - and some billionaires to become multi-billionaires (and approach trillionaire status).

We are fast becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. While the rich get much richer, the middle class is shrinking as it struggles to stay up with inflation, and the working class is falling behind.

In the midst of this, President Biden says he wants to raise taxes - not of the working and middle classes (or anyone making less than $400,000). Taxes would be raised on only the rich, and especially the super-rich.

And it looks like most Americans agree with the president. About 61% say taxes should be raised on those making above $400,000 (see the chart below), while only 20% want to keep those taxes at current levels and 17% would like to see the taxes on the rich lowered.

The president is right. It is obscene that a few should be ridiculously rich while most Americans struggle. The rich should pay more in taxes, especially the billionaires - who already have more money than they could possibly spend.

It comes down to this: Do we want a country where all citizens can thrive, or a country where only a few can be rich at the expense of all others?

If you prefer the former, then you must vote Democratic in November. The Republicans care only for the rich, and their failed economic policies would just make things worse for most Americans.



The Grifter Sells Bibles

Political Cartoon is by Dave Whamond at Cagle.com.
 

The U.S. Is Complicit In Starving The Residents Of Gaza

 

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

She Doesn't Fit On A Network That Tells The Truth

 

Do U.S. Citizens Have A Right To Privacy? (Yes, But It's Tenuous)


I think most Americans think they have a constitutional right to privacy. But it's not guaranteed. There is no provision or amendment in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees a right to privacy. That right, as it currently exists, has been created by liberal Supreme Court justices out of other rights explicitly granted in the Constitution.

The Court then used this created right to guarantee married couples the right to purchase contraception (Griswold), the right of unmarried people to purchase contraception (Eisenstadt), the right to an abortion (Roe), and the right of same-sex couples to have sex (Lawrence).

Unfortunately, the right to privacy is not recognized by all Supreme Court justices. The right-wingers on the current Court denied that right in Dobbs (which overturned the right to an abortion). And some justices have said they would like to revisit the decisions in Griswold, Eisenstadt, and Lawrence. In other words, they want to effectively gut the right to privacy in the United States.

The following post is a discussion of the right to privacy by the Cornell Law School:

There is a long and evolving history regarding the right to privacy in the United States. In the context of American jurisprudence, the Supreme Court first recognized the “right to privacy” in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Before Griswold, however, Louis Brandeis (prior to becoming a Supreme Court Justice) co-authored a Harvard Law Review article titled "The Right to Privacy," in which he advocated for the "right to be let alone."

​In Griswold, the Supreme Court found a right to privacy, derived from penumbras of other explicitly stated constitutional protections. The Court used the personal protections expressly stated in the FirstThirdFourthFifth, and Ninth Amendments to find that there is an implied right to privacy in the Constitution. The Court found that when one takes the penumbras together, the Constitution creates a “zone of privacy.” The right to privacy established in Griswold was then narrowly used to find a right to privacy for married couples, regarding the right to purchase contraceptives. 

Additionally, it is important to note Justice Harlan's concurring opinion in Griswold, which found a right to privacy derived from the Fourteenth Amendment. In his concurrence, he relies upon the rationale in his dissentingopinion in Poe v. Ullman (1961). In that opinion, he wrote, "I consider that this Connecticut legislation, as construed to apply to these appellants, violates the Fourteenth Amendment. I believe that a statute making it a criminal offense for married couples to use contraceptives is an intolerable and unjustifiable invasion of privacy in the conduct of the most intimate concerns of an individual's personal life." 

In privacy cases post-Griswold, the Supreme Court typically has chosen to rely upon Justice Harlan's concurrence rather than Justice Douglas's majority opinion. Eisenstadt v Baird (1971), and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) are two of the most prolific cases in which the Court extended the right to privacy. In each of these cases, the Court relied upon the Fourteenth Amendment, not penumbras. 

In Eisenstadt, the Supreme Court decided to extend the right to purchase contraceptives to unmarried couples. More importantly, however, the Court found that "the constitutionally protected right of privacy inheres in the individual, not the marital couple." 

In Lawrence, the Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the right to privacy to "persons of the same sex [who choose to] engage in . . . sexual conduct." Relying upon the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process, the Court held: "The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."

When the Supreme Court first decided Roe v. Wade, the Court used the right to privacy, as derived from the Fourteenth Amendment, and extended the right to encompass an individual’s right to have an abortion: "This right of privacy . . . founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." However, after the Dobbs decision, the Court overturned both Roe and Casey. Consequently, the right to abortion no longer falls under the broader right to privacy. Additionally, the Dobbs opinion mentioned potentially examining Griswold and Eisenstadt in the future. While it is unclear to what extent that may have on the right to privacy in the current time; it is likely that the case law around this right will continue to evolve with more recent Supreme Court decisions.

Hard To Tell


 Political Cartoon is by Jeff Stahler at gocomics.com.

Most Americans Say The Covid Epidemic Is Over



The charts above are from the Gallup Poll -- done between March 5th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 5,577 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.

Checking The Eggs In Alabama

Political Cartoon is by Dave Granlund at davegranlund.com.
 

What Can Biden Do To Stop Netanyahu?


 The following is just part of a post by Robert Reich:

What’s Biden’s leverage to prevent Netanyahu from crossing Biden’s red line and attacking Rafah? More broadly, what’s Biden’s leverage to get Netanyahu to stop the killings of civilians in Gaza?

Just this. The United States is by far the largest supplier of military aid to Israel. In 2022, the aid amounted to $3.3 billion. Since the war with Hamas began, the Biden administration has pushed Congress to pass $14 billion in additional aid (the funding has been stalled, mainly for reasons unrelated to the war).


Between October and around Dec. 1, 2023, the United States also transferred about 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells to Israel. From Dec. 1 to now, those total transfers have increased by about 15 percent.


Israel has depleted much of its munitions and needs further American shipments. The U.S. government is now working to approve new arms orders and has accelerated orders that were in the pipeline before the war began.


Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, who met yesterday with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, reportedly pressed for expedited approval of requests for F-15 fighter jets worth billions of dollars and for a large batch of GPS-guided munitions kits. 


Why should the U.S. provide more military aid to Israel, especially if Israel defies Biden and attacks Rafah?

 

Biden issued a memorandum in February laying out standards of compliance for all countries receiving U.S. weapons, including adhering to international humanitarian rules of law. Israel has not adhered to those rules. 


Arguably, Israel is also violating a section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which bars the United States from providing arms or other aid to a country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”. . .


Don’t get me wrong. Israel is one of America’s closest allies. Many Americans believe Israel must do everything in its power to eliminate Hamas.

 

Even if you believe this, though, it doesn’t follow that the United States must continue to supply Israel with weapons for maintaining its strategy of death and destruction in Gaza — especially when Israel’s leadership refuses to listen to America and is actively defying our president. This is particularly true if Israel attacks Rafah, thereby crossing Biden’s “red line.”


In supplying more military aid, we are in effect relieving Israel of any strategic or moral responsibility to find an alternative to the horrific course it’s on.

 

Not only does this make us complicit in Israel’s failure to find an alternative. It makes us complicit in the bloodbath itself.

The GOP Bloodbath

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers at Tinyview.com.
 

Keeping The "Rule Of Law" Requires Enforcing The Laws


 

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Biden Should Talk About Making The Economy Fairer


 

Religious Attendance Keeps Falling In The United States


The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between 2021 and 2023 of a nationwide sample of 32,445 adults, with a 1 point margin of error.

Asleep On The Job

 Political Cartoon is by Jeff Koterba at jeffreykoterba.com.

Most Think A New World War Will Happen In Next 5-10 Years



The charts above reflect the results of a YouGov Poll -- done between February 1st and 7th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adults, with a 3.8 point margin of error.

Tropical Seattle

Political Cartoon is by David Horsey in The Seattle Times.
 

NY Appeals Court Gives Trump A Break He Doesn't Deserve


Donald Trump was supposed to put up a bond before appealing the nearly half a billion dollars judgement today. He had been convicted of fraud. But on the last day, a New York Appeals Court stepped in and lowered the bond to $175 million, and then gave him another 10 days to post it.

Frankly, I'm baffled as to why the appeals court lowered the bond to less than half of the judgement. The trial judge issued a detailed and well thought out decision on why he had set the original verdict amount. Is the appeals court thinking of lowering the judgement amount - without even hearing the case?

This smells of favoritism - that we have a two-tiered justice system - one for the rich and famous (or infamous) and another for the rest of us. Do you think a normal person would have received this kind of break from the appeals court (even if they could not afford to post a bond)? Of course not!

Trump is still claiming that no one was hurt by his criminal activity. That is not true. By inflating his property values, he received a much lower interest rate on loans - cheating the banks out of millions of dollars. And by deflating those same property values when paying taxes, he cheated the state of New York (and its citizens) out of many millions of dollars.

Trump was found to have engaged in fraud - and that fraud garnered him hundreds of million dollars in ill-gotten gains. He should be forced to pay the entire amount. Anything less is not justice! 

He Simply Doesn't Care

Political Cartoon is by Rick McKee at Cagle.com.
 

If Hydrogen Is The Future - It Must Be Made Cleanly


 

Monday, March 25, 2024

When Only One Man Holds Power Only One Is Responsible

 

Poll Shows Support For The LGBT Community







The charts above are from a Public Religion Research Institute Poll -- done between March 9th and December 7th of 2023 of a nationwide sample of 22,465 adults, with a 0.82 point margin of error.

When You're Famous . . .

Political Cartoon is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.
 

Do We Think About Our Votes Or Just Follow The Group?


Dr. Neil Gross (professor of sociology at Colby College) has written a thought-provoking article of political identity and voting. Here is part of what he wrote:

If you’re trying to guess whether people are Republicans or Democrats, knowing a few basic facts about them will take you a long way. What’s their race and gender? How far did they get in school? What part of the country do they live in and is their community urban, suburban or rural?

Between 2016 and 2020, for example, white Americans without college degrees favored the Republican Party by nearly 24 percentage points. Strike up a conversation about politics with such a person in rural central Maine, near where I live, and chances are that his or her sympathies will lie with the G.O.P.

Or consider gender and attitudes about crime and public safety: Men are about 10 percentage points more supportive than women of the death penalty and 10 percentage points less supportive of gun control. Or how about ethnicity and views on illegal immigration? Relative to Latino Americans, non-Latinos endorse“increasing deportation” as a partial solution by a 22-point margin.

Although there are certainly people whose politics defy generalization, the underlying demographic tendencies are powerful predictors of belief — powerful enough that elections have become as much a turnout game as an exercise in persuasion.

But this raises an important question. If our political views and behavior can be so easily predicted by characteristics like race (over which we have no control) or by factors like education (where our choices may be highly constrained by other things such as the social class of our parents), then when it comes to politics, are any of us really thinking for ourselves?

The accusation that people on the other side of the political divide have abandoned critical thinking and moral reasoning is now commonplace in American political discourse. Many on the left interpret the political tendencies of white voters without college educations as evidence that the Republican Party’s core constituency is ill informed or even unintelligent. Who else could fall for the lies of Donald Trump? Republicans, for their part, regularly invoke the idea of “liberal groupthink,” using it to make sense of how some of America’s ostensibly brightest minds could champion simplistic, unworkable policies like defunding the police.

These accusations form part of the broader phenomenon of partisan stereotyping, which has flourished as the country has pulled apart. Alongside the charge that those in the opposite political camp don’t think for themselves, Democrats in 2022 were considerably more likely than they were in 2016 to say that Republicans were closed-minded, dishonest and immoral. Republicans felt pretty much the same way about Democrats. . . .

It may be inevitable that our group identities, interests and experiences shape our political inclinations. But it’s up to each of us to scrutinize the beliefs we’ve absorbed from our social milieu to ensure that our values and political commitments are what we truly think they should be — that our beliefs are based on sound reasons rather than brute social forces.

Regrettably, a hyperpartisan society does little to reward such independence of thought, even as both progressives and conservatives claim its mantle. . . .

By all means, let’s duke it out in the public sphere and at the ballot box. You’ll fight for your interests and values, I’ll fight for mine. That’s democracy in a big, diverse, boisterous nation. But if we could bear in mind that we sometimes stumble into our most passionately held beliefs, the tenor of our discourse might be a bit saner and more cordial. The fact that we are all deeply social creatures, in politics and otherwise, underscores our shared humanity — something that we would be wise to never lose sight of. 

From Rich To Pauper

Political Cartoon is by Gary Huck at huckkonopackicartoons.com.
 

Republicans Give An Electoral Gift To Democrats

 

Saturday, March 23, 2024

This Problem Needs A Bipartisan Solution


 

Public Overwhelmingly Says Diversity Make The U.S. Stronger

 


This chart reflects the results of the Marist Poll -- done between January 29th and February 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,582 adults (including 1,441 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.4 points, and for registered voters is 3.6 points.

Yard Sale

Political Cartoon is by Matt Wuerker at Politico.com.
 

GOP Economic Policy Caused Social Security's Problems


Social Security is one of the most successful programs the government has created. It lifted millions of seniors out of abject poverty. For that reason, it is also one of the most popular programs.

But the Republicans have never liked Social Security. They voted against its establishment, and have continued to vote against it. They tried to replace it with a program that would put seniors at the mercy of rich interests in the stock market during the Bush II administration, and when that didn't work, they continue efforts to cut the program.

Republicans claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that will continually require more funds until it can no longer be sustained. They point to the coming Social Security funding problem as proof. It is true that Social Security will need more funding in the near future or will be able to pay only about 80% of benefits. But that doesn't make it a "Ponzi scheme". It's a result of bad economic policy that the Republicans instituted.

In 1983, the retirement age was raised to 67, and new a new Social Security tax cutoff was instituted. With these moves, Social Security trustees estimated that would be sufficient to fund the program far into the future.

At the time, economic policy had rising productivity being shared among all groups in our society. That rising productivity for workers would mean that funding for Social Security would also rise and pay for the growing number of retirees.

But something happened to change that. The Republicans gained enough power to change the nation's economic policy. They instituted a trickle-down economic policy (telling Americans that giving more to the rich would benefit everyone). But the new policy allowed the rich to hog almost all of the rising productivity. That meant the rich got a huge increase in income and wealth, while workers were no longer sharing in the rising productivity.

Since worker wages were not rising as expected (because nothing was trickling down), the Social Security funding was also not rising. This caused the funding problem Social Security will soon see. In other words, the Republicans caused the problem with Social Security with their failed economic policy favoring the rich (at the detriment of everyone else).

Now they want to further cut Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age to 70. They claim it would not hurt Americans because of the rising life expectancy. That's disingenuous. While life expectancy has risen for many, it has not risen for those who must do physical labor all their working lives. Raising the retirement age will mean they will not receive the retirement benefit that worked and paid for all their lives. Once again, the Republicans favor the rich over the working men and women.

There are some cures for Social Security funding that would be much better than denying the benefit to workers. Here is what we need to do:

* Raise the cap on Social Security taxes. The current cap is about $168,000. Raise that to about $250,000 (or eliminate it altogether). This would have no effect on the amount paid by workers, but it would make the rich pay more.

* Raise the minimum wage to a livable wage. This would increase the Social Security funding since workers would be making more.

* Change our economic policy (which can only be done by voting the GOP out of power). Re-institute a policy like we had before where all segments of society share in rising productivity, instead of letting the rich hog all of it.

* Another thing that should be done (which the GOP opposes) is to pass a new and fair immigration policy. The U.S. needs foreign workers - not only to fill the jobs that Americans don't want, but also to pay Social Security (and other) taxes.

There are solutions to the economic disaster created by the Republicans for our economy and Social Security. But they can't happen until the Republicans are voted out of power (because they cling to their failed policy that helps only the rich).