DJT & the Lying Culture

Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) noted the Florida grand jury returned additional indictments and DOJ levied further charges against the former president and two of his employees at Mar-a-Lago in the Classified Documents case. This indictment superseded the previous charges introduced recently in Florida and increased the number of offenses listed in the case. The newest named employee (Carlos de Oliveira) allegedly lied to FBI agents on multiple occasions and denied moving documents. However, he was seen on videotapes moving the boxes of classified materials in and out of storage rooms at the private residence, along with Walt Nuta, who was charged in the first indictment.

Further, it is charged that he spoke to the former president at a critical time, after the DOJ issued subpoenas for the materials and copies of the hallway videotapes. It was then that DJT asked de Oliveira to find out how to erase the videotapes. This attempt was unsuccessful, as the IT employee in charge claimed he had neither the authority nor the knowledge of how to do this.

Press reports note the DOJ has text messages and copies of phone conversations among the major players during this critical time. Some have noted the name of the IT employee and indicated that he may have told the truth about the incidents. The new indictments include the former president as an active player in the attempted coverup regarding the recovery of secret documents.

It further charges him with releasing classified materials to those without proper clearance; this refers to the conversation where he is recorded on tape supposedly sharing secret plans with staff and others at his New Jersey golf course. Although his attorneys recently said they looked for this document but could not find it, apparently it was discovered in the documents reviewed by the DOJ from those seized. Of course, DJT lied again and claimed he was just waving around miscellaneous papers at the time and he had no secret papers during that interview.

We should be used to his lies by now, but many are not. After all, he lied about COVID-19 and its severity. He lied about the use of masks and public exposure. He lied about treatments before the vaccine was available. Many of those who believed him ignored public safety advice, caught COVID-19, and died. Research shows that people in red states had higher rates of deaths in comparable age groups than those in blue states. More Republicans died because of his lies.

The country should have been warned; after all, he lied on the campaign trail in 2016 about his opponent and started the “Lock her up” chants with false claims about her email server and emails. Later, these claims were found to be exaggerated, but he never took them back. He lied about the Russian involvement in his campaign, then once elected, got AG Bill Barr to suppress the findings of the Mueller Report. He promised to release his tax returns, but never did so; lied on loan applications and business documents. DJT filed for bankruptcy and blamed others.

Somehow, maybe because the press was wowed in 2016 and tried to present the campaign as a normal one: He said, she said, evenly accounted for when the lies were overlooked, for surely most would understand they were preposterous! The “both-sidedness” of the press coverage did a disservice when Conservative media echoed his lies.

Now, there is still that core following supporting his claims of having won the presidential election in 2020. Witnesses testified to the January 6^th Committee that he was told multiple times by many of his staff, lawyers, and other authoritative people that he lost the election fairly. However, he refused to publicly acknowledge this as he determined a way to monetize the effort to “Fight the Steal”. The press quoted his former aide, Steve Bannon, before the election as planning to claim fraud if he did not win, whether or not true. Fundraising started as soon as they counted the votes. The president and his bands of surrogates repeated the lies over again. This money rolled over to his PAC, not a recount support fund. The January 6^th Committee showed he made millions, drawing money from those supporters with monthly contributions. Supporters, who often were barely making ends meet, were milked by these lies month after month with automatic contributions. Some of these lies brought people to Washington, DC, on his invitation to stop Congress from certifying the election. His lies, many believe, directly brought about the insurrection activities on that date.

Meanwhile, the Fulton County Grand Jury is still in session; it is expected to release indictments from the attempted White House interference in the Georgia election and the creation of an alternative set of electors soon.

Somewhat surprisingly, another player in the post-election scandals, the pre-election scandal regarding Ukraine, and the infamous telephone call that led to the first impeachment of DJT are back in the news. None other than attorney Rudy Giuliani, who recently lost his DC license and is in danger of disbarment, admitted that he made up some of his claims about fraudulent election activity among workers in the 2020 Fulton County vote counting tallies. He is being sued in a civil suit by the two women who testified before the January 6^th Committee Wandrea (Shaye) Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, because they were publicly harassed, driven from their homes, and lost their positions as election workers because of his false claims, or shall we say, outright lies about them. He claimed they were passing thumb drives back and forth that could change the election results. First of all, they were looking at ballots, not machines and second, they were on cameras the whole time they were keeping their tallies. These were two black women doing their job; they shared ginger mints, not thumb drives. He then repeated their names many times, and the president and others followed this in speeches as they were trying to prove this was election fraud when they knew that was a lie.

Rudy Giuliani lied about Ukraine and the Bidens, pushed false claims before courts about 60 times after the election, and lost on all issues but one. His co-filer Sidney Powell has been censured in one state for her actions at that time for making untrue statements. Lawyers are not supposed to bring false claims before the courts and are charged with doing due diligence to ensure that the filings they make are accurate. Both attorneys here ignored those requirements in their zeal to overturn the election. Both are now facing the consequences of their actions in various ways.

DJT, on the other hand, claimed indictments will not stop him from campaigning or getting the Republican nomination for President in 2024. He claims he will run if convicted and, if elected, will pardon himself and those already in jail for their actions in the insurrection. A former president is demonstrating, once again, that he has no respect nor understanding of our Constitution. He is showing us how he does not believe in the Rule of Law, a principle underpinning our society.

A leading, but tumbling in the polls, opponent, Ron DeSantis continues to double down on his claims that slavery was beneficial, that immigrants harm our society, and that LBGTQIA people need to be marginalized. His decision under COVID-19 to vaccinate those 65 and older, but not those younger, led to disproportionate deaths in Florida among younger populations, despite his claims that his immune infusion clinics would decrease the spread. They accused his administration of trying to cover up the higher death rates in rural areas, leading to Florida having the third-highest state statistics for deaths.

Lying is not limited to Republicans as a recent Democratic candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine denier, has made many false claims about COVID, the use of childhood vaccinations, and other health concerns. We should note that despite his words, his children were vaccinated. Despite this, his organizations’ admonitions against measles vaccinations in Samoa led to many deaths on that island when this prohibition was accepted.

Some will pass over what I have said here by claiming all politicians make campaign promises they cannot keep; I do not disagree that many fall under this mantle. However, many also try to keep their promises, such as President Biden when he tried to reduce tuition loan payments but was challenged by Republicans and loan companies and the attempt was denied by the Supreme Court.

But the former president and some of his buddies continue to make things up and purposefully lie or cover-up. These are crimes against the American people, maybe not in a conviction-type criminal offense but crimes against our sense of fairness. We teach our children that truth is important; our officials should respect this teaching. Does the government sometimes lie to the American people; history tells us yes-but we should continue to demand better.

Just a warning, COVID cases have been trending back up. Since the government declared the emergency over, states have not reported cases as often as before, but the recent data shows a 4% increase in June in the number of cases/hospitalizations. Get the booster this fall when offered, please.

“Til next week, Peace!

The Myth of the Happy "Slaves"

The Florida Department of Education released some curriculum guides recently that discussed how teachers should deal with the topics of African American History, civics, government, economics, and American history in general. Heather Cox Richardson discussed them at length in her July 22, 2023 post. She mentions the rising criticism that these standards brought out from the public.

Vice President Kamala Harris just spoke out strongly in Florida against this standard, claiming the authorities are trying to replace history with lies. Governor DeSantis claimed he did not create these standards, and that she was demagoging the issue. (You can't have it both ways, Gov; it is your State Department of Education!)

One phrase, in particular, was criticized. It tried to describe the lives of enslaved people as "having a positive benefit since many learned skills they had not possessed before their enslavement." They seem to omit the facts that "these people" could not freely move around and sell these newly found skills to others in the marketplace, but were constrained by all means possible to work for a single so-called master. It is true that on occasion, an owner might hire a skilled man out to use carpentry or other skills, but that was not freely chosen labor as suggested by the Florida standards. That man and his services were owned by the "master" or landowner who would receive any payment for work by his laborer.

 

The concept of "owning people" is a tough one, especially for Americans who are taught in school that our governing documents state we accept that all men (and women) are created equal. We fought a bloody and costly Civil War (not apparently mentioned by these standards) to put an end to enslavement in this country. Slavery did not end solely because of the work of abolitionists, as is suggested by the document, nor did it end only because Constitutional Amendments were adopted. After the slave owing states failed in their attempts to secede from the Union, the acts of reconstruction tried to institute a new and unified country. They elected black people to office in some areas while a few set up businesses. But many newly freed people had no education, little money, and no land. Remember, it was forbidden to teach enslaved people to learn to read or write. So, some turned to the skills they had and became sharecropper or people who farmed on land owned by others.

Soon, White supremacists in many forms, such as the Ku-Klux-Klan, acted against Black freed men and women. Sometimes, they drove them from office and out of towns. And even though the Constitution now allowed them full citizenship and voting rights in law, in reality, this was not the case. These rights, even today, are under fire in some areas as Republican legislatures set up onerous voting guidelines fighting fictitious voter fraud issues.

 

The guidelines continue and suggest that the American Slave trading enterprises were much the same as in other markets across the world during those times, ignoring the facts that these practices were condemned in many countries decades before this movement happened in America. Yes, African tribes fought with each other and captured people who were held as slave. This is not the same as the commercial enterprises that enslaved over 10 million people to work in the American South, South America, and across the Caribbean. They estimated another two million were casualties in the crossing of ships from Africa to the Americas. For over 300 years, from 1550 to 1860, the ships kept coming; the majority were owned by British and American citizens. Estimates are that about 400,000 of those captured were sent to America. These business owners stripped people naked and exhibited them in "slave markets" such as in Charleston, South Carolina, or Boston, Massachusetts, where buyers would bid on them like cattle in today's cattle markets. The suddenly enslaved, had no rights in our constitution and could not protest their fate. Few understood the languages spoken around them, fewer still understood why they were there or that they no longer had any say in their lives. Were they to escape, they would be beaten and punished in other ways if caught; some were treated with extreme cruelly. States passed escaped secondary laws that allowed bounty hunters to pursue escapees across state lines, even into states designated as free states. While, sometimes, an owner would free his slaves when he died, they often had trouble living as free men in a society that might not accept their new status.

The authors of this document try to muddy the waters of discussion by comparing the unlawful capturing and selling of people and families with the practice of indentured servitude commonly used to pay off a debt or realize freedom after a certain agreed-upon time. The enslaved person had no end date on their services. They could not even keep their children without permission; families were often cruelly separated. Far too many women were raped or used as desired by owners. (Perhaps this information is too harsh to teach to young children, but older teens could understand; popular music is more graphic.) Some of these facts seem too stark to teach to Florida's children if one reads this document. How can anyone teach children that there are wrongs to be righted, if they do not mention the misdeeds of history? How do history teachers in Florida teach about the Holocaust and Hitler's camps in World War II? Or the atrocities across historical eras, such as with medieval barbarians, with the Crusades, or the plundering and killings of the Incas in South America by the Spanish? Or do they no longer teach these histories in schools today?

I understand children may find it difficult to realize that people are inhumane in today's age where society cries out when an animal is mistreated or people rescue injured birds with compassion. But there was a time in our history when humans were treated badly, worse than we allow animals to be treated now. I think children can understand that. As a white person, I think all children can learn these truths and vow, as I did, to try to prevent acts of humanity in their lives.

If children are saddened to think that some people acted terribly centuries ago, that should not make them feel bad about themselves, it should strengthen their resolve to keep such things from happening again.

Inequity exists, racism exists, and inequality exists. There are those who have and those who have not.

We can, as a society, make these issues better, if we try. We cannot do it if we forget about the past and do not learn from it. We cannot do it if we allow those who do not believe in democracy to continue to divide us for their wishes. DeSantis and others claim they are trying to create a Christian Democracy. First, what they are doing is neither following Christianity nor democracy. Second, America is a nation of many people from many lands and with many religions; it is not a theocracy and hopefully never will be.

Those who continue to undermine the principles upon which this country was founded are unqualified for office in any form.

Word is out that DJT has received yet another notice that he is a target of another Federal Grand Jury, this one investigating the January 6^th insurrection. I await an indictment soon. (PLEASE!)

‘Til next week -Peace!

The Wars Against Women Continue

This week saw Iowa's Republican Governor, Kim Reynolds, sign a six-week abortion ban for her state. Unlike Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed his state's six-week ban in the middle of the night, Reynolds appeared at the meeting of the Family Leadership Summit, an evangelical Christian group to hold her bill signing. This was the base that supported the bill, so she played to the crowd with her actions. The state previously allowed abortions to take place until the twentieth week of pregnancy.

The bill that had passed the legislature a few days before was opposed by a large crowd that appeared in the building to protest this measure. Originally overturned by the State Supreme Court, it was brought back after the US Supreme Court delivered the Dobbs' decision. Once enacted, others such as Planned Parenthood again asked the courts to invalidate this new law by submitting petitions to the State Supreme Court. Many expect that this law will make its way to the Supreme Court. The problem with the six-week bans is that most women do not know they are pregnant that early and if they learn so at eight weeks, they have no recourse in that state. Exceptions were allowed under certain circumstances, such as rape and incest, if reported to proper authorities, or in cases of fetal abnormalities, incompatible with life and miscarriages.

To further emphasize the political action she was taking, other guests at the Summit included moderator former Fox Host, Tucker Carlson (of recent infamy) and several Republican Presidential candidates: the aforementioned, Gov. DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley, former VP Mike Pence, SC Senator Tim Scott, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. (The former President DJT, was not there.) Most of these candidates praised Reynolds for her courage in pushing this bill with Pence saying: "that she has signed a bill with historic protections for the unborn."

However, according to NBC News, polls earlier this year from the Des Moines Register, a major newspaper in Iowa, showed that over 60% of the state's residents say abortions should be legal in most or all cases; 35% said the procedure should be illegal in most or all cases. Over two-thirds of Iowa women would allow abortion in most or all cases, while for Democrats in the state, approval is at 87%. Younger voters under 30 and those living in urban areas were also in favor of legal abortions in most or all cases.

Despite all of this information, the elected officials played to the conservative minority and voted for the six-week ban.

That pretty much mimics national polls that have been taken ever since Dobbs.

However, today there are twelve states with a six-week ban: Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Bans enacted but under court review occur in these states: (there is some overlap) Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming. Bans for 12-15 weeks and 18-22 weeks remain under review in several states. For example, Florida has a six-week ban passed into law, but the Florida Constitution allows abortion as a right and the state has a 15-week limit in effect. Montana has a ban on second-trimester procedures, but the state Constitution allows abortion as a right, so several recent laws are on hold. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia, on the East and West coasts primarily, have legal abortion care and some have constitutional protections enacted. A few states in the upper Midwest and Hawaii also have protections in place.

However, the Republican House, in its attempt to control the District of Columbia, is currently trying to remove this healthcare right from the District. It has barred the City from deploying its funds to pay for abortions in the past. This measure is unlikely to pass the Senate, but the intent to strip the city of this self-governance is yet another intrusion by the Republicans on the rights of women.

Some states have tried to ban their residents from going across state lines to seek abortions in nearby cities. Other authorities have even suggested that law enforcement, which can subpoena Google histories in certain cases, be permitted to look for searches for abortion services. Those searches, known as keyword warrants, are invaluable to law enforcement and are considered invasions of privacy by freedom of speech advocates. The United States does not have a national privacy law and options vary from state to state.

Location data is key to many Google services. When you park in a public garage, you might see lists of nearby restaurants, for example, on the Google map. Google employees requested that data about services in areas considered private, such as abortion centers or fertility clinics, be automatically deleted from location and search histories. Google grants these keyword searches 80% of the time but has said that information considered overly broad or exceptionally personal will be challenged. I guess time will tell.

Moving from the House to the Senate, we now see the dumbest Senator in the Senate- the one who could not even state the three branches of government when elected from Alabama, the former football coach Tommy Tuberville act against women. He demanded the military retract its plan to provide funds for women in the military to travel to states that allow abortions if they were stationed in a state where the procedure is not allowed. Major corporations have already indicated they will allow this option for their employees. Some corporations stated they will move from states where these restrictions are severe, so the military is not doing anything untoward. But this stupid Senator has refused to allow any military promotion to go forward unless and until the military rescinds this travel allowance. To date, he alone has held up about 270 routine military promotions across the combined services over the past few months. The Commandant of the Marines recently retired; no one is currently in place to lead the Marine Corps. The Pentagon claims he is interfering with military readiness. The Senate has the option of voting on each promotion, one by one, but it is laborious and time-consuming. I think they should start doing this immediately. Other Senators have tried, even other Republicans, to change his mind, but he is enjoying his fifteen minutes of notoriety and has dug in.

Meanwhile, women in the military, who have served honorably, are being treated poorly by his intervention. These women, whose service allowed women in other countries to have their full freedoms, are being denied theirs, in their own country. The service men and women in our military do not get to choose the bases they serve on; the military assigns them with its needs in mind. Consequently, they may end up on some bases in the South, where there is a wide area with no abortion care available from South Carolina across Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.

But Senator Tommy doesn't care, he wants to make life difficult for these women who are paid low salaries and supposedly get free medical care. But that medical care is now being limited and denied by him and other short-sighted, self-serving, and grandstanding politicians.

A Gallop poll, in June 2023, found that the number of Americans who favor rights for abortion care has gone up since the Supreme Court Dobbs decision in 2022. 59% say abortion should be legal during the first three months or trimester of pregnancy, while 34% say it should be legal under any circumstances. 52% in this poll say abortion is morally acceptable. While most oppose a third-trimester abortion, 22% approve. (Such procedures are rarely done and often involve problems with the pregnancy development or the health of the mother.) Second-trimester abortions, usually up to 24 weeks, should be allowed, according to 37%.

Galop stated it has polled on this issue since 1975 and the number of those who believe it should be illegal fell to its lowest point of 13% in 2023. Support for the availability of the oral prescription drug, Mifepristone, is 60%. Courts are still deciding on this and some states have stockpiled supplies in case it becomes restricted or banned in the future. The FDA recently allowed for this medication to be dispensed at pharmacies with a prescription; previously, it could only be dispensed in person. This change would allow telemedicine visits where prescriptions could be sent to pharmacies and would assist women who were not near providers' clinics. Whether mail order could distribute it or pharmacies in states that banned abortions could provide it is still unclear. Also noted, medical abortions (by pills) are less costly than surgical abortions.

Of course, there is no rational case made for banning a drug that has been safely used for over thirty years. Once again, women's healthcare is being compromised for political reasons.

I haven't even touched on the number of Obstetricians who are leaving their OB-GYN practices because they fear being arrested for treating miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. Nor have I addressed the cases of septic miscarriages (known as medical abortions) that threaten the lives of pregnant women. I also did not mention the details of a Florida woman who had to carry a pregnancy to term when early on she learned it was so damaged with congenital deformities that it could not live. These circumstances came about because zealots want to control women and their health care.

Enough for tonight. I cannot leave without mentioning the death of Dr. Susan Love, a physician, and surgeon, who revolutionized the care of women with breast cancer. She fought against the disfigurations caused by the radical mastectomies which were common when she started her career. The lumpectomy and more modest limited mastectomies that followed were mostly her doing. She changed the lives of many women, even those with a cancer diagnosis, for the better. As a woman, a lesbian, and a surgeon, many in her profession did not welcome her when she started in the 80s, even as a former chief resident from Harvard. Her book, "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book" became the bible for many with breast cancer and will be released in its seventh edition this fall. She was 75 when she died this week.

“Til next week-Peace!

The Earth is too Warm

 

Have you noticed? The temperatures are pretty hot outside these days. Yes, I know it is July and in DC, MD, VA. we expect those hazy, hot, and humid days each summer. And, luckily for us, June was cooler than usual, so there were many pleasant evenings where one could dine outdoors.

However, in the Southwest, such as in Texas and Arizona, residents had many consecutive days with temperatures well over 100 degrees. Some days registered the highest temperatures ever recorded for several cities there.

For example, last year Austin had sixty-eight days of temperatures over 100 degrees. They set the record in 2011, which had 90 days over 100. However, this year the 100-degree temperatures came earlier than usual. Forecasts still call for temperatures in Austin and the hill country in the coming week to range from 96 to 107, with some days going as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit.

Arizona is also having high temperatures with Phoenix recording 107 degrees last week, and severe high temps continuing this week. On July 3^rd, the temp was 117 degrees there.

The weather phenomenon of El Nìno is having an effect this year, but it is also aided by a weather system called a heat dome that has settled over the area. The heat dome holds the weather in place  and blocks other atmospheric winds from moving it onward. As most of the weather in the US moves from the west to the east, a stationery system over the mid-South changes weather patterns across the country.

That enormous dome in the center of the country allowed the smoke from the over 100 wildfires currently burning across Canada to blanket the east coast skies for several days in June. From New York City, south through Philadelphia, and down to Washington, DC, skies were hazy and visibility was minimal. Air quality alerts ranged from code orange through code purple with air hazard particle counts over 200 and higher. The fires continue to burn out of control, despite having firefighters from several nations helping to fight them. The forests are dry from several years of drought and are burning easily, mostly from lightning strikes. We can probably expect more days of hazardous air quality throughout the summer in the DC area.

The hottest average temperatures for the earth ever recorded happened this year between July 3-5 when the temperature was 63 degrees (62.96)Fahrenheit. The findings were from 110 degrees recorded in Jingxing, China to the continent of Antarctica, which saw temperatures as much as 8 degrees above normal. Antarctica is having its winter season. Charts (from NOAA and the University of Maine,) which have measured this data over many years, showed a spiking uphill trend.

This may also ring more severe storms as the temperatures of the Pacific rise with El Nino weather patterns. When the water temperatures are high, storms such as cyclones and hurricanes churn the waters faster and bring stronger winds and heavier rainfalls.

Pakistan, which saw tremendous devastation earlier this year, from heavy rains and flooding, is again suffering from the summer monsoon deluges that are expected to continue through September. The world saw additional flash floods recently in Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Brazil, Peru, Spain, Sudan, and parts of China and Turkey. In Turkey, the flooding was in an area also devastated by earthquakes earlier this year.

About 23% of the US is currently in a drought situation. That includes Maryland, which has seen rainfall this year several inches below expectations. Sudden thunderstorms brought over 3/4 inch of rain in 2 hours to the area last week, causing roads to be overwhelmed and necessary water rescues.

The heavy rains seen in California this year have lessened the threat of wildfires there, so that has been good news. Droughts continue throughout much of the country, however.

Across the world, “flash droughts” are a recent phenomenon and occur more often in the humid tropics. Scientists see them, as reported in the New York Times, to be a consequence of human-induced climate change as they may occur in areas that were not considered in danger of droughts. The study predicted, “In the coming decades, even if global warming increases only relatively modestly, flash droughts will become even more common and speedier in almost every region of the globe,”…

With more areas of floods across the world and more areas of drought, it is expected that there will be more migration out of these troubled areas.

The World Food Program (WFP) notes famine in several countries in Africa: Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia. and South Sudan.

The United Nations announced today that South Sudan is on the verge of Civil War. WFP also notes the following: “From the Central American Dry Corridor and Haiti, through the Sahel, Central African Republic, South Sudan and then eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen and all the way to Afghanistan, conflict, and climate shocks are driving millions of people to the brink of starvation.”

They estimate that 345 million people in the ̀world have food insecurity. 70% of them are because of violence and conflicts, the rest are because of climate shocks and high prices for food and fertilizer. 

The US military studied water as an issue for national security and historically, for world or regional insecurity. The ability for populations to have secure water resources created many conflicts throughout history. These conflicts continue today. In the US, states in the west are trying to settle disputes about the use of the water from the Colorado River as dams are being drained. The US Army War College studied water security throughout the world in 2017. You can find the report here.

The report concludes:

“A long history of political tensions and violence associated with poor water policies and management, combined with new threats associated with growing populations, new ideological challenges, and a changing climate make it urgent that we better understand – and work to reduce — the risks of water-related conflict. Solutions to water tensions exist but the failure to address these issues greatly increases the risks that violence and conflict over water will grow and that military and intelligence resources will be called into action. The British politician, Tony Benn, said, “War represents a failure of diplomacy.” If we fail to manage water sustainably, strategically, and effectively, water will be an increasing source of conflict. The good news is that smart solutions exist if we have the foresight and initiative to pursue them.”

The information above is sobering to me, and I hope to you as well. There are serious issues around the world and in our country that can be tied to issues related to climate change. Other issues of geography, politics, and diplomacy impact the inability to find solutions easily. Tough problems, yes, but these are problems that are killing millions of people across the globe. Children with malnutrition may never realize their full potential. Movement across borders to escape wars and famine causes global instability. The deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea should affect everyone; they cannot become forgotten people. As a mother, I cannot imagine what it might be like to send one’s family members off on a migrant boat and never hear from them again and never know if they were alive or dead. And how desperate must these people be to get on an unsafe boat to find a better life? We, as a world, need to find better solutions. In the US, we say the way to reduce the number of immigrant trains is to provide more stability in their home countries. But governments that are run by dictators or military forces have little desire to change.

Global climate change is here. We have still a bit of time to make modifications. Recently, I read that the manufacturers of large tractor-trailers have agreed to electrify their fleets within about a dozen years, reducing the emissions from their current diesel engines. Large Ocean Liners are also looking to better their fleets’ carbon footprints, but according to many reports, they have a long way to go. Despite agreeing to be ready by 2030, many liners are still polluting the oceans and fouling the air. Some have moved to liquified natural gas as a fuel, but it is still a carbon fuel. Reuters recently reported on this issue. Cargo ships and container ships are major polluters as they use heavy diesel fuel, Vox recently reported on this industry and how it affects our climate. The industry is vital to world trade and has indicated it will run clean ships by 2050; some shippers have plans to do this by 2040.

Why am I discussing trucks and ships? These are major industries that keep our global economy running. Therefore, they, as known polluters, have a responsibility to step up and help provide solutions. Costs will be high, but we need clean air to breathe and a planet that needs to stop heating up. The world is already seeing a cost in lives lost, instability, and tragic weather events.

It is past time to get serious about global climate change. What can you do? More about that in future weeks.

Til next week-Peace!

Has Precedent Been Displaced?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, precedent is defined as:

 1. an earlier occurrence of something similar,

2. something done or said that may serve as an example or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the same or an analogous kind

Ex. a verdict that had no precedent

3. the convention established by such a precedent or by long practice”

This week saw the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)rule on several cases in the last week of the 22-23 term. In true dramatic fashion, the court frequently saves the most controversial decision for the last week. This year was no different. Not expected was that several of the justices ruled against what we had thought to be settled law-or precedent. Many justices, at their Senate confirmation hearings, said they would uphold this idea of keeping and not overruling decisions from previous courts. Did they just outright lie? The whole Conservative group of them? However, with the Dobbs decision last year, they went against this practice. Many hoped that this was a one-time instance of straying from the unwritten rule.

 

Decisions this week in the cases against affirmative action at Harvard University and North Carolina University defied earlier court decisions to allow universities to create a workaround.

As the justices now claimed that the Constitution is color blind, it is clear that they do not believe their own words. But the majority decided that a preference for any one group is a denial of opportunity to other groups. So, even if a university wanted a diverse student body and decided that it would admit 10% of the African American applicants, 10% of Asian Americans, and 10% of Latino Americans, for example, that would be discriminatory especially if there were proportionately more of any one other group that wished to apply. Members of other groups could claim that they were not being given a fair chance since there was a quota. The Court wished for all applicants to be on the same footing. Roberts allowed that if a student had overcome adversity that had to do with minority status, he/she could mention that in the application and a college could consider it. Since these racial categories are primarily important only in elite colleges, which receive far more applications than they can accept, the schools tried to create fair criteria. The schools also had set-asides for legacy admissions, which went to children and grandchildren of Alumni.

But in claiming the concept of neutral race decisions, the freedoms mentioned for African Americans in the Constitution are overlooked. The court ignores the reality that for many, many years, African Americans were denied free and fair education in their towns and cities. Once Brown was decided, there were years of resistance to integrated schools. After cities were integrated, white flight began in many areas and private academies sprang up. Eventually, city schools were back to being segregated and again offered schools with fewer opportunities compared to those in the suburbs surrounding them. Affirmative action admissions tried to right some of these wrongs and give a hand up to talented students from both rural and urban schools.

The 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments were voted on by the Congress in 1865 and later ratified by the states. They gave specific rights to African Americans as full citizens. But these rights, sometimes, are still not fully realized.

 

According to the Smithsonian-National Museum of African American History & Culture:

“The tumult and grassroots uprising that eventually spawned such famous legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a subject all its own. Today, however, let us remember the tremendous stride that America took 145 years ago with the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Together with the 14th Amendment that afforded African Americans citizenship, due process, and equal rights under the law and the 15th Amendment that gave African Americans the right to vote, a constitutional backbone was provided for what would become one of America’s greatest revolutions — the Civil Rights Movement.”

In a discussion of this decision in the New York Times”

“The decision addressed cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Both schools say they consider race in admissions to diversify their student bodies, particularly by boosting Black and Latino applicants who may be disadvantaged by racism. But critics say that Black and Latino students are helped to the detriment of students of races or ethnicities that are already more represented on campuses, particularly Asian Americans.

Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the policy’s critics. He stated that affirmative action is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” he wrote.”

The discussion also quotes Justice Sotomayor, who read her dissent from the bench. (Sotomayer received affirmative action consideration in her admissions to Princeton and Yale. Justice Thomas did as well, but has stated that acceptance diminished his degree and personal accomplishments.)

“The court’s three liberals dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor summarized her dissent from the bench, a rare move that signals deep disagreement. “Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” she wrote.

She added that the ruling “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Whether a justice views affirmative action as positive or negative appears to hinge on whether he or she primarily sees it as holding down or pulling up prospective students. The majority and concurring opinions focused on affirmative action’s downsides for white and Asian students, while the dissents focused on the benefits to Black and Latino students. The disagreement comes down to which effect someone believes matters more.”

Justice Jackson, who recused herself from the Harvard decision because she used to sit on its Board) issued a strong dissent on her colleagues and their majority opinion:

“In a scorching, 29-page dissent, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply criticized her conservative colleagues’ decision Thursday to reject affirmative action in college admissions decisions, overturning more than four decades of precedent.”

“With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life,” Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, one of two cases decided Thursday that centered on affirmative action.”

Justice Jackson continued, as quoted in the Washington Post:

“Jackson opened her dissent by noting the “gulf-sized race-based gaps” that continue to exist in American society — ones created “in the distant past” but passed down through generations. By restricting the use of race in admissions decisions, she said, the Supreme Court was detaching itself from the country’s actual past and present experiences.

She compared the majority members of the court to ostriches sticking their necks in the sand, a reference to a common myth about what the long-necked birds do when scared.

“No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better,” Jackson wrote. “The best that can be said of the majority’s perspective is that it proceeds (ostrich-like) from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism. But if that is its motivation, the majority proceeds in vain.”

So, where do we go from here? We seem to have a court that is throwing out precedents right and left. Justice Thomas has already made threatening statements against Griswold (use of contraception), Brown (school integration), Loving (inter-racial marriages) and Obergefell (same-sex marriages). Many considered each of these to be landmark decisions in their day and monumental steps toward a better and more equal society.

These seemingly out-of-control conservatives want to undo half a century of progressive decisions. They apparently want to undo legislation regarding the Clean Water Act and allow industries free rein. Perhaps that is why they are being wined and dined sometimes and given plane rides to Alaska and the South Seas. What do you think? Americans have a right to expect decisions to stand when the laws underpinning them have been upheld by previous courts. Only in rare cases, such as the Dred Scott decision, which was known to be erroneous at the time it was decided, should major decisions be overridden. (That ruling that declared slaves had no rights and were not citizens, was negated a few years later by the 14^th Amendment.) Americans cannot view the court as a tennis match where decisions volley back and forth like a tennis ball.

It is not my choice to have conservative justices. However, they took an oath to rule fairly according to the constitution and are not doing that. They are ignoring phrases that would negate their opinions.

So, what’s a voter to do? VOTE!

Granted, voting alone would not have undone the unprecedented actions of Mitch McConnell when he denied President Obama an appointment to the Court, and also rushed through Justice Barrett’s appointment. However, had he not been the Majority leader, he could not have done that.

They took the other decision on the student loans issue despite there not being an adequate person (the Missouri Loan entity is not a person, but could lose interest payments if the loans were paid early) of standing on the loans; they took the case about not designing a website for gay people when there had been no injury to the designer, as she was not yet in business.    This was done apparently, because they decided the earlier cake design case on a weaker Constitutional clause. In both cases, the court took on matters that were contrary to their stated goals. More discussion next week on this and President Biden’s response. So, the court is no longer following stated law and is going against the principles it established! This is a rogue court! I am now advocating for term limits for justices. How many years do you think is appropriate?

“Til next week-Peace!