jrodmc wrote:

SupremeCommander wrote:Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems. A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

So the chickens come home to roost, and then the chickens act like they've never been told where the roost was before.

Another telling quote by Mr. President:

Republican Congressman: "Where's the hope and change, Mr. President?"
Mr. President: "I'm not campaigning anymore."

Over the Cliff
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/over-the-cliff/

I fell into a Supreme Court time warp the other day. Preparing to teach a seminar this fall on the court under Chief Justice Warren E. Burger — the court of the 1970s to mid-’80s — I picked up for the first time in many years a decision from 1978, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti. The case is not well-known today, although it should be. It was the decision that really opened the door to corporate money in politics, leading 32 years later to a very well-known case: Citizens United.

The Bellotti decision declared unconstitutional a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending money to influence the outcome of a public referendum that did not directly concern the corporation’s own business. Two years earlier, in Buckley v. Valeo, the court had held that in the context of campaign finance, money equals speech. Now the Bellotti majority described corporate spending on public referendums as speech that lay “at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.”

“If the speakers here were not corporations, no one would suggest that the state could silence their proposed speech,” the majority observed, insisting that speech did not lose its constitutional protection “simply because its source is a corporation.” The vote was 5 to 4. What gripped me — what made me feel like an archeologist unearthing the artifacts of a vanished civilization — was one of the dissenting opinions.

This dissenting justice did not take issue with a corporation’s status as a “person” in the eyes of the law (as Mitt Romney recently reminded a heckler at the Iowa State Fair). But corporate personhood was “artificial,” not “natural,” the justice observed. A corporation’s rights were not boundless but, rather, limited, and the place of “the right of political expression” on the list of corporate rights was highly questionable. “A state grants to a business corporation the blessings of potentially perpetual life and limited liability to enhance its efficiency as an economic entity,” the dissenting opinion continued. “It might reasonably be concluded that those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere … Indeed, the states might reasonably fear that the corporation would use its economic power to obtain further benefits beyond those already bestowed.”

Noting that most states, along with the federal government, had placed limits on the ability of corporations to participate in politics, the dissenting justice concluded: “The judgment of such a broad consensus of governmental bodies expressed over a period of many decades is entitled to considerable deference from this Court.”

The dissenter was Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist. What a difference three decades makes.

There were three other dissenters from the Bellotti decision — Justices Byron R. White, Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan Jr., whose signature on Justice White’s dissenting opinion is worth a brief digression. A First Amendment champion of his day, Justice Brennan originally accepted the assignment to write the majority opinion in the Bellotti case, overturning the prohibition. But he changed sides within weeks, persuaded that his original instincts about the case were wrong and, as he explained to his colleagues, concerned that striking down the Massachusetts law would “inevitably call into question” efforts to deter and detect corporate corruption.

Justice Brennan’s switch — to the position that liberals occupy today — is an interesting historical footnote that I don’t believe has been previously reported. (My source is a memo from Justice Brennan to the other justices, contained in the Potter Stewart papers in Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library.) But it’s the dissenting opinion of the Burger court’s most conservative member that most clearly illuminates the dangerous path the current conservative majority is pursuing.

It is an article of faith within the Roberts court majority that of course corporations have full speech rights when it comes to public affairs — and they have something rapidly approaching full speech rights when it comes to selling their wares as well, since the doctrine hammered out during the Burger years that recognized “commercial speech” but assigned it a lower level of protection is close to collapse. It’s all just speech now.

Further, the court’s speech-protective instincts appear increasingly to serve a deregulatory agenda. A particularly egregious recent example came in June, when the court struck down a Vermont law that prohibited pharmacies from selling to data-mining companies information about the prescriptions that individual doctors were writing. Such information is of great value to pharmaceutical companies, which buy it from the data-miners and use it to select particular doctors for visits by “detailers” who, armed with knowledge of a doctor’s practice and preferences, can be more effective advocates for the company’s products. Vermont defended its law both as protecting medical privacy and preventing sales pitches for brand-name drugs when less expensive generics would do.

To the majority in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., the law amounted to state-imposed “viewpoint discrimination,” targeting particular “speakers and their messages for disfavored treatment.” The fact that the pharmaceutical sales force uses the information so effectively made the law all the more problematic. “The state has burdened a form of protected expression that it found too persuasive,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. “This the state cannot do.”

In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer argued that the majority was subjecting ordinary commercial speech to an “unprecedented” degree of scrutiny in a way that “threatens significant judicial interference with widely accepted regulatory activity.” Justice Breyer said the decision “opens a Pandora’s Box of First Amendment challenges to many ordinary regulatory practices.” And referring to Lochner v. New York, the 1905 Supreme Court decision that summoned a constitutionally protected “right of contract” to block government regulation, he added: “At worst, it reawakens Lochner’s pre-New Deal threat of substituting judicial for democratic decision making where ordinary economic regulation is at issue.”

Not only in commercial speech, but in the area of pure political speech as well, the current majority threatens to drive the First Amendment off a cliff. In June, the court struck down a voluntary public financing system for political campaigns, adopted by Arizona voters in a public referendum 13 years ago in response to corruption scandals. As an incentive to accept public financing, without fear of being outspent by a wealthy, privately financed candidate, the system offered a publicly financed candidate an extra dollar for every dollar that the opponent spent above the law’s cap on public money.

This system placed a burden on the wealthy candidate’s speech amounting to something like a fine, Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett. “Such basic intrusion by the government into the debate over who should govern goes to the heart of First Amendment values,” he said, concluding: “Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the Arizona system “discriminated against no ideas and prevented no speech.” The law “fostered both the vigorous competition of ideas and its ultimate object — a government responsive to the will of the people,” she said, adding that Arizonans “deserve better” than a Supreme Court that stood in the path of electoral reform.

Earlier this month, the American Bar Association traveled north to Toronto for its annual meeting. Doing some homework for a panel I was to moderate, I came upon Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, added in 1982 to the country’s mid-19th century constitution. Section 1, the “limitation clause,” makes the Charter’s many guarantees subject “to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” A Canadian judge assured me that this requirement of “proportionality,” as various European constitutions with a similar principle refer to it, is invoked constantly and forms the basis for Canadian constitutional interpretation.

Proportionality strikes me as worth considering in preference to the arid absolutism that seems to have taken hold of the United States Supreme Court. I wonder what William Rehnquist would say. The old chief, who died in 2005, was a master at seeing around corners, and he lived long enough to see the prediction he made in 1978 come true.

Early in his 34-year Supreme Court tenure, Associate Justice Rehnquist held many positions far enough to the right that they could accurately be described as extreme for their day. As chief justice, he mellowed. I wouldn’t presume to say whether he changed his mind, but he did change his tone, and with some regularity placed the court’s institutional welfare above his own policy preferences.

That was most apparent in his 2003 majority opinion in Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, which called a halt (perhaps permanent, perhaps not) to the Rehnquist court’s federalism revolution of the 1990s. In case after case, a narrow majority had invoked federalism principles to hold that states could not be required to give their employees the protections of various federal anti-discrimination statutes. The series of cases at least suggested that the core civil rights protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act might themselves be in play. The subject of the Hibbs case was the Family and Medical Leave Act. The challenge to its application to state employees came closer to the core than any of the earlier cases. But this time, the chief justice blinked, writing a paean to the virtues of a law that, by giving both male and female employees time off to care for sick family members, protected against sex stereotyping by making clear that care-giving was not simply women’s work. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg still jokes that when she showed the Rehnquist opinion to her husband, he asked her whether she had written it.

The Hibbs decision can be seen as an exercise in setting reasonable limits: this far, but not over a cliff. As to whether today’s judicial conservative orthodoxy recognizes any limits, we’ll soon see.

Work has been an absolute bitch, so please pardon my inability to answer certain questions posed. I do want to respond to one point though:

loweyecue wrote:How about we fiure both congress and all the effing CEOs? Though nothing actually compares to CEO compensation.

Really what I would like to see happen politically is for every incumbent to be voted out of office. I think a fresh perspective and neophyte relationship with interest and lobbying groups would do wonders for the country.

I do not think firing CEOs jives with the law, however, but would like to see CEOs prosecuted for fraud, waste, and abuse (the stocks are traded on PUBLIC markets). I don't think you could prosecute for specific wrongdoings. I do think you could prosecute though for eroding confidence in the public markets.

Also, while CEOs make drasticly more in terms of short term income, the total compensation of Members of Congress is pretty close. There are websites that publish their pension figures and their incredibly generous benefits, which is granted for life. Furthermore, while difficult to place a value on the intangible assets Members receive, I think we can all agree that serving in this capacity opens many, many doors. And this package is received regardless of performance. Maybe you'll conclude that 'good' or 'evil' or 'ruthless' CEOs make significantly more, but no matter what I'll postulate that you'll agree that 'bad' or 'moral' or 'benevolent' CEOs make significantly less than ineffective Members.

loweyecue wrote:The POTUS is selling out those he claims to care for in his campaign speeches.
http://m.rollingstone.com/?redirurl=/politics/blogs/taibblog/obama-goes-all-out-for-dirty-banker-deal-20110824

I despise hypocrites, this guy has sold out. He seems to care little about the people he made all those promises to. Only the NY fed guy is trying to hold the TBTF banks and their CEOS accountable everyone else wants to give the full immunity in exchange of a nominal fine. And the white house is siding with this majority. This loser deserves no respect.

loweyecue wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

loweyecue wrote:The POTUS is selling out those he claims to care for in his campaign speeches.
http://m.rollingstone.com/?redirurl=/politics/blogs/taibblog/obama-goes-all-out-for-dirty-banker-deal-20110824

I despise hypocrites, this guy has sold out. He seems to care little about the people he made all those promises to. Only the NY fed guy is trying to hold the TBTF banks and their CEOS accountable everyone else wants to give the full immunity in exchange of a nominal fine. And the white house is siding with this majority. This loser deserves no respect.

It sucks but you know you'd still vote for him over Michelle Bachman or anyone else from that crowd. The problem is that we have a corporatocracy, not a democracy.

I desperately want him to face a challenge in the democratic primary and I would vote for his opponent unless s/he is another so called centrist. As it stands I probably will vote against the GOP rather than for the Obama. Real life politics usually means choosing the lesser of many evils.

I truly hope a third party emerges with a viable third party candidate who can actually lead and get things down.....of course in the way I would like things done.

loweyecue wrote:

Markji wrote:

loweyecue wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

loweyecue wrote:The POTUS is selling out those he claims to care for in his campaign speeches.
http://m.rollingstone.com/?redirurl=/politics/blogs/taibblog/obama-goes-all-out-for-dirty-banker-deal-20110824

I despise hypocrites, this guy has sold out. He seems to care little about the people he made all those promises to. Only the NY fed guy is trying to hold the TBTF banks and their CEOS accountable everyone else wants to give the full immunity in exchange of a nominal fine. And the white house is siding with this majority. This loser deserves no respect.

It sucks but you know you'd still vote for him over Michelle Bachman or anyone else from that crowd. The problem is that we have a corporatocracy, not a democracy.

I desperately want him to face a challenge in the democratic primary and I would vote for his opponent unless s/he is another so called centrist. As it stands I probably will vote against the GOP rather than for the Obama. Real life politics usually means choosing the lesser of many evils.

"Constantly choosing the lessor of two evils is still choosing evil." ....(Jerry Garcia)

I truly hope a third party emerges with a viable third party candidate who can actually lead and get things down.....of course in the way I would like things done.

And what way would that be? Go ahead lay it out.

OK Loweyecue - here it is - my platform:

I'd like a more Centrist /moderate third party where our elected officials would actually think; work together; not spout emotional rhetoric with little intelligent substance.

Policies:

Wars: Get out asap/immediately from Iraq and Afghanistan - we should never have been in Iraq; Afghanistan - we got Bin Laden; Also we CAN"T AFFORD it.

Budget: work towards Balancing the budget by
- ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy;
- stopping the wars
- Audit the Federal Reserve
- Some belt tightening on other programs

2. Social Security -
-Don't cut social security payments to elderly. This was their savings/pension promise from the gov't. There weren't any 401Ks or IRA when most of these people were working. It's not an undeserved entitlement. They put their own money into social security without interest. It is their money.
-Increasing the maximum salary from which people pay social security taxes. Now it is $106K. Move it up to $2 mil but reduce that added amount from $100k to $2 m to only 10% total(5% employee; 5% company)
-increase the retirement age another year to 68 years old. Sorry all of you young guys but people now live longer and healthier lives.

3. Jobs programs - create jobs. This was Obama's pledge and he blew it. Gov't sponsored programs. People who work not only enhance the economy, but they also pay taxes. More revenue coming back to the gov't. Some examples - construction industry is hurting. Hire contractors to do renovations/repairs/some new construction. They should be able to hire contractors at a lessor price now since so many are out of work so gov't gets more work done for their money. (Law of supply and demand - try hiring a contractor in boom times - hard to get them and prices are very high). Contractors would also enjoy working. Example - in the small town I am in they badly needed some repairs and renovation(painting) of the county courthouse. They got it done at a good price. Good quality. and the people working were happy to get the job.

4. Abortion - leave Roe vs Wade alone. It is fine. There are many more important issues to discuss like the wars and the economy.

5. Gay Rights/marriage - This is a social issue. Shouldn't at all be mentioned in the political arena. The Republicans have killed the Dems on this. The Repubs rile up and gather millions of voters who are against this while the Dems gather far fewer voters in support. Many of the Republican voters are lower and middle class who are getting raped by the Republican tax policies but sign in because of the anti-gay/religious views. The gays shouldn't make such a big deal of this. They rile up the opposition and make things harder for themselves, and get the Tea Party/Ultraconservatives elected. Creates a strong emotional division in the U.S. populace.

6. Health care - good idea. I can't really understand the new proposed law. Make it simplier so people can evaluate what it really is and it's effects.

7. Taxes - eventually make the tax laws simplier. Once we are out of this financial mess, lower taxes across the board.

8. Something I am into - remove the stress from the collective consciousness through group meditations on a daily basis. It increases coherence, increases the ability to solve problems and will help avoid problems from arising in the future. It has been proven to work with large, but temporary demonstration projects in the past.

9. Housing - try to keep people in their homes. Restructure mortgages with lower interest rates. Forgive some of the principle if deemed appropriate due to market conditions. Don't keep/support the ultra-deliquent people. If the foreclosed house is really dilapidated, then tear it down. A few cities (Cleveland, Detroit and I think Chicago) are doing this and making small neighborhood parks. Good idea.

10. Banking industry - increase investigations. No big bailouts. No big severance packages for CEOs, etc. Regulate derivatives.

These are the main issues I can think of. Love to hear other points or discussion on these.

loweyecue wrote:

Markji wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:A Bernie Sanders-Dennis Kucinich run third party would have my strong support, although the corporate media would never give them a fair shot.

They don't have a chance. Too strongly left.
Neither does Ron Paul - too strongly right.

I don't know a lot about the positions of Sanders and Kucinich, Ron Paul like other so called fiscal conservatives is basically living in his own delusion of some non existent free market system.

Markji wrote:OK Loweyecue - here it is - my platform:

I'd like a more Centrist /moderate third party where our elected officials would actually think; work together; not spout emotional rhetoric with little intelligent substance.

OK that's a nice idea but we are seeing that in reality things don't work that way. Elected officials worry about being elected, not about long term good of the country. I think the centrist notion never gets anything done, because by the time you are done compromising the useful parts of either extreme position has long been netralized.

Policies:

Wars: Get out asap/immediately from Iraq and Afghanistan - we should never have been in Iraq; Afghanistan - we got Bin Laden; Also we CAN"T AFFORD it.

Yep, and this is what I though the current hypocrite in the WH was going to do

Budget: work towards Balancing the budget by
- ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy;
- stopping the wars
- Audit the Federal Reserve
- Some belt tightening on other programs

No issues with any of this but this won't fix what's broken, it may just keep things from getting worse for a while, time for band aids is past, we need a paradigm shift.

2. Social Security -
-Don't cut social security payments to elderly. This was their savings/pension promise from the gov't. There weren't any 401Ks or IRA when most of these people were working. It's not an undeserved entitlement. They put their own money into social security without interest. It is their money.
-Increasing the maximum salary from which people pay social security taxes. Now it is $106K. Move it up to $2 mil but reduce that added amount from $100k to $2 m to only 10% total(5% employee; 5% company)
-increase the retirement age another year to 68 years old. Sorry all of you young guys but people now live longer and healthier lives.

Agreed. I don't buy this whole "entitlement" meme being pushed by the right wing

3. Jobs programs - create jobs. This was Obama's pledge and he blew it. Gov't sponsored programs. People who work not only enhance the economy, but they also pay taxes. More revenue coming back to the gov't. Some examples - construction industry is hurting. Hire contractors to do renovations/repairs/some new construction. They should be able to hire contractors at a lessor price now since so many are out of work so gov't gets more work done for their money. (Law of supply and demand - try hiring a contractor in boom times - hard to get them and prices are very high). Contractors would also enjoy working. Example - in the small town I am in they badly needed some repairs and renovation(painting) of the county courthouse. They got it done at a good price. Good quality. and the people working were happy to get the job.

Now we come to the core of the problem. No solution regardless of what's in it will do anything unless it addresses job creation. Right now Americans are scared. Huge numbers don't have jobs and others are scared of losing theirs. Now the right wing will tell you everyone who doesn't have a job really doesn't deserve one, they are lazy, they want everything given to them for free, blah blah blah..bitch, moan, whine....horse****. I think the Govt can and MUST take steps to create jobs. The whole notion of the Govt being too big and that pvt sctor will drive job growth is BS. It may have worked in the past, it's over now. The Pvt sector especially big corps are sitting on tons of cash and not investing it in anything consructive. And when they do it will be in China and Inida and wherever the heck else. The Right wing wants to continue giving them more and more breaks using tax payer dollars to continue sending their money abroad. But first the Govt needs to tell teh public that all is NOT well, serious **** is going down and we need to pull together as a country to survive this. To make the common people feel better thety need to do one thing above all else - FORCE megabanks into doinf debt write downs and extensive loan modifications quickly. You think the Govt debt is bad? It's a fraction of the debt owed by he public and most of it is mortgage, credit cards, auto etc. Any money thrown into the system vanishes into loan payments and has no impact in encouraging people to spend money again. Debt needs to be written down at the EXPENSE OF THE BANKS - yes that's how you force them to take part of the losses they created to start with. This doesn't mean every idiot who doesn't want to work gets a house for free, people will also have to carry part of the burden. But just like politicians working together, this too will never happen in real life becuase it will take politicians addressing the problem instead of kicking the can down the road

4. Abortion - leave Roe vs Wade alone. It is fine. There are many more important issues to discuss like the wars and the economy.

5. Gay Rights/marriage - This is a social issue. Shouldn't at all be mentioned in the political arena. The Republicans have killed the Dems on this. The Repubs rile up and gather millions of voters who are against this while the Dems gather far fewer voters in support. Many of the Republican voters are lower and middle class who are getting raped by the Republican tax policies but sign in because of the anti-gay/religious views. The gays shouldn't make such a big deal of this. They rile up the opposition and make things harder for themselves, and get the Tea Party/Ultraconservatives elected. Creates a strong emotional division in the U.S. populace.

No comment on 4 and 5, these are not related to the topic at hand. I wont get into these here.

6. Health care - good idea. I can't really understand the new proposed law. Make it simplier so people can evaluate what it really is and it's effects.

7. Taxes - eventually make the tax laws simplier. Once we are out of this financial mess, lower taxes across the board.

There is no real need to lower taxes, taxes are not holding anything up. They are the lowest they have been in decades and the economy has recovered from situations like this despite much higher taxes.

8. Something I am into - remove the stress from the collective consciousness through group meditations on a daily basis. It increases coherence, increases the ability to solve problems and will help avoid problems from arising in the future. It has been proven to work with large, but temporary demonstration projects in the past.

9. Housing - try to keep people in their homes. Restructure mortgages with lower interest rates. Forgive some of the principle if deemed appropriate due to market conditions. Don't keep/support the ultra-deliquent people. If the foreclosed house is really dilapidated, then tear it down. A few cities (Cleveland, Detroit and I think Chicago) are doing this and making small neighborhood parks. Good idea.

10. Banking industry - increase investigations. No big bailouts. No big severance packages for CEOs, etc. Regulate derivatives.

Too much wrong with this sector. Step1 will be to re-instate Glass stegall or some variation of it. Step 2 will be to force the banks to disclose the "real" value of their mortgage and MBS holdings, instead of the wishful thinking that gets reported on their balance sheets. Some mega anks need to die so smaller more efficient banks can repkace them and provide banking service to regular people instead of just providing wealth accumulation and polarization for he uber-rich. I could go on and on.

These are the main issues I can think of. Love to hear other points or discussion on these.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Much appreciated. I wanted to respond earlier but haven't had much time before this.
Mostly done from my iPhone, aplogize for the typos etc in this and earlier posts.

Stupid is as stupid does.