Several days ago I over-nighted it in Las Vegas. Now I know why Nevada is considered a "battleground state" in the upcoming election -- anybody who spends much time there is going to be bombarded with election advertising, and is at risk of becoming shell-shocked or of developing some form of PTSD. I pity the poor residents of the Las Vegas area and of Nevada. Between now and election day in November they will be constantly confronted with slick campaign advertising that, at best, tells only half a story. Both sides are guilty of misrepresentation, and both sides are spending way too much money and saying far too little with it.
Therefore, my Election Rule #2 -- ignore all political advertising. Most of it is claptrap that is inaccurate, incomplete, below my modest level of intelligence, or just plain offensive. The remainder--which might not be claptrap--is nonetheless guilty by association.
Those of us who live in California can watch TV and listen to the radio with very little interference from campaign advertising--at least the advertising for the presidential election, which is what it is pretty much all about at this stage--because spending advertising money in California is considered to be wasteful by both the Obama and the Romney campaigns since it would yield nothing additional for either side. So, too, for any thought of advertising in Texas, or New York, or Wyoming, or Mississippi, or Alabama, or most of the other states. As time passes, this will probably change, even if only in a token way.
Blame this on the Electoral College.
Well, first of all let's blame it on the Supreme Court, since their Citizens' United decision has allowed what is essentially unlimited campaign spending by anybody or anything with enough money to want to try to buy an election. Got lots of money burning a hole in your pocket? Want to have some influence with the elected political mucky-mucks? Well, go for it! The Supreme Court says it's OK for you to take as much of that money as you want to and use it in election advertising. And if your side wins, then it's probably pretty reasonable to think that you would expect, and receive, some extra-special consideration from them as a result of all the helpfulness of your money. It used to be that we thought that sort of outcome was illegal (silly us) or maybe even immoral and unethical (remember those days?). But we all have the same First Amendment free speech rights, don't we? It's just that without any campaign contribution limits, those with lots of money can do the free speech thing so much louder than all the rest of us. It ends up being an assault on the senses. Look at that: I just used another battleground verb.
Back to the Electoral College.
Question: What do these States have in common -- Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida?
Answer: You've probably already guessed this -- they are all identified as "Swing States" on the Democratic election strategy map that is on my desk in front of me. The Republicans probably have a similar map, but they haven't sent it to me (do I have to contribute money to everybody just to get a lousy paper map?).
The Obama for President and the Romney for President campaigns--and campaign surrogates (don't forget the Citizens United decision)--are going to carpet-bomb the poor people in those nine states. Notice how I managed to slide in another battleground predicate. Why would these campaigns be so ruthless?
It's all because their total of 120 electoral votes is considered to be up-for-grabs.
California has 55 electoral votes, but they are considered to be in the bag for President Obama. Texas has 38 electoral votes, but likewise, those are considered to be locked for Mr. Romney.
The two states with the biggest populations are going to be largely ignored during the presidential campaign. Aren't we lucky?
In fact, forty-one of the fifty states will be given short shrift in the activities of the presidential campaigning because of the mathematics of the Electoral College.
From the standpoint of our mental health, that's pretty good for those of us in those forty-one states. Conversely, if you live in one of those other nine states then maybe you'd better pull the plugs on your TVs at home and just watch the boob tube in sports bars, where it's usually too noisy to hear the TV's audio anyway.
From the standpoint of a healthy democratic process, it's a perverse way to run an election.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Health care, the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the Founding Fathers
Obamacare is constitutional. The Constitution of the United States is fully intact. The Founding Fathers are long gone. Things are a lot different now than they were in the 18th Century.
At the end of June the U.S. Supreme Court published its ruling on the legal cases challenging the constitutionality of "Obamacare" and has found that the legislation is constitutional after all.
Lost in the ensuing hub-bub was a reaction of "What just happened?!?"
That's what you are reading now.
The Supremes have ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. What the dickens is going on with this?
Don't misunderstand me -- I'm pretty pleased with the decision, even if I'm not entirely satisfied with the legislation itself. But that's for another time.
What's got me befuddled is the reasoning behind the dissenting view of the minority opinion from the Court. It's a view that seems to use the Constitution as a method of obscuring reality.
In a nutshell, the conservative Justices on the Court seem to believe that Congress does not have authority to regulate health care in this way because healthcare and healthcare insurance do not fall under the commerce clause of the Constitution. The Chief Justice apparently feels the same way, but his view is that Obamacare is OK because it relies on a tax to mandate coverage, and the Constitution clearly grants taxing authority to Congress. The liberal side of the Court came down on the side of saying that this is interstate commerce, and so it's within Congressional authority as set forth in the Constitution. My guess is that they are good with the concept of taxation authority, too.
So, we ended up with 4 "nays" and 5 "yeas," where the majority voted to uphold the ACA for two different reasons. That's a blended verdict on one of the most monumental cases to come before the Supreme Court. By itself, that's a noteworthy event.
But back to the minority view. Which is actually the majority view, when you count the Chief Justice along with the four justices voting in the minority. And they say that healthcare is not a form of interstate commerce.
That is a view that seems to fly in the face of reality. Perhaps they are saying something different. Maybe they are saying that the Constitution's expectations of interstate commerce have simply never encompassed healthcare.
And here I thought this was all about the requirement that everybody have health insurance, or be faced with a penalty or a tax as an alternative. Which brings us back to the Chief Justice, and his tax idea.
It's complicated.
The reality of healthcare is that it is interstate commerce. We all know that because we buy our healthcare insurance with the expectation that it will be honored, if needed, in any state in the country. When we travel from one state to another that notion is an implicit part of our travel plans and actions. Health insurance is a part of any decision to travel to various renowned medical treatment centers in a variety of different state locations for specialized care.
Healthcare and healthcare insurance is just as much interstate commerce as is putting a load of California oranges in a train car and shipping the fruit to some other state. These things go on all the time.
But five out of nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices see it differently, and so do a lot of other people. I don't get it.
Maybe the basis for this idea is that a strict interpretation of the Constitution leaves out healthcare. Perhaps so. I don't see it that way, but if someone can enlighten me to the logic of that idea, I'd like to hear it.
It's true that the Constitution, as written, does not take into literal consideration lots of things. Maybe healthcare is one of them. So is the Air Force, because people weren't flying around back in the 18th Century when the Constitution was written.
The country is a lot different now than it was over two hundred years ago. So is the entire world. We were an agrarian nation at that former time. Not so now. Today the USA is "industrial" or "post-industrial," depending on your point of view.
We can guess at what the Founding Fathers and the authors of the Constitution might have been thinking when they formed the nation and wrote the Constitution, and some of that will be educated guessing because of other documentation that they left behind.
But it's almost impossible to interpret the Constitution by always saying that the most important thing is to assess what was the original intent, because the Founding Fathers and the authors are all gone. They're dead. They have been dead and gone for a very, very long time.
During that very, very long time things have changed a whole lot.
The Constitution can probably keep working for us as long as it remains open to adaptability through interpretation. It must be adapted to changing times and changing needs.
If I were to be a Supreme Court Justice, that would be my guiding principle about the intent of the Founding Fathers and the authors of the Constitution -- that it must adapt to changing times and changing needs of the country.
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and all the others were aware that they were living during a time of change. They were causing change. My belief is that they expected that the country would change, and the foundations of the nation would have to change, too, so as to be able to continue to provide support for America's laws and governing institutions.
My interpretation of the original intent of the Constitution is that change was expected because they couldn't know everything that would need to be written into the Constitution.
And maybe that's why the thing was written with lots of big and general words and concepts. "Commerce" means a lot of different things. Among which is healthcare.
At least until something better comes along.
At the end of June the U.S. Supreme Court published its ruling on the legal cases challenging the constitutionality of "Obamacare" and has found that the legislation is constitutional after all.
Lost in the ensuing hub-bub was a reaction of "What just happened?!?"
That's what you are reading now.
The Supremes have ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. What the dickens is going on with this?
Don't misunderstand me -- I'm pretty pleased with the decision, even if I'm not entirely satisfied with the legislation itself. But that's for another time.
What's got me befuddled is the reasoning behind the dissenting view of the minority opinion from the Court. It's a view that seems to use the Constitution as a method of obscuring reality.
In a nutshell, the conservative Justices on the Court seem to believe that Congress does not have authority to regulate health care in this way because healthcare and healthcare insurance do not fall under the commerce clause of the Constitution. The Chief Justice apparently feels the same way, but his view is that Obamacare is OK because it relies on a tax to mandate coverage, and the Constitution clearly grants taxing authority to Congress. The liberal side of the Court came down on the side of saying that this is interstate commerce, and so it's within Congressional authority as set forth in the Constitution. My guess is that they are good with the concept of taxation authority, too.
So, we ended up with 4 "nays" and 5 "yeas," where the majority voted to uphold the ACA for two different reasons. That's a blended verdict on one of the most monumental cases to come before the Supreme Court. By itself, that's a noteworthy event.
But back to the minority view. Which is actually the majority view, when you count the Chief Justice along with the four justices voting in the minority. And they say that healthcare is not a form of interstate commerce.
That is a view that seems to fly in the face of reality. Perhaps they are saying something different. Maybe they are saying that the Constitution's expectations of interstate commerce have simply never encompassed healthcare.
And here I thought this was all about the requirement that everybody have health insurance, or be faced with a penalty or a tax as an alternative. Which brings us back to the Chief Justice, and his tax idea.
It's complicated.
The reality of healthcare is that it is interstate commerce. We all know that because we buy our healthcare insurance with the expectation that it will be honored, if needed, in any state in the country. When we travel from one state to another that notion is an implicit part of our travel plans and actions. Health insurance is a part of any decision to travel to various renowned medical treatment centers in a variety of different state locations for specialized care.
Healthcare and healthcare insurance is just as much interstate commerce as is putting a load of California oranges in a train car and shipping the fruit to some other state. These things go on all the time.
But five out of nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices see it differently, and so do a lot of other people. I don't get it.
Maybe the basis for this idea is that a strict interpretation of the Constitution leaves out healthcare. Perhaps so. I don't see it that way, but if someone can enlighten me to the logic of that idea, I'd like to hear it.
It's true that the Constitution, as written, does not take into literal consideration lots of things. Maybe healthcare is one of them. So is the Air Force, because people weren't flying around back in the 18th Century when the Constitution was written.
The country is a lot different now than it was over two hundred years ago. So is the entire world. We were an agrarian nation at that former time. Not so now. Today the USA is "industrial" or "post-industrial," depending on your point of view.
We can guess at what the Founding Fathers and the authors of the Constitution might have been thinking when they formed the nation and wrote the Constitution, and some of that will be educated guessing because of other documentation that they left behind.
But it's almost impossible to interpret the Constitution by always saying that the most important thing is to assess what was the original intent, because the Founding Fathers and the authors are all gone. They're dead. They have been dead and gone for a very, very long time.
During that very, very long time things have changed a whole lot.
The Constitution can probably keep working for us as long as it remains open to adaptability through interpretation. It must be adapted to changing times and changing needs.
If I were to be a Supreme Court Justice, that would be my guiding principle about the intent of the Founding Fathers and the authors of the Constitution -- that it must adapt to changing times and changing needs of the country.
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and all the others were aware that they were living during a time of change. They were causing change. My belief is that they expected that the country would change, and the foundations of the nation would have to change, too, so as to be able to continue to provide support for America's laws and governing institutions.
My interpretation of the original intent of the Constitution is that change was expected because they couldn't know everything that would need to be written into the Constitution.
And maybe that's why the thing was written with lots of big and general words and concepts. "Commerce" means a lot of different things. Among which is healthcare.
At least until something better comes along.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Happy 236th birthday, USA!
On July 2, 1776 the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, voted in favor of a resolution to "dissolve the connection" with Great Britain. The document known as the American Declaration of Independence was finalized over the next two days, and officially published on July 4, 1776. Couriers carried copies of the Declaration throughout the former thirteen English colonies over the following days and weeks.
The days in early July of 1776 did not mark the beginning of the conflict that we Americans have come to call the Revolution, and they were far from a successful conclusion of the war for independence. Instead, those days officially changed the goal, from a rebellion seeking status equal to that enjoyed by Englishmen in Great Britain to one that sought separation and independence from the British Crown.
Celebrations were common as the news spread throughout the populace. In Williamsburg, Virginia--according to information learned while visiting Colonial Williamsburg--a somewhat bitter-tasting hot chocolate drink was both trendy and popular. (You'll never convince me that was the only beverage of choice on that or any other day.)
According to David McCullough's remarkable book 1776, the Continental Army, encamped in New York, received the news on July 6. Celebrations began immediately. According to an on-the-spot commissioned participant named Isaac Bangs, he was among a number of officers who "went to a public house to testify our joy at the happy news" where they "spent the afternoon merrily."
In the spirit of '76, let's all have a merry July 4th (and/or July 5th and/or July 6th, as appropriate) celebration!
The days in early July of 1776 did not mark the beginning of the conflict that we Americans have come to call the Revolution, and they were far from a successful conclusion of the war for independence. Instead, those days officially changed the goal, from a rebellion seeking status equal to that enjoyed by Englishmen in Great Britain to one that sought separation and independence from the British Crown.
Celebrations were common as the news spread throughout the populace. In Williamsburg, Virginia--according to information learned while visiting Colonial Williamsburg--a somewhat bitter-tasting hot chocolate drink was both trendy and popular. (You'll never convince me that was the only beverage of choice on that or any other day.)
According to David McCullough's remarkable book 1776, the Continental Army, encamped in New York, received the news on July 6. Celebrations began immediately. According to an on-the-spot commissioned participant named Isaac Bangs, he was among a number of officers who "went to a public house to testify our joy at the happy news" where they "spent the afternoon merrily."
In the spirit of '76, let's all have a merry July 4th (and/or July 5th and/or July 6th, as appropriate) celebration!
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