Jim Crow Laws Are Coming Back

If you were born before 1965 and fell asleep in history class or just plain forgot, Jim Crow Laws were laws in this country enacted between 1876 and 1965. The laws mandated segregation of public utilities in the Southern states. Beginning in 1890 “separate but equal” status was given to African Americans and thus segregation. The Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954 (Brown vs. the Board of Education.) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 overruled the remaining Jim Crows laws. This happened during Lyndon Johnson’s administration who also got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

The Essence of the Voting Rights Act was to prohibit states and local governments with a history of discriminatory voting history from making any voting changes before approval by the United States Attorney General or ad 3 judge panel in the District Court for D.C. Section 5 of this act has been renewed and amended by Congress 4 times, most recently in 2006 by George W. Bush.

Section 4 of the Voting Rights Acts was struck down with a 5-4 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In essence they said things have changed in the south in the last 50 years and that part was now unconstitutional. By doing away with Section 4 that wiped out section 5.

Ah how things have changed in 50 years. Actually many good changes have been made in the last 50 years as celebrated in the March on Washington led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. But then I just read how recently 25 blacks were moved from the Wild Wing Café in South Carolina after one white person who said they made him uncomfortable after they had waited for service for 2 hours.

Folk have taken the new Supreme Court Ruling as open season to make new voting laws, the intent of which is to limit folk (generally seniors, minorities, students and women) from voting. This includes our state, which has the 2^nd highest voter turnout in the nation.

Tammy Baldwin has called our states leadership on this and is promoting a petition against such practices.  

Frankly I don’t want to be lumped in with states like Texas, North Carolina and others the are trying to get these Jim Crow type laws back on the books. To me it seems like a money issue again.

Sign Tammy’s petition if you feel so moved and what to continue the work for voter rights began 50 years ago. Wait, make that 94 years ago when women got the right to vote.

Private Health Care Systems Subsidize the Older Folk

My wife and I are old and grey, well one of is, me. We are both retired and receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. This appears to be a great evil to some in our society. We are just lazy folk living off the hard work of others such as our children and grandchildren. Of course, if we didn’t have these benefits we might be doing that anyway. Never mind the fact that we paid for these benefits over our lifetimes.

But those who still see evil in the dreaded “Obamacare” that young folk will get shafted by this program have to pay for older deadbeats with more need of medical coverage. I mean they have it hard enough paying off the college debts because we don’t subsidize higher education to the extent we used to. So, they doomsday folk say these young people won’t pay what they are supposed to under Obamacare because the penalty will be cheaper than the cost.

Au contraire ma soeur, that is not the case. The argument is spurious (false, or just a damn lie) because those most of those from age 19 to 34 get their health care from their employer. They pay the same premiums as those who are older than themselves and need more healthcare. So, dear youth, despite what the naysayers tell you, you are already subsidizing older folk; that is what private health care systems do. Thus you 20 million young folk, Obamacare doesn’t change a thing, you will still have to subsidize older folk. Don’t worry, in a few years you will get subsidized whether you use Obamacare or not.

The President hopes that about 2.7 million of the young will purchase coverage in the new agencies. The 20 million getting health care from their employers therefore that subsidy is about 8 times more than the bad old Obamacare. Huh? Weren’t you paying attention?

Now folk in most countries seem to understand this very well. Private or public health care systems work the same; the young subsidize the older folk. If the doomsday folk were honest about all this you’d know that, but they use a lot of smoke and mirrors to try and scare you.

Remember Obamacare used to be called Romneycare, then the naysayers we’re backing a different horse.

Wisconsin a Beautiful State represented by…

I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not believe that Wisconsin is beautiful, even an Iowan transplant such as myself. The greens are nearly as green as Ireland (but not quite.) The people are most friendly except when they gather into gangs and chant weird stuff in athletic stadiums and they do drink a bit; okay, quite a bit. But they are solid Midwestern stock that seem trustworthy, care for each other and reliable, some even reportedly live in Lake Woebegon, while as fictional as the people I repopulated my hometown with in sermon illustrations, both reflect our character.

Wonderful people have come from our state; actors like Don Ameche and Orsen Wells from Kenosha, Ellen Corby from Racine, Chris Farley from Madison, Thomas Hulce from Whitewater, Fredric March from Racine, Pat O’Brien and Charlotte Raefrom  and Spencer Tracy from Milwaukee, Gena Rolands from Camria. We have our musicians such as Loretta Sell Hilldegarde, and Les Paul along with Woody Herman and oh yes, Liberace from West Allis.

Did you know Harry Houdini came from Appleton? Jackie Mason came from Sheboygan, funny folk. Carrie Chapman Catt (who my first cat was named for) the suffragette came from Ripon.

George F. Kennan was a diplomat from Milaukee, Robert La Follette a prominent politician was from Primrose (I find that poetic).  William H. Rehninquist the noted jurist came from Milwaukee.

Wisconsin is filled with people of talent and character and we rightfully should be proud of our populace. Today one of the best of the freshman congressional leaders, Tammy Baldwin is creating good legislation for us and the country and providing great leadership.

And then we have Governor Scott Walker and Representative Paul Ryan. Walker says that “he is thankful to live in a state where neighbors help each other.” He does this while breaking the government workers unions (at least those that don’t support him), gives money away from public schools for private ones, fiddles away like Nero finally rejecting to do any state work for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Big on a balanced budget he first created a imbalance by giving tax breaks to businesses. He rejected subsidies for high-speed rail loosing us jobs. Two investigation released Aug 25^th show he wasted tax dollars on high priced consultants in lieu of using our own engineers. He also promoted expensive and unnecessary new road projects costing between $1.2 and 2.1 billion for the state that included widening I-90 in places only 10 years old and taking the most expensive options in most cases. He may say he wants to protect the public purse, but he appears more a crony of big business. Fiscal restraint my left toe.

And then we have the mastermind of the GOP budget Paul Ryan; well, mastermind may not be accurate. With an ideological hero of Ayn Rand who was a great proponent of selfishness to the extent of injuring others he has lived down to her callousness. Ryan would cut funding for disaster relief in the country, he would cut services for seniors in Social Security and Medicare. He said, “This is not the time to go wobbly” when fellow Republicans suggested his budget may adversely affect their ability to get elected. His tax system would continue to brutalize the poor for the benefit of millionaires. The man has a nice smile but seems incredibly dangerous.

Wisconsin seems to have a rather balanced approach to politics over the years, sometimes a bit more conservative as it was during the Civil War. Robert La Folette, a well known governor started as a Republican and then revived the Progressive Party. We’ve had our whackos such as Joe McCarthy. Recently we have had a conservative governor in Tommy Thompson and congressmen Sensenbrenner balanced out by Democrats such as Senator Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold and congressman David Obey.

Now Gov. Scott and Rep Ryan reflect the extreme elements of the Republican Party and seem to have no interest in serving the public good, but to continue of Plutocratic tendencies of Republicans of the last three decades.

These two men and others of their ilk do not represent the good character of Wisconsinites. They are good at sleight of hand and opportunists in a party that has splintered into many pieces. Politician should be a good word. They are to be public servants doing those things to promote the common good and serve all their constituents. These men are reflective of a big money run society. We should toss them out on their collective ears. We have a beautiful state and it should be run by those who reflect that beauty.

I’m glad I decided to be subtle today.

CSI, NCIS, - sic ‘em on the Economy

My wife and I are quite fond of the forensic scientist shows such as CSI, NCIS, the other NCIS, Body of Proof and the like. Now we also realize in real forensic science things can’t move so quickly and so reality may get stretched quite a bit, but they are very entertaining and we like them. We also like certain copy shows and evidenced by Lamont thinking he is like Castle and ruggedly handsome.

Bill Moyers recently published a piece by Joshua Holland on his blog about economic sleuths. Criminology has advanced considerable since I took a course in it in college. A major reason for this is all the data we have today as well as studies. You know, the things that are totally ingored by folk who just want revenge, jail everyone, and want to beat criminals and carry guns to reduce crime despite any evidence to back up there claims. But I digress again.

Holland makes the point that economists today are good at digging through the data to find out where market corruption is coming from and those who just plane cheat and the patterns they create. The article mentions one study that found a lot of stuff being smuggled from Hong Kong to China to avoid taxes. Thus the import taxes encourage these materials to “disappear in transit.”

Steven Levitt of Freakeconomics reported that “a prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to be arrested by one.” Not unlike how our government is run.

Big money in politics clearly leads to corruption in politics. If the law makers are buddies with a big business who generously gives them money to get elected, those businesses don’t get much scrutiny in terms of law breaking. In fact, laws may get changed so they get breaks the rest of us don’t.

We also know that lawmakers when not in office often end up in cushy jobs in the industries they were supposed to regulate; can you say, “conflict of interest?” Who is in control and their relationship with business directly affect he stock market.

These connections may vary from country to country. For example John Moore, the chairman of Rolls-Royce was appointed to the House of Lords, but that did not affect the value of Rolls-Royce stock. However, in Italy when Fiat chief Giovanni Agnelli was appointed to the senate Fiat’s stock jumped 3.4% created millions for that company.

Hoffman concludes that unfortunately we are more like Italy than the U.K.

Exploring/Destroying Your Habitat

Now with all the fracking going on, ignoring global warming, and our continual usage of fossil fuel, and polluting the water, you might conclude that human beings are the only animals capable of destroying their habitat – not so and our cats are living proof of this.

 *  *  *  * 

“You see that wooden moose hat rack hanging on the wall over there?” Pawline pointedly pointed out to her liter mates.

“Yep”, drawled Lamont.

“Uh huh,” continued Patchtricia.

“Well, it has lots of things hanging from it, to whit, an orange extension cord, a pair of coveralls, a winter coat, a back support thingy, a hanger, a pair of overalls, a fish frying rack for the barbecue  a bungee cord and several hats.” Extolled Pawline.

“Yeah, some moose rack. Where did that cockeyed thing ever come from? Asked Lamont.

“I know,” replied Patricia, “Weird Wild Laurie. Have you seen all that strange metal stuff outside the door in the stream the runs down the hill. She is responsible for giving to our furless ones. I understand she and her mate, the one with a single letter for a name J, are addicted to these garage sales. I know it makes little sense as they have not bought a single garage yet but come back with all this other stuff and give it to our furless servants. Though in the case of the moose rack, I think she talked our Oooo or Hugh furless one into buying it himself. I think she mind have some of your mind clouding abilities Lamont.”

“That would explain a lot,” Lamont added then continued, “but those hats up there on the moose rack are really intriguing. I think one came from Granada, and the other the furless ones got when riding mules down the Grand Canyon. What do you suppose we should do with them.”

“Eat them!” said the normally demure Patchtricia.

They did.