Obama funding plan for health insurance losses is a bailout

Jan 9, 2015 18:23:27 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Any law that is intended to discriminate against a race of people, in order to promulgate the rancid doctrine of "white supremacy"--even if that law does not specifically mention race--is inherently racist.  But a law that makes it more difficult for a bloc of people to vote--a bloc that votes almost entirely for the opposite party--is not really "racist." Cynical, yes. But "racist," no.

Also, you are accepting at face value all that Jim Greer claimed was said--presumably, because that dovetails rather nicely with your preferred narrative. If he had said that no such talk ever occurred, I wonder if you would have been so eager to quote him... 

In the words of Ed Rollins, GOP strategist, the Republican Party is a "bunch of old white guys" and, as such, represents the historic white supremacy of the United States. Ed Rollins is not the only member of the GOP that points out that the Republican Party is demographically white and it's political power is based upon the supremacy of white men exerting control in the United States government.  

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/ed-rollins-republican-party-old-white-guys_n_1663304.html

(Before you condemn the source this is Huffington Post citing the Ed Rollins' Fox News interview.)  

Yes, I accept the statements of Greer at face value because they're backed up by former GOP Gov. Crist as well as media verified "anonymous" sources that were deeply involved in the crafting and the passage of the Florida voting laws. You seem to discount "anonymous" sources while ignoring the fact that the reporters, that withhold the names of the individuals, know who these sources are, have verified that they are creditable sources, and have confirmed what they are claiming with other sources. Legitimate news media sources demand a very high level of confirmation before they will cite an "anonymous" source (which is not anonymous to the reporter or the news source). 

The "anonymous" sources have revealed much more damning racist allegations against the GOP and did so because the news media was willing to protect their identities.    

Jan 12, 2015 18:47:11 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Your condemnation of "the historic white supremacy of the United States" seems to imply that it is an ongoing problem. And, of course, it is not.

And your description of Charlie Crist as a "former GOP Gov.," while technically accurate, glosses over the fact that he was really a Democrat in Republican clothing--as his later party-affiliation changes (first to independent, then to Democrat) reveal.

As for anonymous sources, such sources--which were claimed to "usually" be accurate--got a whole lot of the story wrong recently, as regarding the attack in Paris on the office of the Charlie Hebdo publisher, including the claim that some of the shooters had surrendered peacefully. 

I would suggest you start by reviewing the composition of the US Congress where the representation of WASP men is highly disproportionate to the population of the United States. Our government is basically controlled by WASP male imposing "WASP Male Supremacy" on the people of the United States. I recall reading about a Republican anti-abortion panel and there wasn't a single woman on that panel. There was a Republican panel on African-Americans and not a single black person on that panel. These panels were all comprised of WASP Male members of the Republican Party.  I would also suggest you review who owns the "wealth" of America as it is also disproportionately owned by WASP Males resulting in WASP Male Supremacy in our economy.  

WASP Male Supremacy still rules in the United States and is a huge ongoing problem that you simply refuse to acknowledge.

Charlie Crist was a real dyed-in-the-wool old school Republican but later turned against the Republican Party predominately because of the anti-minorty, anti-poor, anti-women of the agenda of the current Republican Party. Crist was more of an "old school" Republican from the 1960's that are today referred to as RINO's by the social-conservatives that have turned against everything the Republican Party once stood for. Today a Democrat is more closely associated with the Republican political ideology of people like Barry Goldwater and Eisenhower than Republicans like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and Mitt Romney. 

Charlie Hebdo is a relatively small satirical political publication and not a significant news publication. To my knowledge it doesn't even have any investigative reporters and relies on the news stories from other publications or, as is sometimes the case with satire, simply makes things up to make fun of.

Jan 14, 2015 19:09:40 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I really don't know how you might have imagined that I was referring to the content of Charlie Hebdo.  My point was that some mainstream news sources--including MSNBC--apparently got the story about the shooting wrong, by relying upon "usually reliable" anonymous sources. 

And you appear to be merely spouting the typical talking points of the Democratic Party; especially the "War on Women" talking point, that appeared to work pretty well in 2012, but seems unlikely to work again.

You appear to want the Republican Party to be practically indistinguishable from the Democratic Party. Well, I do not. (What are now referred to as "RINOs" were once referred to as "Republicrats"--or "Republocrats"; I have seen it spelled both ways--and that is really not my idea of what the Republican Party should stand for. Nor do I believe that non-Republicans should attempt to design the Republican Party as they would prefer to have it.) 

The mainstream news media does sometimes "get it wrong" but what we find is that like science it is self-correcting by retracting or correcting prior news releases. That never happened related to the GOP's actions to disenfranchise blacks in Florida because the sources were accuate. There is also a huge difference between "early news reports" of an ongoing event and "after the fact" news reporting that results from investigative reporting.

It was really the Democratic Party that became more "Republican" after the 1960's when it embraced the civil rights movement that was predominately lead by the Republicans in Congress. While there were fundamental differences between the two parties, and those remain, the civil rights movement should never have been a dividing line between the two major parties. Republicans were highly supportive of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and today the Republican Party is doing all it can do to gut the intent of these two key pieces of civil rights legislation.

Why does the Republican Party oppose civil rights today?

Jan 16, 2015 5:35:35 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I simply cannot imagine why you might suppose that the GOP is attempting to “gut” civil-rights legislation. What the GOP opposes—and what I oppose, also—is the blatant double-standard of placing some (Southern) states under suspicion, while not doing the same thing with other states. Just why Georgia and Alabama should require special permission to revise their voting laws in 2015, whereas California and New York do not, I have no idea.

To imply that erroneous news reports are no big deal because such errors are “self-correcting” is merely an excuse for those who are more concerned with being first than they are with being accurate.

In a real sense I agree with your first proposition. In the 1960's the Voting Rights Act addressed the historic disenfranchisement of minorities (predominately black) where Southern Democrats prevented blacks from registering and voting as Republicans with Jim Crow voting laws. It was a limited problem and addressed in a limited manner. Since the 1960's that problem has spread to outside of just those states identified in the 1960's.

Here's what the underlying problem really is. Historically (excluding the Jim Crow Southern states) when a political party wanted to win an election they accomplished this by encouraging people to register and vote. They would beat on the doors in "get out the vote" movements. Today instead of attempting to get those out to vote that support their policies and candidates it's becomce a case of "stop the opposition from voting" by any means possible. In short we've gone from "enfranchisement" (getting more people to vote for you) to "disenfranchisement" (preventing people from voting for the opposition) as the means of winning elections. Along with disenfranchisement we've also seen both parties engage in gerrymandering because congressional districts are determined by the party in power in the state legislature.

So I agree with you 100%.

To maintain the integrity of the vote we need to expand the federal scrutiny of all state election laws to prevent nefarious laws that create disenfranchisement of US citizens for federal elections. 

Ending gerrymandering of Congressional districts can be accomplished as part of a two-step process. First require that federal Congressional districts be defined by non-partisan (or bi-partisan) committees and secondly they they also be subjected to federal scrutiny.

I make no excuses for those news organizations that are more concerned with being first as opposed to being accurate. I agree with you that they should wait until they can accurately report the news. Fortunately most news organizations correct erroneous news reports but not all do. What is more concerning is "yellow journalism" where a news organization distorts the facts or omits key information in it's news reporting.

What we can note related to the information on the drafting of the GOP voting laws in Florida is that this news reporting was accurate and no evidence that it wasn't accurate has been forthcoming from any investigative news reports. Opinion writers have attempted to dismiss it but never has any investigative report ever rebutted the information.

Jan 19, 2015 6:11:18 GMT pjohns1873 said:

There are actually far more points of agreement between us here than there are points of disagreement.

For instance, I agree thoroughly that gerrymandering is bad; and that whichever major party is in power is very likely to engage in this sordid practice. (I am not, however, entirely sanguine about the idea of federal oversight. Whereas the individual states can sometimes act in a corrupt manner, I believe that the federal government is far more likely to do so.)

I further agree with you that what was once merely a Southern problem—the attempt to block the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957; a similar attempt to block the desegregation of the University of Alabama in 1963; and the murder of three civil-rights workers in Mississippi in 1964, among other outrages—has now metastasized throughout the nation.

Still, I believe that racist tendencies are now much diminished overall, as compared with what they were in the 1950s and early 1960s. Most people now realize that the accidental (and immutable) characteristics of one’s birth do not serve as a reasonable proxy for anything of greater substance. (As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once put it, we should all be judged according to the content of our character—not according to the color of our skin.)

I believe we agree on far more in general than what we often acknowledge and differ only on specific issues in many cases.

For example we would both agree that gerrymandering and Jim Crow voting laws are wrong and we'd both agree that the federal government can act in nefarious and corrupt ways based upon partisanship and political agendas. When I address the issue of integrity in federal elections I believe that this is matter that can and should be addressed by the federal government but, like you, I have reason to believe that political agendas can stand in the way.

For example in 2013 the Supreme Court over-turned a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 where "The law had applied to nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and to scores of counties and municipalities in other states, including Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx" when it came to federal oversight. Many, predominately liberals, had for years been stating that this clause of the Voting Rights Act needed to be amended and updated based upon comptemorary data of discrimination. In the majority opinion that struck down this provision of the law "Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Congress remained free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk, but must do so based on contemporary data" and Congress should have immediately done that but it has not.

In short a problem that was only identified in 1965 related to nine states and some counties and municipalities had spread across the nation to other places and Congress had a responsibility to address that but for political reasons the Congress did not amend the Voting Rights Act and that refusal to act has, to a large degree, allowed nefarious and corrupt election practices to go unchecked throughout the United States.   

So the responsibility for ensuring integrity in the federal elections can only exist at the federal level but the problem is how to prevent partisan political agendas from allowing or embracing nefarious and corrupt federal election practices. How do we get Congress to amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 so that it does address the problem based upon contemorary data so that nefarious and corrupt federal election practices don't occur.

We know for a fact that there is gerrymandering and the disenfranchisement of US citizens for nefarious political purposes and both of us would agree that is wrong but how the hell do we get Republicans and Democrats in Congress to agree to put an end to it? They could but apparently they don't really want to.   

Your last statement seems to ignore the difference between professing a belief and living by it. Using an analogy (that you know I love) most people I know would all agree that stealing is wrong but.... back in the 1970's I went to a small meeting of Christians with a woman I was dating. The subject of discussion was whether a person should "keep the change" if a clerk mistakenly gave you too much money back on a purchase and you noticed it. Everyone agree that "stealing was wrong" but about 1/2 of them thought that keeping the money was acceptable. Of course keeping it is stealing but about 1/2 of them were okay with that. It's like the belief "it's wrong to cheat" unless, of course, you're cheating on your taxes. 

While I believe that most Americans express a belief that opposes racism and racial prejudice only about 1/2 of us (based upon numerous studies) us actually live based upon that belief. It's one thing to express a belief and a completely different thing to actually live by that belief.  

In the end I agree completely with you that racism as metastasized across the nation where once it was predominately a "Southern" problem and today is a national problem. I would also state the opinion that while most Americans express a belief that they oppose racism and racial prejudice only about 1/2 of Americans now live based upon their expressed belief. Finallly, because the problem has spread nationwide, the problem is actually worse in many respects when we compare it to the isolated racism, racial prejudice, and racial discrimination of the South in the 1960's.

Off topic post script - you do expand my vocabulary sometimes with words like "metastasized" that I had to look up so that I could understand the point you made. I alway love to learn new things.  

Jan 21, 2015 20:48:08 GMT pjohns1873 said:

First, let me thank you for the compliment. (I really did not intend to use a $25-dollar word; but my father died of cancer, way back in 1956; so I learned the meaning of "metastasized" rather early. And, of course, it is now often used more broadly than in just a medical sense.)

What is your source for the belief that only about half of those Americans who have expressed a disgust with racial prejudice actually live according to those expressed beliefs?

Oh, there is at least one major outrage from the pre-Civil Right era that I failed to mention:  It is the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, in 1955, for his having had the temerity to flirt with a white woman; and the subsequent acquittal of his murderers.  (Thankfully, neither Mississippi nor the rest of the South is anything like that today.  But the thought that this once was considered "normal" in the Deep South is quite enough to send cold chills down my spine.) 

I seriously doubt that most politicians--either those with a "D" by their names, or those with an "R"--have any real interest in putting an end to the noxious practice of gerrymandering.  (Both will decry it in pure theory--whenever they are forced to address the issue--but wish to reap the benefits of it, whenever their own party is in power.) 

Don't stop using the $25 words. I love to learn. Ironcially my wife knew the definition of "metastasized" because of cancer in her family and it is a medical word in origin that if often used related to cancer and other deseases. I didn't have that prior knowledge so I had to look it up and I learned something from that experience. It's really a rather good word to use and your application in using it outside of the limited medical usage was perfect. Keep it up.

My conclusion that many American aren't "living by their beliefs" related to racism is based upon the hundreds of studies on racial prejudice. Few admit that they're racially prejudiced while recent studies indicate that over 1/2 of Americans express anti-black explicit (and implicit anti-Hispanic) racial prejudice. Of course prejudice is invidious because it's not typically something we're aware of in ourselves.

Yes, I know you response will be that these are all "liberal" studies and that is because of two factors. First is that any organization that studies "racism" is automatically a "liberal" organization and secondly because no "conservative" organizations are willing to address racism. What must be accepted is that none of these studies are disputed by any studies.   

There are so many "Emmett Till" stories from the deep South that it would be impossible to address them all. We both find those cases, and there were literally thousands of them often where blacks were lynched and no one was ever prosecuted. all to be reprehensible cases of violent racism.

Here's something I find equally reprehensible but you might not. There is extensive evidence of anti-black racial prejudice that influences prosecution and convictions of blacks (beyond just the incompetence of public defenders). This is best exemplified by Innocence Project which faces a Herculean task of overturning a conviction where the standard of proof is far greater than the standard for conviction. For conviction all that is required is evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt" of guilt but to overturn a conviction, excluding judical misconduct in the prosecution of the case, requires evidence "beyond any doubt" of innocence. To establish innocence beyond any doubt only DNA evidence can accomplish that currently. In cases where there is no DNA evidence a wrongful conviction cannot generally be overturned. Here are three facts from the Innocence Project.

There have been 325 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history.

About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are people of color. 

The Innocence Project was involved in 173 of the 325 DNA exonerations.

www.innocenceproject.org/know/

Here is what I find reprehensible. How can a person be convicted of a crime they didn't commit when we can later "prove beyond any doubt" whatsoever that they didn't commit the crime and why are the vast majority of those wrongfully committed in capital murder cases African-Americans? We have to even ask why are these people even being prosecuted and why are they overwhelmingly African-Americans?

I tend to believe tht the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, while this case originated in 1966, still sheds light on what's happening today. In 1967 Carter was convicted of murder but his case was eventually overturned by a federal court but not until 1985 based upon judicial misconduct by the prosecutor.

In 1985, Judge Haddon Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the writ, noting that the prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure," and set aside the convictions. Carter, 48 years old, was freed without bail in November 1985.      

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_Carter#Federal_court_action

While the extend of misconduct by the prosecution is not as overt today the fact remains that racial prejudice based upon stereotyping of blacks because of crime statistics is still highly influential in our criminal justice system. It effects both prosecution and jury decisions were prejudice results in an assumption of guilt of the accused. Eye-witness testimony against a black man is far more likely to be believed by the prosecutor and the jury than it would be in the case against a white defendent even though eye-witness testimony has been proven to be wrong about 40% of the time especially as it related to identifying a person that committed a crime. Two people that look similar are often confused for each other especially when the witness is only presented with the wrong person to identify.

We would like to believe that anti-black racial prejudice doesn't exist but in fact every study indicates it does. The murder of Emmett Till in 1955 was horrific but isn't the execution of a innocent black man that was wrongfully convicted today because of anti-black racial prejudice just as horrific? We know it's happening because the number of cases where DNA exists to exhonorate the wrongfully convicted is relatively rare. Even the recanting of testimony by a witness, all too often the only witness, that resulted in the conviction will not overturn the conviction or stop the execution of a wrongfully convicted innocent person and usually that person is black.

Everything I've read leads me to believe that innocent blacks are being prosecuted and convicted because of anti-black racial prejudice today and that sends cold chills down my spine.

************************

I would almost agree with you on gerrymandering because where it's successful neither party wants to address it there. The only reason why more Democrats want to address it today is because Republicans have proven they're better than Democrats when it comes to the gerrymandering of Congressional districts as indicated by representation on the US House of Representatives. If the Democrats were more successful then they'd be for it as opposed to against it.

What we would, I believe, mutually agree on is that something needs to be done about it because it corrupts the electorial process and, because it affects federal elections, the federal government is the only entity that can address it because the states obviously don't police themselves. How to get the federal government to do this in a non-partisan manner is problematic but we know that revision to the Voting Rights Act to address the problem is the first step.

So who's blocking any revision to the Voting Rights Act that Chief Justice Roberts indicated was necessary?