The Right to an Abortion

I don’t recall which Republican talking heads (many) have argued that the right to an abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution.  It seems like a compelling argument, but it is really a very poor argument against the right to an abortion, and here is why.

The U.S. Constitution consists of two main parts, plus the accumulated decisions of the Supreme Court.  The first part is the Constitution proper, and the second part is the 27 amendments to the Constitution proper.

The Next Steps in Private Transportation

So, here is an idea, or two, about private automobile transportation.

First idea: EVs – or electric vehicles, or Tesla’s and their competition – still depend mostly on fossil fuel energy (petrol, natural gas, coal, ethanol) to fuel their electric batteries.  So, why not solar powered automobiles?  With much smaller batteries for driving in sun-less conditions.  Another advantage would be far fewer charging stations.  Today’s EV charging stations are partially funded by the government; those who do not drive EVs pay for them.  We have solar electricity for our homes, solar powered automobiles are not far behind.

Bob Dylan's False Prophet

Click on Image, then Full Screen

On Cancelling Student Debt

In my email Inbox, "Can Bernie send you a "'Cancel ALL student debt' sticker?"

Hell, NO!

Bernie Talks ...

Bernie Sanders wants us to cancel all student debt.  I agree with several of Sanders’ progressive ideas, but this idea is an AWFUL idea!

A Constitutional Right to Privacy

In my recent blog post, The Leak, I wrote about Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___, the SCOTUS case that overturned Roe v. Wade.  While this unhappy decision did not rest solely on the controversial notion that there is no Constitutional right to privacy, Justice Clarence Thomas did go out of his way to suggest that other SCOTUS decisions that relied on privacy could be rolled back based on that interpretation of the law.  That is what I want to talk about in this essay: the Constitutional right to privacy, does it exist in the law?

The Leak

It’s Monday, May 2nd, early evening.  Politico publishes this on its website: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows.  And here is the leaked draft opinion, unabridged: Justice Alito's initial draft abortion opinion which would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Roe v Wade has been overturned!  No, not so fast!  This document is only a draft opinion of Associate Justice Samuel Alito, probably written in February; the Court’s final ruling won’t come down until late June or early July.  But already, Justice Alito has become the hero of the Right and the villain of the Left.  Same for the leaker.  Indeed, the leak itself has taken on a life of its own.

Money in Politics

How important is money – particularly BIG Money – in politics?  Really!

Well, the truth is: it is very important!  But at the same time, it is also pretty unimportant!

The promise of Big Money to help a candidate for high office win his next election is hard to resist.  The threat of Big Money to hurt a candidate’s chances to win his next election is also hard to resist.   Indeed, even more important than impacting election outcomes is the power that Big Money purchases to influence – or even write – legislation that favors its own interests.  Even if YOUR candidate refuses Big Money, enough other legislators will go along with Big Money’s demands that it won’t matter if YOUR guy is incorruptible.

But how can it be true at the same time that Big Money is not really important?

The Day the Music Died

A NYC friend of mine (I have given him space in this blog before) wrote the following and I thought it worth being aired.  The title of the piece was just to rope you in to reading his piece.

Click the Photo for more images and one man's story

It was Memorial Day in New York City, just a few years ago, 55 years ago to be exact, 1967.  What do New Yorkers do on Memorial Day?  Same as big city folks across the nation.  They find a park to picnic in.  I lived on the Lower East Side and Tompkins Square Park was my city park. 

The long and short of it was that by day’s end, some 42 of us had been arrested, taken to the local police station, jailed, fingerprinted, and released.  Finally, we had our day in court.

A Common Sense Party

This got me going! 

It’s not like I got upset with their stealing the name of the party that I envision, “Common Sense” belongs to no man or at least it belongs to my great godfather, Thomas Paine, who wrote the immortal 47-page pamphlet called Common Sense and put it in the hands of Americans in January of 1776.  Rather, my idea of a Common Sense Party is no way MODERATE!  Thomas Paine was no moderate and neither am I!  Paine was an extremist in his day, preaching separation from Great Britain, while all the people – and especially the aristocrats who met in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress – really wanted was to be treated like full-class British citizens.  Paine convinced a nation to take the radical step of independence.

Putin ... Zelenskyy

I confess, I have no special knowledge to say anything about a foreign war.   But I have a need to express what I think.  This essay assumes that Putin and Russia are the bad guys and that Zelenskyy and Ukraine are the good guys.  Putin and much of Russia would disagree.

Putin and Mother Russia are waging a war of destruction on Ukraine, a sovereign nation.  It is lovely how united the rest of the world has become with economic sanctions.  But, even putting war casualties aside, Putin’s actions have already cost tens if not hundreds of trillions of dollars of physical damage in Ukraine that will not be paid back even if Putin comes to his senses and ends his war of aggression.  And what reason have we to assume that Ukraine is all that Putin wants?  Agreed that NATO may be a threat to Russia, even if NATO has shown no aggressive intentions on Russia, it is understandable that Russia may feel more threatened with Ukraine joining NATO.  But “we can destroy you and your country; and the rest of the world had better not help out or we will unleash what you cannot imagine on you” cannot lead anywhere good.  And maybe economic sanctions are only chips in a high-stakes poker game.