Snowden and the NSA

A few items of interest from The Record on Dec 26, 2013 regarding the issue of Edward Snowden's release of thousands of documents about the NSA surveillance program.  A District Judge-Richard J. Leon-said he believed the program was "probsbly unconstitutional" but it seems he had no way of making that case legally. But Snowden's disclosures have given Leon the "chance to weigh in on the matter".  "Earlier challenges (to surveillance programs) were thrown out of court because civil libertarian plaintiffs couldn't prove that the NSA was collecting data about them".  Now the NSA has had to acknowledge the existence of the spy program so court cases can go forward, and one is expected to reach the US. Supreme Court.  There was a Supreme Court case in 1979 that the NSA claims gives them the authority to gather information.  It seems that the 1979 case "held that telephone records aren't private because citizens share them with the telephone company".  This, of course, is an ongoing issue with much more to follow.  Till then.

Why War?

I have often wondered why countries like ours seem always to be in a state of warfare.  Is it a result of a capitalist society or does it have to do with the position of our country in the world scene; the leader of the free world as they say.  We always had a Department of War until the name was moderated a bit by making it the Department of Defense, but the concern for warfare is still present.  We have the Joint of Chiefs involving the heads of the four major military branches and their access to the President and their advise on the need or ability of the armed forces to respond to a given problem.

But recently I have thought of other reasons we seem to be willing to enter into a state of armed conflict.  We have the pictures of many (men and women) who have served in the armed forces and use their picture from that time in their obituaries.  They show a younger state of the person in uniform and they almost always have a smile on their faces and a service hat jauntily tilted to one side.  This observation may only apply to the veterans of WWII and it may not be seen in obit pieces of the Korean War and Vietnam veterans.

I remember my mother telling us kids about her brother-my Uncle Al-who flew with the "flying tigers" in the "great war".  She said it seemed to be the best years of his life; that everything else since was kind of down hill.

I even remember my feelings on being drafted in 1967, being anti-war but somehow excited about going off to a different experience, meeting people and even getting married in my "dress blues".  Even now being proud to say I am a veteran.  I also remember form my reading of history, Gen William T. Sherman (Civil War) saying that "it was good that war is so terrible, or we would grow to like it too much".

I recently read a novel entitled "Snow Island" that was set in the days prior to and after the US entered the war in 1942.  One passage I will quote here as follows.

"...he heard the clink of silverware and the murmur of voices.  The entire world had taken leave of its senses.  The war was like a drug people craved.  You could see it in the glassy-eyed stares of people on the trains, in the streets, in the hallways of the hotel.  They were drunk with the war.  One glimpse at the dinning room as he went quickly past confirmed his sense of it all.  The tables were full. Laughter shot back and forth across the crowded room, and he saw, as he glanced in, champagne glasses raised over one table in a toast".

I always thought that we could teach peace, but maybe war is what people want and not for any high moral purpose or even for a country's glory but for a sense of personal pride, excitement and and involvement>

Litchfield Experiment

While watching an old episode of the "X-files" I came across reference to a US cold war project called the "Litchfield Experiment".  The program claims that the government made an attempt to clone the super-soldier or the super-intellect by eugenics to bred babies that would grow into these super humans.  I am not sure myself how this all might work but it seems the embryos were produced in the lab by the process of in-vitro fertilization and then implanted in unsuspecting women.  The offspring were referred to as "Adam" or "Eve" and each was given a number.  The experiment was conducted by the Luther Stapes Center for . Reproductive Medicine and run by a Dr Sally Kendrick.  The date in the program was 1985.  I googled "Litchfield Experiment" and found that there was such a program run by the US government in the 1950's because we were afraid the Russians were doing the same thing and we didn't want them to get ahead of us in this field.  For some reason the program was abandoned.  The "X-file" program claims that the surviving Adam and Eves were kept locked up in some kind of prison.  How true is the premise of his program?  I don't know. 

The Domino Theory

Many of us-my age-remember the use of this term to justify our position in the war in Vietnam.  If the US allowed South Vietnam to "go communist" then it would cause of ripple effect causing other neighboring countries to also fall to the communist aggression.  They would fall like dominoes, we were told, and the world would be much more dangerous.  As we know that turned out to be wrong.

I understand that now, in our efforts to punish Syria for using chemical weapons on areas of it population, we must now respond because if we did not then other countries around the world would also use chemical weapons against its own citizens or others who they were at war with.  Another foreign policy of the US based on the "domino theory".  I  believe the theory holds no water.

(Source: "Syria not likely to retaliate against US" by Anne Gearan of The Washington Post.  In The Record (of Bergen County, NJ) on 8/31/13.

Lock and Load

In Houston, Texas-the state that might just be the gun capital of America-a birthday party for an 18 year old ended with a gun fight.  The OK corral is back.  One party goer took out his handgun and fired off a round in celebration, much like they do in middle east countries to note a victory against the great satan of North America.  Problem being is that another party goer pulled out his handgun and fired back in what he thought was self-defense.  This is  what one might expect if everyone was carrying a piece; a vision of the NRA's perfect society

Obama and Race

The election of Barack Obama has done nothing to resolve the racial problems of our country; on the contrary it may have made them worse.  Many whites can now say "enough"...that the black man has finally achieved equality in our society.  I am sure many whites felt that voting for him in 2008 was there way of showing that they were no longer racist.  His re-election in 2012 leaves me scratching my head; is my observation wrong or was Romney just the "right" opponent to insure another victory for racial justice?

It should also be noted that Obama is not our first "black" president; he is our first "brown" president. Remember his mother was white and he was raised in a white world by white grandparents.  To say other wise is discount the effect of our mothers on our upbringing and I don't know anyone who would claim that. I am also thinking about that Langston Hughes poem that in part said;  "if your white, you're alright.  If you are brown, hang around.  If you are black stay back".

In The Nation magazine from Sept 2/9, 2013 is the following statement.  "Black unemployment is almost double that of whites; the percentage of black children living in poverty is almost triple that of whites; black life expectancy in Washington DC is lower than in the Gaza Strip; one in three black boys born in 2001 stands a lifetime risk of going to prison; more black men  were disenfranchised in 2004 because they were felons than in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment ostensibly secured their right to vote".

The same source notes the following. "Yet the fact remains that African Americans are no better off materially as a result (of his election), even if they may have been worse off had he lost, and that the economic gap  between blacks and whites has grown under his presidency". 

NSA

The FISA court-a secret court, that we know about but are not privy to its deliberations-has given the NSA the authority "to keep collecting US phone records".  The NSA director-James Clapper (or is it Grapper?)-let it be known that the collection of records would continue under the Obama admin's order.  Clapper "at one time told Congress his officers do not collect such data".  The leaks by Edwin Snowden made Clapper's claim a lie.  Please tell me why Clapper is not being charged with lying under oath as Bill Clinton was?  If anyone believes anything the NSA or Clapper says in the future they should have their heads examined.

(Source:  The Virginian Pilot on 10/12/13 "Secret Court Allows NSA to Keep Collecting US Phone Records")

Update:  Snowden, in a video posted by Wikileaks from Moscow, claims that the surveillance program he uncovered is going to "...hurt our economy and country...limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely".  If he is right it will be like America under the tyranny of Joe McCarthy when people were unwilling to speak their minds being afraid they would be accused of communist leanings.  Our foreign policy toward China in the late 1940;s and 1950's was most certainly effected by this self-censorship of policy makers and commentators and other with knowledge of the issues of the day.  Maybe that would give some reason to say that is the damage that Snowden has done. 

Aid to Egypt and others.

The Virginian Pilot reports today that besides the $ 1.5 billion (The figure has also been reported as $ 1 billion and $ 1.3 billion.  Every time I read a report of this nature the figure seems to increase.  I wonder how much we really give Egypt; I am not sure I can believe what my government tells me about the amount) we give Egypt, other middle east countries give more.  Qatar gives $ 8 billion. Saudi Arabia gives $ 5 billion. Kuwait gives $ 4 billion.  The United Arab Emirates gives $ 3 billion.  These figures come from the AP.  First thought; if Egypt's neighbors are ponying up $ 20 billion a year, why do we need to add another $ 1.5? Second thought; I wonder how much of the aid middle east neighbors are giving actually is coming from us thru our aid to them?

Any while all this money is flowing down a "rat-hole", citizens in major US cities are going without, roads and schools are being ignored and millions of Americans do not have health insurance.

Items of Interest for today.

The Washington Spectator, in a pro-mo ad notes the following items.

First, $ 806 billion in 2012 was spent on the military while the American Society of Civil Engineers reported that "repair backlog on our nation's public schools to be $ 322 billion...and $ 930 billion just to repair America's roads and bridges".  That $ 800 billion is almost half of "federal discretionary spending" (note: what items are not included in discretionary spending?).

Second, 29 % of Americans (and 44 % of Republicans) "believe armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years to preserve our liberty" (it would seem from the rest of the article that the liberty to own a gun is the heart of the matter with this group).  Have these people given any thought to what kind of government would replace the present one?  Do we want armed militia groups running the country?  Maybe these people have been inhaling too much gun powder.  If they tried pot and mellowed out we all might all be safer.

Third, a Harris Poll reports that 40 % of those who responded (and 67 % of republicans) believe Obama is a Socialist.  A third (and 57 % of republicans) believe Obama is a Muslim.  A majority of republicans believe Obama was not born in this country.  Didn't Thomas Jefferson say that in order to maintain our liberty and form of government, we must remain informed.

Recent Items of Interest

Regarding the Confederate Battle Flag being flown by a Virginia group near Richmond, the following item was noted in the paper today.  The bagpipe band at this gathering played the song "Amazing Grace".  It should be noted that the song was written by a former slave ship captain-one John Newton-who "later became a minister and renounced his involvement in trafficking humans".  (This from the Virginian Pilot on 10/3/13 editorial titled "The Lost and Wretched Cause").

The Virginia Democratic Party is filing a lawsuit against the state over Virginia's plan to "purge" its voter roles of person suspected of being registered to vote in other states, some 57,000 registered voters are involved. The Democrats claim the "database" was created by Republicans.  Further complicating the issue is that state election officials have instructed local election officials to use "their best judgment" in deciding "whether to purge voters", meaning that some will be purged while others from the database will not be purged.  This will create a "equal protection" possible violation.  Counties like Loudoun and Cherterfield will not purge while counties like Fairfax and Prince William will purge.  (The Virginian Pilot on 10/3/13 titled "Democrats' suit says GOP seeks to suppress votes").

Update:  On reading the above, I wondered what the white/black make-up of the four counties mentioned would be.  So I checked.  Loudoun  County-did not purge voters-is 69 % white and 8 % black giving the thought that the decision to purge or not was a racial one.  But Chesterfield-did not purge-is 65 % white and 32 % black suggesting that race was not an issue.  Prince William County-did purge-is 58 % white but 40 % black and Hispanic again suggesting the issue may be racial.  But Fairfax-did purge-is 70 % white 31 % Asian and Hispanic  with 5 % black (I know the numbers don't add up) which doesn't tell me anything re race as an issue.  Bottom line; I can not say, based on this research, that the decision was based on race.
(Source: Internet research on Wikipedia 10/4/13)

"What will the world say?"

I read recently in the newspaper that President Obama gave a reason for our intervention in Syria over their use of Sarin gas on their own people.  Part of it was, "what will the world say if the United States did nothing about this criminal act"?  I wondered about the following.

What will the world say about our "first-day" infant mortality rate being the highest in the industrial world.

What will the world say about a society where children get gunned down in their classrooms by a mad-man with military grade weapons and does nothing in response?

What will the world say about a society that allows its inner cities to rot while many of its residents live in poverty?

What will the world say about a society where there are more people in prison than anywhere else on earth.

What will the world say about a society that still allows the death penalty while the vast majority of the industrial world has banned it?  And has used that punishment on teenagers and the mentally ill?.

There are a host of issues that we should worry about "what will the world say" concerning conditions in this country.

News Items for this week

NASA launched a Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or LADEE into a path with the moon that will study the dust in the moon's atmosphere.  This will cost $ 280 million and after 6 months will crash into the surface of the moon destroying the project.  If they want to study dust try a tenement in any of our inner cities; the cost would be much less.  Source: The Virginian Pilot on 9/8/13.

At the Group of 20 summit, President Obama won no allies on his plan to attack Syria.  He said "the world " places" and "immense responsibility" on the US to respond to humanitarian crises.  He said the "first question often asked is 'why isn't the US doing something about this'".  The world is really asking this?  Really.  I don't hear it and neither does the UN or most of our allies hear it.  Obama must have exceptionally good hearing.  I wonder if the world is asking why we don't do something about racism, gun deaths, infant mortality rate, poverty and the blight of our inner cities?  Source The Virginian Pilot on 9/7/13.

The US is building a new aircraft carrier-the Gerald R. Ford-and it will be the most expensive "warship ever built".  Being built in Newport News it was originally set to cost $ 10 billion but now the Navy says it will cost $ 12.8 billion.  Besides that the ship will not "be fully functional when its commissioned" now set for March 2016.  The GAO said the ship should not be commissioned when originally set but the Pentagon disagreed; the Pentagon won.  The GAO thinks the final cost will be more like $ 14.2 billion.  Federal law requires the Navy to have 11 aircraft carriers and now has only 10.  This ship will be part of a  three carrier plan that is estimated to cost $ 43 billion: the John F. Kennedy is the next ship in line and is under construction.  It is being  built by the Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News.  The shipyard in Newport News is the only one that builds aircraft barriers and one of two that build subs.  Source The Virginian Pilot on 9/6/13.

Children

This may sound cruel, but why are we making an argument for war based on the death of 20 or so Syrian children? The untimely death of a child anywhere is a tragedy, but what about the infant mortality rate in our inner cities, a death rate that in many cases  rivals that of underdeveloped third world countries?  You never hear our "leaders" going on about that.  A group called "Save the Children" issued a report recently that I read on-line that said "the US has the highest first-day infant death rate in the industrialized world".  A number of deaths put at 11,300.  The same group also noted that the death rate is "...50 % more than all the other industrialized countries in the report combined".  The date on this report was May 7, 2013.

Lets show our concern for all children who die before they have a chance to enjoy life.

US War mentality

Isn't it interesting that every recent President of this country has his own little war.  Reagan had Libya and Nicaragua.  Bush I had Iraq and Kuwait.  Clinton the Balkans and what was once Yugoslavia.  Bush II had Iraq again.  Now Obama is heading toward Syria.

When I was in high school it was the issue of Cuba, two islands of the coast of China-Quamo and Matsu.  It seems that during every presidency since there has been some international crisis to hold our attention and of course give reason to the massive amount of money we have poured in the military-industrial complex.

Can our society survive at peace?  It does not seen so.

Reasons for War

So we are going to go to war now over stories of dead children gassed by the Syrians.  If you study history you may recall stories of Belgium children brutally murdered and women raped by the German army prior to our involvement in World War I.  You might also have heard of the USS Maine sunk in Havana harbor by the Spanish in 1898 that sparked our war with Spain.  Both of those stories turned out to be propaganda and not based on truth.  Many of my generation clearly remember the North Vietnam patrol boats that attacked two US navy destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.  That story was also a lie.  And we went to war based on it and 58,000 Americans died as a result.  Not that many years ago Colin Powell told the United Nations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction-chemical and biological-and was prepared to unleash them on the Middle East and Israel.  We went to war on that lie to.  When will be learn.  Governments ready to take us to war never tell us the truth.  Its the "first casualty" of any war.

NSA surveillance program

On 7/31/13 The Record reported on the NSA program by headlining "NSA papers released, but concern in growing".  I thought the following passage informative.   "A senior NSA official conceded that the surveillance effort was the primary tool in thwarting only one plot-not the dozens that officials previously suggested".  

This program comes under the supervision of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with the order to record "phone calls, emails, chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals".

But we are assured that "only appropriately trained and authorized personal have access to the records" (like Edward Snowden, I would ask).

Congressional Spending

From The Record's "North Jersey Tally" in regard to votes taken in Congress on 8/4/13 I found these two votes of interest.  First, senators failed to agree on appropriating $ 54 billion for transportation and housing program or releasing $ 53 billion for road projects.

Second, the Senate overwhelmingly agreed not to conceal the $ 1.5 billion yearly aid to Egypt even thou US law forbids aid to a government established by military takeover of an elected government.

Something wrong with our priorities here.

NSA Surveillance Program

I am having a problem understanding how the NSA surveillance program is suppose to work; or how it is suppose to protect us.

If the program records all phone calls, then the NSA knows that my number has called your number 9 times in the last week (remember, we were told the NSA doesn't know what was said).

So the NSA now has millions of millions of recorded phone calls; so what do they do now?  They can't manually look at them, so a computer must isolate certain numbers as suspect.  How do they ascertain which are those numbers?  If the NSA knows of a suspected terrorist, OK then, record all the calls that person makes.  But, unless that suspected terrorist calls me there is no purpose in recording my calls.

The only purpose of the program then becomes one of determining who I am calling; an adult book store or a  socialist party magazine and so on.  But what does that have to do with stopping terrorists?

Race in America

In light of the Martin/Zimmerman case just recently concluded, I did some research on the issue of race justice in this country.  I have in the past read a number of reports on this issue and for a time in the 1980's taught a US history class with a mini-topic of "Black History", so I always felt I had some knowledge of this issue.

However, my research turned up continuing issues of racial injustice in the legal system in this country.  The readers of this blog should not take my word for the problem but instead "google" the two items I recently came across.

First is the book entitled Slavery by Another Name by Douglass A. Blackmon.  The sub-title here is "the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II".  That speaks for itself.

Second was a film entitled American Violet about a situation in Texas in 2000 where the district attorney and police were arresting black residents on the uncorroborated word on one person, then giving those arrested the choice of taking a plea bargain for a crime they did not committed and go free, or risk a trial where they could have been jailed for years.

Years ago, when talking about the improvement in racial justice in this country, to a class, an African American student told me "You don't know what you are talking about".  I guess she was right.

Update:  Re-thinking this last sentence it would be more accurate to say that the discussion in class that day involved my argument that the Federal government was doing more to protect the rights of African Americans than the state governments were.  To that is what she replied to.

Obama and free trade agreements

According to Public Citizen News from March/April of 2013, the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that President Obama pushed and spoke highly of a year ago has not produced the benefits he said it would.
This agreement has "demonstrated the damage caused by yet another 'trade' agreement based on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)".  Obama has been trying to "sell" these large trade agreements "with the same false promises".  Export growth to non-trade agreement nations has "exceeded US export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 % over the past decade".

Surveillance

Police can now record and store car license plate numbers.  They can track my car anywhere and whenever they want.  But they can not track the ownership and sale of all the handguns sold in this country.  One of the things that makes the US :"exceptional"; no other developed nation would allow it.

Along a similar note, the Obama admin is defending the NSA spy-fest on all our phone calls, emails and facebook traffic.  They even claim they have the authority to "build similar data bases of people's credit card transactions, hotel records and internet searches".  And many on the right want us to believe Obama is a liberal?

Tax Exemption

I need some advice on donations to a tax exempt organization; similar to the exemption and groups like the tea party organizations recently in the news.  My understanding is that charities identified as 501(c)(3) type organization allow for donations to be tax deductible.  I also believe that the tea party type organizations are known as 501(c)(4) organizations (no wonder no one understands the tax code).  My question then would be, are donations to a 501(c)(4) organization also tax deductible?

Trayvon Martin killing

After reading an NPR article advising African-American mothers to make sure their male children are dressed "church-ready' before leaving the house, in the hope that they will not be targeted by the police or some Zimmerman vigilante, it occurred to me that the answer to racial violence in this country is not to ban guns but to ban hoodies.  Remember the gun-fanatics will tell you that guns don't kill people, hoodies do.

Class Warfare

Cutting food stamps for the poor.  Cutting social security for the elderly.  Banks "offering" 1 % on CD's of over two years and then having to pay income tax on that amount.  Plus countless other ways the poor are impacted negatively by government action.  The irony here is that I will be accused of provoking class warfare by noting these facts.  This is just one of the things most people did not learn from studying American History: its always been class warfare and we know which class always comes out on top.  

Boondoggle

During the 1930's the WPA was accused of paying unemployed men to dig a ditch in the morning and then paying another group of men to fill the ditch in in the afternoon.  This was an example by those opposed to the New Deal of a "boondoggle".  A government program that was a waste of tax payers money.  

Now we have a much grander and more modern example of a boondoggle.  Any number of US corporations were paid-with tax payers money-to build an US Army headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan for the cost of $ 34,000,000.  Next year another groups of US corporations will be paid to dismantle that same headquarters structure.  

The decision to build was made by the Obama admin in 2011 after the US Army said they did not want the building and would have no use for it.

June 24, 2013

A blog website on Supreme Court news in the paper today is SCOTUSblog.com by someone named Tom Goldstein this in reference to this weeks pending rulings that are thought to be important.  One was the affirmative action case out of Univ of Texas.  Texas has a plan for entry into the main college that enrolls the top rankings from all high schools and because many of those schools are predominately black or hispanic the enrollment at the college allows for many minority candidates.  An interesting plus of segregated secondary school education.  The issue in Texas is the use of race as a qualification for the remainder of the enrollees; three quarters of the freshman class is already made up of top ranking high schoolers regardless of race.  This case was brought by one Abigail Fisher who has since graduated from another university.

Another item of interest to me was the news of the flight of Edward Snowden.  The Obama admin is trying to arrest him and bring him back to the states to stand trial and (spend the rest of his life in an "ass-pounding federal prison".  What movie was that from anyway?).  Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador are three LA countries willing to take Snowden.  The news from The Record notes that Cuba has given assylum to others who we might want to prosecute.  One being Philip Agee who in 1975 wrote about the misdeeds of the CIA in Latin America: the book was "Inside the Company: CIA Diary".  (Q: is he still alive?)

Defense v Domestic spending.

Thinking about my last post about the military equipment we will destroy rather than ship home from Afghanistan, I considered the difference what our dollars could be spent on.  Defense spending like the 2000 fortified Humvee vehicles-at a cost of $ 1 million each-that will be destroyed.  That spending was done no more than 10 years ago and already the equipment is "in excess" with very little use left.  Compare that to spending of a billion dollars on public school classrooms and the fact that those classrooms would still be in use and could be for decades.  The two elementary schools I attended in Cresskill were there prior to 1948 and are still being used today.  The middle school I attended in Tenafly is now a housing complex.  It seems to be a much better use of our money to spend on domestic needs rather than defense needs to fight a war we should not be fighting.  Of course, if we are talking about a case of legitimate national defense then the cost of military equipment has to be borne but so many of the foreign conflicts on my lifetime have been needless.

Defense Spending

NPR reported recently that the US army in Afghanistan will be destroying 2000 "excess" MRAP's out of a fleet of 11,000.  It is deemed too expensive to ship them back to the states so they will be scrapped and broken down (a task that will take 12 hours per vehicle) in Afghanistan.  The cost of each vehicle is $ 1 million (could that be right?).  This all amounts to some $ 7 billion worth of war equipment that will be destroyed after being used for a few years.  I wonder how many classrooms can be built for $  7 billion and how long they will last.  I know the elementary schools in Cresskill where I went to school are still in use some 60 years later.  The decision to destroy the vehicles is based on the fact that the only way to get them out of Afghanistan is to fly them out.  Pakistan is directly to the east and with ocean access, they are an ally, so why can't they be driven across Pakistan and loaded on ships to transport home?  An interesting comment in the NPR report was that the "need for the used equipment (was) too low".  Again, this seems to me to be the folly of spending our money on war material; they have a short life span and provide no lasting benefit once their initial use is over.  The MRAP is a modern day jeep.  It stands for "mine-resistant, ambush protected" vehicle.  I am not saying the soldiers who use them should  not have the protection; I am saying that if we were not in Afghanistan there would be on need for such vehicles.

Come Home America

A letter writer in The Record of Bergen County, NJ noted that with all the problems we are facing and the growing cost in manpower and money in our involvement in foreign countries it is time for us as a nation to heed the advise of George McGovern who in 1972 urged America to "come home".  The last part of his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention was his plea for us to "come home America".  I have thought of this campaign and its message a number of times recently and wished I had written the letter.  I called the writer in question and thanked him for writing it.

Voting Rights

The Supreme Court ruled this week that Arizona could not demand proof of citizenship from those who want to register to vote in federal elections "unless it gets federal or court approval to do so".  States do not have the authority to change voter registration laws that come under the "motor-voter" registration law.  This was a 7 to 2 ruling with Judge Scalia-of all people-writing the majority opinion.  I find this of interest because when I was registering students to vote in BHS we operated under this law.  We could not and did not ask for proof of citizenship because the law said if a person was willing to swear-to avow-that the statements made on the registration form were correct, that was all we were allow to ask.  My view was, from my experienced, that students told the truth as they knew it when explained the law and the possible penalties for an incorrect registration form.  My thinking and that of my department head at the time was that if students had to bring in proof of citizenship or birth records we would have registered only a handful of new voters.The case was Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc.

First Day

This is the first day of my new blog which will consist of my opinions about things in the news and just about anything else I want to rant about.  For example, one of the big items in the news this week is the on-going and developing story of the federal government's surveillance of its citizens.  When I think about the spying I am reminded of the fine in a Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation movie when he comments to the yes-men following the boss into his office.  He says something like "kiss my ass, kiss his ass, kiss your own ass".  For some bizarra (sp) reason I find the line humorous.  So to the NSA, read on and you can kill my ass.