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.