In 2015 we’ll celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. I predict that, beginning in late 2014, pseudo-historians will begin an assault on the history of the document, attempting to convince us that the document banned income taxes, banished the poor from hospitals and job finding agencies, and said children should have to work for their meals and never get food stamps.
I hope I’m wrong.
Today, June 15, 2013, is the 798th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. The document laid a foundation for freedom, almost 800 years ago, upon which we stand today.
What event critical to western history and the development of the democratic republic in the U.S. happened here in 1215?
A teacher might use some of these photos explaining the steps to the Constitution, in English law and the heritage of U.S. laws. Other than the Magna Carta, all the events of Runnymede get overlooked in American studies of history. Antony McCallum, working under the name Wyrdlight, took these stunning shots of this historic meadow. (He photographs stuff for studies of history, it appears.)
Maybe it’s a geography story.
View of Runnymede Meadow from Engham Village — Wyrdlight photo through Wikimedia
Several monuments to different events of the past millennium populate the site. The American Bar Association dedicated a memorial to the Magna Carta there — a small thing open to the air, but with a beautiful ceiling that is probably worth the trip to see it once you get to England.
Wikipedia explains briefly, with a note that the ABA plans to meet there again in 2015, the 800th anniversary of the Great Charter:
The Magna Carta Memorial & view towards the ‘medes’
Engraved stone recalling the 1985 ABA visit
Situated in a grassed enclosure on the lower slopes of Cooper’s Hill, this memorial is of a domed classical style, containing a pillar of English granite on which is inscribed “To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law”. The memorial was created by the American Bar Association to a design by Sir Edward Maufe R.A., and was unveiled on 18 July 1957 at a ceremony attended by American and English lawyers.[5]
Since 1957 representatives of the ABA have visited and rededicated the Memorial renewing pledges to the Great Charter. In 1971 and 1985 commemorative stones were placed on the Memorial plinth. In July 2000 the ABA came:
to celebrate Magna Carta, foundation of the rule of law for ages past and for the new millennium.
In 2007 on its 50th anniversary the ABA again visited Runnymede and during the convention installed as President Charles Rhyne who devised Law Day which seeks in the USA an annual reaffirmation of faith in the forces of law for peace.
The ABA will be meeting at Runnymede in 2015 on the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the original charter.
The Magna Carta Memorial is administered by the Magna Carta Trust, which is chaired by the Master of the Rolls.[10]
In 2008, flood lights were installed to light the memorial at night, but due to vandalism they now lie smashed.
I’ll wager the lights get fixed before 2015.
Detail of the Magna Carta monument at Runnymede. I took this photo some time in the early Eighties. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Do Nothing Congress?” How about “Missing in Inaction Congress?” Photo and caption from National Journal: When the Joint Economic Committee’s hearing on fixing the nation’s long-term unemployment problem kicked off on April 24, only one lawmaker was in attendance: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the committee’s vice chair who was holding the hearing. (Niraj Chokshi)
Probably more damning is this little fact: In a period of time that historically might see 50 or 100 laws passed, Congress has passed into law only 13 measures. The “Do Nothing” 80th Congress Truman campaigned against passed nearly 900 laws. The current Congress is on track to pass 52. Most important, probably, are the authorization and appropriations bills for the different departments of the federal government, much more important than the non-binding budget resolutions conservatives whine about. Republicans have successfully blocked almost all authorization and appropriations action. Appropriations bills, of course, must originate in the GOP-shackled House of Representatives.
In the six months and four days since the 113th Congress began, it has passed 13 laws. And, despite lawmakers constantly beating the drum on boosting jobs, none of the new measures have been focused on employment. Here’s a list of what the 113th Congress has passed in its first six months:
H.R.41: To temporarily increase the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program.
Sponsor: Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5] (introduced 1/3/2013) Cosponsors (44)
H.R.325: No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013
Sponsor: Rep Camp, Dave [MI-4] (introduced 1/21/2013) Cosponsors (1)
S.47: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013
Sponsor: Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT] (introduced 1/22/2013) Cosponsors (61)
H.R.307: Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013
Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Mike J. [MI-8] (introduced 1/18/2013) Cosponsors (5)
H.R.933: Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013
Sponsor: Rep Rogers, Harold [KY-5] (introduced 3/4/2013) Cosponsors (None)
S.716: A bill to modify the requirements under the STOCK Act regarding online access to certain financial disclosure statements and related forms.
Sponsor: Sen Reid, Harry [NV] (introduced 4/11/2013) Cosponsors (None)
H.R.1246: District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Vacancy Act
Sponsor: Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] (introduced 3/19/2013) Cosponsors (None)
H.R.1765: Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013 Sponsor: Rep Latham, Tom [IA-3] (introduced 4/26/2013) Cosponsors (None)
H.R.1071: To specify the size of the precious-metal blanks that will be used in the production of the National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coins.
Sponsor: Rep Hanna, Richard L. [NY-22] (introduced 3/12/2013) Cosponsors (2)
H.R.360: To award posthumously a Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley to commemorate the lives they lost 50 years ago in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where these 4 little Black girls’ ultimate sacrifice served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.
Sponsor: Rep Sewell, Terri A. [AL-7] (introduced 1/23/2013) Cosponsors (301)
H.R.258: Stolen Valor Act of 2013 Sponsor: Rep Heck, Joseph J. [NV-3] (introduced 1/15/2013) Cosponsors (127)
S.982: Freedom to Fish Act
Sponsor: Sen Alexander, Lamar [TN] (introduced 5/16/2013) Cosponsors (3)
Freedom to Fish Act? No doubt it is important to someone. But even that someone, or those somebodies, would benefit from a jobs bill, more than from the Freedom to Fish Act.
When I worked for Lamar Alexander, I found him to be among the more fair and forward thinking of elected politicians. It’s good to see he can still move a bill.
It’s tragic he’s been unable to push the GOP to move on more important matters.
I recall sitting up to get the news out to Utah, and anyone else interested in the nation, when Congress would pass 13 laws in a night. At no point did it occur to me to think “these are the good old days of America,” then.
Baseball Hall of Fame on Induction Weekend, 2007, crowded with people who now need jobs. Congress passed a bill dealing with the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ironic, no? All inductees in Cooperstown got there by doing something, doing it with hustle, and doing a lot, a sharp contrast to the 2013-2014 U.S. Congress. Wikipedia image
Politically, he’s rarely right, and he’s definitely afflicted with that virus that strikes conservatives and makes them feel that if they can cover a topic with enough words, and if there is enough snark in those words, they must be right, and everyone else is a fool for not seeing that and making them king. Or at least a local lord. You can see this on display at his blog, The House of Eratosthenes.
Morgan waded into the discussion on some of our less thoughtful U.S. Senators, who think a good reason to filibuster a bill is they can’t find their own ass with both hands a copy of the bill they just know they will oppose, before they know what’s in the bill (no bias here).
Specifically, Morgan’s defending Sen. Marc Rubio’s right not to know what’s in the compromise reached by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, because Morgan just knows that those two libruls from those two gun-hating states have put in language on ammunition magazines that will deprive crazy shooters of their sport in shooting babies somehow might “infringe” on the actual ownership of the gun.
I answered in a previous thread — but this really should get more discussion, and perhaps if I make a post out of it, someone will discuss.
This is the post — I won’t put all of it in quotes, to make it a bit easier to read (and I may add a link here and there):
Alright. First, if you’re trying to make this look like “reasonable” or “common sense” gun “safety” legislation as they call it, it’s a good idea to stay away from this capacity-limitation stuff. To swap out a magazine — not clip — I don’t need eleven seconds, I don’t need half that. I’m not anywhere close to James Bond, or Barney in The Expendables…I merely maintain familiarity and confidence/competence with my sidearm. If I can do it in two seconds, a lot of other people can as well. So you’re counting on a payoff there that you’re not getting. The whole magazine-capacity thing is not only a distraction, it actually highlights for the benefit of the knowledgeable public which loudmouth legislators ought not to have anything to do with gun legislation, or guns either.
Helluva distraction. There’s no such proposal, but you’re so bugged about it you can’t argue straight.
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Candidate Pat Toomey addresses protestors at the Philadelphia Tea Party on April 18, 2009. (He won) Wikipedia image
Maybe we’re being sneaky. Maybe we’re getting you all worked up over something not in the bill so you’ll have a heart attack and be unable to lobby your senators to go easy on baby killers.
Or maybe you guys can’t read. Can’t, won’t, doesn’t make much difference — you’re so sure of your position you not only damn the facts, you damn the existence of the facts and the non-existence of the hoodoos you fear.
It comes down to this: A gun has a certain number of bullets with which it can be loaded, before it becomes an instrument of death — that number is one. Whoever isn’t familiar with that, should be escorted off the range.
Think of all the gun ranges put out of business if we did that!
Of course, that is a comment on the mechanics; as far as process goes, the number is zero, since one of the basic rules of guns safety is “the gun is always loaded.”
I don’t think a crazy guy should be allowed to pump out 150 soldier-killer bullets in 5 minutes, with most of them going into the heads and faces of more than a score of 6-year-old kids. You seem to think that is such a sacred right that we . . . well, I don’t know what you propose.
You seem to think that forcing crazy men to reload is unfair. I think you’re not being fair to those six-year-old kids.
The evidence in Newtown is that the one reload he did took 11 seconds, and a teacher got 11 kids out of the school, to safety, in that time.
It took him five shots to blast through the safety lock on the door — had he been limited to five-round clips, he’d have been out of ammo in one gun just getting through the door.
I cannot imagine why you think we can’t be fair to six year old kids, but we must give crazy men more than a sporting chance to murder 20 unarmed people. I think my rights would be safer if I didn’t go with your defense of the crazy man’s rights.
Now, is it technically impossible to limit the rounds and reduce the carnage? Not according to the record.
Facts are stubborn things. That old John Adams sure got that right.
If I were Sen. Rubio, considering for the moment supporting this gun “safety” bill, and decided to read it all the way through, I’d change my mind and oppose it the first time I saw something about magazine capacity limits, because that would tell me someone wrote it without knowing anything about how guns are supposed to be treated around a public that we don’t want to be hurt by them. Which is the subject of the bill.
We know you’re not going to read the bill, just like Rubio hasn’t. He has a sort of duty to read it — but you’re so cock sure that you’re smarter than every other guy in the country and that you can see the future before God, you can’t be bothered to read even the quick summary of the bill.
It pains me when you reinforce all the stereotypes of the right-wing, can’t-tell-me-nuthin’ nuts, Morgan. If you’re going to pretend to be thoughtful, at least read the stuff, will you?
Gustave Doré drawing: Don Quijote de La Mancha and Sancho Panza, 1863 Wikipedia image
You’re so cock-sure that there would be a crazy proposal of the type you fear that you can’t be bothered to read the bill and see that there’s nothing at all like it. Worse than Don Quixote tilting at windmills, you’re shooting at windmills that are not dragons, but behind which children were playing a few minutes ago. See, Quixote was harmless with his lance. Facts again: Guns are not lances.
Second. The Constitution guarantees me certain God-given rights, which supposedly nobody can take away from me, and I wouldn’t be able to discard even if I wanted to. Conservatives and liberals would agree — with different examples in mind — that We The People have lately encountered considerable difficulty electing representatives who will truly protect these rights.
Quite to the contrary, we’ve succeeded in electing nuts who are so dedicated to protecting those rights, they’ll go overboard to be sure that anything even close to resembling a right of a white male with a gun cannot be regulated rationally. Rex Tillerson‘s right to pour oil in every backyard in Arkansas is defended, Rep. Joe Barton apologizes to the white guys who run BP for all those Cajuns’ having put their Gulf of Mexico where BP could pollute the hell out of it. A white guy wants sex, well, some women “rape easy,” “they’re just good-time-lovin’ football players and football is an American game,” and if he’s an Army or Air Force officer, his superior will dismiss the rape charges. Jeremy Dimon gets to keep his freedom, and all the money banks stole from black families put out of their homes in New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles because his bank and his cronies’ banks screwed up the mortgages.
And if you want to shoot up a theater, or a school, and kill a bunch of unarmed people — well, you know, that’s a right, right?
I cannot imagine what rights you think are not defended, for white males.
Right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Right to quiet enjoyment? Right to be free from assault and battery? Right not get life-saving and cheap medical care for your kid? Right not to have to bury your kid as child? Not all rights are enumerated rights. You seem to miss some of the more important ones, when we get right down to it.
Now, if one worries about rights for anyone of color, or rights of children to health care or education, or rights of women to fair pay — well, none of those people are mentioned in the Constitution, are they? They all look like Dred Scott, to a Congress of white males.
In view of that, I like the idea of a Senator who made up his mind to oppose a gun bill before reading all of it (your headline would imply that he hasn’t read any of it, which is not substantiated by your story).
I see no evidence Rubio wasn’t telling the truth — and Cruz is probably too stupid to understand it, so I believe him when he says he can’t even find the bill that was placed in the middle of his desk on March 22. I swear that guy puts an icepick over his left eyeball every night he can.
This would be in keeping with his oath to uphold the Constitution: If the bill has something that cannot be reconciled with the Constitution, out it goes.
There is nothing in the Constitution which says anyone has to be an inadequate anal orifice. You’re reading it wrong.
Or have you even read it? You haven’t read the gun control bill. Why should you read the Constitution?
In reality, there is nothing in the Constitution that says any Member of Congress must be a roadblock, or should be a roadblock, nor that there should be any roadblocks at all. Filibustering is not a Constitutional right — not mentioned in any way.
After all, there is a period-end-of-sentence after the word “infringed.” It doesn’t say “shall not be infringed, unless something really spiffy is written that makes the infringing seem like a swell idea.”
But, you don’t read. I forgot. As with most conservatives, you think you know what is in a text without reading it, predudging it from . . . well, prejudging it, anyway.
“Prejudge” isn’t related to “prejudice” in the conservative dictionary, anyway.
This is the way I want ALL guarantees to me, or to anybody else, to be enforced. I want my renter’s insurance to be enforced this way. I want my employment contracts to be enforced this way. It’s only fair.
Can you do what no other gun rights advocate has done, Morgan?
Tell us what infringement there would be if you had to limit your automatics, semi-automatics, or single shots, to a five-bullet magazine. How would that, in any way, infringe on your right to keep arms, or bear them?
After you stumble over that one, tell us how it affects your right at all to fill out a form that lets a gun seller figure out whether you’re being straight about not being a felon, and not being a crazy shooter, and not fronting for a crazy shooter or felon.
How does filling out a form to make sure you’re legal, infringe on your right to keep and bear arms? There’s nothing in that amendment that says you can keep your gun ownership or bearing secret — in fact, in many states, keeping a gun concealed is a crime (without a permit).
Tell us how anyone’s rights are infringed by those common sense proposals, one of which isn’t even being proposed.
If I submit a form to the Social Security Administration, or to the IRS, or to some state agency like the DMV, and the form has 88 blocks in it and I botched something somewhere around the 8th or 9th block, it would be patently absurd for me to stand there and berate the DMV clerk who rejected it with “Why didn’t you read blocks ten through eighty-eight?? What am I paying you to do with your time??”
So you won’t do that anymore? That’s good news. I hope it’s a movement, and it catches on.
Aggravating as the situation would be, such a reaction would be very silly…because once the 8th or 9th block is screwed up, it’s an invalid form, and even though blocks 10 through 88 may be loaded with wonderfully accurate information, in context it’s still a bunch of nonsense until they’re copied on to another form that has been filled out PROPERLY. So reading them would actually be an inappropriate use of that time that I bought through my tax money by paying the clerk’s salary. Well, if that’s true of clerks, it’s certainly true of Senators, who swear an oath to uphold the Constitution.
I don’t think that’s a good analogy. Your paying your taxes is not similar in any way your elected representatives’ lying to you about whether they read bills or not, and using the pretense that they’ve not seen what they know is in the bill, to block the majority from even debating what is the best thing for the nation.
In their constitutional duty to represent you, they don’t have the right to boldly lie about what they’re doing for demagogue points.
It’s not illegal, but it’s dishonest, disgusting, and unpatriotic. It doesn’t represent you well — at least, I don’t think that you’re so corrupt that you can only get by by lying through your teeth and making phony excuses.
Sorta like enforcement of a lease — lying through your teeth about the rent isn’t a good idea, regardless you’re the tenant or the landlord.
Why am I having to explain the above?
Because you’re trying to defend ugly skullduggery on a bill you don’t know much about?
Because you sank all of your retirement funds into a gun manufacturer, and you just realized that rational gun laws might take that gold mine away? Because you’re a conservative, and these days that means “so congenitally unable to tell the truth that, when a conservative shoots a hole-in-one on the golf course, he writes ’0′ on the score card?”
I don’t know.
You’re doing a great job of supporting one of my pet theories, that liberals are people who haven’t actually had to deal with the bureaucracies their ideas create.
And you’re providing ample support for a couple of hypotheses I’ve wished didn’t need to be tested: One, that conservatives really DON’T know what a theory is, especially contrasted to hypotheses; two, that conservatives can’t be bothered to read the book, or the law, or the proposal, or anything else that might inform their arguments, probably out of fear they’ll realize their prejudices are wrong; three, that conservatives really like rules, out of their defense of “traditional” life and “order” — but they think the rules never apply to themselves or their supporters; and four, that the fact that the conservative position is correct should be so self-evident, no matter how half-wit or knuckleheaded the idea, that conservatives will never stoop to actually arguing the issues — keep John Walsh and Candy Lightner far away from conservatives, because they have no real defense for why we treat automobiles as more valuable than children or why we never stick to our guns about criminalizing drunk drivers who kill, especially repeatedly — and so, keep the parents of the Newtown victims far away from Washington, and demonize them as soft-on-crime, anti-patriotic, anti-Constitution liberal fuzzy heads, so we don’t have to look them in the eye and explain why we’re voting to defend the right of the idiot to shoot their children without cause, justification, warning, remorse or chance for retribution.
What’s more important, overarming people (the better to reduce the population), or keeping kids alive? (“We secretly hate children, which is why everyone of our policies is designed to make childhood difficult, cripple children educationally, mentally or physically, or kill them.”)
I do have to say though, I can see an upside to having it work the way you want…it would give me great pleasure, when I fill out a form wrong, to throw a hissy fit about “why didn’t you read the rest of my form?” But realistically, of course there’s no way it can work like that.
I thought you just had a mental burp — but now I see you’re on some tear about filling in forms incorrectly.
What difference could that possibly make?
Apparently there’s another trait of conservatives: The tendency to dissolve into irrelevant rants, instead of facing up to real problems, and making hard decisions about real solutions.
Sen. Ted Cruz claims no one has read the text of S. 649, the Safe Communities and Safe Schools Act of 2013.
Reading-impaired U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Wikipedia image
Contact: (202) 224-5922 / press@cruz.senate.gov
Thursday, April 11, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) released the following statement regarding the pending vote on the motion to proceed to new gun control legislation:
This morning the Senate will vote on the motion to proceed to the firearms bill (S.649). It is expected that the Toomey-Manchin provision announced yesterday will replace the current language regarding background checks. Yet, as of this morning, not a single senator has been provided the legislative language of this provision. Because the background-check measure is the centerpiece of this legislation it is critical that we know what is in the bill before we vote on it. The American people expect more and deserve better.
Unfortunately, the effort to push through legislation that no one had read highlights one of the primary reasons we announced our intention to force a 60 vote threshold. We believe the abuse of the process is how the rights of Americans are systematically eroded and we will continue to do everything in our power to prevent it.
He’s an idiot, I know.
Amendments to the original text are pending — but here is the text of the proposed law as introduced in the U.S. Senate on March 22; amendments will be available at several places as they are proposed or approved, including the Library of Congress’s Thomas legislative tracking site.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, D-Pennsylvania, in a committee hearing room; photo released by Toomey’s office
Bottom Line: The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act would require states and the federal government to send all necessary records on criminals and the violently mentally ill to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The bill extends the existing background check system to gun shows and online sales.
The bill explicitly bans the federal government from creating a national firearms registry, and imposes serious criminal penalties (a felony with up to 15 years in prison) on any person who misuses or illegally retains firearms records.
TITLE ONE: GETTING ALL THE NAMES OF PROHIBITED PURCHASERS INTO THE BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM
Summary of Title I: This section improves background checks for firearms by strengthening the instant check system.
• Encourage states to provide all their available records to NICS by restricting federal funds to states who do not comply.
• Allow dealers to voluntarily use the NICS database to run background checks on their prospective employees
• Clarifies that submissions of mental health records into the NICS system are not prohibited by federal privacy laws (HIPAA).
• Provides a legal process for a veteran to contest his/her placement in NICS when there is no basis for barring the right to own a firearm.
TITLE TWO: REQUIRING BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR FIREARM SALES
Summary of Title II: This section of the bill requires background checks for sales at gun shows and online while securing certain aspects of 2nd Amendment rights for law abiding citizens.
• Closes the gun show and other loopholes while exempting temporary transfers and transfers between family members.
• Fixes interstate travel laws for sportsmen who transport their firearms across state lines in a responsible manner. The term “transport” includes staying in temporary lodging overnight, stopping for food, buying fuel, vehicle maintenance, and medical treatment.
• Protects sellers from lawsuits if the weapon cleared through the expanded background checks and is subsequently used in a crime. This is the same treatment gun dealers receive now.
• Allows dealers to complete transactions at gun shows that take place in a state for which they are not a resident.
• Ensures that sales at gun shows are not prevented by delayed approvals from NICS.
• Requires the FBI to give priority to finalizing background checks at gun shows over checks at store front dealerships.
• Authorizes use of a state concealed carry permit instead of a background check when purchasing a firearm from a dealer.
• Permits interstate handgun sales from dealers.
• Allows active military to buy firearms in their home states.
• Family transfers and some private sales (friends, neighbors, other individuals) are exempt from background checks
• Adds a 15 year penalty for improper use or storage of records.
TITLE THREE: NATIONAL COMMISSION ON MASS VIOLENCE
Summary of Title III: : This section of the bill creates a commission to study the causes of mass violence in the United States, looking at all aspects of the problem, including guns, school safety, mental health, and violent media or video games.
The Commission would consist of six experts appointed by the Senate Majority Leader and six experts appointed by the Speaker of the House. They would be required to submit an interim report in three months and a completed report in six months.
WHAT THE BILL WILL NOT DO:
The bill will not take away anyone’s guns.
The bill will not ban any type of firearm.
The bill will not ban or restrict the use of any kind of bullet or any size clip or magazine.
The bill will not create a national registry; in fact, it specifically makes it illegal to establish any such registry.
The bill will not, in any way at all, infringe upon the Constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.
Sen. Cruz, you have money in your office budget for training for you and your staff in tracking legislation — I’ll be pleased to come show you how to track down such language.
Below the fold, the current text of the bill (as of 4:26 p.m., April 11, 2013).
Here’s one of my nominees for the next editions of Great Speeches of the 21st Century, and Great Speeches in American History. Sen. Mike Johnston, on March 11, in the Colorado State Senate, spoke against coward, “hollow men,” who commit mass shootings, and how to protect from them:
Notes from YouTube posting:
Published on Mar 12, 2013
March 11, 2013: Sen. Mike Johnston (D-Denver) describes how gun safety legislation, particularly HB 13-1224, can make a difference.
What do you think?
Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston – Wikipedia Photo
‘Eleven kids saved in eleven seconds’ seems like a powerful argument, to me.
And this: “And so the bad news is that at that moment will be outgunned. The good news is that in America that never means we will be outfought.”
And this: “The task of taking lives, and the task of saving lives, are fundamentally different endeavors, and they require different tools.”
At about 6:04 into this, listen to Sen. Johnston talk about the “cost of living and loving is that it takes up so much space in our lives.”
It’s not a new idea, nor is a particularly useful one. There has long been a minor rift between people who believe it’s impossible to cut deals with polluters, and those who get into the trenches to hammer out or shoot out deals that result in practical legislation. The group who called for a legislated end to personal automobiles, for example, are still around — but they applaud those who forged the Clean Air Act that drove the invention and development of catalytic converters and cleaned up urban air, even though it left America awash in cars.
Kloor summarizes the better, smarter, more stylish and less embarrassing side’s position thusly:
Modernist greens don’t dispute the ecological tumult associated with the Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this end, [controversial environmentalist Peter] Kareiva advises conservationists to craft “a new vision of a planet in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes.”
That doesn’t seem all that unreasonable on its face, if for no other reason that that it’s currently the best case scenario. You would be extremely hard-pressed to find even the most wilderness-worshipping enviro who disagreed.
In fact, were I to have to rebut Kloor’s whole piece in one sentence, it would be this: the U.S. non-profit The Wilderness Society, founded by the authors of the Wilderness Act of 1964, is aggressively pushing for industrial development of solar and wind energy generating capacity on intact habitat on the public lands of the American west.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Wilderness Act in 1964 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I replied at Pharyngula, noting that the rift Kloor talks about could be exemplified by Rachel Carson and DDT and “modernists” who don’t object to the use of DDT in Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) to fight malaria — except, those are the same people, working on the same issue. In short, I sorta agree with Clarke. There’s no rift, only a lot of misunderstanding.
Heck, if I’m going to that trouble, I may as well capture it here for my indexing purposes. Here’s my response — I may add links in the body that don’t appear at Pharyngula.
Interesting view of a bit of an inside-baseball (environmental protection politics) issue, but not particularly incisive. Other than its being published at Slate, should we worry about Kloor’s views much?
The piece completely ignores that the views of those he labels “modernists” and “pragmatists” come wholly out of the research demanded by those he ignores in the old movement, whom he unfairly ridicules as hippies.
For example: It’s politically correct (in some circles) today to say (1) Rachel Carson was too strident, and (2) probably wrong about DDT “since it’s (3) not carcinogenic, we now know.” Malaria fighters around the world (4) now have DDT in their arsenal again, this view holds, because (5) pragmatists in the environmental movement finally listened. “(6) Sorry about those ‘unnecessary’ malaria deaths,” some claim the pragmatists would say.
But that view is founded on, grown in, and spreads, historical, legal and scientific error. And the progress made was based on understanding the science, history and law accurately. It’s not that pragmatists finally succeeded where the tree-huggers failed. It’s that the tree-huggers hung in there for 50 years and the world has come around to recognizing good effects, even if it can’t or won’t acknowledge the true heroes who got the work done.
Carson was dead right about DDT. She urged the use of Integrated Vector (Pest) Management in place of DDT, but she forecasted (in 1962!) that unless DDT use were severely curtailed, it would cease to be useful to fight malaria and other diseases (because, as Carson understood, evolution works, and the bugs evolve defenses to DDT). By 1965, WHO had to end its ambitious campaign to eradicate malaria because, as Carson predicted, mosquitoes in Africa turned up resistant and immune to DDT because of abuse and overuse of the stuff in other applications. Notice, 1965 was seven years BEFORE the U.S. banned DDT use on agricultural crops, and 19 years before the last U.S. DDT manufacturer scurrilously fled to bankruptcy protection to avoid penalties under Al Gore’s SuperFund cleanup bill.
Carson did not claim DDT causes cancer. So the basis of the argument that DDT is “safe for human use” because it doesn’t cause cancer, is an historical non-starter. Research since Carson’s death shows that DDT does indeed cause cancer, though we think its a weak carcinogen in humans. DDT was banned because it’s a deadly poison (else it wouldn’t work!), and it kills for a long time, and it is nonspecific — so it will kill an entire ecosystem before it can eradicate some insect pests. It was in 1971, and it still is.
Photo taken at Rachel Carson’s 100th Birthday celebration at Rachel Carson Homestead in Springdale, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Carson did note that DDT kills birds, in vitro, by incapacitating chicks to thrive, by outright poisoning insect-eating and predatory birds (or anything near the top of the trophic levels) and through a then-mysterious scrambling of reproductive abilities. About ten years after her death, it was discovered DDT also rendered female fowl unable to make competent eggshells, and that provided a fifth path for death for birds.
Much of the research Carson cited formed the foundation for the science-based regulation EPA came up with in late 1971 that ended in the ban on DDT in the U.S. None of those studies has ever been seriously challenged by any later research. In fact, when Discover Magazine looked at the issue of DDT and birds and malaria in 2007, they found more than a thousand peer-review follow-up studies on DDT confirming Carson’s writings.
Over the past decade we’ve seen a few bird species come off of the Endangered Species List. Recovery of at least four top predators should be credited squarely to the ban on crop use of DDT in the U.S, brown pelicans, peregrine falcons, osprey, and bald eagles. 40 years of non-use, coupled with habitat protection and captive breeding programs, brought these birds back. (Five years ago I sat on the lawn of Mt. Vernon and watched a bald eagle cross the Potomac to a snag 100 yards from George Washington’s porch; the director told me they’d been watching several eagles there for a couple of years. 15 years earlier, one nesting pair existed in the whole Potomac region, at a secret site; now tourists are told where to go see them. A friend wrote today he saw a bald eagle in Ft. Worth, Texas. The gains from the DDT ban are real.)
Meanwhile, in Africa and Asia, the war on malaria continued. After the DDT advocates screwed up the malaria eradication program of WHO in the 1960s, progress against malaria continued, but slowed; in the late 1980s malaria flared up in some regions where the malaria parasites themselves had developed resistance to the most commonly-used pharmaceuticals (as Darwin would have predicted, as Carson would have predicted). After struggling to keep malaria from exploding, about 1999 malaria fighters latched on to Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which couples occasional spraying of homes and other residences, even with DDT (which was never banned in Africa or Asia) — but calls for spraying only when it is very effective, and requires that no one pesticide be used to the point that it drives mosquitoes to evolve resistance, and pushes all other means to prevent disease-spreading bug bites.
Largely without DDT (though DDT is not banned), malaria infections fell from peak DDT-use years of 1959 and 1960, from 500 million infections per year, to fewer than 250 million infections today — that’s a decrease of 50%. Phenomenal when we consider the population of the world has doubled in the same time. Deaths dropped from 4 million annually in those peak-DDT-use years to fewer than 800,000 per year today — a decrease of more than 75%. Progress continues, with IPM; bednets now do better, and more cheaply, what DDT used to do but largely cannot anymore — stop the bites. Better medicines, and better educated health care workers, clean up the disease among humans so mosquitoes can’t find a well of infection to draw from.
Notice that at no point was progress made contrary to the “tree-hugger” model, but instead was made at every point because of the tree-hugger model. No compromises enabled the recovery of the bald eagle, but strict enforcement of the environmental laws. No compromises with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring helped beat malaria, but finally applying what Rachel Carson actually wrote.
Now along comes Kloor to say that Carson and her de facto acolytes block progress, and people who argue for compromise instead have the lighted path to the future?
Let’s review:
Carson was not too strident; in fact the President’s Science Advisory Committee’s report, “Use of Pesticides,” in 1963 called for more immediate and more draconian action than Carson did.
Carson was not wrong about DDT; it is still a deadly poison, and it still kills ecosystems; however, as Carson urged, careful use can provide benefits in a few cases.
Human carcinogenicity was not an issue in DDT’s being banned in the U.S. in 1972, and it’s being only a weak carcinogen now does not rescue DDT from the scientifically-justified ban; we now know DDT is even more insidious, since it acts as an endocrine disruptor in nature, scrambling reproductive organs of fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, and probably birds, too.
Malaria fighters always had DDT in their arsenal; no reason to use DDT where it won’t work, nor where it’s harms outweigh its benefits (as the National Academy of Sciences said, in 1970, in a call to get rid of the stuff).
If there were any pragmatists in this story, they abandoned malaria-affected areas of the world years ago and have not returned; they did nothing to help save the birds; to claim they listened is to suggest they did something and can do more. Not sure that’s a case that can be made.
There were not deaths to malaria “unnecessary” due to a ban on DDT which never occurred in Africa or Asia, while DDT was plentiful and cheap to anyone who wanted to use it (still pretty much the case today). Let’s repeat that: DDT has never been banned in Africa or Asia. We can’t claim great disease exacerbation when the disease actually was abated so greatly over the period of time in discussion — can’t make that claim and also claim to be honest.
It was the hard-core, wilderness-loving, science-following environmentalists who were responsible for every lick of progress on that issue.
Is DDT unique as an issue? I don’t think so. And I think a fair history of the environmental movement from 1975 to today would point out that it was hard-core, save-the-planet-because-it’s-the-only-home-humans-have types who pulled things out. Do we have great canyons to hike in Colorado and Utah? Yeah, but keeping Exxon from digging up huge portions of those states for a now-failed oil-shale extraction scheme should get some of the credit. Is there wildlife in cities? Sure, but only because we had wilderness areas to protect those species in their darkest hours, and we may need those places again. Do we have other needs for wilderness? Only if we need clean air, clean water, huge sinks for CO2 emissions, and places to dream about so we stay sane and focused, and American (Frederick Jackson Turner was correct enough — Americans are more noble, more creative, wiser and more productive, if we have a frontier and a wild).
Isn’t it required that we compromise on standards to get energy independence, and economic prosperity? Don’t look now, but oil and natural gas production, and exploration, are at highs, under our “tough environmental laws.” If we look around the world, we see that future prosperity is best protected by such laws, even if they sometimes seem to slow some industrial process or other.
New generation of conservationist? Possible only because of the old generation, the Pinchots, Roosevelts (esp. the two presidents), the Lincolns and Grants, the Muirs, the Leopolds, the Bob Marshalls, the Udalls, the Morans, the Douglases (Marjory Stoneman and Justice William, both), the Rockefellers, the Nelsons, the Muskies, the Gores, the Powells, and thousands of others who were then ridiculed for being unpragmatic, and whose methods often required that they not “compromise.” We can’t talk about protecting wilderness today unless the Sierra Club was there to actually do it, earlier. We can’t talk about private efforts, or public-private partnerships, without standing on the ground already protected by the Nature Conservancy. We can’t talk about saving the birds without relying on the history of the Audubon Society. We can’t talk sensibly about protecting humans from cancer or poisons without touching every rhetorical string Rachel Carson plucked.
Get the science right. Keep your history accurate. Read the fine print on the law, and on the pesticide label. Conservation isn’t for the birds, bees, bears, trout and flowers — it’s for humans. That’s news to Kloor? Maybe that’s why his view is skewed.
Progress is made by unreasonable and stubborn people sometimes? No, Martin Luther King, Jr., said — those are the only people who make progress.
We aren’t going to build a future conservation movement by giving away what has been conserved to now.
Here’s one from a maybe-odd source, but with relatively good citations.
If we have limited money to spend in government, can we put spending on a balance to see where it should be spent? This is one example out of many pending before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures, today — right now, and for the coming several months. When you hear elected representatives say “we must cut spending to reduce deficits,” you need to understand that their proposal is to cut spending for education, for job training, for employment assistance, for unemployment payments, for health care, for mental health care, for drug rehabilitation programs, but generally NOT for incarceration programs. In short, they are saying we must cut off the education of poor kids, to build jails to house them if they run afoul of the criminal justice system after being unable to get the education and training to get a job that will produce the income that would have made them great parents and taxpayers.
If we have limited money to spend in government, can we put spending on a balance to see where it should be spent?
Prisons, or schools?
Prisons, or mental health care?
Prisons, or drug rehabilitation?
Justice, or incarceration?
From OnlineJusticeDegree.com; check references listed on the chart.
Real news on a topic like DDT takes a while to filter into the public sphere, especially with interest groups, lobbyists and Astro-Turf groups working hard to fuzz up the messages.
News from the DDT Expert Group of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention was posted recently at the Stockholm Convention website — the meeting was held in early December in Geneva, Switzerland.
Logo of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs Treaty) Wikipedia image
In the stuffy talk of international relations, the Stockholm Convention in this case refers to a treaty put into effect in 2001, sometimes known as the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty (POPs). Now with more than 152 signatory nations and 178 entities offering some sort of ratification (not the U.S., sadly), the treaty urges control of chemicals that do not quickly break down once released into the environment, and which often end up as pollutants. In setting up the agreement, there was a list of a dozen particularly nasty chemicals branded the “Dirty Dozen” particularly targeted for control due to their perniciousness — DDT was one of that group.
DDT can still play a role in fighting some insect-carried diseases, like malaria. Since the treaty was worked out through the UN’s health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO), it holds a special reservation for DDT, keeping DDT available for use to fight disease. Six years ago WHO developed a group to monitor DDT specifically, looking at whether it is still needed or whether its special provisions should be dropped. The DDT Expert Group meets every two years.
Stockholm Convention continues to allow DDT use for disease vector control
Fourth meeting of the DDT Expert Group assesses continued need for DDT, 3–5 December 2012, Geneva
Mosqutio larvae, WHO image
The Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, under the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), allows the use of the insecticide DDT in disease vector control to protect public health.
Mosquito larvae
The Stockholm Convention lists dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known at DDT, in its Annex B to restrict its production and use except for Parties that have notified the Secretariat of their intention to produce and /or use it for disease vector control. With the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating the use of DDT, the Convention requires that the Conference of the Parties shall encourage each Party using DDT to develop and implement an action plan as part of the implementation plan of its obligation of the Convention.
At its fifth meeting held in April 2011, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention concluded that “countries that are relying on DDT for disease vector control may need to continue such use until locally appropriate and cost-effective alternatives are available for a sustainable transition away from DDT.” It also decided to evaluate the continued need for DDT for disease vector control at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties “with the objective of accelerating the identification and development of locally appropriate cost-effective and safe alternatives.”
The DDT Expert Group was established in 2006 by the Conference of the Parties. The Group is mandated to assess, every two years, in consultation with the World Health Organization, the available scientific, technical, environmental and economic information related to production and use of DDT for consideration by the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention in its evaluation of continued need for DDT for disease vector control.
The fourth meeting of the DDT Expert Group reviewed as part of this ongoing assessment:
Insecticide resistance (DDT and alternatives)
New alternative products, including the work of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee
Transition from DDT in disease vector control
Decision support tool for vector control.
The DDT expert group recognized that there is a continued need for DDT in specific settings for disease vector control where effective or safer alternatives are still lacking. It recommended that the use of DDT in Indoor Residual Spray should be limited only to the most appropriate situations based on operational feasibility, epidemiological impact of disease transmission, entomological data and insecticide resistance management. It also recommended that countries should undertake further research and implementation of non-chemical methods and strategies for disease vector control to supplement reduced reliance on DDT.
The findings of the DDT Expert Group’s will be presented at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, being held back-to-back with the meetings of the conferences of the parties to the Rotterdam and Basel conventions, from 28 April to 11 May 2013, in Geneva.
Nothing too exciting. Environmentalists should note DDT is still available for use, where need is great. Use should be carefully controlled. Pro-DDT propagandists should note, but won’t, that there is no ban on DDT yet, and that DDT is still available to fight malaria, wherever health workers make a determination it can work. If anyone is really paying attention, this is one more complete and total refutation of the DDT Ban Hoax.
Rachel Carson’s ghost expresses concern that there is not yet a safe substitute for DDT to fight malaria, but is gratified that disease fighters and serious scientists now follow the concepts of safe chemical use she urged in 1962.
Left to right, Charlie Watts, Keith Richard, Ron Wood and Mick Jagger; Bill Wyman absent from this photo; Rolling Stones, 50th Anniversary Tour 2012 – Samir Hussein photo WireImage, via Rolling Stone magazine. Other than no ties, they dress not-too flamboyantly.
Maybe we should wonder about increasing the wisdom that comes with age:
Rolling Stones:
Mick Jagger, 69
Keith Richards, 68
Charlie Watts, 71
Ronnie Wood, 65
Bill Wyman (rejoining them on tour), 76
Average age: 69.8 years (calculated from whole years only)
U.S. Supreme Court, Roberts Court 2010 – Back row (left to right): Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen G. Breyer, Samuel A. Alito, and Elena Kagan. Front row (left to right): Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Wikimedia image. This bunch wears less colorful, but sillier costumes. Justice Ginsburg tends to favor neckwear the same way Keith Richards does; what else might they have in common?
A wise-beyond-his-teen-years camper at Camp Rising Sun of the Louis August Jonas Foundation, in the 1960s or early 1970s, observed, “You cannot be both young and brave, and old and wise.” Certainly one would hope to achieve the happier medium of brave and wise (not necessarily in that order), but humans being who we are and experience being the master teacher that it is, we find ourselves on one end of both spectra, either wizened in age, or brave perhaps because of youth.
The Stones, celebrating their 50th year as a band in 2012, probably rock better than the Court does. One can’t help wondering whether the wisdom of the Stones wouldn’t serve us better than that of the current court. Ironically, those most wise at the Court tend to be the younger ones (Breyer definitely excluded). I’d be inclined to swap out Alito and Scalia for any two of the Stones. Maybe Roberts for a third.
Thomas? Well, he’s almost a contemporary, and I had lunch with him a couple of times (Senate staff). I hate to criticize a lunch companion so. But comparing Jagger’s record at the London School of Economics with Thomas’s record in academia, yeah, I could be persuaded. I dealt with Breyer, too (not at lunch), and am inclined to think he could rock pretty well.
Perhaps the answer is that we need more rock and roll in the halls of justice. Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, among others, would probably agree.
If both groups banned the use of hair dye, would it improve anything they do?
Which bunch would you rather have dispensing final decisions on justice? Which bunch would you prefer to see in concert?
Earlier this year the New York Times had a wonderful article on four musical groups hitting 50 years in 2012, the Stones, the Chieftans, El Gran Combo, and the Beach Boys: In April 1962 the Beach Boys recorded “Surfin’ Safari” and “409” at Western Recorders in Los Angeles; the demo tape soon became their first single on Capitol Records. The following month El Gran Combo formed out of the remains of Rafael Cortijo y Su Combo, a brilliant band that had come to symbolize the new Puerto Rican popular music: black, working-class, Cuban-influenced, tight and urban but rustic at the middle. In July Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones gave their first performances, as the core of a band called the Rollin’ Stones, at both the Marquee and the Ealing Jazz Club in London. And in November the Chieftains, a group of virtuosos who sought to play traditional Irish music in a new way — in precise, small-group arrangements — started rehearsing at the house of Paddy Moloney, the group’s leader. [Go read the article!]
Caption from Department of Interior’s Tumblr site: 225 years ago today, the Constitution of the United States was signed in Independence Hall. Today, you can tour the Hall and see where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both signed, and you can also view the Liberty Bell [close by]. This is a site not to miss while visiting Philadelphia. Photo: National Park Service
Howard Chandler Christy’s “Signing of the Constitution,” 1940; Architect of the Capitol image. This massive, 20′ x 30′ painting hangs in the House Wing of the U.S. Capitol, in the east stairway — a location where, alas, most people cannot get to without a guide anymore.
Click to the Architect of the Capitol’s sitefor the story of the painting, intended by Congress to fill a gap in the story of America told by art in the Rotunda and throughout the halls of the building.
Dr. Gordon Lloyd, Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and expert in the Constitution and its history. I met Lloyd almost a decade ago, in programs for history teachers, sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute, and by the Liberty Fund.
Every year there are a few more tools on the internet to study the Constitution with, for teachers to use in the classroom on Constitution Day and every day. I wonder what will be the effects in another decade.
How important is it that students learn the Constitution, what it says, and how it affects our daily lives? How important is it that students learn the history of the creation of the Constitution, and does that history reverberate for those students as they venture out into their roles as citizens in the republic created by the document?
by Hamed Aleaziz, Dave Gilson and Jaeah Lee, Mother Jones
We’re proud to collaborate with Mother Jonesin sharing graphs and charts that reveal truth about voting obstacles. Scroll down for stats and facts related to efforts to restrict voting, the prevalence of voter ID laws, what discourages new voters and the the pervasive fiction of voter fraud.
BLOCK THE VOTE
Since 2001, nearly 1,000 bills that would tighten voting laws have been introduced in 46 states.
24 voting restrictions have passed in 17 states since 2011. This fall, new laws could affect more than 5 million voters in states representing 179 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
In the past two years, 5 battleground states (Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) have tightened their voting laws.
As of April, 74 restrictive voting laws were on the table in 24 states.
Florida state Sen. Mike Bennett, a supporter of the tougher voter registration law, said, “I don’t have a problem making it harder. I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should not be easy.”
4 million Americans who have completed prison sentences are ineligible to vote. 38 percent of disenfranchised votersare African American.
13 percent of African-American men cannot vote due to criminal records, a rate 7 times the national average.
The United States and Belgium are the only democracies that disenfranchise citizens for lengthy or indefinite periods after completing prison sentences.
To regain their voting rights, released felons in Iowa must provide the address of the judge who convicted them and a credit report showing they have paid off their court costs. “They make the process just about impossible,” said a 40-year-old ex-con who’d stolen a soda machine as a teen.
IN SEARCH OF STOLEN VOTES
While defending its precedent-setting photo ID law before the Supreme Court, Indiana was unable to cite a single instance of voter impersonation in its entire history.
A 2005 report by the American Center for Voting Rights claimed there were more than 100 cases of voter fraud involving 300,000 votes in 2004. A review of the charges turned up only 185 votes that were even potentially fraudulent.
In support of a voter ID law, Kansas Secretary of State (and the legal brains behind a slew of anti-immigration laws) Kris Kobach cited 221 incidents of voter fraud in the state between 1997 and 2010. Yet those cases produced just 7 convictions— none related to impersonating other voters.
Last December, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus declared that Wisconsin is “absolutely riddled with voter fraud.” In fact, the state’s voter fraud rate in 2004 was 0.0002 percent — just 7 votes.
In 2008, John McCain said fraudulent registrations collected by ACORN were “one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” The Congressional Research Service found no proof that anyone improperly registered by ACORN tried to vote.
Here’s the contrary view from Texas’s late Attorney General (were he alive today, surely he’d not say that): Voter ID does not suppress votes (mysanantonio.com)
Here are the facts... you make your own conclusion. Personally, I think making prisons a private industry sucks--- I wonder when they'll be exporting the prisoners to China.
Found this at Under the Lobsterscope -- our incarceration rates form a testament to one of the greatest failures of the U.S. over the past two decades. Live links added here for your convenience.
It is disappointing that inaccurate and purposely misleading information regarding health care reform continues to be widely circulated. Throughout the past two years during the lengthy debate on Health Care Reform, Senator Leahy has continued to post updated information regarding the various health care legislative proposals being debated, including the full text of proposals, questions asked by directly by Vermonters, and daily updates on floor proceedings in the Senate in an effort to provide Vermonters with accurate and timely information on the health care reform debate.
Below are some of the most common myths regarding the Affordable Care Act with accurate information dispelling those myths and providing information about where to learn more.
To review some of the most commonly questions by Vermonters please also visit the Frequently Asked Questions page on this website.
To test your knowledge about what is actually included in the health care reform law visit the Kaiser Family Foundation website and take their Affordable Care Act quiz.
Fact vs. Fiction
Fiction
If you don’t buy health insurance, you will be sent to jail.
Fact
Taxpayers who are required to purchase health insurance and do not will receive a notice from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with the amount of the penalty they owe. Individuals who fail to pay the penalty are not subject to criminal prosecutions and the government cannot file notice of lien or levy any property for a taxpayer who doesn’t pay the penalty.
The obligation for individuals to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 was included as part of the Affordable Care Act. The provision requires individuals to maintain minimum essential coverage for themselves and their dependents or pay a penalty of $95 in 2014. Families would pay half the amount for children, and the requirement includes a cap on the total allowable fine per family. If affordable health insurance coverage is not available to an individual, then the penalty would be waived. Along with the individual responsibility requirement, the Affordable Care Act also provides subsidies to some individuals beginning in 2014 to help pay for their health insurance premiums and other costs associated with their health insurance.
Taxpayers who are required to pay a fine but fail to do so will receive a notice from Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If an individual still neglects to pay the fine, the IRS can attempt to collect the funds by reducing the amount of their tax refund in the future. Individuals who fail to pay the penalty, however, will not be subject to criminal prosecution. The government cannot file notice of lien or levy on any property for a taxpayer who does not pay the penalty.
The aim of this provision is to encourage all Americans to obtain health insurance, which will result in lower health care costs for everyone. The Affordable Care Act relies on the shared responsibility of individuals, employers, states and the federal government.
For additional information regarding the individual responsibility requirement please visit the Kaiser Family Foundation website.
Fiction
Members of Congress are exempt from the health care reform law.
Fact
No one has received a special exemption from the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the health care reform law explicitly includes language regarding the health insurance plans for Members of Congress and their staff.
As a United States Senator, Senator Leahy’s health plan options are the same options offered to all federal employees. Included in the Affordable Care Act, was a provision that requires that “the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and Congressional staff shall be health plans that are created under this Act or offered through an Exchange established under this Act.” Members of Congress and their staffs can only purchase health insurance coverage from the health insurance exchanges that are made available for uninsured Americans. The full text of this provision is available on pages 80-81 in section 1312 of the Affordable Care Act which you can read here.
Fiction
Health care reform will jeopardize Medicare and will mean cuts in services and benefits for seniors.
Fact
Health care reform will help strengthen Medicare so that seniors can continue to receive quality health coverage for years to come.
The Affordable Care Act explicitly states that no benefits guaranteed under Medicare will be cut as a result of health care reform legislation. Today’s forecasts estimate that Medicare will be insolvent by 2017 because of ever-rising health care costs. The Affordable Care Act takes aim at that unfolding threat by addressing cost inefficiencies now, instead of waiting until later. The Affordable Care Act strengthens the financial stability of Medicare by targeting fraud and ending wasteful overpayments to insurance companies, while maintaining the benefits and services to seniors who use Medicare. The Act also helps Medicare users by offering prescription drug discounts to seniors who are trapped in the “donut hole,” by creating a better pathway for generic drugs to enter the marketplace, by eliminating the cost-share for preventative services, and by promoting coordinated care to prevent avoidable hospital readmissions.
Beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare beneficiaries entering the Medicare donut hole will get a 50% discount on brand name prescription drugs. Click here to learn more about this provision.
Fiction
The health care reform law includes a tax on all real estate sales.
Fact
Under the Affordable Care Act, only certain real estate transactions for certain individuals above a particular income level would be subject to a Medicare Tax.
Unfortunately, much of the information widely circulated about a tax on home sales and other real estate transactions inaccurately describes the purpose and the effect of this provision. The 3.8 percent Medicare tax is often misunderstood, and has frequently been described as a 3.8 percent “sales tax” on all real estate transactions, which is inaccurate.
The provision that establishes this tax can be found on page 946, Section 1402 of the Affordable Care Act. This tax is often referred to as the “Medicare tax,” because it was designed to raise funds for Medicare. The Medicare tax goes into effect after December 30, 2012.
The Medicare tax isnot a tax on all new home sales; it only applies to the profit that certain high income Americans make from the sale of their home.The groups that may be affected by this provision are individuals with annual incomes over $200,000 and married couples with a joint income of over $250,000. The only home sellers who will be affected by this provision are those who fit the above description, and who sell their home for a profit of more than $250,000. The tax will not apply to the first $250,000 in profits for the individual selling his or her home or to the first $500,000 in profits for a married couple.
While undoubtedly some home sales will see a tax increase under this provision, the tax will affect only a small percentage of home sales. A report released by the Tax Foundation on April 15, 2010 predicts that the new tax on investment income (including real estate) will affect only the top-earning 2 percent of American families.
The full text of the Affordable Care Act is available on the health care reform page of this website.
Fiction
Health care reform will hurt small businesses.
Fact
The Affordable Care Act will help small businesses, many of which are struggling now to even afford health plans for their employees.
Small businesses are a vital engine of Vermont’s economy. Unfortunately, rising health care costs are hitting small businesses especially hard, putting them at an even greater disadvantage against larger corporations. The Affordable Care Act will help level the playing field and give affordable options to small businesses that wish to offer insurance to their workers.
For example, the Affordable Care Act:
Provides tax credits to small businesses to help them offer health insurance to their employees;
Requires insurance companies to provide free preventative care so businesses do not suffer productivity costs because of sick employees;
End the “hidden insurance tax” that has prevented small businesses from being able to afford to offer insurance to their employees. This hidden tax is built in to the premiums for insurance to compensate for the unpaid care given to the uninsured. Health reform will help get Americans health insurance and will end the inflated premium costs. And investments to lower health care costs overall will help spur the economy, enabling more businesses to thrive;
For more information regarding how health care reform efforts will help small businesses please visit the Implementation Center on this website as well as the Small Business Administration website and the Small Business Majority website for additional resources.
Fiction
The Affordable Care Act provides subsidies for illegal immigrants to receive health insurance.
Fact
The Affordable Care Act explicitly defines who is eligible for federal payments, credits or subsidies for health insurance coverage and makes clear that undocumented immigrants are ineligible.
Some have expressed concerned that undocumented immigrants will have the ability to receive subsidies for health insurance under the reform proposals in Congress. Senator Leahy does not support using government funding to subsidize insurance for those who have entered the United States illegally or who are residing in the United States in an undocumented status. The full text of the law clearly defines who is eligible for federal payments, credits or subsidies.
The relevant statutory language is below:
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Subtitle D—Available Coverage Choices for All Americans
PART II–Consumer Choices and Insurance Competition Through Health Benefit Exchanges
Section 1312 (f)(3) makes clear that undocumented immigrants are ineligible to participate in the health insurance exchanges: “ACCESS LIMITED TO LAWFUL RESIDENTS- If an individual is not, or is not reasonably expected to be for the entire period for which enrollment is sought, a citizen or national of the United States or an alien lawfully present in the United States, the individual shall not be treated as a qualified individual and may not be covered under a qualified health plan in the individual market that is offered through an Exchange.”
Subtitle E—Affordable Coverage Choices for All Americans
PART I—PREMIUM TAX CREDITS AND COST SHARING REDUCTIONS
Subpart B—Eligibility Determinations
Section 1412(d) unambiguously states “NO FEDERAL PAYMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS NOT LAWFULLY PRESENT.—Nothing in this subtitle or the amendments made by this subtitle allows Federal payments, credits, or cost-sharing reductions for individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”
The Act also establishes a fair process to accurately verify eligibility for participation in the benefits of health insurance reform that does not place unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles for U.S. Citizens nor undue administrative costs on the government.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Subtitle E—Affordable Coverage Choices for All Americans
PART I—PREMIUM TAX CREDITS AND COST SHARING REDUCTIONS
Subpart B—Eligibility Determinations
Section 1411(a) required that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “shall establish a program . . . for determining . . . whether an individual who is to be covered in the individual market by a qualified health plan offered through an Exchange, or who is claiming a premium tax credit or reduced cost-sharing [is] a citizen or national of the United States or an alien lawfully present in the United States.”
Section 1411(b) requires applicants for enrollment in a qualified health plan offered through an Exchange in the individual market to provide “name, address, and date of birth.” For those individuals claiming eligibility based on an attestation of citizenship, they must provide their social security number. For those individuals whose eligibility is based on an attestation of their immigration status, they must provide “the enrollee’s social security number (if applicable) and such identifying information with respect to the enrollee’s immigration status as the Secretary, after consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, determines appropriate.”
Senator Leahy has also heard from Vermonters with small businesses who employ seasonal workers and their concern about the requirement that employers purchase health insurance for their employees.
The Act exempts small businesses from the employer mandate to provide health insurance for employees, and employers are not subject to penalties if they employ 50 or fewer employees. Seasonal workers do not count towards the 50 employee threshold. And for those employers subject to the penalty, they are only responsible for providing health insurance for full-time employees.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Subtitle F—Shared Responsibility for Health Care
PART II—EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITIES
Section 1513—Shared Responsibility For Employers
Section 1513(a) states:
(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN EMPLOYERS-
(i) IN GENERAL- An employer shall not be considered to employ more than 50 full-time employees if—
(I) the employer’s workforce exceeds 50 full-time employees for 120 days or fewer during the calendar year, and
(II) the employees in excess of 50 employed during such 120-day period were seasonal workers.
(ii) DEFINITION OF SEASONAL WORKERS—The term `seasonal worker’ means a worker who performs labor or services on a seasonal basis as defined by the Secretary of Labor, including workers covered by section 500.20(s)(1) of title 29, Code of Federal Regulations and retail workers employed exclusively during holiday seasons.”
Fiction
Health care reform will lead to rationing of health care
Fact
Health care reform is aimed at increasing the options for Americans, not limiting them.
Unfortunately, prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act rationing of health care happened all too often. Insurance companies decided whether or not beneficiaries could have a certain test or procedures, based not on medical necessity, but on the insurance plan and whether the test is affordable. This rationing left millions of Americans without adequate care or coverage and is taking away the decision making from patients and their doctors, putting those decisions instead in the hands of insurance company bureaucrats.
The Affordable Care Act is intended to improve the ability of patients to receive the care they need by setting ground rules for insurance companies to follow. No longer will insurance companies be allowed to deny coverage for preexisting medical conditions or to discriminate against consumers because of their gender. No longer will insurance companies be allowed to revoke insurance coverage from a patient who has been ill and deemed too sick for coverage. The government will have no role in telling patients what tests they can and cannot have. In fact, for the first time, the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies from limiting choice of doctors. The Affordable Care Act guarantees your right to choose a primary care doctor from any available participating provider, designate any available participating pediatrician as your child’s primary care provider, and prohibits insurers or employer-sponsored plans from requiring a referral for obstetrical or gynecological (OB-GYN) care. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act prohibits health insurers and plans from restricting access to and charging patients more for out-of-network emergency care.
Health care reform is about improving choice for all Americans.
Fiction
The health care reform law will force individuals to pay taxes on their health benefits.
Fact
Health benefits will not be taxed under the Affordable Care Act, even though the value of your health insurance will be included on your W-2 form.
Title IX of the Affordable Care Act, Section 9002 on page 800 states that beginning in the tax year 2011, employers are required to report the value of the health insurance coverage they provide employees on each employee’s annual W-2 Form so that employees can be informed consumers and know the full cost of their plan. The amount reported does not affect tax liability and the value of the employer contribution to health coverage will continue to be excludible from an employee’s income and is not taxable.
Updates and guidance will be posted regularly on the IRS website regarding all tax provisions included in the Affordable Care Act.
Fiction
The government will encourage or force seniors to choose euthanasia as an end-of-life option.
Fact
This has been shown over and over again to be another false rumor. Nothing in the Affordable Care Act requires that seniors participate in consultations about their end-of-life wishes.
Unfortunately, this rumor has been spreading fast and is worrying many Vermonters and Americans across the country. Nothing in the Affordable Care Act will force seniors to have consultations regarding their end-of-life choices, or have a consultation to discuss suicide.
Currently, voluntary end-of-life planning is covered as a part of the “Welcome to Medicare” doctor visits available to seniors with in the first year of joining the program. The Affordable Care Act authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physician exams, or wellness visits for beneficiaries. Specifically, section 4103 of the Affordable Care Act provides coverage under Medicare, with no copayments or deductible, for an annual wellness visit and personalized prevention plan services. Often times patients are not given the time to ask important questions about options available to them such as hospice, or home care, or additional services available to seniors. This provision would simply give seniors the choice to have a discussion during their wellness visit, about the topics of their choosing, with their doctor. It empowers seniors to have conversations about living wills and other questions they might have but do not have the opportunity to ask. In no way does the law mandate these conversations or tell doctors what options to discuss. If seniors do not wish to have these discussions with their doctors and families, nothing will force them to.
Today, June 15, 2012, is the 797th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. The document laid a foundation for freedom, almost 800 years ago, upon which we stand today.
What event critical to western history and the development of the democratic republic in the U.S. happened here in 1215?
A teacher might use some of these photos explaining the steps to the Constitution, in English law and the heritage of U.S. laws. Other than the Magna Carta, all the events of Runnymede get overlooked in American studies of history. Antony McCallum, working under the name Wyrdlight, took these stunning shots of this historic meadow. (He photographs stuff for studies of history, it appears.)
Maybe it’s a geography story.
View of Runnymede Meadow from Engham Village — Wyrdlight photo through Wikimedia
Several monuments to different events of the past millennium populate the site. The American Bar Association dedicated a memorial to the Magna Carta there — a small thing open to the air, but with a beautiful ceiling that is probably worth the trip to see it once you get to England.
Wikipedia explains briefly, with a note that the ABA plans to meet there again in 2015, the 800th anniversary of the Great Charter:
Magna Carta Memorial
The Magna Carta Memorial & view towards the ‘medes’
Engraved stone recalling the 1985 ABA visit
Situated in a grassed enclosure on the lower slopes of Cooper’s Hill, this memorial is of a domed classical style, containing a pillar of English granite on which is inscribed “To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law”. The memorial was created by the American Bar Association to a design by Sir Edward Maufe R.A., and was unveiled on 18 July 1957 at a ceremony attended by American and English lawyers.[5]
Since 1957 representatives of the ABA have visited and rededicated the Memorial renewing pledges to the Great Charter. In 1971 and 1985 commemorative stones were placed on the Memorial plinth. In July 2000 the ABA came:
to celebrate Magna Carta, foundation of the rule of law for ages past and for the new millennium.
In 2007 on its 50th anniversary the ABA again visited Runnymede and during the convention installed as President Charles Rhyne who devised Law Day which seeks in the USA an annual reaffirmation of faith in the forces of law for peace.
The ABA will be meeting at Runnymede in 2015 on the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the original charter.
The Magna Carta Memorial is administered by the Magna Carta Trust, which is chaired by the Master of the Rolls.[10]
In 2008, flood lights were installed to light the memorial at night, but due to vandalism they now lie smashed.
I’ll wager the lights get fixed before 2015.
Detail of ceiling of the Magna Carta Memorial detailing play of light, and star pattern, Runnymede – Wikimedia image
It’s an election year. People get crazy. I’ve already heard from a dozen wacko candidates that “separation of church and state isn’t in the Constitution.”
It’s been at least 20 years since I first heard the old canard of an argument that “there’s no separation of church and state in the Constitution.” I think I first heard it attributed to David Barton, which would make sense, since he doesn’t understand the Constitution, but neither does he fear sharing his misunderstandings.
It was an incorrect statement then, and it’s been incorrect since September 1787. Separation of state and church is woven throughout the Constitution, part of the warp and woof.
Toles cartoon on dangers of marrying church and state
I was surprised to discover I’ve not posted this before on this blog. So here’s a slightly-edited version of a response I gave many months ago to someone who made that silly claim, a basic description that I developed years ago to explain the issue, in speeches by members of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution:
Separation of church and state: It’s in the Constitution.
I don’t play a constitutional lawyer on television, I am one*, but it seems to me anyone can read the Constitution and see. Especially if one understands that the Constitution sets up a limited government, that is, as Madison described, one that can do only what is delegated to it. The Constitution is a short document.
Where should you look to find separation of church and state in the Constitution?
First, look in the Preamble. It is made clear that the document is a compact between citizens: “We the people . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution . . .” The usual role of God ordaining (in some western nations) is altered, intentionally. It is not God who establishes this government, but you and I, together. From the first words of the Constitution, there is separation of church and state. The power of our government grows out of a secular compact between you and me, and 308 million other residents of the nation. We have a government created by consent of the governed, as the Declaration of Independence said a just government should be. It is not a government created by the will of God directly (though some, including the Mormons, argue it is divinely inspired). We have no divine right kings or other monarchs. The government is not the grantor of rights from God, but is instead the protector of the rights of citizens, whatever the source of the rights.
Second, look in the key parts of the document itself. Start with Article 1. The legislative branch is given no role in religion; neither is any religion given any role in the legislature. In Article 2, the executive branch gets no role in religion, and religion gets no role in the executive branch. In Article 3, the judicial branch gets no role in religion, and religion gets no role in the judicial branch. In Article 4, the people get a guarantee of a republican form of government in the states, but the states get no role in religion, and religion gets no role in state government. This is, by design of the founders, a perfect separation of church and state.
Third, in Article 6, the convention wrote the hard and fast rule that no religious test can be used for any office in government, federal, state or local, means that no official will have a formal, governmental role in religion, and no religion can insist on a role in any official’s duties.
Fourth, Amendment 1 closes the door to weasling around it: Congress is prohibited from even considering any legislation that might grant a new bureaucracy or a new power to get around the other bans on state and church marriage, plus the peoples’ rights in religion are enumerated.
Fifth: In 1801 the Baptists (!) in Danbury, Connecticut, grew concerned that Connecticut would act to infringe on their church services, or teachings, or right to exist. So they wrote to President Jefferson. Jefferson responded with an official declaration of government policy on what the First Amendment and Constitution mean in such cases. Jefferson carefully constructed the form of the device as well as the content with his Attorney General, Levi Lincoln, to be sure that it would state what the law was. This “letter” is the proclamation. It’s an official statement of the U.S. government, collected in the president’s official papers and not in his personal papers. Make no mistake: Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists was an official act, an official statement of the law of the United States. Jefferson intended it to assuage the Baptists in Danbury, to inform and warn the Connecticut legislatures, and to be a touchstone to which future Americans could turn for information. It was only fitting and proper for the Supreme Court to use the letter in this capacity as it has done several times.
Sixth: The phrase, “separation of church and state” dates back another 100 years and more, to the founding of Rhode Island. It is the religion/state facet of the idea of government by consent of the governed without interference from religious entities, expressed so well in the Mayflower Compact, in the first paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, and carried through in the Constitution (see especially the Preamble, above).
No, the phrase “separation of church and state” never appears in the Constitution. The principles of separation of church and state are part of the warp and woof, and history, of the document, however. The law is clear, the law was clear, the law has always been clear, and denying the Constitution says what it says won’t change it or make it go away. You could just as easily point out that the word “democracy” or “democratic” never appears in the document, though we rely on democratic mechanisms and institutions to make it work. You could point out that nowhere does it say that our national government is a republic, though it is. The Constitution doesn’t say “checks and balances,” nor does it say “federalism.” The Constitution doesn’t mention political parties. The Constitution was written before the advent of broadcasting, and makes no mention of radio nor television, nor of the internet — but the First Amendment freedoms apply there anyway. The Constitution doesn’t say “privacy,” though it protects your right to privacy.
You won’t find “separation of church and state” as a phrase in the Constitution. If you read it, you’ll find that the concept of the separation of state and church can’t be taken out of the document, either — it’s a fundamental principle of our government.
* A non-practicing one. We have way more than 50,000 lawyers in Texas. That’s enough trouble for one lifetime. Someone has to look out for the welfare of the world.
RT @mmfa: Fox News promotes a new smear campaign video with a false claim about the funding of a low-income phone program. http://t.co/HOm5…Splashed: 39 minutes ago
@nprnews New Texas law bans drones in Texas -- Gov. Perry doesn't want FBI to know what he's doing. n.pr/16KtIMe What IS he doing?Splashed: 39 minutes ago
@nonbunnynonbunn @tom_peters Not all models wrong; all models are models. Reality is more complex. Even nearly perfect models miss somethingSplashed: 41 minutes ago
@SamThiessen @SenTedCruz CBO's error on ObamaCare was against it -- turns out it saves money big time, better than revenue neutral.Splashed: 45 minutes ago
RT @NSTA: MT @NSF: News: NSF + USAID Announce Next Round of Global Research Collaboration Awardees: The National Scienc... http://t.co/W2Rb…Splashed: 1 hour ago
RT @michellesipics: "To all the science writers, advocates, & bloggers who have dared proclaim that the emperors of pseudoscience have no c…Splashed: 1 hour ago
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Posted by Ed Darrell 
