Well…just a short one about the latest destruction of your personal freedoms by this radical supreme court…if you haven’t heard, the supreme court this week said it is perfectly okay for anyone that is arrested, or ticketed, or has any other interaction with the police to be strip searched if the officers think it’s okay to do it. This includes getting stopped for not wearing a seatbelt, for eating on a subway train, for spitting on the sidewalk…do I need to go on? This whole nonsense again reveals the need to elect Obama again and tip the scales in the supreme court back to common sense…back to the individual liberty that the right reveres above else (or so they say) back to the ability of citizens of the country to be let alone…to have the police work for us and not assume that all of us are hardened criminals and get treated like one….I, for one, will be writing to my congresspeople to have this travesty rectified by a law that specifically prohibits this abhorrent practice and I hope you will to….this is a hell of lot worse than being required to buy health insurance…but we’ll see that struck down as being a threat to liberty…..how much more crazy can this court get? It’s time to impeach at least two of these idiots and restore the integrity of the court….
More partisan nonsense from a right wing judge…
Well…I really didn’t plan on writing a second day about the courts but the actions of the judges appointed by repubs have gotten to the point where someone has to say something….after Obama a went on record saying he believed that the ACA should and would be upheld and if the supreme court struck it down it would need a very good reason…and not the “broccoli” defense that Scalia put forth in oral arguments…a republican appointed appeals court judge, Jerry Smith, had the gall to demand that the justice department and by extension, Obama, explain his comments in a written response to the judge…nevermind that the president gets to express his opinion about the political ramifications of court cases….this judge doesn’t have the power to request anything from the executive branch. I just marvel at the audacity of the repubs these days who spent the last 3 years decrying the “overreach” of the courts, and then cheer when one of their own vastly oversteps his power to score political points with the fox news talking points of the day. This just shows the rot that has permeated the “modern” repub party where the traditions of the separate branches of government and the checks and balances that are outlined in the constitution are just to be ignored when they sense a political advantage can be gained….and this rot has reached all the way to the supreme court and the right wing judges who are poised to impose their warped view of justice on the American people….geez…
April 4th
Well…yesterday was a day I’d like to forget…no, nothing earth shattering happened but it was one of those days where you don’t accomplish anything and then the guilt sets in….I may go out for papers today but I’m not sure yet…it’s only 6:55 so I don’t have to decide just yet….no sleep to speak of last night and I am used up this morning…maybe I can take a nap right now to help that? It may be that I need to eat more again or is it that I’m just getting old…I can hear birds singing outside my window and they are really loud…at least it’s not the doves who set up shop in the bushes outside my bedroom last year…cooing and other nonsense at 5 am does not endear them to me at all….not much to do today….I am going to try to get the winter clothes put away and some other cleaning but the way I feel right now, that might be a little ambitious…more later…
Activist judges and the right…
Well…I find it funny how things flip and flop in the political arena, especially when it comes to “activist judges” that the right seems to decry until the judges are the conservative bloc on the supreme court. I don’t even know why the right calls themselves conservatives anymore…that used to mean a reverence for the institutions and traditions of the country including hundreds of years of legal precedence know as “stare decisis” that they now want ignored by the court to further their radical right wing agenda. That is not conservatism, it is radicalism cloaked in the robes of Scalia, Roberts, and the others that blatantly lied about their reverence for the traditional role of judges…to find the facts in relation to the law leaving politics outside of the courtroom….but these “justices” see their roles as co-equal legislatively to the congress and are ready to ignore the constitution to further the goals of the tea party whose rise has done more to coarsen the political discourse and ruin the art of compromise on which democracies function. I hope the Roberts court does throw out the ACA….then we can get to where we need to be in healthcare…poised to go to a single payer system whose purpose will be to provide affordable care for all Americans…not profit for a few…geez…
April 3rd
Well….it was a long day and I got a lot of work done yesterday but I fell asleep watching the b-ball game last night and that led to a very sore right shoulder this morning….so I should go get some ibuprofen to help that….and it is storming outside right now, which I normally like but storms when it is only 45 degrees is just not right….I do feel okay today even after going out with G for a couple and having one cocktail when I got back here….and the dreams were about races somewhere but the odd thing is that there was no human interaction at all even though there were crowds everywhere….not much to do today…I think I am going to make this a cleaning day…the fridge needs it desperately and the bathroom could use a going over, too…more later…
More shenanigans by Michigan Republicans…
Well…it must be nice for the relatives of the Michigan republicans these days when they can lose money, get sued, and then get a law passed that wipes out 2.4 million dollars in debt. If you haven’t heard, that is just what happened last week when Snyder signed into law a bill that relieved the brother of the house repub chair here, Bobby Schostak, of the 2.4 million dollar loss that the appeals court said he owed on a failed property in Traverse City. The gist of the story is that the Schostaks are wealthy developers here, and the younger Schostak signed a contract that said he would be personally responsible for losses on this property…when the economy tanked, he walked away from the property that was worth 2.4 million less than he owed on it, the bank sued, and all of the courts here said he owed the money. So, what does a connected republican do here in Michigan? As always, they change the rules and use crony capitalism to pass this law that retroactively immunizes the leader’s brother from the loss…wouldn’t you like to be able to do that with the house you are upside down on? It is a breach of the public trust for the repubs to cheat the system for personal gain…but, what else should you expect from these guys? After all they are the ones who raised taxes on workers so they could hand a 2 billion dollar tax cuts to the corporations that bought them the election….and it just goes on and on…geez….
One last thing…the bill was written by the Schostak brothers attorney…..
April 2nd
Well…it was a long day yesterday with losing at pool and then having a couple of cocktails last night so I feel a little slow today….it is a little difficult not having T to talk to while she is away…but I think I got over the hump last night and the rest of the week will be better….had a shifter problem on the bike yesterday but I think I may have it fixed..we’ll see when I get out later today…and I put the rear tire on backwards when I put the liners in so I may have to take that back apart later and switch it…..not much to do today…I do have some things to do around here and I am skipping the papers and coffee so I’ll get started after getting the workout in….I do have some chicken that needs to be cooked today so that will be something…more later…
April 1st
Well….it was another day off the bike yesterday since it was just too cold to go out without gloves etc. so I feel slow and lethargic today….and I know it’s not cocktails with only having one last night…I did go out to have one with K in the aft and it was good to see her…no dreams at all last night and I slept pretty crappy but that’s normal as you know…..okay, I need to make coffee and go out for the paper so I’m going to stop here and come back later….
I’m back for a few minutes and thought I’d get to what I normally do with these things….I did promise that I’d get to the nonsense going on in the Michigan legislature and I will later today but I’m not feeling it right now so I think I’ll do other things…not much to do today…I did get started on cleaning yesterday but the kitchen cleaner I bought has way too much bleach in it…I still smell it on my hands after a whole day of washing them and that is kind of bad….it was only two bucks so I guess I can just dump it…there are races on today which will make some good background noise for the day and I do hope to get out on the bike after 5 days off..oh, that reminds me, I should take some ibuprofen right now so the thirty miles won’t hurt as much…or maybe I’ll just do 15 to ease back into it….okay…that’s enough for now…it’s 9am and I’m already bored…and that does not bode well for a nice day…oh, well…
March 31st
Well…another night, another Wings loss and I am getting concerned that we are going to go out in the first round of the playoffs this year….the one plus of last night’s game was the new tv….even when it’s not in HD, the game looked really cool and I am getting the adjustments on the tv right so the picture really looks great…I could follow the puck and see the numbers on the sweaters for the first time in a long time and that was pretty cool….I am running late today but you know that is normal for the weekend….got a text from T that made me laugh yesterday….she was sitting on the ground in Atlanta (on a plane in first class), and at 10 in the morning was drinking a Mimosa on the way to her vacation in Costa Rica….I did have some dreams last night but they didn’t seem important, just a jumbled mess of bad plumbing and people I didn’t know…not much to do today…I do have to clean and I already have laundry going so that is a good start….got the tire liners on the bike yesterday and can’t wait to see if they affect the ride at all…it will be nice to be able to stop thinking about flats all the time….and the walking back pushing the bike is no fun…I do have one on more shenanigans going on here in Michigan for later so come on back…you’ll like it…
Oh, forgot to say happy birthday to Eric Clapton…67 years old this week…
It’s about the social contract…not healthcare…
Well…just another short one on the arguments that happened on the ACA in the Supreme Court and the fact that I think that people are missing the point of the whole thing….I can understand why some on the right don’t want to be “forced” to buy healthcare under the new law…but, how many of them are already forced to by the fear that a health problem will bankrupt them? What’s the difference between the two? How many of them have ever canceled their insurance in the name of freedom? You can probably count them on one hand. But, this whole argument has never been about healthcare to me….it is whether or not we we still have a social contract where we work for the common good of the society and where, sometimes, in that society we have to make compromises that will benefit the whole while placing a small burden on each of us as individuals. That is what the individual mandate is…a small burden for the majority of us that will help the 50 million people who can’t afford the peace of mind that comes with being insured….but, those on the right, including the debate audience that when asked about an uninsured person needing care to save his life and chorus sung out “let him die” are actively tearing down the social contract that has served this nation so well over the past 200 plus years….what kind of a country will we have left when those on the right get what they want…back to the days of “I’ve got mine, everyone else can go to hell” that prevailed in the early 20th century….I’m glad I’m getting older and won’t be around to see it if the right wins…geez…