In 2006, the Tribune McCormick Foundation published a survey on Americans' first amendment awareness. Among the results came the conclusion to the question of Why Teach the First Amendment? -- Only one in four Americans (28%) can name more than one of
the five freedoms of the First Amendment
-- Twice as many (52%) can name two or more characters of the
fictional Simpson family.
-- Among survey respondentsecall of the five freedoms of the First Amendment revealed the following frequencies:
Speech (69%)
Religion (24%)
Press (11%)
Assembly (10%)
Petition (1%)
So as I read this holiday season of the following petitions being posted by members of the Youdia on the White House We the Peoplesite, I am sure the recognition of the people's right to petition is going to go up (well, even if it couldn't have gone much lower), but I wonder, if this is a gift that should be returned back into the box. It's easy to petition your government. Here's what you do:
Maybe it's too easy.
Earlier this year, citizens in several states posted petitions to "peacefully withdrawl from the United States of America:
Are the petitioners aware that we also have a First Amendment, that is giving the right to petition, that also protects, speech and press??Then there is one, that I agree with in principle, but still remember the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, to paraphrase, free speech is only important to protect the words we hate.....More than 260,000 people have signed a petition to the White House asking for it to label the notorious Westboro Baptist Church a hate group.
The petition aimed at the church best known for picketing military funerals and other events with signs declaring “GOD HATES FAGS,” is believed to be the most popular cause ever on the White House’s “We the People” petition site. Four other petitions targeting the church’s tax-exempt status have attracted nearly 200,000 additional signatures. All five petitions have passed the number required for a response from President Barack Obama’s administration.
(The NRA and some Congressional Republicans broke their silence reflecting on last week's tradgedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Above, is an exchange between MSNBC "Morning Joe'' host Joe Scarborough, a former Repbulican Congressman from Florida and Rep. Tim Huelskamp, (R-Kan.) Below, is the official statement of the NRA given at the press conference held Friday.)
The National Rifle Association's 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters join the nation in horror, outrage, grief and earnest prayer for the families of Newtown, Connecticut ... who suffered such incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.
Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.
Now, we must speak ... for the safety of our nation's children. Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?
The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them.
And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.
How have our nation's priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses — even sports stadiums — are all protected by armed security.
We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers.
Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!
The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?
How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — while provoking others to try to make their mark?
A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?
And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 40% — to the lowest levels in a decade.
So now, due to a declining willingness to prosecute dangerous criminals, violent crime is increasing again for the first time in 19 years! Add another hurricane, terrorist attack or some other natural or man-made disaster, and you've got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization.
And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it?
Then there's the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."
But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?
In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year.
A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18.
And throughout it all, too many in our national media ... their corporate owners ... and their stockholders ... act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators. Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away.
Winthrop men's basketball coach Pat Kelsey used the spotlight of playing Ohio State last night to call for Washington leaders to lead (Governing v. Politics) and find solutions to our gun-killing culture.
"While Illinois has some common sense gun laws, the state lacks many gun laws that would stop the flow of illegal guns and protect children, according to the Brady Campaign.
In the organization’s 2011 state scorecards released for all 50 states, Illinois earned 35 points out of a total of 100."
I will have a review session for the AP American GOPO final at 6:45 AM tomorrow morning. For extra social media help for your final, or more importantly, your AP exam in the spring, check out these apps.....Maybe you can ask for them as stocking stuffers, Ho, Ho!
The death of Daniel Inouye, president pro tempore of the Senate (third in line in presidential succession order) meant that Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy has been sworn in to the legislative leadership role, reserved for the most senior member of the majority party of the Senate.
The Senate lost one of the last of its legends Monday with the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who arrived a half-century ago as the complete Washington outsider yet grew to become central to the Capitol and even its soul.
Inouye’s quiet, restrained style led some to underestimate him. But he had a wit and shrewdness, too, combined with a record of genuine heroism and compassion for the underdog, having come of age amid discrimination against Japanese-Americans even as he served bravely in World War II.
But if we comparatively reflect on two elementary and primary school tragedies last week, we come to an unrefutable conclusion.
"It's easier and faster to kill people (and kids) with guns......muskets, no that's ancient history, military style assault rifles."
On the same day 20 children (6 and 7 years old) and six adults were killed in Connecticut a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, 23 primary school children were attacked by a knife-weilding man apparently with mental health issues. All of the injured students survived.
So where do we go from here in the United States, where in our 330million population, we have an estimated 300 million guns? According to the Brady Center there have been 95,151 people shot this year. Maybe a handful were hunting partners stung when the deer danced away.
The President called "meaningful action." Somberly, seriously is this a, 'Yes, we can' issue?
Two proposals make you wonder if we can come to pluralistic solutions to make us safer in our American gun culture.
(From PBS, Newshour)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, has pledged to revive a law banning assault weapons at the opening of the next session of Congress. Gwen Ifill talks to Feinstein about the chances a new ban will pass after its 2004 expiration, and how it might eventually make weapons like those used in the Sandy Hook shooting less available.
LANSING, MI — MLive readers are sounding off on a gun control bill sponsored by a mid-Michigan-based state senator.
State Sen. Mike Green sponsored Senate Bill 59, would allow citizens with concealed weapon permits to carry firearms into previously “pistol free” zones — including schools — after additional training and an exemption provided by a local sheriff.
The state Senate and House of Representatives approved the measure on Thursday, the day before a mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Call this post a full-court press on Supreme Court news and views (article on Stevens "The Dissenter" and the "Incredible Shirking Court" need to be read by Friday with summaries of the two articles blog posted here. Also, post answers to the three bold-faced questions posed in the post by Friday).
But first, breaking news from the Supremes after the annoucement last week that the High Scourt has granted Cert and will take up same-sex marriage, hearing both a case stemming from California's Proposition 8 voter-approved ban on gay marriage and a case from new York challenging the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
How big of a role will public opinion play in the Supreme Court's decision?
2) From the 2005 Senate
comfirmation hearings of Samuel Alito, political cartoonist Mike Lane
illustrated the constitutional conundrum facing the newest justice and the term
stare decisis -- lettting the precedent stand unless there are compelling
reasons not to -- and a woman's right to choose an abortion.
Alito's mother said, "Of course he's against abortion,'' in a classic
sound-byte before during the confirmation hearings. The question is not really
what the Alito believes personally, but as NPR reported in 2005 if that Roe v.
Wade was settled law.
Under what amendment and protection did the Supremes rule a woman had "the right to choose" in 1973. What precedent setting case did the Court follow to make its decision? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5012335___________________ 3) U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made news last week by
speaking is mind, something he's not prone to do while on the job.
As the above data shows,
Thomas' silence during Supreme Court oral arguments is legendary. While his
colleagues pepper lawyers with questions, Thomas listens. While the other 8
justices force legal teams to perform verbal and logical gymnastics 30 minutes
at a time, Thomas often leans back in his large chair and stares at the
ceiling.
When he does speak during oral arguments, it's almost always in
private conversation with Justice Breyer. (And from the looks at the menus that
they swap, those conversations are often about what to get for lunch.)In the
past, Justice Thomas has said the oral argument time is not meant for Justices
to show off but for the lawyers to make their legal arguments before the Court.
But Thomas has recently said--in
jest-- that “My colleagues should shut up!”
What does Justice Thomas' sound of silence say about the importance of the oral arguments SCOTUS hears?
_______________________
4) In the Ny Times article, "The Disenter," gives insight
into how the High Court has moved right and now the self-proclaimed
conservative, and eldest (and now retired) member of the Supremes, may have
been be The Nine's most liberal justice:
"Justice Stevens, the oldest and arguably most liberal
justice, now finds himself the
leader of the opposition. Vigorous and sharp at 87, he has served on the court
for 32 years, approaching the record set by his predecessor, William O.
Douglas, who served for 36. In criminal-law and death-penalty cases, Stevens
has voted against the government and in favor of the individual more frequently
than any other sitting justice. He files more dissents and separate opinions
than any of his colleagues. He is the court’s most outspoken defender of the
need for judicial oversight of executive power. And in recent years, he has
written majority opinions in two of the most important cases ruling against the
Bush administration’s treatment of suspected enemy combatants in the war on
terror — an issue the court will revisit this term, which begins Oct. 1, when
it hears appeals by Guantánamo detainees challenging their lack of access to
federal courts.
"Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. “I don’t
think of myself as a liberal at all,” he told me during a recent interview in
his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general
politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.”
Justice Stevens, from Chicago, retired from the High Court in 2010, at age 90.
________________________
5) The second article you need
to have read by Monday is Time's cover story on the Roberts Court from October, 2007, before judicially reviewing Citizens United, The Affordable Health Care Act and this sessions Affirmative Action and Same Sex Marriage cases:
The Incredible Shrinking Court
"The irony is that the Court's ideology is playing a
dwindling role in the lives of Americans. The familiar hot-button
controversies--abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, police powers
and so on--have been around so long, sifted and resifted so many times, that
they now arrive at the court in highly specific cases affecting few, if any,
real people. And it's not clear that Roberts wants to alter that trend. His
speeches on the judicial role suggest a man more interested in the steady
retreat of the court from public policy than in a right-wing revolution. Unless
the Roberts court umpires another disputed presidential election (Ã la Bush v.
Gore in 2000--a long shot, to say the least), the left-right division will
matter mainly in the realm of theories and rhetoric, dear to the hearts of law
professors and political activists but remote from day-to-day existence. What
once was salient is now mostly symbolic."
6) As we watched the Elena
Kagan hearings last June, here are some sites to help you teach the US Supreme
Court. First off the Chief Justice always writes a year end report which, among other things, talks about the number of cases appealed to
the Court each year and how many were given certiorari. It is a very short
document that your students could easily digest.
SCOTUS Blog is another great resource. Here is a link they put together yesterday on year end statistics, graphs, etc.
(including how often each judge voted w. each other, the number of 9-0
decisions (more on this than any other) and much more.
Where does Elena Kagan
(former solicitor general) stand on...
7) Finally, a re-run post from a 2007 'Global Warming' SC
decision:
The world saw former Vice-President being called a “rock star” and getting an
Oscar from movie stars for his documentary on the “climate crisis,” and later a
Nobel Peace Prize. But with far less glitz and fanfare, the legal definition of
whether global warming is damaging US and the world was being argued in the
U.S. Supreme Court a few months ago.
The new “swing vote” on the high Court is Justice Anthony
Kennedy and his questions during the oral arguments in Massachusetts, et al. v.
EPA (05-1120) seemed to indicate that justices may be ready to decide more than
the case at bar.
At issue is the states’ (MA. and 12 others, including Illinois)
lawsuit challenging the federal bureaucracy’s (EPA) lack of enforcement of an
act of Congress (1990 Clean Air Act). The questions the Court is considering
are:1) May the EPA decline to issue emission standards for motor vehicles based
on policy considerations not enumerated in the Clean Air Act?2) Does the Clean
Air Act give the EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases?Breaking down the oral argument, Justice Kennedy seemed to be saying the
Court has a bigger, global, question to answer. But not all on the bench seemed
to think it was in the Court’s jurisdiction.
From the transcript of the oral argument, Justice Kennedy is
questioning counsel for the petitioners, the Massachusetts states attorney:
JUSTICE KENNEDY: At the outset, you made this, some of this perhaps
reassuring statement that we need not decide about global warming in this case.
But don't we have to do that in order to decide the standing argument, because
there's no injury if there's not global warming? Or, can you show standing
simply because there is a likelihood that the perceived would show that there's
an injury?
MR. MILKEY: Your Honor, especially in this case where none of our
affidavits were challenged, I don't think the Court needs to go there ultimately
on the merits because we showed through our uncontested affidavits that these
harms will occur. There was no evidence put in to the contrary, and I would add
that the reports on which EPA itself relies conclude that climate change is
occurring.
JUSTICE KENNEDY (later): What is the
scientific answer to if global warming exists? I think this Court might have to
press for an answer to this question.
(Justice Antonin Scalia’s prides himself as a strict
constructionalist, and a Constitutional scholar. He never claimed to have aced
Mr. Rosiano’s “Cosmic Journey” class, he chimes in):
JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Milkey, I always thought an air pollutant was
something different from a stratospheric pollutant, and your claim here is not
that the pollution of what we normally call "air" is endangering
health. That isn't, that isn't -- your assertion is that after the pollutant
leaves the air and goes up into the stratosphere it is contributing to global
warming.
MR. MILKEY: Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere.
It's the troposphere.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Troposphere, whatever. I
told you before I'm not a scientist. (Laughter.)
JUSTICE SCALIA: That's why I don't want
to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.The decision in
Massachusetts, et al. v. EPA (05-1120), given last June ruled in favor of
Massachusetts.
An American appetite for tax hikes gives President Barack Obama leverage in fiscal cliff negotiations.
A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll finds that 60 percent of respondents support raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year and 64 percent want to raise taxes on large corporations.
Even 39 percent of Republicans support raising taxes on households making more than $250,000. Independents favor such a move by 21 percentage points, 59 to 38 percent.
Only 38 percent buy the GOP argument that raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 per year will have a negative impact on the economy. Fifty-eight percent do not.
With the poll finding that 64% favor raising taxes on large corporations, the Economist reported last year (Nov., 2011) that the statutory federal income tax rate for big American companies is 35%. But a study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, two Washington, DC-based think-tanks, has assessed the tax records of 280 companies from the Fortune 500 list with reliable pre-tax profit reports.
Among these companies the average effective tax rate between 2008-10 was only 18.5%. While 71 companies paid over 30% of their profits in federal income tax, 30 enjoyed negative tax rates over the whole three year period. Pepco, an electricity company, had the lowest effective tax rate of -57.6%. Wells Fargo, a bank, received the biggest tax subsidy over the three years of almost $18 billion, and was one of 25 companies which took more than half of the total $223 billion subsidy claimed. In at least one of the three years, 78 firms paid no or negative tax rates, and legally-by writing off capital investments before they actually wear out (known as "accelerated depreciation"), making use of tax deductible stock options and industry-specific tax breaks, and offshore tax havens.
