Litmus Test For Future U.S. Supreme Court Nominees

Posted: 6/28/2015

Trigger

Almost finished reading Chief Justice Roberts dissent in Obergefell V. Hodges. Soon I will release a blog post on my analysis of this decision.

One Litmus Test Should Be Lochner v. New York

I do not know whether John Roberts was grilled during his confirmation hearing about this seminal decision or not. I also do not have time to research this.

It is very clear from his arguments in the above dissent that he has a very twisted and misguided understanding of Lochner v. New York. He further disparages the so called Lochner era. His arguments in the above dissent to support his dissent related to Lochner are weird at best.

Given his ideological or biased understanding of Lochner it is perhaps no surprise that he twice supported an unconstitutional decision regarding the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care).

The Chief Justice does not get it that Lochner was primarily about private property, individual liberty and freedom of contract! He also does not get it that in the so called post Lochner era, the U.S. Supreme Court violated increasingly and pervasively private property, individual liberty, and freedom of contract.

Obama Is Not A President Of The American People

Posted: 6/28/2015

Trigger

Yesterday I saw this picture showing The White House illuminated in the LGBT rainbow colors coinciding with the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.

Triumphalism Not Becoming Of A President Of The U.S.

This is incredible how insensitive this obstinate moron in the White House is. This is probably an insult to many Americans! It definitely insults me!

He claimed to be a uniter! Laughable!

Towards Reforming The U.S. Supreme Court

Posted: 6/28/2015  Updated: 9/5/2015

Introduction

In light of the latest infamous, highly unconstitutional decisions of the Roberts’s Court, We the People have to start thinking about the U.S. Constitution and how to reform the highest judiciary of the land. How much longer do We the People want to be subjected by party-line votes plus one swing vote by the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to impose far reaching decisions on us.

I would argue that my proposals below preserve a better balance between We the People and the heretofore largely unchecked supra-legislative power of the U.S. Supreme Court. This, perhaps lengthy, process would certainly allow for more public debate etc. over a controversial decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Reminder

It is very unfortunate that entrance of the U.S. Supreme Court is on the west side of the building. It should be on the east side, because the inscription of the pediment reads “Justice The Guardian Of Liberty”.

A Few Proposals

1. Strict Term limits for all federal judges!
   We the People should not have to suffer for decades by decisions composed by incompetent or political activist judges whether federal or highest court!
2. Nomination and election of judges & justices: Perhaps the nomination of federal judges & justices cannot be left to the president alone. Perhaps, the justices of the Supreme Court should be selected by popular vote like the president.
3. No more 5 to 4 decisions on any case or the U.S. Congress should be able to make a request that a particular cases requires an anonymous or any other quorum decision. As a minimum, every decision should be made by a two vote majority.
4. The U.S. Congress by a two thirds majority vote should be able to send a Supreme Court decision back to the Court for reconsideration
5. If the U.S. Supreme Court does not change its opinion or does not provide a better explanation or defense of its decision etc., the U.S. Congress by two thirds majority may decide to overturn the decision.
6. If the U.S. President vetoes this second vote of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Congress in a third, perhaps this time requiring a 75%, vote can overrule the veto and finally overturn the court’s decision

Great Bing Crosby Documentary On American Masters

Posted: 6/27/2015

Trigger

Just watched for the first time Bing Crosby Rediscovered - Full Film on PBS American Masters (first aired on 12/2/2014). This is a highly recommendable film!

I had no idea that this guy was so much more than a popular singer and movie star.

Some Takeaways

1. The first mega multi media star in the U.S.
2. He sold the most top songs ever!
3. One of the first to use microphone and tape recordings (had even a venture in tape recorders)
4. Interesting rivalries between Bing Crosby and e.g. Frank Sinatra
5. An easy going guy trying to live a sunny life and trying to have fun. He was quite a comedian.
6. Helped several other singers (e.g. Judy Garland) when their careers were at a crossroad because of personal life issues
7. His long running show together with Bob Hope is amazing (I did not really know about it, because it was before my time)
8. Frequent performances during World War II before military audiences overseas (I thought, it was Bob Hope?)
9. Secured a remuneration for Louis Armstrong performance on TV equal to what was customary for white performers
10. Generally stayed away from politicians and presidents (smart move)
11. Tragic first marriage and tragic loss of his four sons from his first marriage
12. I am sure, I forgot something … :-)

Is Arizona Governor Ducey An Opportunist?

Posted: 6/27/2015

Trigger

I heard this week on NPR on my way to work and here is an article relying on Associated Press. To quote from the article: “Gov. Doug Ducey says he’ll have the state transportation department review the name of a highway memorializing the Confederacy’s president, Jefferson Davis.

Ducey said Friday that he’d like to see those stretches of highway renamed after Arizonans.”

Was Jefferson Davis really only about slavery? Or is there more to this man in history? I don’t know enough about him, but I strongly suspect this man was a lot more than a slavery supporter.

A Piece Of History

Just read: “As Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army, Baylor's  [John Baylor (1822-1894)] forces won decisive control of the proposed Arizona Territory in 1861, and he proclaimed himself governor.

In 1862, he issued an order to kill all adult Apache natives and take their children into slavery.  The order so appalled Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he relieved Baylor of command.” (source). “There is no indication that any of his officers ever followed this order. Nevertheless, when news of it reached Confederate President Jefferson Davis, he immediately relieved Baylor of his position as governor. His commission in the army was also revoked.” (Wikipedia)

Governor Ducey brush up on your history knowledge! Is this the reason the highway was memorialized in the name of Jefferson Davis?

Why Not Rename Jefferson Or Washington Street?

Were these two founders not slave holders themselves? Absurd, right!

Very Disappointing

When your governor jumps the gun in the wake of a horrible event instead of remaining cool, calm, and collected and respond with reason.

Will Any Of The Dissenting Justices Have The Courage To Resign?

Posted: 6/26/2015  Updated: 7/4/2015, 6/27/2015

A Duty To Resign

If I had been any of the dissenting U.S. Supreme Court justices, i.e. Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, or Clarence Thomas, I would now resign immediately from the court in protest. There comes a time when it is an obligation to resign if disagreement becomes unbearable and if the U.S. Constitution, or more importantly the Declaration of Independence, is at stake.

This would be a novelty in U.S. history  and this act would perhaps be seen as a national clarion call.

I am afraid none of the above Justices will do it out of a misunderstanding of their role, sense of duty, cannot quit attitude, the show must go on attitude etc.

Lack Of Quorum

I would presume that if two or more of the Supremes resign at about the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court would lack the quorum to continue its usual business.

Nothing To Celebrate Independence Day 2015

Posted: 6/27/2015 Updated: 6/28/2015

The U.S. Supreme Court has imposed two definite, and a third potentially unconstitutional decisions on all American people!

These two decisions (about Obama Care and gay marriage) will probably go down in history as infamies like Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) or Plessy v. Ferguson (1897)!

Mark my words!

Caveat! I still did not have time to read the decisions itself or more about them.

In Chief Justice John Roberts’s Own Words

Just finished reading all dissenter opinions in Obergefell V. Hodges.

Here are the concluding remarks by the Chief Justice in his dissent (emphasis added):

“If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it. I respectfully dissent.”

Ubuntu Annoyances!

Posted: 6/26/2015 Updated: 7/11/2015

Update As Of 7/11/2015

Ubuntu became more and more unstable as far as WiFi was concerned. Lost my Wifi almost as soon as I logged in again. Rebooting did not help much. Other attempts like disabling/enabling networking were futile and so on.

Then, I tried to connect to Internet via Ethernet LAN cable. Well, Ubuntu said cable unplugged. Tried different LAN cables, rebooted etc. to no avail.

Moved on to install CentOS 7, but more on that in a separate post.

Original

I have installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux in early June 2015 or so. Previously, I had Fedora Linux installed on my notebook, but it became so annoying that I had to get rid of it (I blogged here about it).

Serious Memory Management Issues

Now that I have tested two different flavor of Linux (i.e. Fedora, Ubuntu) on two different notebooks, my hunch is that Linux has some serious memory management issues compared to Microsoft Windows!

Very unfortunate!

Annoyances

1. My wireless LAN at home is "out of range" (according to Network settings)? My smartphone tells me otherwise! Grr!
2. Ubuntu desktop randomly blanks out letters in menus etc. This is very annoying!
3. Ubuntu drops my WiFi connection very frequently at least like once every 1-2 hours. So I try to reconnect or disable/enable networking etc. Very annoying!
4. If you have the Chrome Browser installed and you open let's say more than two dozen tabs (e.g. Facebook, Google mail, calendar, docs; various news media like New York Times, National Review etc.), Ubuntu becomes unstable or terribly responsive with long delays! Very annoying!

Another Unconstitutional Decision By The Supreme Court

Posted: 6/25/2015

Trigger

Yesterday the infamous decision on Obamacare, today another infamous decision on gay marriage (Obergefell Et Al. V. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department Of Health, Et Al.).

The events are happening so fast that I did not have any time to read more about it.

I hope to amend this blog post as soon as I have read more about it.

Deeply Unconstitutional

The Supremes usurped again the power to define the law of the land for all Americans what should have left to each state to decide.

The U.S. Supreme Court today went roughshod over state referenda and state constitutional amendments like the one in South Dakota.

This ruling today has all the qualities to become as controversial as Roe v. Wade!

What is celebrated today by NPR and many homosexuals etc. could very well turn out to become a big bone of contention in the years ahead.

Confusing Marriage With Slavery?

The U.S. Supreme Court, to my mistaken knowledge, never outlawed slavery even though it should have done so. Thus, a complete failure of Scotus on this issue. Not only that the Scotus issued several horrible or infamous decisions regarding slaves or former slaves (e.g. Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) or equal but separate in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)).

Unlike slavery, marriage is a very personal decision!

One-Two-Punch Foul Compromise Among Supremes

Is this pure coincidence that these two decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court were released just one day apart? I sense here that the Supremes were having a struggle here and, unfortunately, something terribly awful came out of it!

This could be another hint that the Chief Justice John Roberts is totally unprincipled, incompetent and inept!

Privatize Marriage!

It is high time to privatize marriage! I intend to blog about this subject in more detail as soon as possible. Government or courts at all levels of government should only legitimately get involved in these personal decisions when there is a dispute of some sorts or when children are involved.

The OPM Hacking Attack Is Fast Becoming A Sputnik Crisis

Posted: 6/26/2015

Trigger

This week (e.g. here, here) we learnt that the hack into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management was far more serious than previously acknowledged by the administration. China is alleged to have perpetrated it.

I use Sputnik Crisis here in a polemic sense.

Hacking Attack On The German Bundestag

Recently, the German parliament was target of a massive hacking attack into their computer systems as reported around June of this year (see e.g. here). The Russians are believed to have perpetrated this one.

China Drove Home Another Lesson

In 2007, China killed a satellite in space.

“Way back in March 2014, OPM knew that Chinese hackers had accessed its system without having downloaded files. So the agency was on notice as a target.” (Source). Incredibly, the Chinese probed their target first a year ahead of their two main attacks and the Obama administration was sleeping at the switch like a leader from behind.

We also learnt this week, what the attackers were really after: Millions of background check documents (e.g. security clearing forms)! An excellent Wall Street Journal Opinion page article (Obama’s Cyber Meltdown The Chinese attack on federal personnel files keeps getting worse.) described in great detail how harmful this breach is to e.g. U.S. spies anywhere in the world. This is a very serious blow to the U.S.!

Salient excerpts from the article above:

1. “These include reports on Americans who work for, did work for, or attempted to work for the Administration, the military and intelligence agencies. They even include Congressional staffers who left government—since their files are also sent to OPM.”
2. “This means the Chinese now possess sensitive information on everyone from current cabinet officials to U.S. spies. Background checks are specifically done to report personal histories that might put federal employees at risk for blackmail.”
3. “These background checks are also a treasure trove of names, containing sensitive information on an applicant’s spouse, children, extended family, friends, neighbors, employers, landlords. Each of those people is also now a target, and in ways they may not contemplate. In many instances the files contain reports on applicants compiled by federal investigators, and thus may contain information that the applicant isn’t aware of.
   Of particular concern are federal contractors and subcontractors,  ...”
4. “The volume of data also allows the Chinese to do what the intell pros call “exclusionary analysis.” [process of elimination] We’re told, for instance, that some highly sensitive agencies don’t send their background checks to OPM. So imagine a scenario in which the Chinese look through the names of 30 State Department employees in a U.S. embassy. Thanks to their hack, they’ve got information on 27 of them. The other three they can now assume are working, undercover, for a sensitive agency. Say, the CIA.”
5. “Or imagine a scenario in which the Chinese cross-match databases, running the names of hacked U.S. officials against, say, hotel logs. They discover that four Americans on whom they have background data all met at a hotel on a certain day in Cairo, along with a fifth American for whom they don’t have data. ”

I am not sure whether this obstinate moron in the White House really understands what happened here, if this is true!

Chief Justice Roberts Massively Failed Again

Posted: 6/25/2015

Trampling On The Constitution And Mocking The Law

Today (6/25/2015), the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6 to 3 decision failed to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the land. Shame again on Chief Justice Roberts. This will go down as a sad or even infamous day in U.S. history.

I have not yet read a summary or the decision itself, thus I rely on excerpts published in the media. It appears again that the Chief Justice came up with a flimsy, untenable reasoning. Hope to add some remarks later.

I have previously blogged about John Roberts first failure regarding Obamacare here. Since then I have blogged here and here about the Chief Justice.

Hope Springs Eternal

One can only hope, that this miscarriage of justice will ignite a storm like the infamous Kelo v. City Of New London decision of about 10 years ago whereafter many states strengthened their private property protections.

One hopes the voters in November 2016 will vote out those who are responsible for Obamacare and for failing to repeal it and vote in a president who means business.

Lastly, we urgently need strict term limits for all justices including the supremes!

Discovered My Doppelganger In China

Posted: 6/24/2015  Updated: 6/25/2015

Today, a first time Chinese visitor to Phoenix pointed out that I looked like Robert Zollitsch (here is his own website) to whom he referred to by his Chinese name Lao Luo (Old gong). The visitor at that point did not know that I was German.

Mr. Zollitsch is a german “composer and producer of new Chinese music” who lives in Beijing, China and appears to be very popular in China. Like me he appears to wear something like crew cut.

I am a composer of sorts too. I design and code software!

Democratic Party Is In A Shokingly Bad Shape

Posted: 6/24/2015

The Democratic Party of the U.S. has awful leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for way too long in the U.S. Congress and an obstinate moron in the White House (Barack Obama) for two terms.

For the presidential election only Hillary Clinton without any serious competition is their Democratic Party’s ticket for the White House. Bernie Sanders is a loony leftist and the former governor of Maryland and former mayor of Baltimore Martin O’Malley is very much unaccomplished. Is there indeed not any other, able, and centrist democratic politician who has the guts to stand up and contend?

If Hillary is elected there can be no female interns in the White House. Her incredibly scandalous past will hopefully catch up with her by election day so help us God! Honesty and integrity are not Hillary’s forte!

Any two-party only democracy suffers greatly if one of the two parties is so extreme and offers such lousy candidates.

Confederate Flag Symbolism & Tokenism

Posted: 6/24/2015

Trigger

On 6/25/2015, the governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley asked to remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol (see e.g. here) in the wake of the horrible shooting of 9 people in a church in Charleston, SC.

Perhaps one reason why Nikki Haley is not presidential material! According to news reports governor Haley reversed her position on this subject in about 6 months.

Typical Red Herring

This is just another politicized red herring like whether this was a domestic terrorist act or a hate crime. Politicians are again quick to abdicate their responsibility.

Even if there were hundreds of pictures of young Dylann Roof holding or waving a Confederate flag it does not explain or cause his rage.

The 150 Years Are Not Enough To Heal The Wounds Of The American Civil War

This is also particularly true for the people of the Confederate states, I believe. I have written elsewhere here on my blog about, what is in my view, the unnecessary enormous devastation and deaths brought about by this total war fought to the bitter end.

How Many Southerners Hated Black Slaves?

More specifically, how many slaveholders in the south hated their slaves? I would venture to say not that many. So to conflate hate crime and slavery etc. is disingenuous at best.

How many white southerners were actually slaveholders?

Was The Shooter Mentally Ill?

First and foremost, mental illness does not justify killing other humans.

This is perhaps the most critical question regarding this heinous crime. Was the shooter in treatment, what kind for how long? Did the parents know about it? What did they know? Why did the father buy him a handgun just months before the shooting?

I have not followed every bit of news out there, but to the best of my knowledge up to this day this question has not really been investigated nor really addressed.

The way this young man executed this mass shooting it suggests the affliction by a mental illness.

What should concern politicians is how many such mass shootings are committed by mentally ill people and why there is not better help available! Mental illness treatment especially in the U.S. and probably in many other Western countries is shamefully inadequate!

Confederate Flag Symbolism & Tokenism