National Economic Problems

We Duh People!, makes a valid point in regards to our economy both Nationally and Worldwide.  We Duh People points out the unemployment rates, rise of food prices, and the rainy cloud over our heads, our ever increasing national debt. 

     We Duh People points out that the unemployment rate for students are at 8.2%, well its not just students its the national unemployment rate.  The sad thing is this doesn't include those that are partially or under employed.  53% of college graduates under the age of 30 are under or unemployed.  I like to refer to this as the New Great Depression.  If the government really truly counted everyone that was unemployed we would be about even with the numbers from the Great Depression. 

     Because fuel prices are increasing everything that needs fuel is affected by the gas prices.  For instances food. We need to move food across the country and that takes fuel that farmers have to pay for.  So you see the food prices increase to accommodate the increase in the cost of fuel.  The day that Obama came into office gas at the pump was $1.80, it is now upwards of $3.70 it has more than doubled.  This however, is only part of the problem.  The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.  So instead of companies creating jobs here (where we need them) they create them overseas where they have lower tax rates. 

     The National Debt seems to be the elephant in the room that everyone is trying to ignore.  However, it isn't going anywhere.  As long as we have a super high national debt with no plans to pay it off, our credit rating will continue to be dropped and this country will become even further in debt and be owned by countries over seas such as China. 

ARIZONA V. UNITED STATES

      Arizona V. United States has made its appearance in the U.S. Supreme Court as the first day of arguments came to a close. The question that needs answering to in this case is found in the Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court.  It asks,  "whether the federal immigration laws preclude Arizona's efforts at cooperative law enforcement and impliedly preempt these four provisions of S.B. 1070 on their face."   

     I am in belief that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to be hard pressed to come to an answer to this question.  No where in the US Constitutional Amendments does it touch base with illegal immigrants.  It does however state in the 10th Amendment that rights not listed in the Constitution and are not prohibited by the Constitution are reserved for the states.  This is a very lose translation however. 

So on one side you have Arizona that is not breaking any Constitutional rights by implementing their laws against illegal immigration.  However, I do believe that this will end up as a slippery slope.  Because it allows for the checking of papers of anyone of foreign nationality or suspected foreign nationality I believe that this will lead to racial profiling.  Racial profiling is against the US Constitution.  I believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will see this slippery slope and this is why the decision will be one that is extremely difficult to decide.  I do look forward to the outcome that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide and the reasoning behind it.

     I disagree with everything you have stated completely on your post It is time to withdraw from Afghanistan.  I served in the military and I know many men and women who have deployed and came home, most in one piece some not.  The war on terrorism was not just about killing Sadam Hussen or Osama Bin Laden.  It was to obliterate terrorism against the United States from the Al-Qaeda.

     Now, since President Obama decided to pull our troops out before the country has been stabilized that is the cause of so many American deaths.  What idiot (beg your pardon for the term but I lack a more accurate term) would pull troops out of a hostile country.  We barely helped them set up a government and now we are abandoning them.  We will be right back where we were in about two years.  

     You say more than 80 soldiers have been killed since 2007 with the majority in 2009 right?  Well Obama was president for a year by that time and as soon as he put foot in the door he started depleted troop size in Afghanistan.  So that is your reason for the deaths of so many soldiers.  Because he has not allowed the military to handle a military situation.  Instead a man with no military background or training what so ever is given control over them and decides on a whim that he is going to withdraw troops without thinking of the consequences.  And the media is even worse they project the image that its because of these killings that we should withdraw from a country.  Hello we are still in Berlin and how long ago was that war? 


 

President Obama Should Not Be Re-elected

     In 2008 a new President came to office.  President Barak Obama a new hope for so many a face for a better America working for the average American.  Or so many of us thought and believed.  I was not among the believers.  My trepidation about President Obama began with the dispute over his birth records.  President Obama claims to have been born in Hawaii and can only produce a certificate of live birth.  To many people this passes a birth certificate.  However, being that I was born in Hawaii myself I know this to be untrue.  Hawaii is a state that produces birth certificates (which state you were born in Hawaii and therefore a US Citizen) and certificates of live birth (which ultimately mean you were born).  I have a birth certificate.  How an elected official can gain office without his credentials being checked still blows my mind.  It is part of the United States Constitution.

     My second trepidation stems from his passport usage in the 1980s.  In the 1980s US Citizens were not allowed to go to Pakistan.  This is important because President Obama was there in the 1980s and if he couldn't use a US Passport what passport did he use.  And since he used another passport that pretty much shows that he is not truly a native born citizen of the USA and therefore has illegally become President by a system that doesn't know how to verify the credentials of Presidential nominees before they get voted into office. 


     Things really get scary with President Obama in office with his policies in governing the United States.  President Obama is pushing so hard for America to be just like Europe that it is costing America a fortune and pushing us even further into debt.  He started with the increase in gas prices to attempt to get Americans to be more European and walk everywhere.  Apparently Obama forgot that this is the US and we are bigger that Europe could ever hope to be so walking isn't really an option.  We don't have any money to invest  in a bullet train like they have in Europe so that again is out of the question.  Then the icing on the cake President Obama decides to have "Obama Care".  At first glance one might think finally I will be taken care of and have health insurance.  But the cost of it does not out way the benefits.  Again Obama Care is drafted from the Europeans.
   
       However, America is so big the wait list to get an MRI would take years, the drugs that we have available to us would not be at our fingertips it could take months to get a prescription we needed because we weren't sick enough to receive the medication the first time around.  Also, the working class would again be supporting those that choose to schmooze off the government as if they aren't bad enough lets give them health care too.  Gee, I am a single mom trying to go to school, work and sure why not I want to pay for my health care and someone elses too. 

     I would love nothing better than for President Obama to not be re-elected in the 2012 election.  At this point I could care less who is in the running for the presidential nominee spots.  I would and will vote for anyone whose name is not Obama.  America has always allowed its people to build their own money and pay their own way.  I don't want to start changing it now just because some non native born President decides we should be more European.  Its ridiculous.

Reassessing Our Federal and State Constitutions

  The blog Reassessing Our Federal and State Constitutions was written by The Volokh Conspiracy writer Ilya Somin.  Ilya Somin is an Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law and is also Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review.  Reassessing Our Federal and State Constitutions is about University of Texas Constitutional law professor Sanford Levinson, who wrote about his qualms with State and the Federal Constitution.  Levinson thinks that the Constitutions need to more in depth in their explanations of rights and wrongs.  Somin although agreeing that some changes or new interpretations of the Constitutions should be made, believes it should be done slowly with as little change to them as possible so as not to cause an all out panic with the citizens of the United States. 

     It has been many years since an Amendment to the Constitution has been made and it is my belief that it is not Amendments that Somin fears will cause a panic but if a new Constitutional Convention is put in to place and the public believes that all of their freedoms will be reinterpreted by a new Convention, one will probably see floods of protestors flock the streets and a high flood of public unrest.  It is well documented in the American history that U.S. citizens do not deal with change very well, eventually the public can be brought to see reason when the choices being made by our political leaders end in our benefit.  However I agree with Somin that if their is to be changes made in the US Constitution it is better to do so slowly and take as much time as possible so that interpretations of the Constitution do not lead to a misinterpretation that leads to chaos. 

Somin's target audience seems to be Levinson himself.  While he commends Levinson for his ideas on Constitutional changes, he also discredits Levinsons options for change and reasons that Levinson believes the Constitutions need re-interpretation. 

Medicare Crisis

     Tell Congress to address Medicare funding now, is a commentary written by Dr. Peter Carmel and Dr. Bruce Malone in the Austin American Statesman.  Dr. Carmel is the president of the American Medical Association and Dr. Malone is the president of the Texas Medical Association.  The goal of the American Medical Association is to unit physicians nationwide and to promote the betterment of public health.  The goal of the Texas Medical Association is much like the American Medical Association just on a state level (i.e. Texas).
     In this commentary both Doctors seek to Address Medicare the Funding crisis.  Dr. Carmel and Dr. Malone believe that the Congress's procrastination on addressing a long term solution to the medicare problem has cost the country more than $300 billion.  They believe that if the procrastination continues in five years the cost will reach at least $600 billion.  Congress has developed what Dr. Carmel and Dr. Malone call the "faulty formula", in which Congress plans to cut medicare payments to doctors by 27%.  While it doesn't state the crisis it would bring on a national level, they do state that when this cut takes place on March 1st, that it will affect 2.9 million seniors in Texas and about 900,000 veterans and their families in Texas.  
     Dr. Carmel and Dr. Malone's solution for the crisis is rather simple.  They would like for Congress to use the projected savings from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to eliminate the "faulty formula" that the Congress has set into place.  What the Doctors do not produce is the monetary amount the savings from the wars is estimated.  Thus, their is no way to draw a conclusion on whether or not the projected solution would actually work, or if their would be enough savings to cover the Medicare expenses.

Does the Right to Choose a Roommate Include a Right to Advertise Discriminatory Preferences?

      David Bernstein introduces a dilemma brought about after a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court, in California, due to the court case of Fair Housing Council V. Roommate.com. In his article (Does the Right to Choose a Roommate Include a Right to Advertise Discriminatory Preferences?).  They found that the law does not apply to advertising for a roommate.  This law is the Fair Housing Act (1968) which prohibits "discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin" (US Dept of Housing).  This law was amended in 1988 to be more inclusive and is further expanded upon.  Back to the point, this ruling found that in the selection of roommates it is acceptable to discriminate and post preferences about political, racial, and sexual orientations.  Bernstein and I as well, agree with the ruling made by the Judge.  

     The ruling attempts to be fair but has to account for both the Fair Housing Act and the rights of the First Amendment.  More specifically the "freedom of speech" right guaranteed in this Amendment.  Although the posting of specifications for a roommate is a type of discrimination, I do not believe it is discrimination targeted towards any one sex, race, or political group/individual.  It is too broad of a service and many people look for different things in the people they would like as roommates.  Which would mean that every race, sex, and political group/individual is being discriminated against on this web site.  

     Because it is so broad of a discrimination or all inclusive, I would instead refer to it as personal preferences and not discrimination.  Every person is allowed to pick and choose what they prefer in another person, whether as a roommate or as a significant other, this is not unconstitutional.  An example of personal preferences; can be seen on dating websites.  It is my belief that roommate.com is almost exactly the same as a dating site.  They are both web pages that state what one is looking for in another person.  I think there is no viable reason that this case was taken to court over what they thought to be discrimination.  And although I understand the other point of view and how it could possibly be seen as a violation of the Fair Housing Act, I do not believe the advertisements are or were meant to be prejudice or discriminatory in any way to any one particular group/individual.  This is a very well put together article and Bernstein  does a good job of stating the facts and defending his views as well as providing details for better understanding of the other side of the argument, and how it can seem unjust.  I however maintain that it is not preventing anyone from fair housing.