I might actually agree with Bush on something - oh the horror

President Bush is talking about illegal immigrants again. Oh, I mean undocumented workers...whatever. He is making some sense on the issue (obviously an idea not of his own making). We do have a problem with illegal immigrants, but not the one most people worry about.

The problem this country has with illegal immigrants has everything to do with needing workers for jobs most people don't want in this country. Farm workers, hotel workers, busboys, even construction workers. With employment down in the 5% range, there simply isn't a big enough pool of workers to pull from. And, I think there is a built in base of adults who simply don't want to or can't work.

I speak about this issue from a very personal perspective. My son is married to an illegal immigrant. She works in a bakery now, but started as a hotel maid. She is learning English to fit in better, as are her several bothers and mother. They are all here illegally, all working full time, all contributing to our economy.

The answer to the problem is obviously not simple. We need them, but we also need to know who they are, where they work etc. Maybe the guest worker idea is a good start, with an option to become a legal citizen after a certain number of years. I tend toward that opinion. But, whatever we do, it is an issue that needs solving, and building a wall or having the "citizen patrols" out there is not the answer.

It's way past time to have this discussion.

Duke "Top Gun" Cunninghan, aka convicted felon

Well, it appears the fat has risen to the top. Rep. Cunningham admits taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. No surprise they got the war they wanted.

All the well supplying the government with over-priced under-valued goods. And, our soldiers suffered, maybe died so Mr. Top Gun could enrich himself. Now there's a patriot for you. I sure hope the right wing zealots set up to the plate and defend their man.

Patients dumped on Skid Row

That's the headline in my newspaper, The Sacramento Bee. Apparently several hospitals are discharging homeless patients to "Skid Row". I think that is just fine. My point - they come to the hospital homeless, why is it the job of the hospital to find them a home? As long as the hospitals don't discharge them to a worse place than they came from, why is that a problem?

I have been a nurse for 30 years now, I have seen it all - or at least most of all. As an example, yesterday at work a discharge planner was talking with a homeless man about discharge. She had found him a homeless shelter to go to. The mans response? Oh, they won't let him stay more than a night or two; can't we get him a hotel room for a week or two? And, that's exactly the response we usually get. A hotel room? Why?

Being the pragmatic liberal that I am - I would say "I didn't have a hand in your being in the life situation you are in now, but I can give you just a small hand up - i.e. the homeless shelter. But, it's not my job - it's your job - to make more permanent plans for your future". Is that hard hearted? Maybe a little, but my own experience (and talk to any nurses you know) is that this man is looking to us - society - to take care of all of his needs, and that is just not reasonable.

I can be liberal, but I don't feel the need to be mother, father, and nanny to every single person in this country.

What is a Pragmatic Liberal?

I like the name and it makes a lot of sense to me. But, what exactly is a "pragmatic liberal"? Is it someone who sells out on issues? Or is it someone who can sometimes find a middle ground that might not please a "diehard liberal"?

And, when I find that middle ground, will there be anyone there? I think I will find some moderates from both parties, depending upon the issue. Let's take one example - and it's a big one - the Iraq war. I wholeheartedly believe we were consciously lied to by Bush, we're there under false pretenses, and it's a mess. But, I also feel we have a responsibility to the people there now, and have to find a way out that isn’t' simply to walk away immediately. That brings me to Rep. Murtha - he has single handedly changed the debate, and thank God for him. We're talking about how to get out of Iraq now, including the Republicans. The key is to get a large enough middle ground crowd to control the debate.

So, for me this is one place where I can agree to disagree with those who would pull out today, but also disagree with those who want to "stay the course" - whatever that is. That's my definition of a pragmatic liberal approach. Does it make sense to anyone besides me?

Welcome Juan Cole visitors

I love Informed Consent myself. That's why I decided to try a blog ad there. My own little site is probably more eclectic, and certainly doesn't have the gravitas Juan brings to his site, but I try.

I hope to work on some fairly substantive posts associated with the notion that liberals can find common ground with a variety of people - particularly independents on specific issues.

Light Posting

I work weekends, every weekend actually. Two 12 hour shifts. Lucky for me, that basically consistutes full time. As a result however, posting on weekends is light to non-existant. Unless of course some calamity arises.
More on Monday.

Advanced Directives and my Mom

My mother is redoing her durable power of attornery for health care. This has been a two week ongoing procress. She wants to be sure it's correct, so we are going over it - again to be sure it's right.

This brings me to my topic - the need for all of us to have a durable power of attornery for healthcare. Any one of us could find ourselves in a sitution where we are not able to make our own wishes known. And, spending time with our collective heads in the sand is not a solution.

To that end I am linking to a Advance Healthcare Directive. Take a minute to look it over. Make a copy and fill it out. There is a nice peace of mind associated with taking care of at least one "what if".

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

So, I'm reading today's paper - The Sacramento Bee - and I'm all prepared to write about the good, bad, and ugly. Only, I can't find much good out there.

I suppose it's good that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has come clean, he actually wasn't a pro baseball draftee. But wait, that bad. It means he has been lying for four decades about this. And it's just plain ugly; why would anyone lie about something so easily fact checked.

Then there's the Ice Study. Apparently greenhouse gases are the highest they have been in 650,000 years. Now that's bad and ugly. But then again, it's good we know it now. Maybe this sort of really bad news will spur us into action to make changes for the better.

Finally, there is Romania which is denying that Mihail Kogalniceanu base has ever held U.S. al-Qaida captives. Now, that sounds a little like good news. But then again, it's pretty bad when we are talking in any capacity about secret detainee bases under U.S control isn't it? And, ugly doesn't begin to describe the mere thought that our government would be doing very bad things to other humans, regardless of what they are accused of.

I guess the point here, and there is a point, is that all news can be looked at from a variety of perspectives. Even obviously bad or ugly news can spur us into actions to improve a situation.

I am a daily newspaper reader, in spite of the fact that I spend lots of time online. The paper gives me the luxury of mulling over the story with my partner. We take time to discuss the issue, and I find I'm more likely to followup in some way. Reading the news online seems like such a solitary event.

What are your thoughts?

New Site Look

I've added several photos by my partner Morgan Wyeth. She is a dedicated ameteur photographer (the equipment is anything but cheap, though). If you like her work you can go to Quantum Reiki to see more. By the sites name you might have guessed she also teachs Reiki. As a matter of fact she is a Reiki Master. Take a peak at her site.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a wondderful Thanksgiving, and takes some time to thank the soliders fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We may not all agree on how we got there, how we're doing now, or how we get out; but we can ALL agree on how brave these people are, and how proud we Americans are of them.

Backyard Fighting

This last week has shown the American public a couple of things:

* Democrats aren't afraid of Bush or Republicans in Congress any more.

* Republicans have lost their way in all things political.

Rep Murtha's resolution was certainly a BIG deal. But, the Republicans took something that was mostly inside the Beltway and moved it out across the country. The Congress spoke for hours about Iraq. It's less about the content of the discussion and more about the fact that the DISCUSSION was out there for the public to see.

It stayed on the news and in the public eye for close to a week. This is just one more indication that the Republicans and Bush have lost control of the agenda. Are we hearing anything about Social Security "reform" these days? How about tax "reform"?

The Democrats are taking control of the public's view of what goes on in Wsahington. They must speak clearly, with one voice, and make it abundantly clear that America will be a better country under Democratic leadership.

He's back....

Dick Cheney, that is. Out of his hole to trash the Democrats - agian. This is a bit of what he was up to today:

Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice on Wednesday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

Newsday

The only problem is, the most dishonest and reprehensible person out there IS Dick Cheney. This is from a report just out by Rep. Henry Waxman:

Vice President Cheney made 51 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 25 separate public statements or appearances.

Of the 51 misleading statements by Vice President Cheney, 1 claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 22 exaggerated Iraq’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 7 overstated Iraq’s chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 21 misrepresented Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.

Some of the misleading statements made by Vice President Cheney included the following:

• [W]e do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement

system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to

build a nuclear weapon.”114

• Saddam Hussein “had an established relationship with al Qaeda.”115

• “[W]e believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”116

114 Meet the Press, supra note 38.
115 White House, Remarks by the Vice President to the Heritage Foundation (Oct. 10, 2003).
116 Meet the Press, supra note 20.

This man is exhibit A of everything that is wrong with this administration.

Poor Bush

I understand Bush is so distraught these days he will only talk to Laura, Mom, Condi, and Karen.

Insight Magazine also talks about Bush's snit regarding his father, aka 43. Maybe he just can't stand it that Bush Sr. and Clinton have become actual freinds. Oh, the horrors.

I almost feel sorry...oh well, no I don't. What I do feel is a certain fear for the future of this country. Now, that's real I'm sad to say.

What is it about Bush?

I ask myself this question more often than I want to. Is he really as uniformed as he seems? Is he really as simple as he seems? How on earth did this country end up with a leader so clearly unqualified for the position? And, for the life of me, can anyone tell me why conervatives of any stripe other than the evangelical right continues to suport him?

These questions seem reasonable to me. Being a Pragmatic Liberal I don't seek nor expect perfection from my elected officals, especially ones I don't vote for, but Bush isn't even on the charts of those potentially qualified to lead this country.

I can heartily disagree with an elected officical and still acknowledge that they are qualified for the job. But not Bush.

Only, 1100 days or so to go? Can the country take it? Can I?

Activist Judges

I am in the middle of an email conversation with my favorite conservative blogger (and a long distance friend I hope). We're discussing judicial activism. My initial comment went like this:

I'd like to know, besides Roe v Wade, what other big judicial activist cases don't you like? How about Brown v Board of Education or Loring v Virginia. They were both clearly activist decisions weren't they? Should they also be overturned? Should we take away the rights given to blacks in these cases?

He resonded with this:

Oh, please, you're better than that. Arguing that someone who opposes judicial activism is opposed to Brown vs. Board of Education is torching a straw man.... Affirmative action has never been passed by a legislative majority; it has been entirely created through executive orders and judicial rulings. This is, in my humble opinion, wrong; it short-circuits the part of the government that is meant to make the laws on a fundamental question; that is, is there a situation in which judging someone by their skin color is okay.

My attitude on gay marriage is similar. If a law establishing gay marriage pass a legislature, that's building a majority and a consensus; gay marriage supporters "win" fair and square. When a group of judges orders the legislature to change the laws, then the judge is telling the other branches of government, "your opinion, judgment and views do not matter. I am dictating what the laws will be."


My follow-up talks in more depth about Brown and Loring, and uses my conservatives logic as a possible outcome:

Maybe I tended a little toward hyperbole with the Brown vs. Board of Education analogy. But then and, based upon your logic, maybe I didn’t.

Your logic regarding gay marriage could be used with regard to Brown and Loring couldn’t it?

Here’s a bit of history relating to Brown to place it in context:

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas heard Brown's case from June 25-26, 1951. At the trial, the NAACP argued that segregated schools sent the message to black children that they were inferior to whites; therefore, the schools were inherently unequal. One of the expert witnesses, Dr. Hugh W. Speer, testified that:

"...if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum cannot be equal under segregation." [6]

The Board of Education's defense was that, because segregation in Topeka and elsewhere pervaded many other aspects of life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood. The board also argued that segregated schools were not neccessarily harmful to black children; great African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver had overcome more than just segregated schools to achieve what they achieved. [7] http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html

The US District court held that this segregation was allowed basing it on Plessy vs. Ferguson which allowed separate but equal school districts.

It was appealed to the US Supreme court.

On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren read the decision of the unanimous Court:

"We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does...We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. [12]

The Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy for public education, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and required the desegregation of schools across America. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html

Now, in this case, no legislative action to undo “separate but equal” had occurred. In fact, those who supported separate but equal had “won” fair and square. And, looking at the Board’s defense, it’s clear no action was likely to be forthcoming any time soon. Should that law have stayed on the books until those who wanted it removed could obtain enough support to win legislative action?

About Loring vs. Virginia, here is a bit of detail:

Loving v. Virginia
Richard and Mildred Loving were married in 1958 in Washington D.C. because their home state of Virginia still upheld the antimiscegenation law which stated that interracial marriages were illegal. They were married, then lived together in Caroline County, Virginia. In 1959 they were prosecuted and convicted of violating the states's antimiscegenation law. They were each sentenced one year in jail, but promised the sentence would be suspended if they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years. Forced to move, they returned to Washington D.C. where, in 1963, they initiated a suit challenging the constitutionality of the antimiscegenation law. In March of 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law, but in June of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. Thus, in 1967 the 16 states which still had antimiscegenation laws on their books were forced to erase them. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kdown/loving.html

This is the 15th Amendment to the Constitution:

Amendment XV.]

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

In this case, it would seem pretty clear that Virginia had enacted a law whereby the supporters of antimiscegenation had “won” fair and square. Should the law have remained on the books until those who opposed it could find legislative remedies?

The bottom line is, the US Supreme Court is there to determine if laws are legal and within the bounds of the US Constitution, right? Didn’t the Supreme Court do exactly this when they ruled in these two cases? And, if you don’t think so, how do you think this country would look today?

In the end, I suppose one person’s judicial activism in another’s appropriate legal ruling based upon interpretation of the Constitution. I guess if you hold the Constitution to its literal wording and work from the idea that judges can only rule based upon the founders original intent, than this country as we know it today looks nothing like the original idea of our founders. Is that good or bad? Personally, I think it’s not a matter of good or bad, it’s an inevitable response to the passage of time and the evolution of ideas.



Am I wrong? Is there no correlation here?

Alito and Vanguard

I've been reading with interest the possible problems associated with Alito ruling on a case involving Vanguard Funds. Maybe there isn't any "there there", but at the very least it calls into question Alito's judgement. And, basically, being a Supreme Court Justice is all about judgement.

It will be interesting to follow this issue, particularly in light of the weakened state of the Bush Administration.

Wlhat Does It All Mean?

Yesterday we saw the Democrats win governors races in New Jersey and Virginia. That sounds like good news, and it is. We just need to remember that both states had Democratic governors before the election. So, we kept the governships Democratic. I live out here in California, and yesterday the voters said NO to all of the initiatives. I think it had mostly to do with anger toward Arnold for calling a special election, not to mention his gratuitous attacks on teachers and nurses. That said, this state is still in a fiscal mess, and changes do have to be made.

My overall impression of yestersday's elections? My opinion is that overall, Democrats are viewed more favorably than Republicans, and this is something we need to build upon daily. For the upcoming 2006 election cycle, though, we are going to need more than good impressions to win. We need a coordinated national position and plan for all of the issues out there.

Clinton hatred - and reality

I mean Bill Clinton. In my daily foray on to The Corner I see that Jonah Goldberg has posted an email from someone who saw Clinton speak at Butler University last night. A couple of things jump out - the emailer obviously doesn't like Clinton and as a result does not report the speech accurately. More important though, Goldberg passes the email and comments on it without taking two seconds to see if the emailer is even accurate. His own hated of Clinton blinds him to the idea that the emailer may be wrong.

I see this behavior on both the right and the left. We overlay everything we see, hear, or read with our own pre-determined view of the topic. I'm no less guilty I have to say. The point is, do we stand a chance of having an actual discussion about issues and candidates when none of us really come to the table with an open mind?

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Just a little html testing here.




Positive Liberty

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working on seeing how this looks

Talking pro-life

I've just completed an intersting conversation with a regular poster at The Corner. We talked about judges and issues of being pro-life. Just to give you an idea of the conversation, here are several questions I posed: Do you think a person can be pro-choice and anti-abortion at the same time? Do you think a Supreme Court with a majority of Catholics automatically overturns Roe? Can a Catholic judge place Constitutional law above their own religious beliefs?

As long as the converation stayed philosophical we got along just fine. And, of course, I didn't bring up my own beliefs, rather I asked questions about his beliefs. My impression is that a pro-life person will work very hard to use logic as their basis when making the argument. It adds "value" or "weight" to their beliefs. But, underneath it all, it always comes down to a religous belief, not matter how they sugarcoat it with logic and legalisitc arguments.

Are the any completely right or wrong answers?