The Right Wing Media (Discussion)

On June 4, 2015 I posted my commentary entitled "The Right Wing Media."

Almost imediately I received three commnets on the post. My reponse to the one from Albert Nekinken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post.

The other two, however, are set forth below:

From Mike Cerrato, Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, came this generous compliment:

As usual, very educational. I fear, however, that many of the people who SHOULD be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between. Thanks for the ammunition, though, I will certainly use it appropriately.

To which I was forced to reply:

As you will see from one of my future posts, I made a mistake, and while one should always " be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between” I ended up quoting the wrong article from  Cynthia Tucker. Mea culpa.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY wrote:

This is why I *don't* read "conservative" (i.e., reactionary) news sites or watch their television.  I know I should, if for no better reason than "know your enemy."  The combination of hypocrisy and imbecility enrages me, which adds nothing to my day.  I'd much rather watch MSNBC and John Stewart skewer these evil trolls, even if it doesn't have much affect.  Luckily the Foxpublican Party is going to die out, as ignorant white men become a smaller and smaller percentage of the electorate.  The Koch Brothers can spend a billion dollars per election cycle and try to suppress minority voting, but their base (and I do mean BASE) electorate is slowly but surely going six feet under.

To which my response was:

Thanks for your comment.

I can understand your reluctance to read Right Wing commentary. It can be infuriating. But as you say one should read it, "if for no better reason than "know your enemy.”

 But actually, I think there is an even better reason. How can one be sure ones views are sound unless they are constantly tested against different views. If one choses to live in an echo chamber, and unfortunately, recent surveys have shown that this is exactly what most people are doing, how can one ever be sure that ones views are sound. I feel I have to expose myself to a variety of views to get stimulation for my own, though I have to admit that this is easier for one who is retired, then for one who has to earn ones daily bread.

My post “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things," is an example of the extent to which the Right Wing media will go, telling outright lies about the Clintons. Yet we have to recognize that the smears of the Clinton’s are definitely having an effect, as the polls on Hillary’s popularity have shown. In November of 2012 her favorability rating was 58.6% favorable v. 33.1% unfavorable. As of June 1 it was  favorable 46% v. 48.4% unfavorable, and in a discussion with a very liberal friend (supporter of Bernie Sanders) today, she expressed concern about Clinton's ethics on the basis of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

 In the hubbub over foreign contributions to the foundation, what is overlooked is that it is a charitable foundation, from which the Clintons do not profit. One might even argue that turning down donations, which benefit people in need throughout the world, is something no one has the right to do, since the money refused is money that is not available for the recipients of the foundations work. But the media has always enjoyed lots of good copy by playing up accusations that eventually, more often than not, have turned out to have no basis in fact. Whitewater never proved to be Clinton corruption despite the best efforts of Keneth Starr, and in the end all they could get on Bill or Hillary was that he lied about an extra-marital affair, as just about anyone would lie about something like that, and as e.g. Martin Luther King (of sainted memory) did.

 But the so-called liberal media is a myth concocted by the media echo chamber, and the New York Times, despite its liberal editorial page, has spread more than its share of Right Wing lies. 

And then added:

After I sent the below set forth message I started thinking about the things that do bother me. For instance I think it was wrong to indict former speaker Hastert for paying blackmail. But I am much more bothered by the amount of money he reportedly made as a lobbyist after leaving Congress. Influence peddling is a big deal in Washington and the Clintons never indulged in this form of payola.

 On the other hand they have made huge amounts in speaking fees, which I find abhorrent. But this is so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to fault them. See ABC News for an article about how much Sarah Palin has been making. But that article has an even more important item. I quote from the article. "President Reagan once got $2 million from a Japanese manufacturing company for two 20-minute speeches… And George W. Bush told reporters he expected to make a "ridiculous" amount of money on the speaker's circuit when he left office.”

 Our system also effectively makes it impossible for anyone to run for public office unless they have one or more rich angels, and that includes Sanders. 

 We cannot hold people to a standard that is completely out of line from that which is ingrained. More important is whether they want to change the system.

 In the end we will always have to choose between realistic, and I emphasize realistic, choices, unless we want to simply opt out of the process and leave it to the very worst elements.

 Sorry! I do get carried away.

Which only prompted a further repsonse from Malchman as follows:

Well, a couple of things. One, if Hillary is elected and one or more of the SCOTUS Republicans leave the bench, Citizens United will get overturned.  My fantasy is that the Court say corporations are not people for purposes of constitutional protection.  Corporations are creature of state (and sometimes federal) law, and could be banned outright (caveat: I haven't thought about the implication of the Contracts Clause here), and therefore could be regulated to restrict speech.  The Constitution protects people, not legal fictions or business constructs.  But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that ruling.

 As for Hastert, he was not indicted for paying blackmail, he was indicted for structuring cash bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and then lying to the FBI about it.  Those are real crimes.  At a moral level, I have no doubt he's serial a child molester, and anything bad that happens to him is karmicly (if that's a word) deserved.

Ending that exhange with my concluding reply quoted below:

I am afraid that this is indeed a fantasy. The more likely scenario, even if Clinton is elected, which is not a given, is that Ginsburg will retire and her replacement will face a filibuster leaving eight on the court and we get 5-3 Right Wing decisions. Eventually one of the Right wing judges retires and we get a deal of one on the right and one on the left, continuing the 5-4 split of today. Maybe in a Clinton second term we get control of the court, but that is a long way off.

 Sorry, I wish I could buy into your fantasy.

And then concluded with:

As for Hastert, I know they got him on a law that might stick, but that is just the handle. I don’t believe in prosecuting people on a legal fiction, on the theory that you, or they think, but can’t prove, that he's a serial child molester.

 The sale of influence is of much greater concern to me.

Next time I will share with my readers my exhange with Nekimken, where I confessed a serious error in having set forth in my original post the wrong article from Cynthia Tucker. But that will have to wait for my next post.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

I AM A JEW (Part II)

Comments about Part I:

At the end of my last post entitled "I AM A JEW (Part I)" I concluded with “Please hold your comments, if any, until the end of this exposition, unless you feel that you have something to add to a particular portion, rather than to the whole.”

This prompted some comments, which did, to a large extend, address the first part.

George Garver of Fort Lee, NJ, objected to my taking pride in my ethnicity, writing:

Pride comes from a sense of accomplishment and not happenstance. You had no choice regarding your unchosen heritage. 


To which I responded:

Your point is well taken, at least in theory. But the fact is that all (or at least most) people take pride in their heritage. That is why so many people spend countless amounts of money tracing their ancestors. And our heritage has a lot to do with who we are. 

I am proud to be an American is a common refrain.  

When an American landed on the moon, we all felt proud. That is the way things work in the real world. 

We take pride even in our adopted associations. I am proud to be a Yankee fan. I am glad “my team” won, even though I had nothing to with it. 

Our heritage is a large part of what and who we are, and what we are, if it is positive, is a perfectly natural reason for pride. 

Ideally, maybe it should be as you say, but that isn’t the real world. People take pride in who their father was. The Kennedy clan takes pride in being Kennedys and the public accepts that.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY, called to my attention an error that I made:

Not to nit-pick, but as Jews, should we not be referring to Jesus as "Christ," which implies that he was the Messiah?   

I'll be interested to see where this is going.  I think there is plenty of blame to go around.

My response recognized my error. Accordingly I wrote:

Your point is well taken.

I should not have referred to Christ, I should have referred to Jesus.

Hal Wolkoff of Montclair, NJ, expressed this view:

I look forward to your further comments.  I am a Jew, probably very similar in my beliefs and political views to you. I strongly support Israel but have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinian people. When it comes to who is responsible for the continuous violence and deaths of innocents there is no doubt in my mind. The blame belongs entirely to the Palestinian/Arab leadership who continue to reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State.

To which I did not respond since it goes to the heart of the issue and my posts are the only way that I know how to respond.

I AM A Jew (Part II)

The early Jewish settlers to Palestine came from Europe. They were the true refugees for whom the state was founded. They are known as Ashkenazi. Many of them, possibly most were, what is known in Europe as Social Democrats. In the terminology of the US they were something akin to New Dealers. They formed the many Kibbutzim, using modern irrigation, to “make the desert bloom” and their organization was strictly socialist, with all sharing equally in the produce of the settlement. 

They were strong supporters of the Labor Party.

But the founding of Israel, while it had a profound impact on Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and even after when the survivors needed to escape from the scenes of the horrors, it had a negative effect on Jews who had lived in peace and prosperity for generations in Arab lands. They suddenly faced anti-Semitism and persecution from their host nations, and as a result they fled in large numbers to Israel, greatly embittered against the Arabs. They flocked to what had until then been a minority party, i.e. Likud. The final wave of immigrants were the Russian, who having lived under an oppressive socialist dictatorship, found themselves with little sympathy for Socialist, or even Social Democratic ideas. They too flocked to Likud.

But even at a very early stage of the founding of Israel, there were three factions, One organized the Haganah, which later became the Labor party, the second was Irgun, which later became Herut under the leadership of Menachim Begin, who later became Prime Minister, and eventually became Likud and a very small group known as the Stern gang. What followed was a series of terrorist attacks. That included in 1948 the assassination of Count Bernadotte, a Swedish mediator, but also included a whole series of terrorist attacks by the Irgun and Stern gangs, which included the famous bombing of the King David Hotel, but many others as well. See here. Relations between Irgun and the Haganah became so bad that there was an armed stand off between the two Jewish armed organizations, which came to be known as the Atelena affair. 

There has long been a debate about whether Arabs left Israel out of their own free will, at the urgings of their leaders or were driven out by Israeli forces conducting ethnic cleansing. After extensive research I have concluded that both are true. What has come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre is instructive.

I quote from Wikipedia:

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestinian forces during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.

Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes. Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem, though accounts vary. Four of the attackers died, with around 35 injured. The killings were condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force—and by the area's two chief rabbis. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed.

The deaths became a pivotal event in the Arab–Israeli conflict for their demographic and military consequences. The narrative was embellished and used by various parties to attack each other—by the Palestinians against Israel; by the Haganah to play down their own role in the affair; and by the Israeli Left to accuse the Irgun and Lehi of violating the Jewish principle of purity of arms, thus blackening Israel's name around the world. News of the killings sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later. (Emphasis added)

I don’t want to quote more, but it gets worse. Those who are interested can read the rest of the entry.

All this might be dismissed as ancient history, but it is relevant for two reasons. It shows that terrorism is the inevitable method for the weak who feel they cannot succeed without resort to it (The Irish Republican Army, which many Americans sympathized with is another example) and it is relevant because the ruling party of Israel, Likud, is the successor to these terrorists. It’s founding rejects the very idea of a Palestinian state. I quote from the document.

The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting…. The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River.

And so we find the frequent criticism of Hamas in so far its founding charter reads,

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

But is that so different from Likud’s claim to all of Palestine including the whole West Bank and Gaza. To expect Hamas to drop this demand can only be the end result of negotiations, not a pre-condition.

The PLO used to have a similar provision in its charter. It provided under Article 17:

The Partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the loss of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination.

But as long ago as 1988 it accepted Israel’s right to exist. 

After a two-day meeting with five prominent American Jews here, a P.L.O. delegation led by Mr. Arafat said in a joint statement that the Palestinian parliament in exile last month had ''accepted the existence of Israel as a state in the region'' and ''declared its rejection and condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.''

Where did it get them? Has Israel reciprocated by recognizing the right of a Palestinian Sate? Did this prompt the cessation of Israel’s endless encroachment of Palestinian territory? Has it stopped the creeping annexation of the West Bank? Or for that matter the military occupation of the whole West Bank? To all intents and purposes the P.L.O. has been turned into the Vichy government of the West Bank, and then the Likud government of Israel claims the PLO is too weak to be a negotiating partner.

The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution (Discussion)

At the end of my last post entitled "The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution" I stated: “Comments on the above are welcome and will be responded to, but will not be published or posted. However, the discussion that followed has been so interesting and informative that I do want to share it with you.

So here goes...

Robert Malchman, Esq. of Brooklyn, NY was brief in his remarks. He wrote:

I believe you have the better of the argument, and the errors are quite stunning.  Even in his rebuttal, Mr. Walpin gets Griswold flat wrong.  That case had nothing to do with people being secure in their homes; it was an appeal of petitioners' criminal convictions for selling birth control devices.  Searches and homes, and the Fourth Amendment were irrelevant.  The Court instead found a right to marital privacy, which included the purchase of contraceptives.

As is my wont, I was not equally brief. My response is below:

Yes, I was surprised that he had such a poor defense. It wasn’t just Griswold, The case he cited to support his Declaration of Independence argument, as you can see from the quote, says just the opposite. And how anybody can talk about religion in the public square and totally ignore the 1st amendment is beyond me.

I was surprised because Walpin has always been rather brilliant. At CCNY where we went to school together he was President of the Student Council and I think an editor on one of the newspapers. He took on the President of the college and made him back down. He then went to Yale where he became Editor in Chief of the Law Review. He clerked for two federal judges and then joined the US Attorney’s office, where he was in charge of the prosecution of Roy Cohen, Sen. McCarthy’s sidekick.  He then joined the Rosenman firm where he soon made partner and became the head of its 65 person litigation department. After Walpin retired Bush II appointed him as Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service See here. Obama fired him.

Regardless of the virtue of his Tea Party positions, I would have expected his book to be on more solid ground and his debate with me to be more lucid. Surely his briefs in his law practice must have been argued with much greater skill.

I also noted that he resorted to an attack on his critic rather than relying on the merits of the argument, saying:

"I thank Mr. Scheller for his candor in conceding that, before he read my book, he had already decided that he would not agree with its conclusions. While I will not spend my time responding to each nit-pick that those who read my book (with a closed mind) claim to find…”

The other comment came from Leonard Levenson, Esq. of Manhattan, NY. He wrote:

I have read your review of Walpin's book, his rebuttal and your sur-rebuttal.  Without going into specifics, it seems clear that Supreme Court decisions turn a blind eye to the doctrine of Stare Decisis.  The court does so for 2 reasons:  First, it is an institution respected and admired by the vast majority of the people.  I believe the court receives a favorable rating of 78% of the country; a  remarkable percentage in these days of political division and the obvious politicizing of the Court.  Compare this with the favorable rating of 18% for congress and 44% for the presidency. Because of this respect and prestige they are able to make an imprint upon our life based primarily on the Social and Economic views of the justices. 

 
Secondly, Stare Decisis has limited importance where the Court under discussion is the court of last resort. I suspect that the Court from its inception was a political institution.  It increased its political nature as its prestige increased.   

      

The Supreme Court in the 1930's, in combating Roosevelt and the New Deal measures was acting from a social, economic and political point of view; certainly not from a judicial.  The court members were mostly appointed by the Harding, Coolidge Hoover presidencies and were largely chosen from the empowered elements of our society.  They mirrored the thinking of the 20's just as the Warren Court mirrored the thinking of the 60's (despite the fact that Warren was a Republican and voted to intern the Japanese during WWII). 

     
For the reasons stated, it seems that Walpin's message misses the point, completely.  Simply stated, I believe each Supreme Court justice interprets the constitution more with an eye to his social philosophy and political tone of the times that by a strict adherence to the intention of the founders or the idea of Stare Decisis. 

          

As an aside I did not research the appointment history of the Supreme Court justices of the 30's.  Knowing you excellent reasoning ability, your thoroughness in research and enjoyment of the intellectual battle, I tremble when I cite facts to prove a point to you.

Prompting my very lengthy annotated reply:

You are correct about my " thoroughness in research” because I believe in facts first and then opinions, as opposed to the current trend toward opinions first, and we will invent facts to suit the opinions, which was very much in evidence in Walpin’s very poor defense of his views.

So let me begin by correcting your comment, "First, it is an institution respected and admired by the vast majority of the people.  I believe the court receives a favorable rating of 78% of the country;”

In fact the Court like the rest of our governmental institutions is held in low esteem. Your “facts” are very much out of date. 

Allow me to quote from the Rasmussen Reports as of September 26, 2013: 

"Just 26% of all voters think the Supreme Court is doing a good or excellent job, down from 28% in June. Just as many (26%) rate the Supreme Court poorly, but that's down, too, from June’s all-time high of 30%”. See here.

I think that was a major factor in Justice Roberts deciding to break with his Right Wing colleagues, and uphold Obamacare on the basis of a valid tax, though not on the Commerce Clause, by which, I believe, he hoped to keep his agenda of striking down liberal laws by restricting the Commerce Clause, while improving the standing of the court. It didn’t work. The Court’s reputation continued to decline, as it infuriated the Right, while doing nothing for the views of the Middle or the Left.

The Court, I believe, was in very high esteem after the Nixon fiasco, where the country felt the court had saved our Constitutional system.

Now let me address your next comment, namely, "The Supreme Court (members) in the 1930’s ... " were mostly appointed by the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover Presidencies and were largely chosen from the empowered elements of our society. 

This is correct! That court consisted of Charles E. Hughes, Owen J. Roberts, Benjamin N. Cardoza appointed by Hoover, Willis Van Devanter appointed by Taft, George Sutherland and Pierce Butler appointed by Harding, James C. McReynolds appointed by McKinley, Harlan Fisk Stone appointed by Coolidge, and Louis D. Brandeis, appointed  by Wilson.

Thus only one Justice, Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by a Democrat, Wilson. But that should come as no surprise to anyone, since Republicans held the Presidency for 12 years, similarly to the 12 years of Republican rule in the White House during the Reagan/ Bush years and the 20 out of 28 years if you count the Reagan to Obama years, where we had Republicans in the White House continuously, with the break of Clinton for 8 years.

I assume that in raising the question of who appointed  the Supreme Court Justices you assume that this is a predictor of how they will vote. But that has not been true through most of our history, and is a relatively recent phenomenon.  As I point out above 8 of the 9 Justices were appointed by Republicans, which one might assume would mean that the votes striking down New Deal legislation would be 8 to 1, but that was not the case.

Most decisions were five-to-four with only four Justices consistently voting to strike down New Deal legislation, and the fifth vote coming from various other members. See here. Also here and here.

Just when appointments became predictors of how a Justice would vote is something I have not researched, but I suspect it started with Nixon’s southern strategy when he made two nominations of outspoken racist Southerners G. Harrold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth for the vacancy, but the Senate rejected them. I suspect that from that time on, Presidents made nomination not on the basis of qualifications, but on carefully vetted political and judicial philosophies. 

You say: Stare Decisis has limited importance where the Court under discussion is the court of last resort. This is an important point and I think that what this whole discussion leads to a conclusion that Walpin, you and I might be able to agree on. The Court is too powerful!

But that has long been a view and various proposals to reduce the Court’s power have been proposed. After the Court struck down the New Deal legislation, "Public anti judicial sentiment intensified; many critics questioned the constitutionality of the concept of judicial review itself. As a result of this reaction, several constitutional amendments were introduced into Congress in 1936, including one that would require a two-thirds vote of the Court whenever an act of Congress was declared unconstitutional; another that would permit Congress to revalidate federal laws previously declared unconstitutional by repassing them with a two-thirds vote of both houses, and even one that would abolish altogether the Court's power to declare federal laws unconstitutional." But they went nowhere.

However, Roosevelt’s court packing plan, which was denounced by many even in his own party, seemed to have the desired effect, causing one of the Justices to change his votes to validate New Deal legislation, resulting in the famous slogan: “The switch in time that saved nine”. See here.

But with life expectancy short Roosevelt was able to replace all nine Justices with his own choices by 1941. See here.

We talk about equal branches of government. But to quote George Orwell "Some are more equal than others.” Congress is balanced off by having two branches and subject to a veto by the President and by the Supreme Court. The President can be checked by Congress’ refusal to pass the legislation he desires and by the Supreme Court, but the Court can only be over-ruled by an amendment to the Constitution that needs 2/3 of both Houses and 3/4 of state legislatures, an almost impossible task, and the power of the Court has been enhanced by the longevity of life expectancy and the tendency of Presidents to choose Justices who are young, thus extending their philosophy long after another President or Presidents take office. It is unlikely that Obama will be able to change the philosophical nature of the court, since the only Justice likely to retire (or die) during Obama’s remaining years is Justice Ginsburg, whose replacement by Obama will not change the balance.

But you fall into the Walpin trap when you talk about "strict adherence to the intention of the founders”. That, of course is the concept of “Originalism”, which I denounce in my response to Walpin. For many reason, including the one set out in the Preface of the book co-authored by Robert Bork entitled LOCATING THE BOUNDARIES: THE SCOPE OF CONGRESS'S POWER TO REGULATECOMMERCE to which I refer in my post, that is a concept that has zero merit. Aside from the reasons mentioned in this book, the founders intentions have been radically altered by the 27 amendments to the Constitution, and to go by what their intentions were, is to ignore all these amendments. Let us remember, that the founders intended that slavery be part of our institutions, so that if we go by their intent, we must ignore the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and accept the juridical maintenance of slavery.

Furthermore Justice Scalia, along with Thomas and Kennedy, have rejected legislative history as a guide to interpretation. See here at p.182 and what is a reference to a founder’s intent, but the use of legislative history. Legislative history on a document many times amended, is doubly absurd.

But I think you also fall also into the fallacy of equating both progressive interpretation of the Constitution with those who are interested in protecting, to quote from your comment, "the empowered elements of our society”. To understand that we have to look at how the 14th amendment has been abused. This amendment was intended to empower the newly freed slaves. Section 1 provides:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So whom did the Supreme Court choose to protect with this amendment in its earliest interpretation. The newly freed men? No! It was "the empowered elements of our society”. The Supreme Court in its first interpretation of the amendment in the The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873), chose to protect the rights of the "Butchers' Benevolent Association’ and set in motion the use of the amendment to thwart all social and labor legislation. Was that the intent of the authors of the amendment? Clearly, NO! But that is the  point of all this Originalism. It is insincere and phony and is never used when it doesn’t bring about the right result.

On the other hand to use the language in a manner that is appropriate to a modern understanding of its language, is the only approach that makes any sense. What “cruel and unusual" punishment was in the 18th century clearly is not what it means in the 21^st century.

Finally, Levenson had some concluding observations:

I agree with you that in the past Supreme Court Appointees have often surprised and disappointed the President appointing them.  I suspect that this is true with regard to Earl Warren, Cardoza, Brandeis, Stone and others.  I think you are also right about recent appointees who seem to remain faithful to their economic, political and social philosophies more so than those of the past. 

 What I did find interesting and what surprised me was your comments about efforts to limit the power of the court to declare laws unconstitutional. I was under the impression that Roosevelt's court packing was the only effort to combat the courts powers to declare a law unconstitutional.  On reflection, such ideas have merit. 

 Requiring more than a simple majority of the justices to overturn a law has the virtue of removing political considerations from their decisions except in the rare situation of a court almost totally appointed by Presidents of a single party.  With regard to treating Court decisions as a judicial veto, which could be overridden, I think this would complicate an already overburdened legislative process.  

The President’s re-election (More Discussion VI)

In my last post "The President’s re-election (MoreDiscussion V)" I set forth a very provocative presentation from Louise Mayo, PhD, Professor of History Emeritus, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I urge you to re-read it so that you can more easily follow my rebuttal, which follows.

I wrote:

I am also delighted about your comments on gun ownership. People sometimes think they are making me feel good by saying they agree with me, but if that is all I give to my audience, to affirm their own views, I am accomplishing very little. If I succeed in supplying facts, whether in support of predilections or in opposition, then I feel my hard work is productive. As you know, I always preach facts first, then opinions. If facts don't support the opinions then it is time to re-examine the opinions.

By the same token, I appreciate the facts you are supplying on the debt before, and during World War II and today. If you can supply the figures for the years following the war that would also be helpful. I believe the deficits were rapidly reduced. I would also appreciate your clarifying whether your figures are, in fact, for the debt, which would apply to all accumulated debt since the founding of the Republic, or the deficit, which is a figure that applies to a given period, usually the fiscal year.

My suggestion about the defense budget was not entirely sarcastic. It was a way of smoking out Paul Krugman's contention that deficits are the be all and the end all, that will solve our problems. I think that is simplistic, as is his contention that we can inflate our way out of the economic malaise. I also pointed out that with his logic increasing taxes on the rich is bad because that too decreases the deficit.

I am a Keynesian. I believe that in times of economic slow down, pump priming is essential and you are right that increasing the defense budget, while not the most efficient way of stimulating the economy, in fact, would do that, even though it runs counter to liberal orthodoxy. 

But not all increases in the deficit are beneficial. (Which is what Krugman appears to be saying.) Increasing taxes on the rich decreases the deficit, but Krugman would hardly argue that therefore this is undesirable. So it should be clear that larger deficits by whatever means, is not desirable.

In fact, if we correlate deficits, with economic performance over the years, we find that contrary to popular beliefs, most deficits were run up under Republican Administrations, (See table displayed in my blog "The President’s Re-election (More Discussion III)" while as Bill Clinton pointed out in his convention speech, "since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs...So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 (million)."

So clearly there is no correlation between deficits and private sector jobs. Pump priming is putting money in the hands of people who will spend it, thereby increasing demand, which will be met by the need to produce more, causing producers to increase production to meet the demand, which necessitates hiring, which creates more consumer demand, a circular cycle, which works well until demand outstrips supply, which causes inflation, at which point either demand must be restricted or means must be found to increase supply. Deficits are irrelevant in this, except in so far as sufficient revenue cannot be found to meet the need for expenditures, and then on a temporary basis, deficit spending can be justified. 

What made WWII successful in ending the depression was not deficit spending, but the creation of untold jobs in the defense industries and the huge expansion in our industrial capacity. Long range the GI bill, which increased educational opportunity, also laid the groundwork for economic revival for the future, and the wise investment in the Marshall Plan gave us markets for our goods. The deficits were a necessary evil in that endeavor, not the foundation.

The only time deficit spending is desirable is for investments that can be shown to produce a greater return than the cost of the investment in the long run. This is particularly true in the case of infrastructure spending, and investments in education. Private industry could never function without borrowing, but such borrowing is never for salaries, it is for investment in plant, which is depreciable.

                       

At the end of your presentation you make the standard argument, "Borrowing rates will never be as low again as they are now" first advanced by one my subscribers, Robert Malchman, and later advocated by Krugman. But that is a great fallacy recognized by our President. The credit we have is not at a fixed interest rate. No one can predict when it will go up, or how fast. It will at some point. No one know when or how much. When it does, we can't just pay it off all at once. We suddenly have huge expenses in debt service.

                       

I have said this time and time again. 

That is why an increase in revenue is so important. We need to spend on creating jobs, and at least as important if not more so, we need to spend on infra-structure, enlarging our ports, repairing our highways and bridges, our electric grid, our access to the web, and above all in our educational system. 

We achieved greatness because we were one of the first countries in the world that made high school free. We now must make college free. Not all colleges. Private colleges should remain private. But State and Municipal colleges must be free. The federal government must make grants to enable this. The huge debts incurred by people striving to make it into the middle class and instead being destroyed by it must stop. Those that have already incurred these horrendous debts must be allowed to declare bankruptcy and get a new start.

It is unfortunate that the Left is fixated on entitlements. They are important, but they are not the be all and the end all. To demand no changes is absurd. Social Security is an easy fix. Yes, a large part of it can be fixed by lifting the cap on the payroll cap. But if this is not politically feasible, then we must be willing to do that which is. Lifting the retirement age has drawbacks, but if that is the only politically viable way to extend the life of the program we need to do it. To do nothing is to doom the program. I prefer that to changing the COLA. Political reality cannot be ignored.

As for Medicare and Medicaid, Increasing the eligibility age will not help. It will take healthier people out of it and undermine it. Its best hope is Obama Care's ability to change the culture of health care, through the much-hated "Independent Payment Advisory Board.” Here the problem is not inherent in the government program, but in the way our Health Care system works. Unless we make the health care system more efficient, no amount of tinkering with the insurance system will make much difference. 

But we must recognize, that taking care of our future is more important than our entitlements, as important as they are. More revenue is fundamental to our future and a reversal of the redistribution of our wealth upward, is fundamental to our nation’s future. Tax Reform, most important, by taxing capital gains and dividends, as ordinary income is crucial. The permanent inherited aristocracy must be abolished, or at least reduced by ever-higher estate taxes, and preferably inheritance taxes, which are much fairer than estate taxes. 

We must, however, always be able to distinguish between aspirational goals and politically feasible ones. When aspirational ones must be postponed, we must accept compromises that are less than ideal, but that are better than an unacceptable status quo.

Finally, our present deficit is manageable, but the projected deficit, unless its trajectory is changed, is disastrous. Just because Republicans try to use it to gut, desperately needed expenditures, is no reason to deny what should be obvious. The issue should not be whether the projected deficits are acceptable - they are not - but that we must, and I mean must - deal with them with targeted cuts in spending, and there are many places where we can cut spending - reducing the prison population would be a good start, legalizing marijuana, etc. and increasing revenue, not only through the income and the estate tax, but by taxing carbon emissions and taxing discharges into our streams, where this cannot be avoided, taxing unhealthy foods, etc.

But whatever else we do - we must stop the trajectory in our deficit spending.

                       

In the meantime at the risk of causing this discussion to go on ad infinitum I still invite:

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.