The Wisdom of Justice Stevens
John
Paul Stevens, appointed to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, retired in 2010 at
age 90 and was replaced by Justice Elena Kagan.
Steven wrote some magnificent opinions, often dissents, when he was on
the Court. He opposed the obscene
Citizens United decision which extended the First Amendment’s free speech
guarantees to corporations. Here is some of his lengthy dissent to that
decision.
“At bottom, the
Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people,
who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining
self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive
corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore
Roosevelt … It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few
outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a
dearth of corporate money in politics.”
After
the February 2018 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Stevens (a
Broward County, Florida resident) advocated the repeal of the Second Amendment
in a New York Times op-ed piece which
included these thoughts:
“Concern that a
national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate
states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that ‘a
well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.' Today that
concern is a relic of the 18th century.”
(The source of much of the
above information was Frank Cerabino’s Oct. 2 column in the Palm Beach Post.)
As
I have said in earlier postings on this blog, the threat that some states
feared at the time was that a national standing army might be used to abolish
slavery, taking away their residents’ “property” and they wanted the ability to
be able to raise an army to fight to preserve that nefarious economic
institution.
Stevens
was appointed by a Republican President back in the days when the Supreme Court
was thought to be above the level of politicization present in today’s Court,
for which responsibility rests with the Republican Party, whose power is
reinforced by the Citizens United decision referred to above. There is only one solution to this problem,
and if you agree with Justice Stevens, who is still alive and kicking, you
should vote to bring that solution about.
How You Subsidize Tax Cheats
Tax
evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance, if
one can afford the lawyers and accountants to structure doing it within the
framework of our tax laws, is perfectly legal.
Sometimes,
questionable strategies are involved in tax avoidance which escape notice by
the taxing authorities. The tax payer
succeeds in “getting away with something,” possibly, but not necessarily,
forever.
Rather than admire people who get away with doing this, they should be condemned and even shunned. Only idiots would vote for them if they ever run for public office. Their hand has always been in your pocket, tax-wise, and letting them get into elective office would be stupid.
If
this is all true, there must be millions of stupid
idiots in this country because they voted for a President who refused to
open up his tax records, which we now know was due to his earlier use of highly
questionable tax avoidance strategies revealed last week in a detailed New York Times article.
JL
No One On The Line ... Again?
Many
people, including senior citizens, depend on landline and mobile telephone
service to maintain contact with families, financial institutions and
businesses. This entire communications
system is being corrupted by robo-calls and similar telemarketing techniques,
including the capturing of telephone numbers, to do what ostensibly is
permissible as a marketing tool. It is,
or should be, a crime.
Fines are not
enough to put a stop to this. Strong
legislation making such activities a felony calling for lengthy mandatory
incarceration for those convicted is necessary.
In fact, making it part of the Florida Constitution via an amendment
might be a good idea. It is a much more
serious concern to Floridians than some of the trivia we are currently being
asked to consider as Constitutional amendments.
Otherwise, we soon will have to revert to smoke signals to talk to one
another. (This is the text
of a letter, submitted by me and recently published in the Palm Beach Post.)
JL
Red Flags and Alarm Bells
The
elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is a red flag. The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency
was another. If the Republicans maintain control of both the House and
the Senate on November 6, alarm bells should be ringing all over the
place. In addition to the likely
reversal of the 60 year old progressive orientation of the Supreme Court which
Kavanaugh will bring about, it will expose and widen some serious cracks in American
democracy. Let’s not let America sink to a point where thinking people begin to
consider alternatives such as emigration or going underground. Get out there and work for what you believe
in. Remain energized!
The Mess that is the Miami Marlins and a one Fan's Solution
No
matter how good a farm system and team the Miami Marlins develop in the future,
they will never be a successful major league baseball franchise. Their team was not good this year because of
the excellent players they sold off to enable their future to be brighter. But there have been many
bad teams in major league baseball in recent years, and none of them drew the pathetic average of 10,000 fans per home game that the Marlins drew in 2018. That is a good minor league
number, not a major league number.
 |
| Lonely Fans at Marlins Park |
Ownership
of the Marlins over the years has been near-sighted and only interested in
making money. Their philosophy has been
to take the money and run. Within a few
years, Derek Jeter will see the light and the Marlins will be playing in
Montreal, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Las Vegas or New Orleans, all potentially major
league cities. With dramatic political
and economic changes, San Juan and Havana might be added to that list.
That would leave the league, however,
embarrassed about the beautiful stadium former Marlin ownership suckered
Miami-Dade County into building in an inaccessible part of the city, and
changing the Florida Marlins, who had a chance of success, into the Miami
Marlins, who never had one. There is no
major league fan base in Miami and there never will be. What fans there might be there can't afford the tickets! They can't afford to go to Dolphin nor Heat games either, but those teams play in better located venues and draw fans from beyond Miami. The Miami business community ignores the Marlins, satisfied with the more accessible venues of the Heat and Dolphins for hosting their clients. The minor league team that once played in Miami did
not set the world on fire attendance-wise either. And when the former Marlins ownership put the
stadium where it is, in the middle of Little Havana, they gave up on its real potential fan base, which really
is north of Miami.
Somehow,
major league baseball is responsible for this mess in Miami, which they allowed
to happen. They have the responsibility of doing something about it. Here is my solution, which should be acted on
as a condition for their permitting the Marlins to be moved elsewhere. They owe it to the sport and to Miami Dade
County.
Because
of the transient nature of its population, baseball fans in South Florida
(forget Miami) have loyalties to the places from which they come. South Florida is loaded with New York Met,
New York Yankee, Philadelphia Philly and Boston Red Sox fans. The eighteen appearances of the Phillies and
Mets at the Marlins’ ballpark in 2018 served to keep the average from falling
below 10,000. Interleague appearances of
the Yankees and Red Sox, when they occur, have a similar effect.
These
four teams should each be required to transfer a regular season three game home
series to Marlins Park. Properly
publicized, with tickets fairly priced, each of these dozen games should come
close to filling Marlins’ Park to its 36,000 seat capacity. These four teams have the fans here and each three
game series would be a welcome gift to them.
These series should be played in May, June, July and August and would
probably draw a total of 420,000 fans.
The rest of the time, the stadium could be used for concerts, soccer and
other attractions.
Gate
receipts would be split between these four teams and Miami Dade County, still
stuck with owning the place. But their only having to maintain a ballpark for 12
well-attended evenings rather than 81 shamefully empty ones ought to provide some relief. Major league baseball should subsidize the
four “contributing teams” for any financial losses they incur for the first few
years of this arrangement. That would be
the price they pay for allowing the Marlin tragedy to take place.
South
Florida would then have enough major league baseball to fill its modest appetite
for seeing the sport in person. Those who want more can
always drive to Tampa and watch the Rays, so long as they remain playing there.
They have problems too.
JL
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