There are times in life when we all fall down - and we admit, we fell down yesterday. As you may have noticed, we have a relatively small staff who also have other day jobs - and those other duties caused us not to publish our expanded daily e-mail edition yesterday. Thankfully, our commentary and cartoons for Tuesday were published through our other channels, so you can view them on the cartoon pages and at our blog site.
Sadly, we weren't the only ones to fall down yesterday. America itself also fell down, or more specifically, the Supreme Court of the United States fell down by failing to uphold justice.
In case you missed it, the highly activist, majority right-wing Supreme Court declared open warfare on minority voters across the nation on Tuesday, by cravenly striking down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In short, the Court invalidated the ability of the DOJ to use the Voting Rights Act to stop or prevent abuses of voting laws, designed to minimize the participation of young people, poor people, and people of color - all of whom tend to vote heavily Democratic.
Today, the Court is scheduled to release their opinions on both DOMA and the Prop 8 case from California - though frankly, we have strong doubts about the current Court's ability to justly decide anything anymore.
As we've noted previously, it truthfully shouldn't matter who someone makes a legal contract with, so long as both parties in the two-party contract are eligible and amenable to the contract's conditions. Indeed, in a civil marriage contract, eligibility and acquiescence are the only things that matter.
The fact is, if more gay people do get married, it will drive up demand for wedding planners, florists, DJs, bands, and caterers, all of whom we're sure will appreciate the new business.
Regardless of how the Court decides today, the fact remains that the Roberts' Court has done grievous and harmful damage to our collective faith in the American governmental system, with the poor decisions they've already made this term. If the Court is going to simply ignore the massive amount of fact findings in any case, and decide according to whatever the whims of it's members are, then Americans must truly begin to ask how much longer our system of government can last.
Congress - specifically the House - has proven they can no longer pass basic laws.
The Supreme Court has now displayed that it can no longer be trusted to dispense justice fairly.
President Obama is still doing almost everything he can, as he proved with his major policy announcement of actions his administration is taking to fight climate change immediately, without Congress - including the effective temporary denial of the Keystone pipeline. Still, the Executive's chair in the Oval Office only seats one person - and no matter who that individual is, they cannot be expected to handle all of the responsibilities the other two branches of our government cannot seem to handle.
**Service Note** Due to emergency personal and professional issues, we will be taking our annual holiday vacation a bit early, starting tomorrow, June 27, 2013. Throughout our break, fresh cartoons will still be added at PaulFellCartoons.com. Our normal publishing schedule will resume July 8, 2013.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Pulling Back From The Edge
As we promised to start the week, Monday already proved the news is not playing around this week. Yesterday alone included the "Where's Waldo"-like drama of the Edward Snowden story - including the news that Snowden appears to have targeted the NSA, the knock-knock joke opening from the defense attorney in the George Zimmerman murder trial, and the major news from the IRS that "progressive" groups - like other groups including conservatives - had also been among their targets for "special attention".
At the Supreme Court, six decisions came down Monday, including a substantive anti-worker decision, along with a major punt from the Court on the issue of Affirmative Action that sidestepped virtually all the difficult questions. In the U.S. Senate, for once, a difficult task was successfully tackled head-on, as immigration reform passed a key test vote in the U.S. Senate, 67-27.
Today is shaping up to be another major news day with more important decisions from the Supreme Court likely, the major announcement from President Obama of his sweeping actions on climate change, the Senate race in Massachusetts, and a major battle over women's rights and abortion in Texas.
Oh - and HealthCare.gov is now officially active as well.
If you're thinking there are a few things we haven't mentioned yet, you'd be right. Peering at the surging volume of news below us, Americans of all kinds are straining just to hang on, like a dog owner getting dragged to edge of a very nasty cliff.
At least one version of that cliff includes a monster at the bottom that is the Syrian civil war - and it should surprise no one that the gutless curs of the corporate military industry are chomping at the bit to drag the rest of us over that edge.
Before America does get involved any further than a pledge to give weapons to rebels - which is already a far worse idea than most will admit - we should definitely take half a moment in this maelstrom to look seriously at what the Syrian conflict is.
Not only is the Syrian conflict hopelessly confusing, politically, but there are no real heroes on any side. Even the military experts at the Pentagon have made it clear that serious intervention in Syria would be logistically untenable, politically impossible, and fiscally suicidal. Even legitimate analysis from overseas notes that Syrian jihadis are already dividing against themselves, in what is already becoming a wider regional conflict.
We're not going to say what's happening in Syria is acceptable, on a humanitarian level. It's not. However, Syria is also a political and military conflict that has no one who truly sides with the best interests of America, or really much of the rest of the world.
To let those drooling for America get our nation involved in yet another war, and pull the rest of us over the edge into the mess that is Syria, is simply not an option at this time. Thanks to chickenhawk conservatives and weak liberals, America has already wasted nearly a dozen years, in multiple wars overseas.
We've simply got too much going on at home right now, as a nation, to go fight monsters for somebody else.
At the Supreme Court, six decisions came down Monday, including a substantive anti-worker decision, along with a major punt from the Court on the issue of Affirmative Action that sidestepped virtually all the difficult questions. In the U.S. Senate, for once, a difficult task was successfully tackled head-on, as immigration reform passed a key test vote in the U.S. Senate, 67-27.
Today is shaping up to be another major news day with more important decisions from the Supreme Court likely, the major announcement from President Obama of his sweeping actions on climate change, the Senate race in Massachusetts, and a major battle over women's rights and abortion in Texas.
Oh - and HealthCare.gov is now officially active as well.
If you're thinking there are a few things we haven't mentioned yet, you'd be right. Peering at the surging volume of news below us, Americans of all kinds are straining just to hang on, like a dog owner getting dragged to edge of a very nasty cliff.
At least one version of that cliff includes a monster at the bottom that is the Syrian civil war - and it should surprise no one that the gutless curs of the corporate military industry are chomping at the bit to drag the rest of us over that edge.
Before America does get involved any further than a pledge to give weapons to rebels - which is already a far worse idea than most will admit - we should definitely take half a moment in this maelstrom to look seriously at what the Syrian conflict is.
Not only is the Syrian conflict hopelessly confusing, politically, but there are no real heroes on any side. Even the military experts at the Pentagon have made it clear that serious intervention in Syria would be logistically untenable, politically impossible, and fiscally suicidal. Even legitimate analysis from overseas notes that Syrian jihadis are already dividing against themselves, in what is already becoming a wider regional conflict.
We're not going to say what's happening in Syria is acceptable, on a humanitarian level. It's not. However, Syria is also a political and military conflict that has no one who truly sides with the best interests of America, or really much of the rest of the world.
To let those drooling for America get our nation involved in yet another war, and pull the rest of us over the edge into the mess that is Syria, is simply not an option at this time. Thanks to chickenhawk conservatives and weak liberals, America has already wasted nearly a dozen years, in multiple wars overseas.
We've simply got too much going on at home right now, as a nation, to go fight monsters for somebody else.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Not Playing Around
As we're looking forward into this next week, we're a bit apprehensive about the massive number of major news stories looming on the horizon for all three branches of our government over the next few days.
To start with, the Supreme Court will be handing down a scattering of potentially history-altering rulings as they close their 2013 term this week. With voting rights, affirmative action, and both major same sex marriage cases being decided, those covering the news coming from the Court will have enough information coming out this week to last them long past Independence Day.
President Obama and the Executive branch have an even bigger workload on their plate this week than the Court, starting with the President's sweeping and massive climate change announcement and federal policy changes that will happen on Tuesday.
The Obama administration is also keeping close tabs on the legendary former leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who is ill and could very likely die this week - just as President Obama is scheduled to visit several nations in Africa. The rebel factions in Syria also appear to finally be getting the weapons promised to them, so it's likely the Syrian civil war might also be drawing more attention from the White House.
In the midst of all of these news events coming up this week, does anyone think Congress will actually accomplish anything before their scheduled weeklong-plus holiday break begins Thursday afternoon? Or will this simply be another repeat of last week - a chance for Congressmembers to push around the pieces on their political gameboards, and not get one damn thing completely accomplished, as was the case with the farm bill last week.
If it sounds like we're angry at Congress, we are - and most Americans should be as well. Instead, so many Americans are still focused on stupid topics, like TV cook and longtime southern resident Paula Deen getting fired for admitting she's used the "n" word. Looking at social networking, there also still seems to be more than a few people angry about musician Kanye West and his girlfriend Kim Kardashian naming their 1st child "North" - which makes the child's legal name "North West."
The NSA story also had new twists over the weekend as Edward Snowden - who keeps insisting he isn't trying to be at the center of the story - left Hong Kong, joined forces with Wikileaks, and appears to be going to Ecuador, via Russia, Cuba, and possibly Venezuela. Meanwhile, a real whistleblower, former NSA agent Russ Tice, admitted to the media that he actually saw, back in 2004 - when they were still illegal - orders from the NSA to spy on then-Senator Barack Obama, as well as Senators Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Diane Feinstein, and a member of the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Congress has no real intention of doing anything to settle the truly important debate that lies at the heart of both the Snowden and Tice stories, the blance between security and privacy.
All of these topics - Paula Deen, the West/Kardashian child, and even Snowden and Tice - are merely distractions, games for the masses to keep them from pressuring Congress to find solutions for the real problems facing Americans. The farm bill, the immigration reform bill, and the looming student loan interest rate hike aren't going away, and will only get worse the longer Congress ignores them.
Even if both Americans and most members of Congress choose to diddle away their time this week, it's quite clear neither reality nor the news will be playing around.
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