Hey folks,

I have a chance to attend a meet-and-greet with Virginia Governor candidate Bob McDonnell this weekend and I was wondering if any of you have a question or questions that you would like me to ask. While I’m not sure if there will be a formal question and answer period, I am preparing as if there is one. I may take my laptop with me as well, so there is a chance I can blog from the event as well (assuming there is Wi-Fi access).

Hey everyone. Just as a heads up, I will have more family passing through the area in the next two weeks, so my activity on here will be limited. I will try to keep the Weekly’s coming, so keep on writing!

In addition, I have more puppet work to do this week, and I will post pictures when I’m done.

Do you remember those funny, over-the-top used car commercials that were a hit in the 1970s and 80s? They would usually show a guy dressed in a sport coat, some sort of plaid clothing, screaming at the top of his voice about how great the car is, and you should come down to NOW! The pitch is to make you not notice how bad the car is nor question how much it will cost you down the road when hidden mechanical issues surface and you cannot return the car. The more I listen to coverage over the health care reform debate, the more I imagine that used car salesman standing in front of the White House.

In what seems to be legislation running on warp speed, both the House and Senate Democratic leadership are pushing the vote on a fundamental revamping of our national health care industry. This legislation, one proposal exceeding 1000 pages, is being touted as “critical” for the nation and that we cannot wait to have it implemented. President Obama recently said that it is urgent “for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.” To make sure he has the votes necessary, he stated in a different address, “those who would oppose our efforts should take a hard look at just what it is they’re defending.”

Obama isn’t the only one standing on a soapbox trying to rush the legislation. Nancy Pelosi has also stated that the legislation can be passed by August. To pay for the plan, House Democrats have proposed implementing a progressive surtax on households making over $350,000 a year. However, Pelosi feels so confident over the draft legislation, she stated that new taxes wouldn’t be needed to cover the $10 Trillion program. She said, “I believe the most of the cost of the health care bill can come from squeezing out savings.” But just so you don’t think she’s fooling you, she went on to say, “There is going to be a revenue change at the high end … it will be directly to reduce the deficit or by helping to cover the cost of this initiative.”

Looking back at the used car commercial example I mentioned earlier, it seems that both Obama and Pelosi are doing the screaming and quick talking to convince you that you must accept the health care reform they are proposing before it is too late. All that seems to be missing from this example is the actual commercial. Don’t fear folks, for the Propaganda President (sorry, it was just too funny not to say) has that covered. The political organization that helped him win the election in November is releasing a 30-second commercial informing the public that this reform must be passed.

The problem with all of this is that some of Democrats are not going along with the plan. The commercial, in fact, is meant to target the base of key Democratic Congressmen and women in the hopes to pressure their Representatives and Senators to back the bill. It sounds funny, but it is true. Congressman Mike Ross (of Arkansas) is one of the targeted Democrats. Addressing the need of Democratic support for the legislation, he stated, “it takes seven Democrats to stop a bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee … we had seven against it last Friday; we have 10 today.”

Complicating the Democrats plan, Douglas Elmendorf (Director of the Congressional Budget Office) has testified about the long-term budget outlook of the nation. Highlighting the impact that spending on Medicare and Medicaid continues to outpace the economy, Elmendorf points out how half of the budget will be dedicated solely to health care by 2080. He went on to describe Pelosi’s concept of funding health care without increasing taxes as “tying one of the two hands behind one’s back.”

Elmendorf has a point. Congress has brought us programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and all three programs have never met the concept of being self-sufficient. We always hear how the programs need reform before they run out of money, yet Congress never “fixes” them. How can we even consider that they can make a government-operated health care program (aka, the public option) that is budget neutral?

Maybe we should take a lesson from the used car salesman. If they are trying to push something on us, and telling us that we cannot wait, maybe we should push back and demand a full review of not just the legislation but the actual problem with our health care industry. After all, when you go to a doctor for a sore arm, the doctor doesn’t give you an aspirin (to treat the symptoms) and rush you out the door. The doctor asks you a lot of questions to obtain information and examines your arm closely to discover what is actually ailing you. Treating the source is the only way to keep the symptoms from returning. Do we really want a rushed health care “reform” to be passed just for us to readdress the issue later when the “symptoms” return?

Related articles:
NASDAQ – “Centrist Dem Leader: Has Committee Votes To Block Health Bill”
FOX News – “Obama on Health Care Reform: ‘We need to buck people up’”
Congressional Budget Office – “Director’s Blog: The Long-Term Budget Outlook”
CNN – “Democrat: Obama slowing down progress on health care reform”
US News & World Report – “Obama Running TV Ads Aimed at Democratic Senators on His Bloated Healthcare plan”
USA Today – “Obama’s day: Promoting health care”
Associated Press – “Obama shifts into campaign mode on health care”
Yahoo News – “Budget umpire: Health care bills would raise costs”

With the start of the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, it was inevitable that there would be numerous articles written both in favor of and against the nominee. One of the articles that caught my attention came out today on CNN by Laura Gomez. “What the ‘wise Latina’ remark meant” covers some of the biggest issues I have with the nomination process. In her article, Gomez defends Sotomayor by breaking down her controversial statement:
 

First, the sentence I have quoted here followed Sotomayor’s acknowledgement that there is no universal definition of “wise.”

Second, she presented the statement as aspirational by using the phrase “I would hope”; she was talking as much about the ideal of diversity as its reality.

Third, she specified that she was talking not about all Latinas and all white men but about ideal types; she invoked a “wise” Hispanic woman who has had a particular set of life experiences and white male judges who have not “lived that life” (suggesting that some white males could, in fact, bring a similar empathy and/or life experience to the bench).

Fourth, she went out of her way to say that she thought this would be the case “more often than not,” rather than all the time.

Finally, in the next sentence of her speech, Sotomayor went on to specify that she was addressing the dynamics of an appellate court with multiple judges (such as the three-judge and en banc panels on which she sits as an appeals court judge and the Supreme Court), rather than talking about a trial court context in which a single judge presides.

What Sotomayor “meant” is what she said. She said “better” (the one aspect of the sentence Gomez did not address), meaning that a White Man would “more often than not” make poorer conclusions compared to a Latino Woman. Unfortunately, the law shouldn’t be gender or race influenced, especially in the highest court. There is no room for prejudice or empathy when determining if something is Constitutional. Rarely are the cases facing the Court clear cut, though on some aspect the Judges can find the issue to be right or wrong. You can’t get “better” than that.

Would it be nice if our Court matches perfectly with the demographic makeup of our nation? Of course. But that has nothing to do with the selection process. The current demographics of the U.S. include:

To balance out the Suprme Courts demographics with that of the naiton, you would need: 6 Whites, 2 Hispanics, 1 Black (0 Asians), 2 Catholics, 5 Christians, 0 Jews (2 Justices would be “other”), 5 Females, and 4 Males.

The role of the President is to pick the most perfect person for the job. If that means the court is all white or all black, all male or all female, all old or all young, then that is fine. None of those items impact the Constitutionality of actions and rulings by lower courts. This isn’t the place for some sort of forced racial or gender social mapping. The rulings these Judges make impact everyone in our Country. If we ware bypassing the best persons for the job simply to make the “nation’s highest court looked more like the nation,” we are doing ourselves a major, major disservice.

Related articles:
U.S. Census Bureau – http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/censr-20.pdf