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allistar

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Everything posted by allistar

  1. I do know that Kansas City was very segregationist. Even though it was a center of jazz and blues, many musicians like Cab Calloway refused to play here after experiencing Kansas City hospitality. Kansas City does have a rich, black history (BBQ, music and negro baseball, with the hall of fame here), but it is still divided, with Troost Avenue the dividing line generally with blacks living to the east and whites to the west. Leavenworth isn't a very big town but it is an army town, so I'm a little surprised about your friend's experience in the 1950's.
  2. As a Kansan, I have to claim Brown V. Board of Education. It was one of five cases of similar nature making their way to the Supreme Court. The other ones were in the South (South Carolina, Virginia and Washington DC) or in Delaware. What made Brown unique was that the facilities and staff at both the segregated and mainstream schools in Topeka, Kansas were roughly equal. So, by taking the Topeka case, the court was saying segregated school systems were unconstitutional throughout the U.S. and were inherently unconstitutional, not just because the schools for blacks were substantially inferior to those for white students.
  3. And they either went to Harvard or Yale. Not exactly representative of the population as a whole.
  4. Actually, the only reason that I would vote for Obama is to make sure no other President has the opportunity to sabotage Obamacare. If Obamacare is sunk by the S.C. (and shows Obama, a former constitutional law professor, as someone who can't even anticipate that his signature law would be held as unconstitutional, even if the S.C. decision is political), then I have no particular reason to support him in the 2012 election.
  5. The only problem that I have with 9 "impartial" SC Justices deciding the fate of Obamacare is that they are hardly impartial. If the vote is 5-4, that will mean 5 Justices appointed by Republicans will have voted to repeal it and 4 Justices appointed by Democrats will have voted to leave it intact. Just like in Congress, where no Republican voted for Obamacare. Politics is of the essence of Obamacare and it reaches all the way to the SC. The only difference between now and the 1930's is Obama isn't stupid enough to try to pack the SC. The two biggest votes in front of the SC in the last 12 years have been now and the 200 election and both are going to go by party lines. It certainly doesn't say much for the 3rd branch of government.
  6. Florida seniors already have a mental picture of "death squads" drawn by Republicans. Nothing that the Democrats do will change seniors minds. I don't think that healthcare is a right but I do think, as a society, there should be priorities set to what the government should do. I think that most Americans would put healthcare reform near the top. The present healthcare system is hardly an example of capitalism, with the number of Doctors restricted, patients having no incentive to do any cost cutting (or even checking their bills) and segments of the population, led by government and union workers, receiving much more generous healthcare benefits than those down the list (the list ends with self employed people who are screwed). A capitalistic healthcare system would allow as many doctors (and other healthcare workers) to come to the U,S, to work, as long as they passed a stringent competency test, allow insurance companies (and global companies for that matter) to offer health insurance across state lines, tax any healthcare benefits one receives (which are not taxed now) and offer insurance which gets cheaper as the deductible increases (and what the insurance will cover decreases) but leave a basic insurance plan which insurance companies have to offer (and won't leave the person using the plan having to go bankrupt if something catastrophic happens). This would be a very Republican proposal, except for the fact that Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) are owned by lobbyist and special interest who would never allow such a healthcare system to exist. I heard several Justices on the 3rd day of testimony show concern for the insurance companies if they had to still cover those "sick" patients without the healthy coerced to join. I head nothing from those Justices about the 30 million people that would be left with no health insurance if Obamacare was overturned.
  7. Hardly an unbiased article by a writer for the L.A. Times that has written several articles about the Health Care Law and all of them were about the unconstitutionality of the law. When I saw that he had written an article about Clarance Thomas (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/03/nation/la-na-clarence-thomas-20110703), titled "Being his own man," I know that I could question his motives for writing the current article. By the way, I still think that Kennedy is the swing vote. I didn't see anywhere in Kennedy's questioning that he had tipped off his position on Obamacare. His last quote in the article, if anything, signalled his reluctant in stricking down all of Obamacare. I do, unfortunately, now see it as a 5-4 vote for either for or against the requirement to buy health insurance.
  8. It looks like Kennedy and Roberts are going to be the "swing" votes on the healthcare law. Other than Larry King type questioning the solicitor on the constitutionality of the single payer plan, I can't tell how they will vote. I'm hoping that Kennedy, who almost always votes in favour of the government in commerce questions, breaks the 4-4 tie. It would be bad if the SC decides this issue in a 5-4 vote. By the way, does Clarence Thomas ever participate with questions during these cases or write decisions either majority or minority (or is he as worthless as he seems to be)?
  9. It used to be U.S. citizens could go to Canada, Mexico and the carribean without a passport. Now that you need a passport anytime a U.S. citizen re-enters the U.S., I believe more are getting passports. Probably still not over 50%
  10. Next week begins the oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the Health Care Law, In anticipation, NPR's : "All Things Considered" is spending this week covering several aspects of U.S. Health care. Among things I found interesting is Texas having the dubious distinction of having the largest percentage of its citizens without health care (25%). I guess that is the flip side of having a so called robust state economy. Our governor, Sam Brownback, is steering Kansas toward a Texas type of state government, so I imagine we can look forward to 25% without health care (until 2014). The statistics quoted by NPR that I found the most disturbing is that 40% of those that have health insurance either work for the government or are in the armed forces. I just hope that, after 2014, I can buy the same health insurance offered to government employees, including members of Congress.
  11. It sounds like he will be in my backyard, in a high security jail at Ft. Leavenworth. I wonder if he will get Mike Vick's old cell?
  12. The healthcare bill was hacked at, by both the Republicans and special interests (insurance companies and AMA, to name just 2). The reason that it took a year to pass the bill is because Obama kept asking the Republicans to get involved in creating the legislation and the Republicans hemmed and hawed and, after several months, opposed any health care legislation. Lets find the real price of health care. Assuming that the figure of 1.78 trillion is correct, that's almost 200 billion a year, over 10 years. If there are around 300 million U.S. citizens, each citizen would pay $660 per year for Obama care. Thats certainly a figure most people can understand, as opposed to 1.78 trillion. This figure can be lower substantially by raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and maybe gas. I know there are a bunch of whiners who would just as soon stay with the broken health care system that we have now and I know we, as a nation, can not spend money as we have for the last 12 years. We need to prioritise our problems and find a consensus on how to solve them. If you are not part of that process, then you are part of the problem.
  13. I know that you have had several chances to use your health insurance in the last couple of years and have cost more money than you have paid in, even with the premium increases. Yet, you want to have Obamacare revoked for the 25% of Americans that don't have health insurance and have those with pre-existing conditions denied coverage? Id its costing you too much to live in California, there are many retirement states in the U.S. that don't have income taxes.
  14. Romney will not compromise. He will be just like Speaker John Boehner, always having to go back to Republican activists in Congress, to see if he has their support. By the way, I voted for GWB in 2000, mainly becasue of his record in getting along with Democrats in the Texas legislature. That worked out really well.
  15. Steve, since you posted your views on affirmative action, I'd be interested on your views on Title 9, which mandates an equal amount of money at colleges be spent on females as well as male athletics. Obviously, the two big money makers at colleges are men's football and basketball, which help pay for every other program, men and woman's. Not even woman's basketball comes close to paying its own way. Most colleges have dropped programs, like wrestling and rowing, because they are mandated to provide both men and woman's programs in those sports. I can't say that I'm totally against title 9 (I know several woman that probably wouldn't have gone to college without a scholarship), but to put such strict guidelines on colleges that forces them to choose which programs to cut is wrong.
  16. I thought it was Tiger's ex raising the per capita worth of an average Swede.
  17. The U.S. has the fourth most productive workers in the world. You know who is second? That socialist country, Sweden!
  18. Steve, I know the position of the government is not to profile nationalities for security but most (if not all) of the people selling secrets to the Chinese are Chinese-Americans with security clearance. Do most first generation Chinese-Americans still consider China their "homeland"? If profiling is out of the question, I would put in more sting operations, aimed at testing the allegiance/honestly of Chinese-Americans with security clearances.
  19. I think that I would trust a betting parlour to get the odd of winning the Presidency over a firm that pays its "research market." http://www.politicalbettingodds.com/2012-us-presidential-election-odds.html
  20. I wonder if he will suffer the same fate as Trigger?
  21. I thought that LBJ had not served in WWII but, on looking it up, was wrong. As a Congressman, he was commissioned a naval second lieutenant and charged with inspecting shipyards in the U.S. He was awarded a silver star while on assignment for FDR, part of a 3 man commission checking on the readiness of U.S. forces in the south Pacific. He was on a plane that would have been one of several that were attacked by Japanese, if the plane hadn't returned early because of engine problems. I can't blame LBJ for accepting the Silver Star but obviously, he was awarded it for the publicity of giving one to a congressman would produce. Its interesting that a member of Congress was also in the military but I guess that can be chalked up to a different time. I don't know if any congressmen were in the military during the Vietnam War but I can't remember of any. And I know that no congressman were in the military during the Gulf War and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
  22. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/8965923/Czechs-mourn-death-of-Vaclav-Havel.html Someone died that actually made a big difference for the better in this world.
  23. I wouldn't worry about her. I'd be worried about her father.
  24. I doubt if any of the candidates have flown commercial in many years.
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