Update no.1058

Update from the Sunland

No.1058

18.4.22 – 24.4.22

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

To all,

 

I watched a three-part HBO documentary series by Emmy-winning filmmakers Phil Lott and Ari Mark titled The Invisible Pilot, about a daredevil, drug smuggling pilot named Gary Betzner. His passion for flight was of some interest, but his proclivities got him involved in a CIA covert operation during the Reagan administration that became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal. I thought I knew a good chunk of the history, but I learned more than a few new elements I had not heard before. Reagan publicly took responsibility, but then he tried to deflect his culpability by claiming he did not know what his lieutenants were doing. To me, that claim of “I didn’t know” is just as lame and feckless as “I was only following orders.” Reagan escaped accountability and that was our failure.

 

The follow-up news items:

-- The on-going political conflict boiling around the ravages of a global pandemic [946] rocketed into full public display on Monday, 18.April.2022, when a federal judge in Tampa, Florida, issued a ruling regarding the federal mask mandate. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle (nee Kathryn Anne Kimball) of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, declared the federal mask mandate was unlawful and vacated the mask mandate—Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden [USDC MDFL TD Case No: 8:21-cv-1693-KKM-AEP (2022)]. The judge’s starkly conservative reasoning seems to be graphically displayed by one sentence in her 59-page ruling. “Since the Mask Mandate regulates an individual's behavior-wearing a mask-it imposes directly on liberty interests, not the property interests contemplated in subsection (a) {ref: 42 USC § 264(a); Public Health Service Act [PL 78-410; 58 Stat. 682; 1.July.1944] [540]}.” 

The judge’s focus on ‘sanitation’ rather than ‘prevention’ in the statute’s words is simply wrong. The judge does not even remotely mention that the incompetence of the previous administration put the current administration at a serious disadvantage forcing the current administration to take drastic action to minimize the continued impact of the viral spread. She does not mention that the mask mandate should have been implements in January or February of 2020; but better late than never. The law cannot move even remotely as fast as a virulent virus. Lastly, scholarliness should never be allowed to mask defective reasoning.

Since the judge’s ruling, the Justice Department indicated they are prepared to appeal if the CDC thinks it is necessary. On Wednesday, the CDC declared that yes, it is necessary not just for the current pandemic but for future health emergencies. I think it is safe to say that the government’s appeal is pending.

Just for the historical record of distantly related facts, Judge Mizelle was nominated by [the person who shall no longer be named] on 8.September.2020 (two months prior to being voted out of office). Her nomination (PN 2208) was considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee and approved on 22.October.2020, despite a rating by the American Bar Association (ABA) of  “Not Qualified,” something we rarely see these days. The Committee voted 12-0 in favor with all of the Democrats boycotting; one of six Judiciary nominations approved that day in exactly the same way. At 16:37 [R] EST, on 18.November.2020, the full Senate voted on PN 2208 [Senate: 49-41-0-10(0)] to confirm the Mizelle nomination. Notably, six (6) Democrats and four (4) Republicans chose not the vote on the nomination . . . in case anyone wanted to know.

 

On Thursday, the Supremes issued an 8-1 decision reversing the rulings of both the district and appeals courts denying federal Supplemental Security Income ISSI) benefits in the case of Jose Luis Vaello Madero, a U.S. citizen and resident of Puerto Rico—United States v. Vaello Madero [596 U.S. ___ (2022)]. Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the majority solely on the Territory Clause of the U.S. Constitution—Art. IV, §3, cl. 2, namely, does Congress have the authority to discriminate against residents of Puerto Rico? The answer is, yes; they do. Yet, the salient question is not whether Congress has the authority, but rather whether Congress had sufficient reason and rationale to deny equal treatment under the law to a U.S. citizen simply because of residency. Justice Sotomayor, the sole dissenter, wrote a cogent, poignant opinion arguing that just because Congress could discriminate does not mean they should. “Equal treatment of citizens should not be left to the vagaries of the political process. Because residents of Puerto Rico do not have voting representation in Congress, they cannot rely on their elected representatives to remedy the punishing disparities suffered by citizen residents of Puerto Rico under Congress’ unequal treatment.” Of interesting intellectual note in this case were the two concurring opinions.

Justice Thomas chose to use his concurring opinion in this case to examine the authority of Congress to discriminate between citizens of the United States and those individuals residing in the territories of the United States, and to elucidate about substantive due process and the civil right movement. His purpose was ostensibly to illuminate the question of citizenship. How does the Constitution define citizenship, and what does citizenship mean? Thomas also railed about “substantive due process” via the Equal Protection Clause of the 5^th Amendment rather than the 14^thAmendment. He still concurred.

Justice Gorsuch used his concurring opinion to excoriate the so-called Insular Cases decided by the Supreme Court in 1901

DeLima v. Bidwell [182 U.S. 1 (1901)]

Dooley v. United States [182 U.S. 222 (1901)]

Downes v. Bidwell [182 U.S. 244 (1901)]

The Insular cases were decided and used to define the treatment of residents of lands the U.S. acquired in the Spanish-American War (1898). Gorsuch argued that the Vaello Madero case was a good, if not perfect, opportunity to negate the Insular cases and render them irrelevant. He still concurred.

Standing back from the context and detail of this case, we see the direct contrast between the so-called liberals and conservatives on the Court and in the law. The conservatives see the law as a definition of authority, i.e., does the government have the authority to do what it did? The liberals see the law as a definition of the protections of ‘Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness’ for We, the People. The ideological metric serves as a decent rubric for viewing, understanding, and interpreting these judicial pronouncements. Thus, using this measure in Vaello Madero, the conservatives noted that Congress had the authority to discriminate against a qualifying individual residing in Puerto Rico for the reasons they stated, while Justice Sotomayor asked whether Congress had a good reason to discriminate. The Court said yes to the first question. Justice Sotomayor said no to the second question, and there we have the decision of the Supremes to the detriment of Jose Luis Vaello Madero.

 

On Thursday, 21.April.2022, former President Barack Obama spoke at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center in Palo Alto, California. The subject of his speech was the misinformation saturation of our modern communications. I listened to his entire hour-long speech. First and foremost, it is so refreshing and encouraging to hear an American leader who speaks with verve, coherence, and reason. President Obama’s ability to communicate is magnificent to watch and listen to. There was so much wisdom and poignant observations that I cannot possibly represent the content and delivery. Here is the URL for his entire speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-QuQc_E2rI

 

I received a query from a friend, contributor, and fellow writer.

“morning Cap I’m somewhat baffled by the current trend against the N word. You see this story is pre-world war 2 when such language was acceptable. Baffled? Well in this story period this word was well rude for certain but amongst many in society quite acceptable.

“Caused by the endless drunken beatings from her husband her breast milk dried up and she was forced to hand him over to a wet nurse, a young Negro woman called Sally, she saved the child’s life. 

“The thought of nuzzling at the breast of a ‘nigger woman’ completed his revulsion. Secretly he vowed to leave home, find this woman and kill her. This he did, and never faced the law. Indeed the law had never bothered to investigate the murder, after all she was only an old ‘nigger woman.’”

My reply:

In my effort to answer your query, I offer a few preparatory thoughts. 1.) Nigger is a word coined in the Southeast United States during the height of slavery in that region. 2.) The word ‘nigger’ was acceptable even normal in that region but not elsewhere in the United States, except with those from that region that may have migrated to other parts of the country or were sympathetic to the notion of white supremacy. 3.) The inter-war years saw a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and white supremacy despite the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Now, to your query, the word ‘nigger’ goes back to the ante-bellum South and earlier, and was used as a racial epithet of denigration, oppression, segregation, and diminishment against citizens with dark skin pigmentation. It was and still is a racial slur—an insult. That word represents the worst of slavery and those years when slavery was maintained in the South.

This topic is far deeper and more complex than a succinct response can illuminate. It is made more complex by persistent usage even today by citizens with dark skin pigmentation; but, lo be it that any light skinned person might use that word.

 

A series of related court judgments seeking to disqualify members of the House of Representatives who participated in the January 6^th insurrection illuminate an aggressive effort to take action against those involved via the 14^th Amendment §3 [1868]. A federal judge in North Carolina dismissed the case against Representative David Madison Cawthorn. A Superior Court judge in Arizona dismissed the cases against Representative Andrew Steven Biggs, Representative Paul Anthony Gosar, and State Representative Mark W. Finchem. Yet, another federal judge allow the similar case against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to proceed. I watched some of the testimony with noted revulsion. She certainly is not strident as she is in public, but she is just as deceitful as she always is. The plaintiff attorney appears to be setting her up for perjury charges as well as disqualification, but who knows what a judge will decide. We will eventually see the results. The plaintiffs in the North Carolina and Arizona cases have initiated appeals. I suspect there will be more on this initiative.

 

Another friend and regular contributor sent along the following article:

“I doubt this is post-able, but it summarizes what I've been saying about masks for a couple of years.”

“Good morning. What might a more effective mask mandate look like?”

by David Leonhardt

New York Times

Published: April 22, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/briefing/mask-mandate-covid-spread.html

My response:

Correct, the article is not practically post-able, but I intend to offer the citation along with my opinion.

I finished my reading of Judge Mizelle’s order. My review will be in this week’s Update. I will pass on a repeat.

At the bottom line, my opinion regarding facial masks is, something is better than nothing. I do not see facial masks as a civil rights issue or symbol of oppression.

I will note here that our local pharmacies had boxes of 3M N95 masks provided two years into the pandemic. They put signs up—“Take what you want.” If we had had that level of supply in January 2020, we would have a fundamentally different situation today, but that is only an idle ‘what-if.’ I truly hope we learned from our grotesque mistakes in the early stages of the pandemic to lessen the severity of future epidemic and pandemic viral infections.

At the end of the day, Leonhardt offered reasonable and realistic observations, and his observations should be part of our lessons-learned file.

 . . . with a follow-up comment:

“In my experience, ‘something’ is no better than nothing, unless the ‘something’ means KN95, which could be better than nothing if it seals correctly. Also, I have a medical issue with most of the masks due to prior surgery on my nose. No exemptions for medical conditions have actually been granted except for visually obvious issues.

“Your point about ‘two years into the pandemic’ highlights the sheer incompetence of the U.S. response. The repeated failures of communication greatly amplified the assorted medical and material mistakes.

“Were this information offered early on and the suggestion for narrow and enforceable mandates carried out, much of the damage, both from the virus and the mental health results, could have been avoided.”

 . . . along with my follow-up response:

We shall respectfully disagree.

I certainly understand and appreciate your personal objections. You are not alone.

Yes, that was one of the major early mistakes. The gross lack of preparedness of the USG to deal with any pandemic infection, despite the clear warnings of the Obama administration was one of the, if not the primary, mistakes that colored everything afterward. We can only hope we learned the lessons.

 

Comments and contributions from Update no.1057:

“Yes, all arrived this side-have just read your opener re hearing-you are not alone! I have this bombardment too! And yes, I blame Rolls Royce, Pratt and Whitney and others too. None the less, I can still read!”

My reply:

Oh, I know I am not alone. Too many turbine engines for many of us. Yes, most definitely, we can still read, and we still do. If you have not considered hearing aids, please do. Contemporary technology is most impressive. Hearing, again, is worth the effort. Good luck.

 

Comment to the Blog:

“Hearing aids have been a major boon to my family. We have a hearing loss that’s apparently genetic.

“I’ll note that Mr. Thompson, of Columbus, used the ‘just following orders’ defense in his January 6 trial and got convicted.

“The nation needs a criminal referral and subsequent conviction for King Baby.

“I agree with you about money in politics. We don’t know the sources of dark money, but the money that’s reported comes from many sources, mostly corporate by volume, and goes to all levels of both major parties.”

My response to the Blog:

I am glad your family has found relief with the technology of hearing aids. It took me a long time to get to that point, but I am also glad I finally got there. I must give full credit to Jeanne for her persistence and patience (sort of).

Yes, indeedie! “Just following orders” did not work for Wilhelm Keitel. I am not sure why Thompson thought it would work for him. It will not work for any of Thompson’s compatriots either.

Oh my, yes! That man deserves to spend the rest of his contemptible life in the solitude of prison to consider the error of his ways. I can think of no man who has done as much damage to the fabric of this once grand republic as that man. And, the more we learn, the worse it gets.

Agreed all the way around. Dark money must go, and corporations must be returned to what they are—constructs of convenience for business; they are NOT citizens.

 

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)