WASHINGTON: A GREAT DISMAL SWAMP – UNWORTHY OF PRESERVATION

Note:  I delivered to the Renaissance Forum of Charlotte last evening; May 29, 2014.  The Forum is a group of business and civic leaders in the Charlotte area.

WASHINGTON: A GREAT DISMAL SWAMP – UNWORTHY OF PRESERVATION

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

When I cast my first vote for President as a registered Democrat in Indiana in 1960 I thought this is a waste of time, Jack Kennedy will never carry Indiana. When I cast my vote for President as a registered Republican in Maryland in 2000 I thought this is a waste of time George W. Bush will never carry Maryland.

Today the voters in only eight states determine who wins the White House. We can thank the Electoral College for that undemocratic situation. This is not simply a theoretical problem. It's real. Four times in our nation's history a man has assumed the Presidency while losing the popular vote, including, of course, Al Gore in 2000. Gore beat Bush by 500,000 votes. Absent the Electoral College, there was no need for the election to be decided by the Supreme Court.

The Electoral College was born as a compromise at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. While James Madison and others favored popular election of the President, the sticking point was slavery in the South.

The most recent and most serious attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment to abolish the College occurred after the 1968 election. In 1969 the House adopted a Resolution making the change with a bipartisan vote of 339-70. However, the proposal died in the Senate in 1970 as a result of a filibuster led by conservative southern senators and senators from small states.

The Electoral College in an undemocratic anachronism. It should be abolished.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Here we want to talk about gerrymandering and the House Rules Committee. But I want to begin in what will sound like a strange place—Obamacare. It's obvious that the American people are deeply divided about the worth of Obamacare. And we won't have the final verdict for years to come. But this we know. The way in which President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill handled Health Care Reform brought the Tea Party to power in the House of Representatives. In the tidal wave election in 2010 the GOP gained 63 seats and took power. Ever since the House has opposed the President at every turn. Their opposition has contributed mightily, though not singularly, to the gridlock in Washington.

But what is not widely understood is how the 2010 election took gerrymandering to a new level. In 2010 the GOP picked up over 720 seats in state legislatures. They took control of 20 state legislative chambers, and they control the entire legislature in 25 states. The 2010 election gave them more state legislators than at any time since 1928.

They have used their majorities to gerrymander a large number of congressional districts. North Carolina is a classic example. Prior to the 2010 election our Congressional delegation had 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans. After the 2012 election the GOP had 9 seats and the Democrats only 4. With the retirement of popular Democrat Mike McIntyre at the end of this year, it is likely the delegation will consist of 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats. And 2 of those Democrats will be African-Americans who will have won in Majority-Minority districts, districts which frequently give the GOP an additional advantage by packing so many minorities into a relatively few number of districts.

For the GOP Obamacare is the gift that never stops giving! The benefit that it bestowed on the GOP in the House in 2010 may be repeated in the Senate this November.

And then there is the House Rules Committee. It has existed since 1789, but it did not become a significant source of power until the end of the 19^th century. Today the Committee has 13 members, 9 Republicans hand picked by Speaker Boehner and 4 Democrats hand picked by Minority Leader Pelosi. The Rules Committee members are their Leader's puppets. The Rules Committee's power is vested in its authority to give every bill coming to the House floor a Rule that governs consideration of the bill by the full House. On key pieces of legislation the Rules Committee, under orders from the Speaker, gives the bill a Closed Rule. Such a rule prohibits the Minority Party from offering any amendments to the bill. Their only options are to try to send the bill back to the committee which drafted it or to defeat the bill on final passage. But those efforts ALWAYS lose—ALWAYS.

Want to reform the House? First, mobilize citizens in the 43 states where state legislatures draw congressional lines to insist that redistricting be done by Boards or Commissions as it is now done in seven states. Second, abolish the House Rules Committee. Third, replace the entire House Democratic and Republican leadership teams with fresh blood, using open, not secret votes.

THE SENATE

In the Senate, unlike the House, it's the Minority Party that abuses its authority to stifle the legislative process and produce deadlock. Well, not quite. Let's talk filibuster.

At the heart of this nation's democratic form of government is the notion that a majority is sufficient for action. The problem, of course, is that majorities are not necessarily wise, workable, or legitimate. All of us can think of majority votes that in retrospect we regret or would change. My favorite is the 61% to 38% trouncing that Richard Nixon gave George McGovern in 1972. A more recent example might be the 53% majority that Patrick Cannon received in Charlotte's Mayoral election last November.

The Senate filibuster is a mechanism designed to slow or thwart majority action. Used as intended and judiciously, it is a very good thing. Used otherwise, it becomes an impediment to good governance.

The Senate adopted rules in 1789 that created the filibuster. And the first filibuster did not occur until 1837. A filibuster could not be stopped until 1917 when, at the request of President Wilson, the Senate adopted the procedure known as cloture which could end a filibuster. Initially it took a two thirds vote of all elected senators to invoke cloture. Now it takes 60 votes.

In 1975 Senate Majority Whip, Robert Byrd (D-WVA), successfully put in place a new procedure to deal with the threat of filibusters. It was called dual-tracking. At first blush it seemed entirely reasonable. It enabled the Majority to set aside a bill being filibustered so that other legislative items could be considered and passed. But what Byrd and the Democrats did not foresee was how this system would increase enormously the number of bills threatened by filibusters. Instead of a few senators having to mount and sustain a real filibuster it became possible for a single senator to simply threaten a filibuster. When this happened the bill was shelved and dual-tracking allowed the Senate to move on to other items. Dual-tracking has created virtual filibusters—hundreds of them.

But it gets worse—a lot worse. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), has successfully changed the character and the behavior of the Senate—for the worse. It is not uncommon for Leader Reid to write major legislation in his own office. This circumvents the normal functioning of the Senate's legislative committees. It makes a mockery of legislative hearings and mark-up sessions. It denies senators who are expert in the substance of a particular bill from amending and perfecting it in committee. It precludes the bipartisan give and take that normally occurs between Democrats and Republicans as the legislative committees draft bills.

And then Majority Leader Reid employs a tactic known as “filling the tree”. Using his prerogative as Leader he offers a sufficient number of irrelevant amendments to the bill he's drafted for the sole purpose of blocking the Minority from offering their amendments.

And guess what that produces – Minority party filibusters against virtually all major legislation. And guess what that produces-- Gridlock

And Reid is not the only bad actor here. If the GOP takes control of the Senate next year, you can bet the ranch that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will use the same tactics to take revenge on the Democrats.

If you want to start the reform process in the Senate, end dual-tracking, and purge both Reid and McConnell using open, not secret votes.

THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH

For most of the 19^th century Federal employment was based on the Spoils System. But when a disillusioned federal office seeker, Charles Guiteau, shot and mortally wounded President Garfield in 1881 the tide turned in favor of Civil Service Reform. Two years later, President Arthur signed the Pendleton Act into law. How well is that system of reform working 130 years later? The evidence suggests that it no longer serves the nation well.

Prior to 9/11 the FBI and the CIA had information concerning the attack, but they didn't connect the dots. In April of 2002 Newsweek magazine reported on the al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000 to plot terrorist activities. The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists to that meeting and then stood idly by as they returned to the United States to complete the planning for the 9/11 attack. The artificial division of labor between the FBI and the CIA respecting domestic and foreign operations and their hostility toward each contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Twelve years later the Boston Marathon bombing made clear that, while United States' intelligence operations against international terrorists had improved, it still left much to be desired. The report of the House Committee on Homeland Security highlights ways in which the FBI and the CIA had an opportunity to detain Tamerlan Tsarnaev upon his return from Dagestan Russia in 2012.

Although the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, warned both the CIA and the FBI about Tsarnaev in 2011, Tsarnaev was not detained upon his return from Russia in part because his name had been misspelled when it was entered into the computer system that would have triggered an alert when he returned. Nine months later the Tsarnaev brothers struck in Boston.

A 2010 report by the Department of Interior's Inspector General documented that federal regulators responsible for oversight of oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil. Then federal regulators traced over the pencil marks in pen prior to submitting the reports to the agency. The IG report also documented agency officials using illegal drugs and accepting gifts from companies they regulated between 2005-2007. Although the report does not provide any direct linkage between those practices and the explosion and resultant massive oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010, it does document a culture of inadequate industry oversight and grossly inappropriate behavior on the part of federal regulators.

On September 11, 2012 terrorists attacked the American diplomatic mission and nearby CIA facility in Benghazi. Four Americans were murdered. Pursuant to the attack the State Department established an Accountability Review Board to assess what had happened. The Panel's report delivered a sharp rebuke to State Department officials in Washington for ignoring repeated requests from Americans in Benghazi for safety upgrades and enhanced security for Benghazi. The unclassified version of the report stated, “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels resulted in a special mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place”.

Army Major Nidal Hassan was convicted in August of 2013 of the murder of thirteen and attempted murder of an additional 32 persons at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas. Hasan is an American citizen and a Muslim. He joined the Army in college, received his medical degree from the Federal Government's Uniformed University of the Health Sciences, and did his residency training at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Hasan was known to express extremist views that were brought to the attention of his superiors in the military. But instead of being discharged, Hasan was promoted from Captain to Major in 2009. In July of that year the military transferred him to Fort Hood. Four months later Hasan shouted, “Allahu Akbar”, and opened fire.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee found that the military failed to prevent the tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood. Their report states, “One of the officers opined that Hasan was permitted to remain in the service because of political correctness.” The Report found that Hasan received evaluations that flatly misstated his actual performance. They described him as a star officer and stated his “work on violent Islamic extremism would assist U.S. Counterterrorism efforts.” The officer who assigned Hasan to Fort Hood admitted to an officer there, “you're getting our worst.”

The Defense Department and federal law enforcement agencies deemed the massacre at Fort Hood to be an act of workplace violence, not terrorism. As such, the victims of the attack are not eligible for the Purple Heart.

On April 2, 2012, the General Services Administration's (GSA) Inspector General released its report concerning GSA's 2010 Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas. The IG report found that the cost of the conference was $822,751. It determined that GSA spending was wasteful, excessive, and in some cases impermissible.

At a hearing before the House Oversight Committee in April of 2012 Jeff Neely, the GSA official who planned the conference, refused to answer the Committee's questions. Instead he took the 5^th.

Dover Air Force Base is where the remains of most of our fallen service members come home. Their remains are processed through the Dover Mortuary. Between 2003-2008 whistle blowers at the Mortuary reported that body parts were lost, that body parts had been dumped in a landfill in Virginia and that a fused arm of a marine was sawed off in order to fit his remains in a casket.

The response of the Air Force was swift. It attempted to fire the whistle blowers. Fortunately the Office of the Special Counsel began an independent investigation that exposed the scandal.

The Dover mess is reminiscent of similar scandals at the now shuttered Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington and at Arlington National Cemetery. Although the problems at Walter Reed date back to 1999, it took an investigative report in 2007 by the Washington Post to expose neglect at the infamous Building 18 at Reed. It was a rat and cockroach infested facility that had extensive Black Mold, no heat, no water, and at which wounded soldiers had to “pull guard duty” at the entrance to ward off drug dealers.

At Arlington revelations surfaced in 2010 showing that 6600 graves were mislabeled, bodies were lost, cremated remains were unidentified, and over $5 million dollars was wasted in an unsuccessful attempt to computerized the cemetery's burial records.

In 2013 the Internal Revenue Service revealed that it had targeted conservative political groups that had applied for tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. From 2010 to 2012 the IRS effectively placed a hold on applications for 501(c)(4) status from groups with words like “tea party” in their name. As early as mid 2011 higher ranking IRS officials knew that groups were being targeted. In May of 2013 the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration released an audit confirming inappropriate IRS targeting conservative groups. Lois Lerner, who directed IRS unit on tax exempt organizations, was called before the House Oversight Committee in 2013 and 2014. Lerner refused to answer the Committee's question and instead invoked her 5^th amendment protection. From 2009-2011 Lerner received $521,000 in salary and $42,531 in bonuses. She retired in September of 2013.

In April of 2012 multiple Secret Service agents, military personnel, and as many as 20 Colombian prostitutes were exposed in a scandal at the Caribe Hotel in Cartagena, Colombia. The Agents were in Colombia preparing for the arrival of President Obama at the Summit of the Americas. The Secret Service has a strict no-fraternization policy. Clearly that policy was violated by the Secret Service in Cartagena.

In March of this year three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting the President in Amsterdam were sent home and placed on administrative leave after a night of drinking. They were in Amsterdam as part of a week long presidential trip to Europe and Saudi Arabia. One of the agents was found passed out in a hotel hallway. All three were members of the Secret Service's Counter Assault Team. The team is an elite unit that is the last line of defense in protecting the President. That's hard to do when you're unconscious.

The Veterans Administration is the second largest government agency. It's earned and deserves its reputation as the poster child of inefficiency and incompetence. Now it appears it has sunk to a new low—being complicit in the deaths of those it's obligated to serve.

The VA has been unable to process its enormous backlog of disability, pension and education claims. At its peak there were more than 600,000 backlogged claims. The VA does not have an electronic claims processing system. Over a half a billion dollars has been wasted in a failed attempt to computerize the claims process over the last four to five years.

And now the VA and Secretary Shinseki are in the cross hairs of another scandal. Allegations have been made by former VA employees that the Department has kept secret waiting lists in order to cover up the long delays in scheduling medical appointments for veterans. These allegations also raise the possibility that some veterans have died while waiting to be treated. The House Veterans Affairs Committee has recently voted to subpoena high ranking VA officials and documents related to the growing controversy. Secretary Shinseki has testified that he's, “mad as Hell.” The President's Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, has said, “the President is madder than Hell”.

And finally there is failed roll out of Healthcare.gov, the portal of entry for the President's signature legislative accomplishment, Obamacare. The roll out crashed and burned last October. The failure caught the President, HHS Secretary Sebelius, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by surprise. If so, that puts governmental incompetence and arrogance on display for all to see.

In recent testimony before the Senate HHS Secretary designate, Sylvia Burwell, stated that HHS has already obligated $834 billion dollars for the website and that the President has requested an additional $200 billion for fiscal year 2015. That's substantially more than President Obama received for his Stimulus Program to deal with the recession.

The point of all of this is to suggest to you that the Executive Branch and the military are out of control. In fact they answer to no one, not the President, not the Cabinet Secretaries, not the Congress, and most importantly not to the American people. Even worse, all of those folks, including you and me, turn a blind eye to the gathering storm.

In a recent editorial the Washington Post said, “We have a President Obama problem. We have a Congress problem. We have a civil service in crisis”.

The mechanisms that policy makers and elected officials have used to manage effectively the Executive Branch and the military have failed. The Pendleton Act of 1883 doesn't work in the 21^st century. If you think otherwise, you're whistling Dixie.

And so we end where we began. Washington is a Great Dismal Swamp – unworthy of preservation.

Thank you, and I'll be glad to take your questions.

LeRoy Goldman

Renaissance Forum of Charlotte

May 29, 2014

the "Shadow" always welcome comments.  Please contact me at:  EmailMe

North Carolina is purple, not blue – at least not yet

North Carolina is purple, not blue – at least not yet

Lee Goldman:  May 17, 2014

"The Shadow Knows"

Over the past two decades the national government in Washington has been brought to a halt by growing partisan hatred and distrust between Republicans and Democrats. In the 1990s Bill and Hillary Clinton, together with Newt Gingrich, poisoned the well of bipartisan cooperation. Think Hillarycare, Monica Lewinsky and impeachment.

President Bush’s war in Iraq, coupled with profligate spending throughout his two terms in office, escalated partisan rancor and emasculated Bush and the GOP brand. In Peter Baker’s recent book, “Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House,’’ Baker quotes a senior official in the Bush administration who said, “the only reason we went into Iraq is we were looking for somebody’s ass to kick.” By 2008 the Republican carnage was so great that any Democrat, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Bugs Bunny, was a shoo-in.

But President Obama, whose campaign mantra was, “Change We Can Believe In,” didn’t deliver on his promise. Instead he overreached with his incomprehensible health proposal, rammed it through Congress with no Republican support, and created such a virulent political backlash that in 2010 it enabled radical tea party Republicans to seize control of the House and enlarge their foothold in the Senate. These Republican radicals loathe Obama. Their world view is circumscribed by their hatred of the president and their obsession to repeal, rather than fix, Obamacare. The net result is that Congress’ approval rating is in the toilet and Obama is a lame duck.

But there is more here to be concerned about than bitter philosophical differences between two increasingly ideologically driven political parties. There is mounting evidence that the GOP has been in the process of systematically destroying itself and its ability to successfully govern the nation.

In 2010 the GOP fell short in its attempt to regain control of the Senate. It fell short because it nominated ideological zealots in three states, Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, who had no chance to win. Not having learned their lesson, the GOP repeated their suicidal blunder in 2012 in Missouri and Indiana. Thus, as we approach the 2014 election, the GOP needs to gain a net of six seats (instead of one) to capture the Senate. Amazingly, they have a shot.

The Senate race in North Carolina is crucial if the GOP is to win back the Senate this year. Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan will face off against Republican Thom Tillis. In their recent primary election, Republicans chose Tillis over a pair of far right Republicans who would not have stood a chance against Hagan. But Tillis is a self-proclaimed conservative. What remains to be seen is whether he’s willing and able to espouse policies that will appeal to a large majority of the 1.7 million unaffiliated voters in our state. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose. If Tillis believes that Hagan’s vote for Obamacare will be enough to defeat her, he’s wrong.

And there is much more at stake here than whether Tillis wins or the GOP reclaims the Senate this fall. The 2014 election is simply the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. And there too North Carolina is crucial. It’s crucial because it is one of only a few states, the purple states, that determine who wins the White House. Those eight states include North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. In the recent past New Mexico and West Virginia were purple. Georgia, Arizona and Texas, with a bonanza of 38 electoral votes, are becoming purple.

What is not discussed, but what is crucially important, is the direction in which states transition from red through purple to blue or vice versa. Only West Virginia, with a paltry 5 electoral votes, of the 13 states listed above has moved from blue to red. All of the others are moving in the opposite direction, from red to blue. Why?

In politics demography is destiny, and the face of America is changing. That change can be captured in a single word — Hispanic. For example, based on the 2010 census, the Hispanic population in North Carolina increased 100 percent in the last decade.

The doctrinal zealots who have called the shots in the Republican Party have chosen to deny this reality. If they don’t wise up soon, it’s a death sentence. Watching the Tillis Senate campaign will help illuminate whether the GOP has come to its senses.

LeRoy Goldman is an unaffiliated voter who lives in Flat Rock. He can be reached at: EmailMe

By LeRoy Goldman
Guest Columnist

Published: Monday, April 28, 2014 at 4:30 a.m.

The Supreme Court: A Lagging Indicator

Most of us have heard of leading and lagging indicators. Economists rely upon them.

Bond yields are a good example of a leading indicator because they frequently predict the trajectory of the stock market and the economy. Leading indicators point the way forward.

Lagging indicators, on the other hand, look backward. They serve to confirm conclusions about something that has occurred or is underway. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. If it's rising, we can be confident the economy is underperforming.

We can more easily penetrate the fog of the U.S. Supreme Court, its culture and its decisions by understanding that it is a lagging indicator. It inches forward by looking backward. It breaks new ground ever so slowly, constrained by its self-imposed necessity to reach decisions based upon the precedents established by prior decisions.

The high court prides itself in its belief that its decisions are based on the rule of law and not on popular opinion. Yet the snail-like pace it sets breaking with the precedents set in earlier court decisions too frequently imprisons the court and delays justice.

Let's look at one of the nation's most incendiary and corrosive issues, race, from this perspective. Racial prejudice was alive and well at the nation's birth. Shamefully, it is part of America's DNA. Not even the Civil War could defeat it. But it is also the case that enormous progress has been made over the past half-century in combating racial discrimination. Lamentably, no progress has been made in thwarting racism's evil twin — reverse racism.

Almost two generations after the Civil War ended, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that state laws mandating racial segregation in public facilities were constitutional under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The vote was not close, 7-1.

It took another half-century for the court to overturn that doctrine. It took up Brown v. Board of Education in the spring of 1953 but could not reach a decision. The principal stumbling block was Chief Justice Fred Vinson. But in September 1953, Vinson died and was succeeded by Earl Warren.

In 1954, almost a century after the Civil War, the court ruled 9-0 that state laws establishing separate educational facilities for black and white children were unconstitutional. Such schools, the court reasoned, were inherently unequal.

It had taken the court nearly 100 years to stumble into the truth. Now that's a lagging indicator.

Last Tuesday, the court handed down its decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. By a vote of 6-2, it upheld the state of Michigan's approval of Proposal 2, which had been approved by 58 percent of the state's voters in 2006. Proposal 2 prohibited Michigan's public colleges and universities from granting preferential admissions treatment to individuals based upon race. The ruling may also apply to the awarding of public contracts and to hiring policies of state and local employees.

Although there were several concurring opinions, there is little doubt that the court has made clear that voters have the power and the authority to ban affirmative action.

But the controlling opinion of the court, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, is also important for what it did not do. Refusing to overturn prior precedents respecting race (1969, 1982 and 2003), Kennedy said, "The question here concerns not the permissibility of race-conscious admissions policies under the Constitution but whether, and in what manner, voters in the states may choose to prohibit the consideration of racial preferences in governmental decisions, in particular with respect to school admissions."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas concurred with Kennedy's support for the ban approved by Michigan voters, but they would have gone further and overruled the prior precedents set by the court. Justice Stephen Breyer was the sixth vote to uphold the Michigan ban, but his reasoning was far narrower.

Kennedy's gambit of now you see it, Michigan's ban is constitutional, but now you don't, the previous precedents are unaffected, might have made sense if he had been able to do what Earl Warren did in 1954, unify the court. But he didn't.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a blistering 58-page dissent that thundered "race matters" no less than 11 times. Her dissent would have had the court overturn the outcome of Michigan's approval of Proposal 2 because she believes the election outcome was influenced by racism.

Upon careful examination, her rationale is not only fallacious, it's frightening. Proposal 2 banned the use of race in college admissions. Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg turn Proposal 2 on its head and state that the courts have the authority to overturn the Michigan election because they know its outcome was racist. Their basis for that knowledge rests solely on the fact that a large majority, 58 percent, of the voters supported Proposal 2.

Their argument is reverse racism run wild. It goes like this: If you don't agree with me, you're a racist. Think of it this way: Had Mitt Romney won the election in 2012, and had Barack Obama gone to court and alleged that his defeat was the result of racism, Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg likely would have voted to nullify the presidential election because "race matters." It's madness!

The Supreme Court thinks of itself as a leader. In fact, it's a laggard.

Please contact me at:  EmailMe

President Obama, the reluctant warrior

By LEROY GOLDMAN
The Shadow Knows

Published: Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Today's column will be my last. The Shadow and I want to thank all of you who have been kind enough to send along words of encouragement and constructive criticism over the past two years.

President Obama, the reluctant warrior

The effort to enact health care reform in the United States is a century old. It began with the Progressive Party platform of Theodore Roosevelt's unsuccessful quest for the presidency in 1912.

President Franklin Roosevelt considered adding comprehensive health insurance to his proposal for Social Security in 1935 but dropped it for fear that the adamant opposition of the American Medical Association might doom Social Security.

President Harry Truman tried and failed to achieve passage of the Murray-Wagner-Dingell health insurance bill after World War II.

President Lyndon Johnson made health insurance a top priority, and with the advantage of huge Democratic majorities in Congress he successfully passed Medicare and Medicaid.

In the early 1970s, Sen. Edward Kennedy attempted to build a bipartisan bridge between his national health insurance proposal and the one submitted by President Richard Nixon. But Kennedy's allies in organized labor would not countenance any bargain with Nixon, and Nixon would not agree to financing such a measure through payroll taxes. Watergate sealed the failure.

Although President Jimmy Carter proposed his own health insurance scheme, it was not embraced by the leading Democratic proponents of comprehensive reform in Congress. It went nowhere.

President Bill Clinton made health insurance reform a top priority, and he appointed first lady Hillary Clinton to lead the effort. The complexity of the bill she presented to a Congress controlled by Democrats doomed it.

Comes now Barack Obama, the man who made the enactment of health care reform the centerpiece of his 2008 campaign and his presidency.

One would think that after such a protracted and bitter struggle over the past century, the enactment of health care reform in 2010 would be cause for a genuine national sigh of relief and celebration. But whether you love Obamacare or hate it, you can't deny the fact that its passage and implementation have left the nation deeply and bitterly divided.

In 2007, Obama was on the verge of not accepting an invitation to speak at a health conference sponsored by Families USA, a progressive group. But, as Carrie Brown and Glenn Thrush reported on Politico.com about six weeks ago, “two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment. Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?”

One of them said, “We needed something to say. I can't tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good.”

Thus, Obama came to embrace the necessity for health care reform mainly by accident. It was a way to enable him to begin to compete with his rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, on an issue where she had an established, though tarnished, track record.

Furthermore, at that time there appeared to be no consequential downside to the fact that Obama was a novice on heath care. Not only did Hillary Clinton expect to win the nomination, so too did many in the Obama campaign. But, of course, it didn't work out that way!

Once inaugurated, President Obama chose to stand and deliver on health care over the objections of senior advisers. But Obama turned the job of writing the bill over to the Democrats on the Hill — an unforced error. He did not insist that the bill contain provisions, such as tort reform, that would have brought at least a modicum of Republicans on board, making the effort bipartisan — an unforced error.

He allowed the bill to become so grotesquely complex that he has never been able to explain it to the American people — an unforced error. He steadfastly continues to characterize the law as health care reform when in fact many of its central components, including the individual mandate and the exchanges, are the handiwork of the health insurance industry — an unforced error.

He presumed that the federal government was capable of implementing a law that was designed to make profound changes in the operation of a $2.5 trillion industry that makes up what soon will be 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product — an unforced error. And, after having more than three years to design the Obamacare website, HHS Secretary Sebelius and her bureaucrats gave birth to what she now describes as a debacle — an unforced error.

Those unforced errors are more than enough to ruin a good idea. But there is more, and the more is more troubling.

When presidents lie and the American people tumble to it, look out! At least 24 times, President Obama told the nation, “If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now receiving cancellation letters. Their individual policies are being canceled so that the Obama administration can force younger, healthier Americans into Obamacare to prevent the program from imploding due to the influx of older, sicker persons.

Assuming that the president didn't know and intend that is preposterous.

The president and his sycophants are now trapped by their hubris, mendacity and incompetence. Obama has risked his legacy and more importantly the nation's well-being on a deeply flawed idea made immeasurably worse by its bungled implementation. It's what happens when you send a neophyte to do a man's job.

Tuesday should be telling for GOP

It's only a 275 mile drive from Richmond to Trenton. But given the dynamics of the two gubernatorial elections that will reach their climax this Tuesday, these two state capitals might just as well be on opposite sides of our Milky Way Galaxy.

There appears to be little doubt that Republican, Ken Cuccinelli, will be defeated in Virginia, while Republican Governor, Chris Christie will be reelected in New Jersey. Cuccinelli is likely to lose by as much as 10%, and Christie may win by more than 25%. The oddity, of course, is that Virginia has been a solidly Republican state until very recently. On the other hand New Jersey is a solidly Blue, reliably Democratic state.

Understanding the anomalous nature of a Republican loss in Virginia, coupled with a Republican victory in New Jersey, can teach us a lot about whether the GOP can win back the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016, or whether it might lose the House in 2014 and be pulverized by Hillary Clinton 2016.

THE OLD DOMINION

The Governor's race in Virginia is a three-way battle among the Commonwealth's Attorney General, Republican Ken Cuccinelli, businessman and former Democratic National Committee Chairman, Terry McAuliffe, and lawyer and businessman, Libertarian Robert Sarvis.

From 1952 until 2004 Virginia's Presidential electoral votes have been cast for Republicans with the exception of 1964. But President Obama carried the Old Dominion in both 2008 and 2012. And now Virginia is no longer Red. It's Purple.

Significant demographic changes in Virginia account for its transformation. Chief among those changes is the explosive population growth in Northern Virginia, the Washington suburbs. Much of that growth is accounted for by an influx of Hispanics. A disproportionately large number of these individuals vote Democratic. And many of them are Federal employees.

Cuccinelli has not been able to navigate successfully between the ideologically driven Tea Party wing and the more pragmatic and moderate Republicans in Northern Virgina and in the Richmond suburbs of Henrico and Chersterfield counties. The presence of third party candidate, Libertarian Robert Sarvis, on the ballot continues to bleed Tea Party supporters from Cuccinelli. Lastly, the radioactive fallout from the recent Government shutdown and debt ceiling crises have hurt the Cuccinelli campaign badly, probably mortally, in the vote-rich suburbs outside the Washington Beltway.

McAuliffe is extremely wealthy and an inveterate optimist. He has a $10 million dollar advantage over Cuccinelli in campaign funds, and more importantly he has the Clintons. Bill and Hillary Clinton have been McAuliffe's close personal friends for decades. The families vacation together. McAuliffe has raised over $400 million for the Clinton's presidential campaigns. He was the Chairman of Hillary's unsuccessful 2008 bid for the White House. In 1999 when the Clinton's needed financial assistance to purchase their lavish home in Chappaqua, NY, McAuliffe personally secured their mortgage with $1.5 million in cash. Now the Clintons are campaigning for McAuliffe in Virginia. And it's more than friendship. The Clinton's want to be able to leverage a state Democratic Machine in Richmond in 2016.

THE GARDEN STATE

In New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie seeks a second term. He is opposed by Democratic State Senator Barbara Buono. Virtually all polling organizations show Christie with a huge edge, approaching 2:1. Barbara Buono will be buried under an avalanche of Christie votes Tuesday night. What remains unknown is how big the margin will be and, more importantly, how well Christie does with Hispanics, African-Americans, and Independents.

Christie is a conservative Republican who has demonstrated that he can not only win in a Blue state like New Jersey, but that he can govern successfully even though the Democrats control both chambers of the State legislature. How many news reports have you heard that describe impasse in Trenton like the impasse in Washington? If Christie couldn't effectively reach across the aisle and work with Democrats to solve problems, he would not be on his way to overwhelming reelection.

About 18% of New Jersey's population is Hispanic. Only seven states have a larger Hispanic population. And in mid October Governor Christie spoke to supporters at the Sabor Latino restaurant in Dover, New Jersey. What he said is what distinguishes him from folks like Ken Cuccinelli and those at right fanatical fringe of the Republican party who suffer from a doctrinally-induced coma.

Christie said, “The eyes of America will be on New Jersey on November 5^th. What they're going to see is a coalition supporting the governor like no other Republican has anywhere in the country: Hispanic voters, African-American voters, members of the building trade unions, people who live in the suburbs, people who live in cities, people who live on our farms”.

New Jersey law precludes a governor from serving more than two consecutive terms. So what's coming is a titanic struggle for the soul and the future of the Republican Party that will play out over the battle for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2016.

One of Trenton's famous landmarks is the TRENTON MAKES: THE WORLD TAKES Bridge over the Delaware River. Those words, illuminated in neon, can easily be seen by passengers taking the high speed trains from Washington and Philadelphia north to New York and Boston. In 2016 Chris Christie is hoping to redefine that 1935 motto into WHAT TRENTON MADE, AMERICA TAKES. His chief adversary is his own party!

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By LEROY GOLDMAN
Columnist

Published: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Affirmative action back in cross hairs 

“Equal Justice Under Law” are the words carved in the white Vermont marble on the west front of the U.S. Supreme Court. They paraphrase the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court’s interpretation of that clause is at the heart of the nation’s struggle to define the proper bounds of affirmative action. The struggle has been bitterly controversial. It is a work in progress and not the zero-sum game that too many would like it to be.

Perhaps the best way to grasp the opposing views of how to define what’s permissible under the aegis of the Constitution respecting affirmative action is to contrast the words of former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun with those of Chief Justice John Roberts.

On June 28, 1978, in a fractured plurality decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that affirmative action permitted race to be used as a factor in college admissions. In his opinion, Justice Blackmun’s stated, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”

On June 28, 2007, in another fractured plurality decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 that the school desegregation plans of both Seattle and Louisville, Ky., were unconstitutional because they were not sufficiently narrowly tailored. In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts stated, “The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

What is incontrovertibly clear is that Blackmun’s view and Roberts’ view cannot coexist. The fundamental question going forward is whether Roberts will be able to put up or whether he will have to shut up. When we know the answer to that question, we will know the outcome of the war over affirmative action, not simply the outcome of one of its many battles.

Comes now the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the next battle in the war. The high court heard oral arguments on Schuette last Tuesday.

Writing in SCOTUSblog, Editor Amy Howe recently stated, “in late June, the court issued its decision in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a challenge to the university’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process. The court sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to take a closer (and tougher) look at the policy.”

In Schuette, Howe opined, the high court will confront the sequel to the Fisher case, stating, “In Fisher the court was considering whether the Constitution allows a university to (voluntarily) consider race as a factor in admissions; in Schuette, the issue is whether the Constitution allows a state to do the opposite: prohibit universities from using race as a factor.”

Schuette’s seeds were sown in 2006 when voters in the state of Michigan approved Proposal 2, a constitutional amendment that blocks the state from using race or gender in public education, employment and contracting. The proposal was adopted by a whopping 58 percent to 42 percent margin. Seven other states have adopted similar prohibitions: Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

The challengers of Proposal 2 were successful last November in persuading the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Proposal 2 skewed the political process against the interests of minorities and thus violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. They relied upon what is known as the “Political Process Theory,” which is based on Supreme Court rulings in Hunter v. Erickson (1969) and Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1 (1982). The 6th Circuit’s 8-7 decision aligned the eight judges chosen by Democratic presidents in opposition to the seven judges chosen by Republican presidents.

It’s likely that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s vote will decide Schuette. And his line of questioning during the oral arguments last week suggests that he may be looking for a way to distinguish Schuette from the prior precedents the court laid down in the 1969 and 1982 cases, and upon which the eight justices of the 6th Circuit relied.

In SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston wrote, “Kennedy began looking for factual differences between the prior cases and the one now before the court. And then he showed real fascination with suggestions by Michigan’s solicitor general, John J. Bursch, as to how the court could distinguish the prior precedents without having to overrule them.”

That indeed may be the way that Justice Kennedy threads the eye of the needle in this case. If so, it will tell us that the battles will continue, but the outcome of the war hangs in the balance. And it will tell us that Chief Justice Roberts has not yet been able to persuade a majority of the court that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

Roberts may have less time than he thinks to create that majority. Justice Kennedy, the court’s “swing justice,” is 77. If the suicidal obsession of the Republican Party hands the nation yet another Democratic president in 2016, Kennedy will be 88 by the end of that president’s second term. Tempus fugit, Mr. Chief Justice.

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Jeff Miller's the right man for the job

Jeff Miller's the right man for the job

Eligible voters of Hendersonville are now in the process of voting for their City Council and mayor. If you haven’t yet voted, I urge you to make your voice heard by voting in this important election.

Its importance is vital not only to the residents of the city of Hendersonville but also to all of us who live in Henderson County.

Although the residents of Hendersonville make up only about 10 percent of the population of the county, the reality is that Hendersonville is the county’s anchor. We all have a stake, even if we don’t have a vote, in its ability to thrive and grow. If it does, all of us will be the beneficiaries of its success. If it doesn’t, all of us will pay the price for its decline.

Those of you who have lived in Western North Carolina and/or Hendersonville all of your lives already love this uniquely special corner of America. And, like so many of you who chose to come here from all over America, my wife and I treasure the beauty, opportunity and magnificence we have found here.

That said, let’s talk about the election now underway for Hendersonville City Council. Two of the council’s four seats are up for election. Jeff Miller is seeking your support and your vote for one of those two City Council seats. I urge you to give him that support by voting for him, and I’d like to tell you why.

Of course, you remember that Jeff ran for our seat in Congress in 2010. Shortly after he won the primary, I decided maybe I could help him in the general election.

At that point, I had never met Jeff and knew little about him. The one thing I did know was how successful the HonorAir program had become and that Jeff was the driving force who had made it possible for so many World War II veterans in Western North Carolina to travel to Washington to visit the magnificent World War II Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.

So I called Jeff and introduced myself. I asked him if I could come by and meet with him for 10 minutes and talk about whether he’d like to have me as an unpaid volunteer for his campaign. He said yes, and the next day our 10-minute talk turned into a fascinating two-hour discussion.

Suffice to say, I called my then-editor at my former newspaper and requested a leave of absence from writing my weekly op-ed column in order to avoid any appearance of possible conflict of interest, which was granted. And during the summer and early fall of 2010, I did what little I could to advise for Jeff’s campaign.

Let me tell you about what happened regarding a piece of advice I gave him early on in the campaign. His reaction stunned me, caused my respect for him to skyrocket, and causes me to be urging you to vote for him now. It has everything to do with his integrity, humanity and willingness to help others — not himself.

Early on in my days as a volunteer in 2010, I engaged Jeff in a conversation about HonorAir.

I said, “Look, Jeff, there’s got to be an enormous number of veterans, their families and friends here in this congressional district who have benefited from the HonorAir program, right?” He responded, “Sure.”

“Do you have, or have access to, a mailing list of all of those folks?” I asked. “Yep”, he said.

“Jeff”, I said, “this is a special resource that could and should be used during the campaign. It could be a game changer on Election Day.” And Jeff smiled and said, “Don’t go there. I won’t mix my work with Honor Air with my political campaign, and that’s final!”

Now think about that conversation and contrast it with the way most politicians in this nation do business, whether they are in Washington, Raleigh or Hendersonville. I’ve worked very closely with scores of elected officials from both political parties over many decades, and I’m here to tell you that not one of them comes close to matching the integrity I saw firsthand from Jeff as he faced an uphill battle in 2010 against an entrenched, far better funded incumbent.

None of us is surprised that last month Gov. Pat McCrory came to Hendersonville and presented Jeff with one of North Carolina’s most prestigious awards, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, for the HonorAir Program.

I could go on at considerable length and give you all the other strong arguments to vote for Jeff. But you already know most of them — things like being life-long Hendersonville resident, a successful small businessman, his superb working relationships with a host of civic and county organizations, and more. But that’s simply the icing on the cake, isn’t it? You get the point.

Jeff Miller, once elected to Hendersonville City Council, will turn his remarkable talents and limitless energy to giving our local government the boost and direction it needs to succeed. And he will do it for you and for all of us here in Hendersonville and Henderson County because that’s the kind of individual he is. That’s what makes him special, and that’s why he deserves your vote.

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