Protect IP act is no protection

If the Protect IP Act becomes law, it will empower the Attorney General of the United States to blacklist websites without court review. This is like the chief of police of a local community deciding that a group of protesters should not be allowed to assemble in a local park because the local gas station asked the chief.

Many countries around the world allow their citizens to steal copyrighted material and sell it for a profit. China is the biggest abuser. Big corporations through their associations like the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians and others have petitioned congress for stricter laws preventing piracy. The act that is working it was through congress is called the Protect IP Act.

One of the provisions of the act would allow the United States Attorney General to blacklist sites that are suspected of piracy. With the big names mentioned above behind the law, the pressure on the Attorney General to block sites would be tremendous. But, he could do it without any judicial review. It would be his or her digression to block a site.

There is the possibility that sites could be blocked that may have an issue with one of the big corporations. Instead of spending their billions challenging the site in court, they could just pick up the phone and ask the Attorney General to take action. There is also a chance that sites could be blocked that are not politically aligned with the administration at the time. With no judicial review, the citizens of the community would have no way of making an informed judgment about the case.

This is clearly a freedom of speech issue.  If the site is on the wrong side of the law, then a simple court review would illustrate it.  Our judicial system is a way of checking the power of the congress and the president. This is a bad law for our community. The prevision about block sites should have judicial review.

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Supreme Court Justices should keep an open mind

I guess it gets down to just not caring about appearances.  Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court justices, dined with some very powerful people just the other night.  That, in itself is not worth a blog post. It just happens that these people will be the lead lawyers in the challenge to the Affordable Health Care Act before the Supreme Court in March.  That matters.

Judges at all levels should at the very least look like they have not formed an opinion before a case is argued in their court. Judges at the federal level are nominated by the President and approved by the Senate to keep them out of politics and party positions. If they did belong to a party, it might affect their judgment on cases that come before their court. When nominated, the prospective judge comes before the Senate Judiciary committee to seek approval. At that hearing, it is expected to hear them say that they can’t comment on issues that might come before the court. That might indicate that they are not approaching each case with an open mind. There are many other situations that they should avoid that might prejudice their opinion about issues.

So why is it okay for Scalia and Thomas to have dinner with the lead challengers to the Affordable Health Care Act? This wasn’t just a dinner with some friends. It was a banquet for the Federalist Society. It is an organization that advocates for conservative ideas in government. The dinner was sponsor by two law firms, Bancroft PLLC and Jones Day. Both will be representing conservative interests in their challenge before the Supreme Court. Scalia and Thomas are the featured quests.

Scalia and Thomas have long histories of supporting conservative ideas. This is, of course, their right as citizens of the United States. But, when they are the featured quests at a dinner that wants to get rid of the Affordable Health Care Act, it is no longer just a personal opinion. It is an appearance of already forming an opinion.

This is not in the best interest of our community.

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Keep an age limit on hunters in Michigan

Car sales in Michigan and across the country are down. I have a great way to pick up the sales. Let’s remove the age requirement for a driver’s license. That way, even 9 year olds like the one that drove her drunken father around about a month ago will need a car.

Think about it, there must be at least a couple hundred thousand kids between the ages of two and 15 years of age just in Michigan alone. All of them will need a car. Most will get used cars because they will be cheaper. That means the used car market will dry up and make new cars more appealing. Within just a year or two, the auto factories will be booming again.

Problem solved.

What about drivers training and the additional risk on the roads? Oh, but we will sell more cars so it doesn’t matter. Besides, will let parents decide if their child is capable of making good decisions and are able to see over the steering wheel. All parents are good parents. They won’t let their child drive if they are not able to – would they.

Well, if you think this is a good idea, then you will like the idea of handing a 9 year old a high powered rifle and send them out in the woods to hunt deer. The Department of Natural Resources of the state of Michigan has removed any age limit to hunting deer in Michigan starting next year. The reason they did this? The number of hunters is down. So, if they increased the pool of those that are able to hunt – but not necessarily capable of hunting safely – there will be more hunters.

What is even more interesting is that the hunter safety course that is required by the state for new hunters is waived for two years, as a test drive the department says to see if the young hunters will like hunting. That would be like giving license to drive to kids that are as young as 9 for two years to see if they like driving before taking a driver’s education course.

Our drive for money and gun freedoms is over the edge. We are losing sight of the reason there are communities, to build a safe and secure environment for all of us to live. By giving guns to younger and younger children, we are not becoming more secure.

This is a bad idea for Michigan.

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Herman Cain is out of touch and doesn't deserve to be President

Herman Cain’s suggestion that the occupy Wall Street protests that have now spread across the country are just playing the “victim card” is dead wrong. It is no truer than the Tea Party playing the victim card because they didn’t get their way about health care.

Mr. Cain, in every crime there are victims and unpleasant consequences. The rip off by the Wall Street bankers and brokers and the resulting down turn in the economy is a crime and those that have lost their jobs and are losing their homes are victims. To suggest in one sweeping statement that all of them are playing off on what has happen to them is to be insensitive to the real issues. If you can’t understand the real issues, you can’t present solutions that are based in reality. Mr. Cain, you are not fit to be president.

Just as in a robbery, a traffic accident or the result of Wall Street Bankers playing with real people’s lives like it was monopoly money; there are those that must suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, because Bush helped those that were taking the risks and because Obama just passed through the same policy, the bankers got off. They made millions, if not billions, off of their risk taking. This despite the bailouts they received from the taxes the people who are occupying Wall Street right now. Do you think the Wall Street bankers and others didn’t play the “victims card” in their board room meetings with the Federal Reserve Chair and the Secretary of the Treasury? The only difference is they still had one more hand to play… the economy would have collapsed if the Federal Government hadn’t helped out.

So now, the Wall Street protesters are asking the system to help them out. They don’t want a bailout like the bankers received, they want jobs. They don’t want their fate left up to boardroom meetings of large multi-national corporations whose only purpose is to make a profit, and whose loyalties are not to any community. They want decisions that affect their lives and jobs made in public so they can have a say in those decisions. They are asking that the community to help them just like the community helped the big Wall Street guys.

We the people didn’t create a community so that when times are tough the community can ignore our pleas and say we are just playing the victim card. If the community doesn’t support us, why do we need one? Why did we create them? We created communities and continue to support them because a shared responsibility between ourselves and the community will get us a lot farther.

It is time the community supports Main Street now.

Editor's note:  Recent health worries and problems prevented me from making posts over the last 6 weeks.  It appears that these problems are now in the past.  I hope to increase my pace back to where it was before the issue arose.  Thank you for your patience. 

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A candidate for all the people

If the Republican presidential candidates continue to hold such a hard line on many of the issues facing the United States, it is a reasonable question to ask if they are a candidate for all the people.


Bachmann, being the staunchest, said that she has a titanium spine when it comes to the issues that the Republican Tea Party feel the strongest about. Bachmann says that she, more than Romney or Perry, would hold the line in support of the Tea Party issues.

Bachmann is saying, without reservation at this point in the election cycle, that she is the candidate for Tea Party people and not all Americans. But, not all people align themselves with the Tea Party, nor the Republicans or even the Democrats. But taking a stand that is so harsh, Bachmann is saying she would not consider the needs and concerns for people outside of the demographic profile that is her base.

As a presidential candidate, it is important to make very clear what your opinions are on the issues. In most situations we all know that the candidate, if elected, would work with the congress to come to a compromise on the issues, find a workable solution and get something done. This is the way that all citizens of the country can feel like their interests are being taken into consideration. But, for a candidate to take the stance from the beginning that there will be no compromise is to say that the rest of the country doesn’t count.

The country needs a President that everyone can feel right about. Not someone that discounts the concerns of a large part of the population from the beginning.

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Regulations protect people and environments

The regulations that business operates under is going to be an issue in the upcoming presidential election. Those candidates that are running on the right are saying that we have too many regulations on business and that the result is a loss of jobs.

If jobs are lost who could be against dumping the regulations?

Yes, perhaps, there are too many regulations. But, most regulations are in place for a reason. They protect people and the environment. Without these regulations, we would have to rely on corporations, whose sole legal goal is to create profit, to do the right thing. Many corporations say that their best practices meet or exceed the regulations.

As an example of corporations following their own best practices, there is Shell Oil that has operations in the Niger Delta, Africa. The corporation has established best practices between itself and NNPC, the national oil company of Nigeria. Those practices are to protect the environment, workers and the people living in the delta.

But, there is a serious problem in Africa, where Shell said they followed their best practices and said that the area was “clean”. As reported in The Economist, August 13th-19th, 2011, a United Nations report states that there is a “thick, black carpet of crude” in the Ogoniland. This spill has been estimated to be larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska and covers about 10 square miles. This is the result of an oil spill that Shell first claimed was caused by theft and sabotage, but now has admitted was caused by equipment failure. It appears that their best practices didn’t anticipate the equipment failure and that Shell could blame it on other causes.

Residents of the area are drinking water with 900 times as much benzene, a carcinogen, then is deemed safe by the World Health Organization. The report goes on to say that it could take 30 years and a billion dollars for Shell to clean up an area. This report is published 20 years after Shell left Ogoniland.

Every time a corporation or an industry is threatened with regulations they claim that their best practices will be better and that there will be loss of jobs. But, in thousands of case in our own country and around the world, it isn’t the case.

So, should we skip the regulations so that Shell can hire a few more people? It is the lack of regulations and reliance on corporation’s best practices that have polluted the Ogoniland, a faraway place that is rarely seen by the eyes of American voters.

Let’s keep the regulations that protect people and environments.

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Medical marijuana law in Michigan is confusing at best

There is few things clear in politics. But, in the case of the use of marijuana for medical purposes in Michigan, the intent of the voters was very clear. In a decisive vote, the people of Michigan said they wanted people to have access to marijuana if a doctor prescribed it as medication.

So why has it been such trouble to get them the medicine?

Politicians, police agencies and other authoritarian types don’t want them to. They believe that the drug is a great evil. They would ignore the intent of the voters and keep it from those that need it for fear that the state will become the, “drug capital of the world,” as one politician put it.

Two years ago, a citizens initiative passed in Michigan. The initiative said that marijuana should be made available to those that could benefit from the drug. As called for in the initiative, the state legislature acted. But, they created a confusing and vague law. The result has been nothing but confusion about a very clear decision by the voters.

Now a court has ruled, that marijuana dispensaries are illegal according to their interpretation of the confusing law passed by the state. This has forced perhaps hundreds of clinics around the state out of business, leaving those that are in need of the drug searching for another source for their medicine.

Where are these people to go? Shall we send them out on the street to drug dealers?

Most drugs do need to be controlled. The ill effects that the drugs bring on user, their families and communities would be destructive. But, that doesn’t mean that drugs that clearly are needed to ease the pain of an illness, and in some cases, improve the health of people should just be banned and only provided by the local illegal street vendor.

The legislature of the state should act quickly to write a clear law about something the voters clearly want.

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