Democratic Party, Show Your Solidarity With Blacks And Support Senator Obama

For a long time the Democratic Party has been peddling itself as the Party that best represents the interest of Blacks. Blacks, the vast majority of them, through their voting patterns, believe that their salvation truly lies with the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party pushes affirmative action. The Democratic Party pushes to change criminal laws to benefit Black defendants. The Democratic Party rails against racial profiling. The Democratic Party sides with Blacks when there are disagreements between Blacks and the police. The Democratic Party is simply in love with Black people.

The love affair between the Democratic Party and Blacks is so passionate, that former President Bill Clinton is dubbed the nation’s first black President! The notion of the first black president is where the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party is clearly on display.

Senator Obama could well be the Democratic nominee for President, but standing in his way are Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, Democratic Senator Joe Biden, Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, former Democratic Senator John Edwards, Democratic Governor Bill Richardson and Democratic US Representative Dennis Kucinich.

The Democratic Party still believes or pretends to believe that Blacks are still not free from the bondage that was slavery, and that in areas where Blacks are still under represented, racism is responsible. We cannot change what is in minds of people, but if the Democratic Party feels such solidarity with Blacks, then all those running for the Democratic nomination should step aside and support Senator Barack Obama! In one bold move, the Democratic Party could carry out the greatest affirmative action coup of all times.

If You Cannot Afford The House, You Should Lose It

Apparently President Bush and mortgage lenders have worked out some deal in which lenders would freeze the interest rates of some borrowers whose mortgage interests are about to reset to higher rates. The deal is to prevent further foreclosures because those borrowers who stand to benefit would not have been able to pay the higher interest rates.

The move is wrong. It is just another example of government trying to protect people from themselves. Although the deal is said to be voluntary, that seems doubtful. What is more likely to have transpired is that the mortgage industry was threatened with legislation or congressional investigations, and thus the industry caved under the pressure.

How did we get to this stage? In recent years, it became much easier for people to secure mortgages. There were programs that offer 100% financing with no income or savings verification even to borrowers with spotty credit records. Add to that the lure of very low interest rates which made initial monthly payments affordable. But buried in the documents at closing were the disclosures stating what the interest rates and payments would be in two, three of five years. Borrowers reasoned that they would be able to make those payments, when they did read the documents, or simply did not read the documents. In either case, borrowers are responsible.

But should some blame go to those who were responsible for relaxing the rules for securing mortgages? That answer might seem to be yes, but borrowers should still have been able to honestly assess their situations to make intelligent decisions. If they did not have the knowledge to do so, they should have sought representation.

The more serious issue arising here is that contracts have been ignored at the behest of the government. Will this set a precedent in which businesspeople will be reluctant to enter into contracts because of fear that government intervention in the future could void those contracts?

Government and Employer Health Insurance = High Cost

According to an August 2006 report issued by the Census Bureau, nearly 60% of Americans have employer-provided health insurance. Employer-provided health insurance took off during the wage freezes imposed in during WWII. To attract and keep employees, the government permitted employers to offer health coverage to workers as benefits, in lieu of salary increases. After the war ended, the job-provided healthcare continued because workers liked it.

Has employer-provided health insurance outlived its usefulness? Perhaps it is time that employers discontinue the practice, and instead, increase salaries, so that employees can directly pay for medical service. The time might soon come when employers get out of the healthcare business, but not for the reasons one might expect. What could emerge is government-provided health insurance for all. This would be far worse than what it replaced.

The cost of healthcare is rising, and one reason may be because doctors and hospitals do not bill people, but bill impersonal health insurance companies, which are seen as the repositories of infinite amount of money. Missing is the moral restraint that would naturally arise in most people, if they were asking living, breathing humans to pay. Add to the lack of moral restraint, the basic economic principle: if the cost of a good is perceived as being low, we consume more of it. The result is that Americans who have health insurance would go to the doctor for a scratched fingernail, because doing so imposes almost no direct cost.

People like health insurance because they believe they would be unable to afford healthcare without insurance, but it is the insurance itself that might be making the healthcare seem out of reach.

Replacing the employer-provided insurance with one provided by the government would likely increase the cost of healthcare. If you think hospitals and doctors find it easy to bill businesses, wait until they are given the opportunity to bill the government. For evidence, we need only look to the high cost of administering Medicaid and Medicare.

No To President Giuliani

Republican voters, I know Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Giuliani is no friend of mine. Republican voters, you do not want Mr. Giuliani as your president.

Positions he has held, and from which he is now retreating, offend the Republican base. Take for example his support of gun control, abortion rights and gay rights. When I lived in New York City, I supported Mr. Giuliani for mayor because I as well as many gun rights supporters believed he would relax New York City’s restrictive gun licensing regime. Here are some simple things Mr. Giuliani could have done, but he did not: (1) Reduce the time within which the city must deny or grant a pistol permit (2) Reduce the application fee (3) Extend the life of a pistol permit (4) Reduce the burden of buying additional pistols (5) Eliminate the need to go to police headquarters to have each new pistol looked at by a police official (6) Relax the conditions under which the city may grant a full carry permit.

Mr. Giuliani has also been selling himself as an aggressive tax cutter, but has he always been that? Many of us may not recall that during one NY election for governor, Mr. Giuliani endorsed the incumbent liberal governor, Mr. Cuomo over the liberal Republican challenger, George Pataki. As a reason for his endorsement, Mr. Giuliani cited what he would consider Mr. Pataki’s too ambitious plans for tax cuts.

Here is Mr. Giuliani in his own words.

US Supreme Court Should Televise the DC Gun Case

The Supreme Court has announced it will hear the DC gun case. This will be one of the biggest case in the history of the Court, since it will be the second time the Court will hear arguments on the scope of the Second Amendment. In the earlier opinion (1939), the Court did not say if the Second Amendment confers an individual or collective right to own firearms. With such an important case, it is a given that millions would want to be present for oral arguments, but the Court is unable to accommodate those millions. Television can accommodate those millions, and thus the Court should televise the proceedings.

The District brought the case to the Supreme Court after the US Courts of Appeals for DC found that DC handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. Read the Appeals Court opinion here.

Sure, the Court does not allow cameras, but given the share importance of this case, it should make an exception.

The Court might demur by saying it does not want to set a precedent. But, are there still unresolved Bill of Rights issues that are as contentious as the gun issue? There might be, but they would probably arise in another one hundred years, so the court need not worry about setting a precedent.

Brown v. Board of Education was perhaps the most recent case that would have warranted televising.