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Deems ready to throw a lifeline?

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

There is a tale unfolding in Washington that beggars belief.

I’ve said before that, in Washington, if your opponent hands you a knife, you are honor bound to stick it into him.

Well, the Republicans just handed the Democrats a knife of finest steel, honed razor sharp, and if rumors are to be credited, and they probably should be, the Democrats are about to use that finely honed knife to commit hari-kari, committing an act of political suicide while inflicting needless harm on the nation.

Republicans are demanding that Democrats join them in the Medicare trap, thus neutralizing it as an issue, as the price demanded for increasing the nation’s borrowing limit. Eveyone knows that were their bluff called they would cave, and anyone with an ounce of political skill can see that skillfully calling their bluff would probably enable the Democrats to reclaim the House.

But the Democrats seem poised to give that all away, and one must ask “why?”

Haves the House members learned nothing? Are they not prepared to say “never”, when doing so protects their re-election and serves the nation? Is Obama so addicted to false compromise-the kind in which he gets nothing except the ability to say he compromised- that he is willing to throw away any chance he has to accomplish anything in a second term, provided he doesn’t achieve the historical feat of losing to one of the jokers lining up to oppose him? What’s going on here?

There is only one conclusion: that makes sense. The Democrats actually want to destroy Medicare as much as the Republicans. Why is another story. Destroying Medicare, like destroying Social Security, seems to be a Holy Grail for the right, something to achieve for its own sake and not because it appreciably affects them in their pockets. Destroying it does almost nothing to serve the interests of the plutocrats, except those that go by the maxim that “it is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail”. But perhaps the hyper-selfish are outsize contributors to incumbents on both sides of the aisle; nothing else can explain the alacrity with which the Democrats appear to be ready to slash Medicare.

Then again, maybe the Democrats will grow a collective spine.

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Michelle hears the call

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Michelle Bachmann says she has heard the call to a higher vocation.

This presents a number of questions, both theological and scientific. In some cases, a mixture of both.

Now, when I was back there in Catholic school, there were nuns that put forth the proposition that the Lord would call you to his service. I never heard the call, and, looking back at it now, the only people that I’ve known who have heard such a call, and never to the priesthood, are my mentally ill clients, and politicians, each of whom (the politicians, that is) happened to be a Republican. Well, perhaps “happened”, implying some sort of randomness, is not a good word.

Anyway, back to Michelle. Now, there are three possibilities. First, that Michelle truly heard the voice of God telling her to run for President. Second, that Michelle is mistaking the voices in her head for the voice of God, as so often happens to the clients I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Third, and this is most unkind and therefore most unlikely, that Michelle is lying or equivocating.

Since we can reject the latter possibility out of hand, we are left with a rather stark choice, but one that presents some interesting possibilities. For, if God has called Michelle to become president, he surely intends to see to it that she wins. I mean, he didn’t send an angel down to Mary to tell her that he might possibly magically inseminate her. He doesn’t waste his time like that. Now, we can also all agree that it would take a miracle for Michelle Bachmann to get elected. Ergo, impelled by the force of logic, her election would indeed not only validate her claim to having heard God’s call, but would prove the existence of that God to all but the most hardened non-believers. Of course, it would shake the faith of a number of believers, who heretofore had some grounds, at least, to believe that God was not cruel, vindictive, or totally insane. If, on the other hand, Michelle loses it will not, by any means, disprove the existence of the Hairy Thunderer, but it will, ipso facto, prove that Michelle is per se eligible for Social Security Disability under Listing 12.03 (Schizophrenic, Paranoid and Other Psychotic Disorders). This would give her the chance to join so many of her other tea party compatriots, who have likewise qualified for public largesse, which is, because they get it, not socialism.

But, putting all these questions aside, we can all agree that it will be great to have Michelle in the race. If only Sarah would join, we could have ringside seats to one of history’s greatest political contests, as each tries to out-crazy the other. Only God would dare to predict the winner of that contest.

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Friday Night Music-Randy Newman redux

Friday, May 27, 2011

If I’m not mistaken, Randy was the artist with whom I started this feature. Back then, the Randy Newman videos on youtube were few and far between, and of fairly bad quality to boot. Though I don’t like to repeat artists, I’m making an exception for Randy because-well, because I want to and this is my blog and no one reads it anyway. So, this will be a triple feature. The first song, Sail Away, is one of his earliest and, one would think, a piece of ironic writing that can’t be topped.

But, in fact, it can be topped, irony wise. This song, He Gives Us All His Love, is absolutely perfect. In fact, I remember years ago I found a video someone made that swallowed this song whole. It was a video paean to religiosity, set to this song. A bit like the right wingers who think Colbert is one of them.

Finally, Bonnie Raitt singing Feels Like Home, one of the most beautiful songs ever written.


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A small bit of welcome news

Friday, May 27, 2011

We in Connecticut can take some pride in our House delegation, everyone of whom voted against renewing the Patriot Act. I owe an apology to Joe Courtney, since a short while ago I predicted he’d vote the wrong way, as, in my defense, he has in the past. When they are old and grey, the National Security State is entrenched, and civil liberties are just a memory, they’ll be able to say they did the right thing, for what it will be worth at that point. In a post on this subject I can’t forget to mention our friend Atul Shah, who has knocked himself out to get these guys elected and who has been lobbying them for years to do the right thing on the Patriot Act. I can’t help but believe that Joe was thinking of Atul when he cast that vote.

It’s worth observing, as reported here, that the White House exerted intense pressure on the Senate to extend the act and lo and behold, the waters parted and Democrats and Republicans worked together toward the common goal of destroying the constitution and making the president into an Emperor. Somehow Republicans had no objection to empowering the President that they have obstructed in every other area.

It has often been observed that, in the Beltway, all news is good for Republicans. Similarly, it appears that all events are reason to ratchet up the fright and empower the National Security apparatus. In 2001 we passed the Patriot Act because Osama bin Laden was alive, and now we’re being told we have to keep it on the books because Osama bin Laden is dead.

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Noted in passing

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

God appears to have changed his mind about Missouri.


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It’s not judicial activism when they do it

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I would very much like to know the legal basis upon which a Texas judge enjoined the City of San Antonio from naming a street after Cesar Chavez. Given the two hundred name changes that went unchallenged (according to the proponent of the name change), it’s hard to believe there’s some sort of statutory standard at issue here. And while I’m certain it’s a motivating facor, surely even a Texas judge would not explicitly adopt the obviously racist reasons put forth by the opponents.

This would appear to be an almost pure political question, meaning, as we learned in first year law school, that judges are supposed to avoid them at all costs.

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Another Republican frame adopted

Monday, May 23, 2011

It has been observed often, but always bears repeating, that the media in this country, whether consciously or unconsciously, sides with Republicans by adopting their terminology and the frames they put around issues. A good case in point is this article in this morning’s Times, about the special election in New York tomorrow.

Several times the reporter refers to the Republican’s plans to “revamp” Medicare. In this, he bows to the Republican insistence that their plan to replace Medicare with an entirely different program is not a plan to replace Medicare with an entirely different program. (I guess I should point out here that the reporter in question is Raymond Hernandez, and we in Connecticut know how anxious he is to carry Republican water.)

My American Heritage Dictionary defines revamp as follows:

To patch up or restore; renovate.

It is not accurate to say they are revamping Medicare. Keeping the name, and abolishing everything else is not a revamp. This is buying in to Republican spin. When the Yankees tore down Yankee Stadium, built a new stadium, and called the new stadium Yankee Stadium, they had not revamped the old Yankee Stadium. They tore it down, plain and simple, and that’s what the voucher system would do to what we now call Medicare.

There’s more buy-in to Republican spin in the article, since the reporter calls the Ryan plan a “deficit-cutting plan”, when, if we consult the facts, it is clear that it is not a deficit cutting plan, for it calls for using the “savings” realized by screwing the elderly to finance yet another tax cut for the rich, leaving us with the same projected deficit, and millions of elderly who won’t get decent medical care to boot. But in fact, there will be no savings to society, only to the federal government, for the elderly will still be getting medical care, and the money will come from somewhere. Medical costs are expected to soar, and whether through taxes or higher premiums, we in the lower 99% will end up paying, so our effective “taxes”, whether paid to the Feds or to Aetna, will go up. The Ryan plan is yet another Republican plan to transfer wealth to the top 1%, and it’s disingenuous to call it anything else.

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The fruits of bi-partisanship

Sunday, May 22, 2011

We can all take heart that bipartisanship is indeed not dead. When it comes to depriving the American people of their civil liberties, Republicans and Democrats are able to come together with amazing alacrity. Witness the recent announcement that Harry Reid has reached agreement with the Republicans to continue the egregious provisions of the so-called Patriot Act, which simultaneously deprive us of our basic rights while providing virtually no additional security.

The three controversial provisions being extended are the warrantless ‘roving wire tap’, the government’s warrantless access to business and library records, and the ability of the state to monitor non-US citizens at will and in the absence of any probable cause.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has found evidence of FBI abuse of the PATRIOT Act.

We have come to a sorry state in this country when the only person speaking out against such an obvious abuse is Rand Paul. Joe Courtney, our otherwise excellent Congressman, is a reliable bad vote on this issue. It’s a toxic mix in Washington’s la-la land. You have those who absolutely favor a national security state, and then you have those who don’t, but are so afraid of being labelled “soft on terror” that they vote for this stuff out of fear.

It’s somewhat ironic, also, that the same people who keep telling us that the domestically mild Obama is a nascent dictator are perfectly willing to grant him near dictatorial powers when it comes to the “war on terror”, a war that all too often is a war on civil liberties.

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The Last Friday Night Music?

Friday, May 20, 2011

According to mathematician and Biblical Scholar Harold Camping, the world is going to end tomorrow, so I am going to take this opportunity to bid adieu to anyone who might actually be wasting their time reading this blog on their last few hours on earth. I know I’m not going to waste any of my precious time as the hours trickle down to a precious few. This may very well be my last post.

To celebrate the occasion, a few musical masterpieces that are on topic. First, and I want to thank Matt Berger for letting me borrow his idea, a little R.E.M:

And, as a sort of coda, this chestnut from Skeeter Davis, circa 1965, and could it be circa any other year considering that hairstyle. Yes Virginia, women really did wear their hair that way.

That’s all folks. Good-bye and good luck. See you on the other side of the rapture.


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A certain asymmetry

Friday, May 20, 2011

Recently the Wall Street Journal ran an article about an Administrative Law Judge who grants nearly 100% of the claims before him. There was also an implication that he was able to steer cases from one particular lawyer to himself. Predictably, this has led to calls from Republicans for Congressional investigations into the entire disability program.

This is the area of the law in which I do most of my work, so it hits a bit close to home. I don’t agree with Tristero, over at Hullabaloo, who believes the judge in questions is a hero who Tristero compares, half seriously, to Oskar Schindler. Any lawyer worth his or her salt believes in the rule of law. There are rules under which these judges operate, and it is the judge’s job, if the legal system is to work, to apply those rules. Excusing a judge that grants everyone implicitly okays a judge who grants nobody, as, almost by definition, they are both being arbitrary. There is simply no way that all those applicants qualify for benefits.

In addition to the bad odor it gives off to any lawyer who believes in the rule of law, this behavior inevitably leads just where it has led here: to calls to “investigate” the system, which can lead only if they lead anywhere, to further restrictions on benefits. The right will use this judge to call the disability system itself into question.

And here’s where the asymmetry mentioned in the title to this post comes in. This judge will be investigated, and others like him will be sought out. But no attempt will be made to hold the judges who groundlessly deny claims to account. Two examples from my own experience. A New Haven ALJ found that my client lacked credibility because she refused to acknowledge that she was an alcoholic. The judge’s proof that she was an alcoholic? The fact that she filled out an intake sheet at a doctor’s office and stated that she drank three times a month. Not to excess mind you, but three times a month. I had to go to federal court with that case and recently won the right to get another hearing before the same judge, because the federal judge wouldn’t grant my request to have another judge hear the case. I don’t quarrel overly much with the federal judge, but I know that when I get back before that ALJ she will find some way to either deny the client, or limit her benefits to an unreasonable period. Example two: An ALJ in New Haven denied my client benefits on the grounds that he had failed to undergo prescribed treatment. I went to federal court and the US Attorney agreed with my claim that there had been no treatment prescribed since the man wasn’t getting treatment, which he couldn’t afford, and anyway, the doctors that had treated him before his insurance lapsed said his condition was permanent. So, back to that judge we went. By this time my guy had to use a walker. His own doctors (he is now on Medicaid) said he couldn’t work. This time the judge said my client had been disabled, but magically stopped being disabled when his medical insurance ran out. The judge didn’t believe he had no insurance, though he didn’t say why, and he felt that right up to the date of the hearing the guy could perform light work, which requires standing at least 6 hours a day. This despite the fact that he needs to use a walker to get around and was using it at the hearing. So back to federal court we will go, and when it gets remanded again we will finally get a different judge. In the meantime, my guy has gone three years without benefits to which he is clearly entitled and will probably go another year or more before he finally gets benefits, assuming of course that the new judge is not the judge who decided the three drinks a month lady was an alcoholic. Oh, by the way, to add insult to injury, the period during which the latter client was found to be disabled was so long before he applied that the law bars him from getting paid for that period, so despite the “partially favorable” award, he won’t get a red cent.

Nationwide, stories like this are far more common than the wrongly granted claims, but don’t hold your breath waiting for the Wall Street Journal to report on them, or for Congress to investigate them. These judges are just as lawless as the judge who was written up in the Journal, but you’ll never read about them or the lives they ruin.


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