Rajoy vs Catalonia

Posted on 23 October 2017 by eehines

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had and has an obligation to uphold the Spanish Constitution which, among other things, made the recent Catalan independence referendum illegal even to hold. I’ve written elsewhere about what I think of his tactics in his enforcement campaign.

Whether Rajoy ordered his Policia Nacional and his Guardia Civil to engage in the violence they inflicted in Catalonia (nearly 900 Catalan casualties) or they acted on their own initiative, it’s hard to believe Rajoy was so stupid as to not know the violence would ensue when he ordered them in.

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Thurgood Marshall’s Politics Deserve Respect?

Posted on 21 October 2017 by eehines

Jason Riley certainly thought Justice Thurgood Marshall’s approach to it deserved respect.

One of the final scenes in “Marshall,” a new film about the early legal career of civil rights superstar Thurgood Marshall, shows the future Supreme Court justice in a train station in Mississippi. It’s 1941—peak Jim Crow —and a large “Whites Only” sign hangs above a water fountain beside him.

Marshall ignores the sign, takes a paper cup from the dispenser, and draws water from the fountain. An elderly black gentleman quietly watches him, in seeming awe of this defiant act. The two men exchange glances but no words as Marshall exits the station, yet his message to the older man is clear: don’t be afraid.

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Duties

Posted on 14 October 2017 by eehines

President Donald Trump’s decertification of Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA—because they’ve not been, and after two certs (six months) of data collection reasonably free from Obama administration bureaucrats’ fogging, the data are clear.

The Wall Street Journal headlined their piece earlier in the week that forecast that decision with this:

Trump Leaves Thorny Issues at GOP Lawmakers’ Doorstep

This is entirely appropriate. Our elected representatives should be handling the thorny issues instead of cowering under their desks avoiding “hard choices.”

This is a preview of Duties. Read the full post (266 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

“New Commitment To, and Connection With, Each Other”

Posted on 9 October 2017 by eehines

That’s what Ana Palacio, Spanish Foreign Minister at the turn of the century, disingenuously claims is needed in Spain following the recent Catalan separation referendum.

Spaniards need to work toward a new commitment to, and connection with, each other and the constitutional system.

But apparently Catalans are not Spaniards according to Palacio, since she also insists

“Dialogue”…is pointless given that Catalan secessionist authorities refuse to live up to or even recognize their responsibilities under the law.

This is a preview of “New Commitment To, and Connection With, Each Other”. Read the full post (189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Gerrymandering and Voting Districts

Posted on 5 October 2017 by eehines

Further on the Supreme Court’s considering a Wisconsin gerrymandering case, and that dredges up some thoughts in my pea brain.

Taking the Federal government as my canonical example, I suggest the following to saucer and blow the whole gerrymandering question. Each State should be divided into squares having substantially equal numbers of citizens resident. Then, starting with four squares sharing a common corner that is at the geographic center of the State, add squares around the four, building outward in that fashion to the State’s borders, deviating from the square and the square’s straight-line sides only at those borders.

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Gerrymandering and the Supreme Court

Posted on 5 October 2017 by eehines

The Supreme Court has taken up a Wisconsin gerrymandering case, Whitford v Gill, in which some Liberal plaintiffs claim the State’s Republican legislature went too far in gerrymandering the State’s state legislature districts. The plaintiffs are centering their beef on the idea that Republicans are overrepresented in the State’s legislature compared to State-wide voting tallies; Democrats didn’t get their “fair share” of the seats.

The plaintiffs are targeting Justice Anthony Kennedy in what is likely to be a sharply divided court, and some of Kennedy’s remarks at oral argument are, indeed, troubling.

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A Referendum

Posted on 4 October 2017 by eehines

Catalonia is trying to have one (had one as you read this) on whether the Autonomous Community should completely separate from Spain. It’s turning violent as the Spanish military organization with police duties, the Guardia Civil, and the more civilian Policía Nacional, are using hammers and other such tools to break into locked buildings within which voting is occurring and truncheons and rubber bullets to try to block Catalans from entering and voting.

Nearly 850 civilian casualties had been inflicted by late Sunday, Dallas time.

This is a preview of A Referendum. Read the full post (303 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

On Catalonia’s Drive for Independence

Posted on 30 September 2017 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal argued against it Wednesday. I disagree ( a surprise, I know).

Nor is such a referendum permitted by international law….

This is a domestic Spanish affair; dragging international law into the matter is just cynical.

…they [Catalonians] fail to acknowledge the price all Spain pays for the national defense and diplomacy that keep Catalonia secure.

This is a cost that Spain no longer would have to bear if Catalonia succeeds in secession. As the Spanish, Catalonians, and Tunku Varadarajan, who wrote the piece at the link, well know.

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Discrimination

Posted on 18 September 2017 by eehines

Now FEMA is doing it, and it’s religious discrimination. Churches, bastions of succor in times of disaster—like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma—suffer their own damages in those disasters, as they did in Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. However, unlike other charitable organizations in similar straits, churches are being denied FEMA assistance to recover.

Law on this is not clear because separation of church and state, New York University Law Professor Burt Neuborne is claiming.

The difficulty is that the Constitution has two provisions in it. It has a freedom of religion, but it also has kind of a freedom from religion which prevents government money from being used for religious purposes, worship purposes.

This is a preview of Discrimination. Read the full post (382 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Nonsense

Posted on 15 September 2017 by eehines

The National Park Service is handing $100,000 to UC Berkeley in a “research” grant to “to ‘honor the legacy’ of the Marxist revolutionary group the Black Panther Party.” Worse, it did so without following its usual competitive bidding process for research grant money.

This cooperative research project between the National Park Service (NPS) and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) on the Black Panther Party (BPP) is anchored in historical methods, visual culture, and the preservation of sites and voices. The project will discover new links between the historical events concerning race that occurred in Richmond during World War II and the subsequent emergence of the BPP in the San Francisco Bay Area two decades later through research, oral history, and interpretation.

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