Politics
Cambridge Dictionary: the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed.
Britannica Dictionary: the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments.
Notes to Democrats:
The effort to lessen discrimination against transgenders has been lost; turn attention to the winning issue of President Trump's poor economic results.The push for use of the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump has failed. Try something else, such as electing more senators.The use of "democracy" as a theme has not been very successful, for too few people understand what the term means for them. Instead, encourage voting.
Notes to Republicans: The effort to claim Democratic cheating in elections has crashed in the face of truth. Trump's three elections occurred as was certified by Congress.The Holocaust occurred as reported since 1945; evidence is overwhelming that Jews and other minorities were slaughtered by Nazis.Trump's killing of brown residents and citizens of the US has not been supported by white people; try something else to get more white enthusiasm.
policies that congress should implement I have grouped these (A, B, C) by my rank of relative importance, but I do see each of these fifteen items as being important. A-1 Take steps to reduce inflation A-2 Fully explore the implementation of universal health care, removing it as an item of personal expense A-3 Reduce the current control over government through the use of wealth by providing openings for participation to other interest groups A-4 Refocus national defense efforts to the defense against attack of the Western Hemisphere rather than to US military domination over the world A-5 Implement a federal budget creation process that aims to match projected periodic revenue to the projected periodic spending B-1 Change immigration law to focus on the individual rather than on the family relationship or on the country of residence B-2 Reverse the continuing concentration of press outlets into the hands of only a few individuals B-3 Take steps to make younger the present common age of USA elected officials B-4 Require states to adopt a method of selection of a state delegation of House members that represents the entire state's various interest groups C-1 Displace the current control over government through the religion of Evangelical Christians C-2 Counter the current 6-3 Republican-Democratic decision alignment of the Supreme Court to have its decisions more closely align with the people C-3 Reverse the concentration of extraordinary personal wealth through changes in tax, monopoly, business regulation, and other law C-4 Reduce opportunities for government decisions to be made by individuals with a conflict of interest D-1 Enhance the role of Congress and reduce the roles of the executive and of the Supreme Court D-2 Reduce the role of the separate states and enhance the role of the people as a whole See my Comments below for fuller analysis and explanation of these proposals I make for policy implementation by Congress.Also see former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's similar Ten Economic Proposals for Congress
Plan for action I urge you to vote in 2026 for essentially every Democratic candidate for the House and for the Senate. It is imperative for the good of the people of our country to blunt President Donald Trump's future proposed authoritarian actions. That blunting requires a Congress that will not allow him to take the (narcissistic and incompetent) actions he has repeatedly shown he wants to take. Republicans in Congress have shown they will not do that blunting for the country. The people can only limit the post-2026 attempts at authoritarian control by Trump through their 2026 votes for Democrats in Congress.
religion is NOW politics Southern Baptists and Catholics, the two largest religious groups in the United States, together have succeeded in temporarily merging religion and politics in this country. That status must in my view be recognized in our laws (national, state, and local) and those laws must be consistent with the First Amendment. It is my conclusion that is not the present situation, as many, many laws favor religious groups and favor certain people's religious inclinations, in conflict with the First Amendment. I suggest, for instance, that the religious rights under the First Amendment and race rights under the Fifteenth Amendment ought legally to be viewed with the same lens. Yet, the current powers-that-be, including firstly the current iteration of the Supreme Court, do not implement those disparate rights under examination through the same lens: being labeled as religious enhances certain tax and other positions, apparently contrary to the First, whereas being labeled as Black apparently adds nothing to voting rights, contrary to the Fifteenth. (For the latter, simply read Louisiana v. Callais, as I do, that the Fourteenth Amendment rights to representation in Congress by the controlling white people was determined to override the specific rights awarded to minority Black people by the Fifteenth. This reading of Callais is made certain through the Court's order in Allen v Caster refusing to implement a lower court decision that, by a finding of intentional discrimination, clearly implicated the Fifteenth.) Religious groups should influence but not control politics. "St. Augustine described the sinful soul as curved inward, fixated upon and thereby creating an idol of itself, instead of facing outward toward others and toward God. An Augustinian to his core, [Pope] Leo's targets might be described as those forces that keep people bent toward themselves and held apart from one another, [ thus] the Church's recent interventions in matters of war, economics, technology, and migration stem from an intimation that civilization itself is likely on the verge of a historic transformation. ... And though it will, if there is any justice, take centuries of atonement to fully reckon with the abuse of children [by clergy of the Catholics and Southern Baptists], the revelations of the Epstein affair suggest that such horrors may not be unique to the clergy, but endemic to how modern power works. All the more reason, then, to chart another course." Jack Hanson (Lecturer, Columbia University), “Radical Reformation,” Harper’s Magazine, August 2026, p. 25, 32. I grew up the son of an ordained Methodist minister and the grandson of a Methodist minister on my mother's side. I was in church leadership as a member of the Council on Ministries (programming) or Administrative Board (administration) of all the several United Methodist churches I attended during 1969 through 1997, and then, after I joined my wife in the Episcopal church in 1998, I have been a member of many committees at both the congregation and dioecian levels. Thus, I have spent my life as an establishment figure in two main-line Protestant churches. [It is probably not by chance that as a descendant of almost exclusively English ancestors I have always been a member of the Church of England (Episcopal) and its direct offshoot (Methodist).] I have read and studied the Bible in its Protestant Christian configuration essentially cover-to-cover (I skipped some Old Testament books), and I have studied the Bible over decades in the familiar format of examining selected verses in depth (exegesis). The cover-to-cover approach now seems to me a necessary process in order to be educated in the Bible rather than being indoctrinated by some specific leader through focus on selected passages. My father's principal lifetime work was as a writer and editor with the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, at the same time being a minor theologian, a sermon presenter to Methodist and Presbyterian congregations, and a Methodist graduate school lecturer. While I was an undergraduate at Duke, a Methodist affiliated university, at the urging of a Jesuit professor, I gave serious consideration to following his suggestion of applying for a grant to attend one year of divinity school solely as an intellectual (not ordination) goal. So, I have substantial education in Christianity. (I, also, have more than a little formal education in Islam and Buddhism, and some informal education in Judaism.) My current words do, I think, carry that life experience and thought. It seems to me that the political messages of the 1960s supporting the expansion of civil rights to include Blacks were properly delivered by religious leaders in an organized religious context. [In January 1963, the [National Council of Churches] together with the Synagogue Council of America and the National Catholic Welfare Conference, convened the National Conference on Religion and Race, which issued An Appeal to the Conscience of the American People for a moral end to racism. Wikipedia, accessed July 26, 2026.] Those messages to change United States civil law were clearly in alignment with the second of the two core messages of Jesus Christ, to love God and to love your neighbor. See, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. The second of the two principles is repetition of older Buddhist and Confucian religious principles, and its later repetition in Islam. (With its principle of the Caste system, Hinduism, the oldest current major religion, however, would seem to be in conflict with the principle to love your neighbor as yourself.) By 1980 both the Southern Baptists (along with other evangelicals) and Catholics rejected their longstanding prior positions on abortion and began preaching for a change in the civil law to prohibit it. This radical change in doctrine was supported not by any message in the New Testament, but on the Jewish general commandment to not kill. The idea to use the religious context to seek change in civil law was nothing new for Catholics but was a complete reversal for the Southern Baptists, who had been principal backers in the eighteenth through twentieth century in the renewed push for continued separation of Church and State as set forth in the Bill of Rights. Being now satisfied with using the pulpit to push for change in the civil law about abortion, Catholics and Southern Baptists (together with other evangelicals) started using the pulpit to rid society of homosexuals, for which they found doctrinal support in especially three passages in the Bible, this time by preaching against changes in the civil law that were sought by homosexuals and their rights' supporters. Whatever arguments there might be for or against, it is a fact that Southern Baptists (and other evangelicals) joined the Catholic Church in using the political forum to push for the spread of their religious sexual doctrines through civil law applicable to all Americans. The 1970s Southern Baptist leadership was in sympathy with almost all political doctrine of the Republican Party (limited government, control of the economy by the winners, control of social life by whites, control of the world by limiting the power of Communists), and so the two groups became one during the 1980s (with the Republican Party in turn adopting the religious doctrines of the Southern Baptists). That status has not yet changed since the 1980s. See, e.g., the past forty years of sermons by Dr. Ed Young of Houston. There should be consequences arising from the adoption by an identifiable religious group of the concomitant status as a political group or as a business. That is, its religious characteristics should not shield a group from treatment also as a political group or a business group. For example, current law treats revenue of a religious group as tax deductible by the revenue providers, but treats revenue of a political group as non-deductible by its revenue providers. For further example, current law, as set out by the Supreme Court, shields an entrepreneur in a religious context (a non-ordained person naming themselves pastor and starting a preaching business) from applicability of the civil law that is applicable to non-religious businesses. The First Amendment sets out separate rights concerning religious matters, press matters, association matters, speech matters, petitioning-the-government matters. Currently, these listed rights seem conflated to me by the Court and by other politics. But, the First Amendment no where in its text purports to deal with rights in the context of property or of commerce. While groups and entities should be able to sue and be sued concerning the First Amendment, that should be limited to enforcing the rights held under it by only natural persons. The Supreme Court's twenty first century extension of free speech from natural persons to entities should be changed back to natural persons only. Likewise, the religious and press rights can, and should be, deemed granted only to natural persons, which rights are also enforceable for individuals by groups and entities.
My comments on the Policy proposals above
Notes to Democrats:
The effort to lessen discrimination against transgenders has been lost; turn attention to the winning issue of President Trump's poor economic results.The push for use of the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump has failed. Try something else, such as electing more senators.The use of "democracy" as a theme has not been very successful, for too few people understand what the term means for them. Instead, encourage voting.
Notes to Republicans: The effort to claim Democratic cheating in elections has crashed in the face of truth. Trump's three elections occurred as was certified by Congress.The Holocaust occurred as reported since 1945; evidence is overwhelming that Jews and other minorities were slaughtered by Nazis.Trump's killing of brown residents and citizens of the US has not been supported by white people; try something else to get more white enthusiasm.
policies that congress should implement I have grouped these (A, B, C) by my rank of relative importance, but I do see each of these fifteen items as being important. A-1 Take steps to reduce inflation A-2 Fully explore the implementation of universal health care, removing it as an item of personal expense A-3 Reduce the current control over government through the use of wealth by providing openings for participation to other interest groups A-4 Refocus national defense efforts to the defense against attack of the Western Hemisphere rather than to US military domination over the world A-5 Implement a federal budget creation process that aims to match projected periodic revenue to the projected periodic spending B-1 Change immigration law to focus on the individual rather than on the family relationship or on the country of residence B-2 Reverse the continuing concentration of press outlets into the hands of only a few individuals B-3 Take steps to make younger the present common age of USA elected officials B-4 Require states to adopt a method of selection of a state delegation of House members that represents the entire state's various interest groups C-1 Displace the current control over government through the religion of Evangelical Christians C-2 Counter the current 6-3 Republican-Democratic decision alignment of the Supreme Court to have its decisions more closely align with the people C-3 Reverse the concentration of extraordinary personal wealth through changes in tax, monopoly, business regulation, and other law C-4 Reduce opportunities for government decisions to be made by individuals with a conflict of interest D-1 Enhance the role of Congress and reduce the roles of the executive and of the Supreme Court D-2 Reduce the role of the separate states and enhance the role of the people as a whole See my Comments below for fuller analysis and explanation of these proposals I make for policy implementation by Congress.Also see former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's similar Ten Economic Proposals for Congress
Plan for action I urge you to vote in 2026 for essentially every Democratic candidate for the House and for the Senate. It is imperative for the good of the people of our country to blunt President Donald Trump's future proposed authoritarian actions. That blunting requires a Congress that will not allow him to take the (narcissistic and incompetent) actions he has repeatedly shown he wants to take. Republicans in Congress have shown they will not do that blunting for the country. The people can only limit the post-2026 attempts at authoritarian control by Trump through their 2026 votes for Democrats in Congress.
religion is NOW politics Southern Baptists and Catholics, the two largest religious groups in the United States, together have succeeded in temporarily merging religion and politics in this country. That status must in my view be recognized in our laws (national, state, and local) and those laws must be consistent with the First Amendment. It is my conclusion that is not the present situation, as many, many laws favor religious groups and favor certain people's religious inclinations, in conflict with the First Amendment. I suggest, for instance, that the religious rights under the First Amendment and race rights under the Fifteenth Amendment ought legally to be viewed with the same lens. Yet, the current powers-that-be, including firstly the current iteration of the Supreme Court, do not implement those disparate rights under examination through the same lens: being labeled as religious enhances certain tax and other positions, apparently contrary to the First, whereas being labeled as Black apparently adds nothing to voting rights, contrary to the Fifteenth. (For the latter, simply read Louisiana v. Callais, as I do, that the Fourteenth Amendment rights to representation in Congress by the controlling white people was determined to override the specific rights awarded to minority Black people by the Fifteenth. This reading of Callais is made certain through the Court's order in Allen v Caster refusing to implement a lower court decision that, by a finding of intentional discrimination, clearly implicated the Fifteenth.) Religious groups should influence but not control politics. "St. Augustine described the sinful soul as curved inward, fixated upon and thereby creating an idol of itself, instead of facing outward toward others and toward God. An Augustinian to his core, [Pope] Leo's targets might be described as those forces that keep people bent toward themselves and held apart from one another, [ thus] the Church's recent interventions in matters of war, economics, technology, and migration stem from an intimation that civilization itself is likely on the verge of a historic transformation. ... And though it will, if there is any justice, take centuries of atonement to fully reckon with the abuse of children [by clergy of the Catholics and Southern Baptists], the revelations of the Epstein affair suggest that such horrors may not be unique to the clergy, but endemic to how modern power works. All the more reason, then, to chart another course." Jack Hanson (Lecturer, Columbia University), “Radical Reformation,” Harper’s Magazine, August 2026, p. 25, 32. I grew up the son of an ordained Methodist minister and the grandson of a Methodist minister on my mother's side. I was in church leadership as a member of the Council on Ministries (programming) or Administrative Board (administration) of all the several United Methodist churches I attended during 1969 through 1997, and then, after I joined my wife in the Episcopal church in 1998, I have been a member of many committees at both the congregation and dioecian levels. Thus, I have spent my life as an establishment figure in two main-line Protestant churches. [It is probably not by chance that as a descendant of almost exclusively English ancestors I have always been a member of the Church of England (Episcopal) and its direct offshoot (Methodist).] I have read and studied the Bible in its Protestant Christian configuration essentially cover-to-cover (I skipped some Old Testament books), and I have studied the Bible over decades in the familiar format of examining selected verses in depth (exegesis). The cover-to-cover approach now seems to me a necessary process in order to be educated in the Bible rather than being indoctrinated by some specific leader through focus on selected passages. My father's principal lifetime work was as a writer and editor with the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, at the same time being a minor theologian, a sermon presenter to Methodist and Presbyterian congregations, and a Methodist graduate school lecturer. While I was an undergraduate at Duke, a Methodist affiliated university, at the urging of a Jesuit professor, I gave serious consideration to following his suggestion of applying for a grant to attend one year of divinity school solely as an intellectual (not ordination) goal. So, I have substantial education in Christianity. (I, also, have more than a little formal education in Islam and Buddhism, and some informal education in Judaism.) My current words do, I think, carry that life experience and thought. It seems to me that the political messages of the 1960s supporting the expansion of civil rights to include Blacks were properly delivered by religious leaders in an organized religious context. [In January 1963, the [National Council of Churches] together with the Synagogue Council of America and the National Catholic Welfare Conference, convened the National Conference on Religion and Race, which issued An Appeal to the Conscience of the American People for a moral end to racism. Wikipedia, accessed July 26, 2026.] Those messages to change United States civil law were clearly in alignment with the second of the two core messages of Jesus Christ, to love God and to love your neighbor. See, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. The second of the two principles is repetition of older Buddhist and Confucian religious principles, and its later repetition in Islam. (With its principle of the Caste system, Hinduism, the oldest current major religion, however, would seem to be in conflict with the principle to love your neighbor as yourself.) By 1980 both the Southern Baptists (along with other evangelicals) and Catholics rejected their longstanding prior positions on abortion and began preaching for a change in the civil law to prohibit it. This radical change in doctrine was supported not by any message in the New Testament, but on the Jewish general commandment to not kill. The idea to use the religious context to seek change in civil law was nothing new for Catholics but was a complete reversal for the Southern Baptists, who had been principal backers in the eighteenth through twentieth century in the renewed push for continued separation of Church and State as set forth in the Bill of Rights. Being now satisfied with using the pulpit to push for change in the civil law about abortion, Catholics and Southern Baptists (together with other evangelicals) started using the pulpit to rid society of homosexuals, for which they found doctrinal support in especially three passages in the Bible, this time by preaching against changes in the civil law that were sought by homosexuals and their rights' supporters. Whatever arguments there might be for or against, it is a fact that Southern Baptists (and other evangelicals) joined the Catholic Church in using the political forum to push for the spread of their religious sexual doctrines through civil law applicable to all Americans. The 1970s Southern Baptist leadership was in sympathy with almost all political doctrine of the Republican Party (limited government, control of the economy by the winners, control of social life by whites, control of the world by limiting the power of Communists), and so the two groups became one during the 1980s (with the Republican Party in turn adopting the religious doctrines of the Southern Baptists). That status has not yet changed since the 1980s. See, e.g., the past forty years of sermons by Dr. Ed Young of Houston. There should be consequences arising from the adoption by an identifiable religious group of the concomitant status as a political group or as a business. That is, its religious characteristics should not shield a group from treatment also as a political group or a business group. For example, current law treats revenue of a religious group as tax deductible by the revenue providers, but treats revenue of a political group as non-deductible by its revenue providers. For further example, current law, as set out by the Supreme Court, shields an entrepreneur in a religious context (a non-ordained person naming themselves pastor and starting a preaching business) from applicability of the civil law that is applicable to non-religious businesses. The First Amendment sets out separate rights concerning religious matters, press matters, association matters, speech matters, petitioning-the-government matters. Currently, these listed rights seem conflated to me by the Court and by other politics. But, the First Amendment no where in its text purports to deal with rights in the context of property or of commerce. While groups and entities should be able to sue and be sued concerning the First Amendment, that should be limited to enforcing the rights held under it by only natural persons. The Supreme Court's twenty first century extension of free speech from natural persons to entities should be changed back to natural persons only. Likewise, the religious and press rights can, and should be, deemed granted only to natural persons, which rights are also enforceable for individuals by groups and entities.
My comments on the Policy proposals above
Those who believe in God are more inclined not only to seek moral wisdom from AI [artificial intelligence] but also to embrace it as a source of divinely sanctioned knowledge. Exactly why they do so remains unclear. But one clue may lie in the fact that people of faith are also more likely to perceive AI chatbots as conscious and intentional, according to my group’s research.
When people are faced with the choice between a chatbot [] oracle who praises them and human religious authorities who challenge them, many will opt for the former. Pastors, popes and prophets — all of whom have their human faults and limits of knowledge — may begin to look unpersuasive next to the voice of the machine. Add religious leaders to the long list of people whose jobs may be replaced by AI.
David DeSteno, PhD, Opinion, The Washington Post, July 17, 2026
A-1 Economic help for families to lower costs by: (1) reducing Trump's tariffs that are causing inflation, (2) switching energy sources from Trump's fossil fuels to all-of-the-above including renewables, and (3) reducing Trump's grants of corporate monopoly power. Each of these three elements is a reversal of a Trump action causing a rise in prices, and these reversals will lower prices. |
A-2 Through a combination of government and private funding, the US spends hugely more money on healthcare than any other country. US health care outcomes are shockingly poor. About 24% of U.S. employees stay in unwanted jobs just for health insurance, a report out July 22, 2026 finds. Up significantly since 2021, the uptick in "job lock" is a concerning sign for the U.S. economy. n.pr/4gQIY5E The US should seriously explore ways of making the cost of health care for oneself and for one's family not be a personal expense at all, any more than is now the case for education for children and access to park green space, which are both now not family expenses, except as we individually choose. The rest of the world accomplishes this through about five different systems, several of which would also work for us. Congress should evaluate the systems through testimony and study, and adopt one for universal care they deem best. (The system chosen should of course result in the combination of increased family taxes and decreased family health expenditures, have the wealthy on net pay more and everyone else on the combined net pay less than we pay now.) |
A-3 Promoting the election of candidates for office is a matter now controlled by individuals' and corporations' funding of campaigns by their wealth. (This is a fairly recent development resulting from the Supreme Court stating in 2010 that using money for this purpose is "free speech" and that using money for candidates and causes is a right not only for individuals but also for corporations.) However, there are many ways in which Congress can enhance influence in government decision making through means other than money payments. One recent way that has been tried is through an official committee appointed to make a report to Congress and to agencies on effectively using a religious community. |
A-4 The total dollars and percentage of government spending on "war" is astronomical, outstripping the rest of the world. One of Trump's goals has been shifting military spending onto the responsibility of allies around the world. This shift should continue. What should change is the policy of the United States continuing the post-WWII spending to counter communism as a threat around the world, and counter the post- 9-11 threat of Islamic fundamentalist aggression, which are done through the deterrence of the US having a presence everywhere on the globe. We should contract from the present exercise of US control everywhere. The US should focus on defense of the US and possibly of the rest of the Americas (called the Monroe Doctrine). Financial systems and diplomacy should be the tools for US use over the rest of the world. |
A-5 The present process for setting the annual budget is to simultaneously work on the spending and revenue sides, with both political parties having since about 1980 placed front and center the idea of reducing spending (without reference to funding). This process has not worked well. Except for the tail end of the Democratic Clinton administration when there was a Republican Congress, every year since 1980 the spending has well exceeded the revenue. Trump has consistently overseen budget deficits that are among the country's highest percentage ever during both his administrations.
I propose the change that the spending side of the budget be completed first, and only the next year considering the raising of revenue in light of the proposed spending. My strong sense is that if performed without reference to available funding the total amount of spending will be lessened, and seeing the amount of revenue that directly sets the amount of the yearly deficit, will increase total revenue. (Revenue collection has been too low.) |
B-1 Initially, the residents of the United States were almost fully the English and Africans, with Dutch in substantial numbers around what is New York City. (There were Spanish in what is now Florida and the Gulf Coast east of the Mississippi River, and in the area north of what is now the Mexican northern border, and there were French in what is now Louisiana and areas south of the Great Lakes. Those areas were not parts of the original United States.) The legal concept of citizenship was established in 1790. After the founding by the English, North American resident Spanish and French were conquered or purchased, then Scots came, then many more Africans, and Scandinavians, Czechs, and Germans came, then Irish came. Next, the Civil War was fought. After the Civil War African residents became citizens. After the war, newer arrivals began being thought of as immigrants, but there was no law actually controlling immigration as a legal process until 1882 when the first general immigration regulation was enacted, including to stop immigration of Chinese. From 1882 until 1965, the various immigration laws looked upon the process through the lens of nationality. Beginning in 1965, laws on the admittance of persons deals primarily with the relationship either to a US family member or to a proposed employer, but also with special treatment of persons from the Western Hemisphere (aimed first at increasing immigration of persons affected by Communist or other left-wing revolutions, and then later by limiting persons from Latin America of Native American ancestry, both of which policies continue today). Later changes to the laws focused on expanding immigration opportunities for defined "refugees" particularly of wars conducted by the US. In 1986 amnesty was granted for 2.7 million persons. Thereafter, new laws have generally limited the number of immigrants we admit. In June 2026, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump, without Congressional involvement, authority to deport hundreds of thousands of persons who had been legally admitted as humanitarian refugees, pending further trial court or Congressional involvement in the ongoing matter. Finally, while Mexicans were for several decades the principal group of persons seeking admittance, that has not been the case for many years, after Mexicans' standard of living rose dramatically due to NAFTA. The group of concern became Central Americans walking through Mexico to the US Southern Border. It appears that in the US citizenry and in Congress there exists extreme prejudice against Native Americans, which has had significant impact on the proposed treatment first of most Mexicans and then Central Americans seeking admittance to the US. Finally, the US seems conflicted today in its view of favorable treatment, or not, of persons placed in danger by US wars and by acts of God, and so that part of immigration policy is unclear.
With that background, I make these immigration law proposals.
Financial and Economic Considerations. The US economy needs continued population growth, at least slowly, and these days that is not coming from births, and so it must come from immigration. The notion that the US ought to block all immigration is a faulty notion. The economy is benefited from new blood across the income spectrum, from produce pickers to tech entrepreneurs. This works best when the national government is actively involved in gathering data and advising businesses on needs and supply of various types of workers, and even recruiting some foreign workers. This part of the US immigration system needs a huge amount of attention, which it is not receiving.
Enforcement for Deportation. This part of the immigration system is a disaster. It has been handed so much money that much of its activity is driven by greed. The leadership and culture of ICE is based on satisfying the needs for exercising brutality and overlordship by a certain group of our population; CBP is operating on a higher plane than ICE but it too is overflowing with bullies. The operations culture of ICE is so corrupt and driven by the lust for brutality that the organization must be replaced in its entirety, and CBP must be substantially reorganized.
Substantive Immigration Policy. A smooth and beneficial immigration system will resemble a selective college admissions system. (One might also think of Rotary Club admissions.) At great universities there is a floor of those deemed capable of academic success, but from among those above that floor, the university seeks at least one student from every state, athletes, songwriters, actors, and others with different talents. While not every applicant is a good fit, the vast, vast majority of persons who take the actions, including the sacrifices, to seek admission to the US would be patriotic, beneficial additions to our population. We also need to recruit and entice some persons to come who might not come on their own. As we have been doing for the past several decades, chasing the twin humanitarian desires of bringing in the US foreign family members to be with new US legal residents, and sheltering here those persons who are being subjected to pain at their home, are noble, but should not any longer be the drivers of our immigration policy. Our admissions policy should instead be based on the enhancement of the US, knowing that a fruit picker, an actor, and a scientist might each bring that enhancement at times. Admissions policy for immigrants should mimic the criteria of a selective university, and not that of the Ku Klux Klan. |
B-2 The Wall Street Journal, Fox TV and studios, FoxNews, and UK and Australian media properties, are owned and controlled by Rupert Murdock and his son, long-time billionaires from media; Jeff Bezos, a recent tech billionaire, owns the Washington Post and Prime cable; Larry Ellison and son David, recent tech billionaires, own Tik-Tok and the CBS broadcast TV network, and have obtained an agreement (blocked on antitrust grounds by a court) to also hold CNN, TNT, HBO, History, Discovery, and many, many other cable TV networks, and the Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, Paramount and other film studios; Elon Musk, a recent tech billionaire from South Africa, owns X (the previous Twitter) and SpaceX's communications satellites; Mark Zuckerberg, a recent tech billionaire, runs Facebook, Instagram, and Threads; Patrick Soon-Shiong, a surgeon and tech and drug developer from South Africa and a billionaire, controls the business and editorial affairs of the Los Angeles Times with a strong but not extreme right viewpoint. Each of these persons exerts from total to great control over the editorial output of various media, and each expresses from extreme right-wing viewpoints for most to very conservative viewpoints by Soon-Shiong, Bezos and Zuckerberg. All produce propaganda supportive of America being run as an oligarchy. These persons have no left of center news and media business counterparts. The moderate to left-leaning outspoken billionaires Reid Hastings, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros, and MacKenzie Scott do not hold media assets. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, whose wealth has been generated by the media properties that share his name, presents a range of political views, some claimed on the right and some on the left. The New York Times (in the past left-leaning), NBC, ABC, Google, Gannett, and Hearst do not at present show a marked ideological stance. It seems to me self-evident that the ownership of major media should be spread among more persons than is the case now. |
B-3 The members of Congress are considerably older today than the members of the past. A big increase in those over 80 has occurred in the past decade. As we do in other contexts of work, there should be a retirement age for senators and representatives. What that age is set for is much less important than having some age be set. It seems to me that health data points to 80 as a reasonable maximum age. |
B-4 The methodology of my proposed statute is based not on the individual rights of voters (as was the Voting Rights Act) but on fairly representing important interest groups as those groups are naturally found at the state level. This approach results in the State’s districts being populated with individuals aligned with some characteristic interest groups more in one district than in its other districts, but that all districts taken together express the proportions of the defined interest groups within the whole State. This draft statute is a proposal to consider in addition to those that set up a commission in each state, or that try to define all the conditions for drawing a district. Drawing by the States of House Districts Each state, commonwealth, or territory (“State”) that is allocated two or more members of the United States House of Representatives shall by no earlier than April 15, 2031 and no later than April 14, 2032, and once at each ten year anniversary thereafter, by law establish geographical boundaries based on the domicile of the individual residents for the election of such members. Each such geographical area shall be known as a District. For purposes of this provision, a resident means each human being who has a domicile under state law in the District. For purposes of this provision, only a resident who is a citizen may vote for a national office. The applicable characteristics of all the residents domiciled in the State viewed in the aggregate shall control the division of the State into Districts. The State shall allocate residents among its Districts in a way that reflects the statewide proportion of its total eligible voters having each of the following characteristics, each of the characteristics bearing weight of an equal percentage: A. Political Party. [statewide proportions among two or at most three groups] B. Ancestry, as predominately White (English and other European, including Spanish), Black (African), Brown (American prior to 1500), East Asian, or Other (inclusive of Middle Eastern, Central and South Asian, Arctic Rim, Pacific Islander, Native Australian). [five groups] C. Location. Urban (including suburban) or Rural (including small town). [two groups] D. Level of Wealth by groups of twenty percent of the entire state. [five groups] E. Occupation. Dependent (including minor, student, permanently unemployed or disabled), Worker (current or retired, and including homemaker), or Business Owner. [three groups] A resident who does not supply the information necessary for the State to allocate the resident to the named characteristic groups may not vote in the next election for national office and shall face no other detriment. The State may not assign to Districts residents who are not entitled to vote (e.g. children, felons, non-citizens, etc.) in a way that has the effect of diminishing by two percent or more the numbers of eligible voters constituting any named characteristic group in a District. |
C-1 It is a fact that this country was populated at its founding by persons who were overwhelmingly adherents to the Church of England (Episcopalian), its immediate offshoots (Congregationalists and Methodists), and its antagonists (Puritans, Quakers, Baptists) who were all Christians. It is also a fact that those persons by 1791 had required of the national government that diverse religious views be allowed to the people, and the requirement was clearly expressed in the First Amendment. There exists in the US today a vociferous group, a plurality of persons who combine evangelical Christian and right-wing political beliefs, that is asserting the claim that their group is entitled to political control over the country as the rightful successor to the Episcopalian founders combined with the later early nineteenth century developers of the country. This self-centered claim is invalid both factually and Constitutionally, and must be resisted by the people against whom it is being asserted, especially in Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri. |
C-2 The Supreme Court does not currently reflect either the happenstance of time, nor the views of the People. It does reflect the determination of Republicans influenced by lobbying (initially by the Koch brothers) to make the Court into an enforcer of Koch brothers' and later billionaires' desires. The current Court has been assembled from persons not selected as able lawyers, but as partisan politicians. Its opinions have for some time shown scant legal analysis based in the Court's history, but now emphasize use of novel and unusual philosophical choices that both repudiate those of the Court's own prior choices and those current choices of the people.
Every chief justice beginning in 1954 has been appointed by a Republican president, although two may be considered liberals during their tenure. That is happenstance, but is an extraordinary series of events. Neil Gorsuch and Amy Comey Barrett sit on the Court together by virtue of unprecedented, sharp Republican partisan tactics in the Senate. These are the facts. A partisan Democratic Senate response is reasonable as a matter of law and politics.
Two approaches have emerged, both of which are logically grounded in our history and Constitution, that aim to enable a Democratic Party president (elected in 2028) to appoint new persons to the Court, presumably resetting the Court's ideological balance to a one-up from the current lopsided 6-3, while perhaps bringing more law and less philosophy to the Court's decisions. These approaches are to (1) move a justice off the Supreme Court to a lower federal court after eighteen years of service, or (2) increase the total number of justices from 9 to 13. |
C-3 During the years since 1980, the American people have been told during times of high unemployment — and they believed what they were told — that a substantial cure for high unemployment was income tax policy that would transfer more wealth to the rich, who would invest their funds in job-creation. That use of the increased funds available to the wealthy did not occur to the extent anticipated when argued for during the 1986, 2002, 2003 and 2017 Tax Code changes, and in none of these times was the tax policy then reversed when low unemployment returned. One of the principal means selected to achieve this transfer of wealth to the wealthy was to slash the rate of tax on revenue generated by the passive activity of money investment (capital gains) compared to the tax rate on revenue generated by the active activity of working oneself (earned income). This shift in income taxation was more recently accompanied by a change in business practices: the super-rich who dominate our government today are allowed to provide themselves with the cash they spend on new investments, by borrowing against their wealth and paying no income tax at all on the benefits they receive to further increase their wealth. The borrowing arrangement works so well because the capital gains accumulated along their lives are actually never taxed, as under their current law those gains (but not earned income) are eliminated from taxation at all through the Tax Code provision that at death re-marks all those untaxed gains to zero.
The goal of capitalism is for each business entity to seek monopoly. (That has been recognized in a board game with the name.) The change to capitalism from mercantilism was a change from monopolies by each country to monopolies held by corporations. Adam Smith in his 1776 best-seller, The Wealth of Nations, described and advocated for that change, but he especially emphasized that governments must regulate capitalism to combat corporate monopoly. For the second hundred year period thereafter, the US did a good job of regulating nascent monopoly power. But, for the third hundred year period, that beginning about 1986, the US law has changed and does not effectively control monopoly power. Monopoly has the simultaneous impact of raising purchase prices and lowering worker income. Monopoly, of course, enhances the amount of capital gains. Congress should change the law and seek anew to limit corporations' holding of monopoly. |
C-4 There are essentially no current limits by law (only by morality) on the president and on the Supreme Court justices to limit their decision-making when faced with personal financial conflicts of interest. At least two of the current justices and the president regularly ignore generally accepted conflict of interest principles. Congress has imposed some limits by law on its members and employees, and more substantial limits on inferior executive government officials and on the inferior judges. However, all government decision makers should be limited by law in conflict of interest circumstances. Only law passed by Congress and accepted by the president can accomplish that. President Trump would not sign such a law. It should be adopted when it can be. |
D-1 Enhancing the role of Congress within the federal government means Congress passing laws dealing directly with the Executive and with the Supreme Court. Under the current Supreme Court's statement of the law, if the president is granted authority to appoint (although with advice and consent of the Senate), that appointed officer is deemed an extension of the president, and the president acting alone (without the Senate) can remove the officer. Congress should grant greater independence (or have agencies be directly subject to Congress) by removing the appointment power as to specific agencies than are less closely related to the president's cabinet. Congress can exert great power over some Executive officers and functions by reducing the funding available. Among the many means that Congress might use to lessen Supreme Court power are: allocation of funding, changing the terms and number of justices, adjusting the required number of votes on the Court to seven for it to make some change such as finding a law unconstitutional, and removing specific issues from the Court's jurisdiction. |
D-2 When the United States was formed by creating a constitution, there were in fact thirteen different countries that had to be enticed to give up some sovereignty to a central government. Two hundred fifty years later, the separate states are much less important as sovereigns. While the practical relations between and among the states are quite different now, we have the same constitutional provisions as were proposed to the initial states. The separateness of the states shows up in two principal ways: the Senate, with membership the same for every state, and the use of the Electoral College through which the states and not the people elect the president. The Senate can be expanded in a couple of ways. Admission of District of Columbia and Puerto Rico would add four senators. The largest states could be divided in such a way that Republicans and Democrats would gain the same number of senators, with California and Texas basically offsetting, and Florida and a Democratic state offsetting — or not. None of these changes to the Senate requires a Constitutional amendment. The Electoral College should be eliminated and there be a direct popular election of the president by the people. That change would require a Constitutional amendment. |
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