Was Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a deserter?

There is no doubt. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was released from Taliban captivity after five years as a hero. Within days he was branded a deserter by members of his own military unit from his last assigned base in Afghanistan. The debate is no longer one of should we have negotiated with the enemy for the release of one of our own. It has become a debate over whether we ought to have left one of our own there as a deserter.

Forgotten is that desertion is a felony criminal offense subject to legal charges and, in this as a military offense, a military trial. There are two things to bear in mind about this Bergdahl controversy. the first is that this is not about Bergdahl. It is about American principles, values and ethics. The second is that This young man, right or wrong, will be destroyed by the controversy. Condemned by politicians and media, both hungry for attention with little concern for fair justice.

Just as a matter of argument, Bergdahl may have gone off base for any number of reasons. He is reported to have described the situation on his base by characterizing his unit as a bunch of undisciplined backstabbers before his last walk off base. That leaves us with a possibility that Sgt. Bergdahl left his base because he could not tolerate the behavior of his unit. It is unlikely that he left the base on some sort of leave. It is pretty clear that he did go AWOL, and apparently not for the first time. But did he intend to be captured by the Taliban? That might be construed as desertion. If he intended to return to base after some time to himself, that would just be AWOL.

There is no report that Sgt. Bergdahl allowed himself to be used for propaganda. He was known to the military as the Taliban's sole American captive. If soldiers were lost trying to recover Sgt. Bergdahl in the early days of his captivity, could that have been due to their lack of training, discipline or competence as soldiers? Bergdahl was certainly, from all reports, "different" from the men in his unit. Five years later, a few of his comrades in arms brought shame to their unit by greeting Sgt. Bergdahl's release with condemnation of him as a deserter. That condemnation lends truth to the negative characterization of Bergdahl's unit and perhaps some credibility to Bergdahl's strange behavior.

Fort Lauderdale - City Without a Heart

What makes Fort Lauderdale a city that anyone would want to live in or be a part? This is a city with political leadership that over and over again proves itself offended by the needs of its most needy. Fort Lauderdale has a way to deal with those who may be described as “the least of us”; those with few resources and little political power.  There was the shame of Fort Lauderdale’s “Tent City” that lasted for five years in the 1990’s offering no services and parking lot like spaces on bare asphalt for the homeless. That blight ended in 1998 by a city imposed shutdown. Broward County had opened a homeless shelter*.

The City Commission remains a morally challenged elected institution. There was the recent solution to the homelessness problem by passing an ordinance that would allow the city to confiscate private property from homeless people. The new ordinance also enables the city to arrest its own homeless citizens to get them off the streets. No the city will not provide social or vocational services, a shelter or a nutrition program. The solution to homelessness in Fort Lauderdale is to drive these impoverished people out.

It  does not end there. The City Commission is engaged in a continuing battle to keep the Henderson Mental Health Center from building a facility in the City. They are engaged in the same effort to drive off BARC, the addictions recovery program operated by Broward County. It would be the same for the Sexual Assault Recovery Center if it were not being used as leverage to prevent BARC from the same large property to place their new recovery center. These facilities are all proposed for properties that are properly zoned and that are not in residential areas. There is minimal neighborhood opposition for any of these worthy projects. There is just the heartless City Commission that does not want to see services for the most needy among us to be served in their city.

What if it were a single payer system?

The deal that enabled the Affordable Care Act to pass Congress required a free enterprise system of direct provider insurance carriers marketing their policies in a competitive market environment. Those policies would have to meet minimum standards to ensure an equable and universal availability of preventive and catastrophic care for all Americans. It looks like that plan is not working. There are rumors that glitches in the system, such as the delayed website, uncooperative states and limited competition in some rural states will result in a need to bail out insurance carriers in order to guarantee affordable premium rates. The other thought is that it will be the consumer who will need to be reimbursed in the face of non-competitive rate setting by these “free market” providers. The very same conservatives who insisted upon a competitive free market for health care are attacking ObamaCare claiming “I told you so!” So, what if the Affordable Care Act had passed with a single payer provision, either in competition with the free market or as a true single payer system.

To be clear, Medicare is a single payer system with minimum standard benefits available for those covered directly by Medicare. Medicare does not close out the “Free Market” or eliminate competition. Private health insurance companies can contract with Medicare to provide mostly HMO, and PPO medical coverage plans and even some premium plans offering significantly expanded coverage or elimination of co-pays. The system is funded by a universal payroll tax, co-pays for medical coverage and premiums. The system works and is fully funded. There are no insurance carrier or consumer bailouts. Naysayers claim that the Medicare program is headed for a financial disaster. But the latest prognosis projects fiscal stability through 2026.

It is true that the current form of the Affordable Care Act, “Obama Care”, is a mess. The website glitches have caused delays in the rate of registrations for insurance coverage. Deficient plans appear to have chosen to dump their insureds rather than adjust coverage to meet the current standards. Employers are using Obama care as an excuse to reduce employee hours to part-time in order to reduce exposure to benefit costs. Medical providers are complaining about reduced reimbursement rates mandated by cuts to Medicare needed to fund the redistribution of healthcare . Hospitals similarly face changes in their Medicare reimbursements due to reduced Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments that cover uninsured medical care that will be reimbursed through the universal coverage concept. If universal coverage is not achieved, there would appear to be a net loss for the hospital based system of indigent care.

In hindsight, the problems with the Affordable Care Act appear to be attributable to the necessary compromises needed to pass the program through our Congress. The political success goes to the Republican party and the wing nuts in the Tea party contingent who managed to fracture the potential for any hope of a smooth implementation of universal health care for their own constituency of the American people. Their success is that the entire mess has become blamable as an Obama failure. Had the President not compromised, the effort for universal access to quality health care may have continued to be frustrated. There would be no program today. By accepting compromises, President Obama was caught in a neat trap. There is apparently no price too high to ensure a failed and ineffective government.

A single payer system of universal health care would have followed the successful model of Medicare. There would have been a universal payroll and self-employment tax rolled into or in addition to the current FICA tax. There would have been a universal premium payment system to supplement the tax that would have taken into account the affordability of premiums for low-income payers. Employers would have found no reason to reduce employee hours to avoid participation in providing a healthcare plan for their employees. The best employers would be able to pick up employee premiums or even offer premium plans at an added cost. Any issue of either insurer or consumer bailouts would be resolvable by Congressional adjustments to the funding, just as is now accomplished for Medicare and Medicaid. Best of all, the insurance carriers would be able to compete in a “free market” environment by contracting with the Affordable Care Act to administer the delivery of health care with expanded and premium benefits, just as they do in the successful Medicare system.

Obama Care is in trouble. But it is wrong to place the blame at President Obama’s door. The program can be adjusted to meet the goal of an efficient universal healthcare system. All that it will take is a Congressional will to ensure that quality medical care will be available to every American man woman and child, regardless of income and ability to pay.

Florida justice

 

He is not an attractive person and neither is his history. By that, I mean a history of bipolar disease, addiction and petty crime. Mr. Thompson has been easy pickings for Florida Justice. Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson has not been as easy a mark as the State would like. He has spent the past fourteen years of a twenty-five year seeking justice by petitioning the courts for redress. All that he wants is relief from an unjust and unendurable 25 year prison sentence as an habitual offender who has never harmed or threatened to harm another human being. There was no mental health court when Mr. Thompson first offended.  Mr. Thompson’s latest crime? He keeps coming back to court with petitions asking for sentencing relief and a way to go home to his elderly mother in New Jersey.

Mr. Thompson has never committed a crime against a person. In truth, he was charged once for assault. That crime was a typical domestic conflict that involved having shoved his angry pregnant girlfriend. Apparently, nobody actually got hurt. It just looks terrible as a criminal charge. The rest has been burglary. It is true; nobody likes to have their home or business burgled. But we don’t put people away for 25 years for simple petty burglary. Some may think we should, but we don’t…unless you happen to be bipolar, addicted and represented in court by an attorney suffering the same bipolar disease and struggling with encroaching symptoms. Yes, two months post trial, Mr. Thompson’s attorney was forced to resign from the Public Defender’s Office and enter hospitalization for his mental illness.

Mr. Thompson was arrested on January 12. 1999 on charges related to the burglary of a closed convenience store. He was apparently not very good at this business of committing burglaries, although this certainly was not his first. Of course, Mr. Thompson was apparently high at the time of his offense. In the course of this burglary, Mr. Thompson found a loaded gun, an item easily sold on the streets. He was caught exiting the convenience store with the gun in his possession. Mr. Thompson was charged with various offenses, principally related to a dominating charge of Armed Burglary with a weapon. He had prior incarcerations, once for possession and once for burglary of an unoccupied structure. Mr. Thompson was ultimately sentenced to three concurrent ten year sentences, two for the current offense and one for a prior burglary. He was sentenced to a concurrent 25 year sentence on the main charge. There is no doubt about it. Mr. Thompson was no angel. He was caught virtually with his hands in the till (just outside of the convenience store) and had a history of unarmed burglary of unoccupied structures. So, how did his incarceration go from county time to 25 years of state time?

The last time Mr. Thompson had been held in a Broward County jail, he was discharged without medications and without a referral to mental health. He has related that he was unable to get help at the county Henderson Mental Health Clinic without a referral due to a wait list. In addition, the jail had failed to notify Mr. Thompson, until his discharge, that his father had passed away while he was in the lock-up. Mr. Thompson’s options without medications, a job, secure housing or a support system were slim to none. He committed his last offense and has served 14 years of his 25 year incarceration for that.

The real question is, just how did Mr.Thompson incur so onerous a sentence as is reserved for the most dangerous of our habitual offenders. As previously mentioned, the defense attorney made a number of apparent errors, which, at least in part, reasonably appear to some to have been due to a developing mental health episode. At the time of his trial in 2000, sentencing relief was afforded individuals who committed crimes due to drug or alcohol intoxication. Despite Mr. Thompson’s long history of bipolar disease and addiction, most recently treated by the Broward County Corrections Department, the attorney did not feel confident to bring the issue forward as a defense. The attorney’s difficulties following the courtroom procedures and testimony was the subject of an affidavit lodged at the time of a subsequent motion for a new trial. Disparaging comments had apparently been made, possibly in earshot of the jury, by the defense attorney’s secretary. The Defense Attorney acknowledged that breach in appeal testimony. The Defense Attorney placed Mr. Thompson on the witness stand…a man with bipolar disease, an addiction history and frankly less than appealing appearance. He was exposed to withering cross examination by a prosecution determined to secure habitual offender sentencing for this red-handed crime.

Mr. Thompson is once again before the courts with a petition for relief. This time his petition was accepted by the court. Unfortunately, that is only because the prosecution failed to lodge a timely response that would have allowed the court to deny the petition out of hand. When Mr. Thompson appeared in court on this new petition, the judge accepted the late response by the prosecution and gave Mr. Thompson until early January 2014 to lodge a response as to why his hearing for relief should proceed.

A prison inmate with limited resources is clearly not likely to be capable of a compelling legal response, pro se, to a professional prosecutor’s argument. In fact, not to make a legal point here, but to highlight Florida justice, the law does provide for appointment of legal counsel in order to level the legal playing field. Here, the Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f)(7) requires the appointment of legal counsel for an indigent facing prosecution or a legal challenge. And there is even a ruling that supports the Rule: “…. doubts should be resolved in favor of the indigent petitioner when a question of the need for counsel is presented.”  Russo v. Akers, 724 So. 2d 1151 (Fla. 1998), quoting Graham v. State. The judge hearing Mr. Thompson’s motion before the court denied his petition for appointment of legal counsel out of hand in court without a reading of the petition.

The response to Mr. Thompson’s motion for relief by the prosecutor is voluminous and detailed, but clearly asserts that Mr. Thompson ought to be enjoined from making any motions in future unless represented by legal counsel and that his burdening of the courts ought to be subject to Department of Corrections disciplinary action including loss of 5 ½ years of gain time. The price of self advocacy when nobody else will.

Mr. Thompson has pointed out that he has been clean and sober and maintained on medications for his bipolar disease for 14 years. He has had no “incidents” while incarcerated and now works at a minimum security facility. Although Mr. Thompson has previously petitioned for a new trial, at this point, all that he seeks is enough relief in reduced sentencing to allow him to qualify for work release and an opportunity to earn money needed for his return home to New Jersey and a decent sober life. Now, is that too much to ask?

Florida Justice

He is not an attractive person and neither is his history. By that, I mean a history of bipolar disease, addiction and petty crime. Mr. Thompson has been easy pickings for Florida Justice. Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson has not been as easy a mark as the State would like. He has spent the past fourteen years of a twenty-five year seeking justice by motioning the courts for redress. All that he wants is relief from an unjust and unendurable 25 year prison sentence as an habitual offender who has never harmed or threatened to harm another human being. There was no mental health court when Mr. Thompson first offended. Mr. Thompson’s latest crime? He keeps coming back to court with motions asking for sentencing relief and a way to go home to his elderly mother in New Jersey.

Mr. Thompson has never committed a crime against a person. In truth, he was charged once for assault. That crime was a typical domestic conflict that involved having shoved his angry pregnant girlfriend. Apparently, nobody actually got hurt. It just looks terrible as a criminal charge. The rest has been burglary. It is true; nobody likes to have their home or business burgled. But we don’t put people away for 25 years for simple petty burglary. Some may think we should, but we don’t…unless you happen to be bipolar, addicted and represented in court by an attorney suffering the same bipolar disease and struggling with encroaching symptoms. Yes, two months post trial, Mr. Thompson’s attorney was forced to resign from the Public Defender’s Office and enter hospitalization for his mental illness.

Mr. Thompson was arrested on January 12. 1999 on charges related to the burglary of a closed convenience store. He was apparently not very good at this business of committing burglaries, although this certainly was not his first. Of course, Mr. Thompson was apparently high at the time of his offense. In the course of this burglary, Mr. Thompson found a loaded gun, an item easily sold on the streets. He was caught exiting the convenience store with the gun in his possession. Mr. Thompson was charged with various offenses, principally related to a dominating charge of Armed Burglary with a weapon. He had prior incarcerations, once for possession and once for burglary of an unoccupied structure. Mr. Thompson was ultimately sentenced to three concurrent ten year sentences, two for the current offense and one for a prior burglary. He was sentenced to a concurrent 25 year sentence on the main charge. There is no doubt about it. Mr. Thompson was no angel. He was caught virtually with his hands in the till (just outside of the convenience store) and had a history of unarmed burglary of unoccupied structures. So, how did his incarceration go from county time to 25 years of state time?

The last time Mr. Thompson had been held in a Broward County jail, he was discharged without medications and without a referral to mental health. He has related that he was unable to get help at the county Henderson Mental Health Clinic without a referral due to a wait list. In addition, the jail had failed to notify Mr. Thompson, until his discharge, that his father had passed away while he was in the lock-up. Mr. Thompson’s options without medications, a job, secure housing or a support system were slim to none. He committed his last offense and has served 14 years of his 25 year incarceration for that.

The real question is, just how did Mr.Thompson incur so onerous a sentence as is reserved for the most dangerous of our habitual offenders? As previously mentioned, the defense attorney made a number of apparent errors, which, at least in part, reasonably appear to some to have been due to a developing mental health episode. At the time of his trial in 2000, sentencing relief was afforded individuals who committed crimes due to drug or alcohol intoxication. Despite Mr. Thompson’s long history of bipolar disease and addiction, most recently treated by the Broward County Corrections Department, the attorney did not feel confident to bring the issue forward as a defense. The attorney’s difficulties following the courtroom procedures and testimony was the subject of an affidavit lodged at the time of a subsequent motion for a new trial. Disparaging comments had apparently been made, possibly in earshot of the jury, by the defense attorney’s secretary. The Defense Attorney acknowledged that breach in appeal testimony. The Defense Attorney placed Mr. Thompson on the witness stand…a man with bipolar disease, an addiction history and frankly less than appealing appearance. He was exposed to withering cross examination by a prosecution determined to secure habitual offender sentencing for this red-handed crime.

Mr. Thompson is once again before the courts with a motion for relief. This time Thompson’s motion was accepted by the court. Unfortunately, that is only because the prosecution failed to lodge a timely response that would have allowed the court to deny the motion out of hand. Mr. Thompson’s motion is strengthened by the new state Daubert standard of evidence that had not been previously met at trial or in his subsequent appeal. When Mr. Thompson appeared in court on this new motion, the judge accepted the late response by the prosecution and gave Mr. Thompson until early January 2014 to lodge a response as to why his hearing for relief should proceed.

A prison inmate with limited resources is clearly not likely to be capable of a compelling legal response, pro se, to a professional prosecutor’s argument. In fact, not to make a legal point here, but to highlight Florida justice, the law does provide for appointment of legal counsel in order to level the legal playing field. Here, the Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f)(7) requires the appointment of legal counsel for an indigent facing prosecution or a legal challenge. And there is even a ruling that supports the Rule: “…. doubts should be resolved in favor of the indigent motioner when a question of the need for counsel is presented.” Russo v. Akers, 724 So. 2d 1151 (Fla. 1998), quoting Graham v. State. The judge hearing Mr. Thompson’s motion before the court denied his motion for appointment of legal counsel out of hand in court without a reading of the motion.

The response to Mr. Thompson’s motion for relief by the prosecutor is voluminous and detailed with legal references, but clearly asserts that Mr. Thompson ought to be enjoined from making any motions in future unless represented by legal counsel and that his burdening of the courts ought to be subject to Department of Corrections disciplinary action including loss of 5 ½ years of gain time. There is a price to be paid in Florida for standing up and refusing to knuckle under.

Mr. Thompson has pointed out that he has been clean and sober and maintained on medications for his bipolar disease for 14 years. He has had no “incidents” while incarcerated and now works at a minimum security facility. Although Mr. Thompson has previously motioned for a new trial, at this point, all that he seeks is enough relief in reduced sentencing to allow him to qualify for work release and an opportunity to earn money needed for his return home to New Jersey and a decent sober life. Now, is that too much to ask?

An Alternative for Syria

It is not that I disagree or lack a sentiment for peace. Suddenly, America is a pacifist nation. In fact, we are war-weary. My own background includes an education by Quackers.

I truly regret that President Obama made his statements regarding a “red line. I regret that Russia has chosen to ally itself with the regime and that China has chosen to take a position of simple obstruction to help Assad. I regret that the Assad regime has chosen not to participate in the peace talks. I also regret that the rebels have not formed a coalition that could participate in peace talks.

That leaves all of the alternatives mentioned in every discussion moot. Our President has taken a position that may be regrettable, but that nevertheless was a foreign policy statement representing the position of our nation. Nobody objected when he made that clear statement of a “red line”. At this point we have only two real alternatives: support the President, who showed at least moral leadership regarding chemical attacks on defenseless civilians; or humiliate the President and our nation in the eyes of the world and Syria in particular.  There is a price to be paid for isolationism and appeasement that has been demonstrated throughout history.

We are committed to a course of action and have an obligation to stand behind our President. We can then do what is necessary to ensure greater caution in foreign policy assertions and threat of force for the future.

Alice Jay of Avaaz.org on 09/06/13 wrote in an e-mail blast: 

"Iran’s new moderate president condemned the gassing and Obama signalled he'd work with anybody" to resolve the conflict. Let's urgently call on both leaders to sit down to talks and bring the warring parties together before any more lives are lost.

Right now, the global drums of war are beating over Syria, but if enough of us make sure Rouhani and Obama know the world wants bold diplomacy, we could end the nightmare for thousands of terrified Syrian children under threat of new gas attacks. We have no time to lose."

http://www.avaaz.org/en/solution_for_syria_loc/?buuJZbb&v=28859

Nice of President Obama to Ask Congress...

Has anyone read the United States Constitution lately? Whether one chooses to support the President and his foreign policy decision or not, there are two Constitutional considerations to bear in mind. Article II; section 2 of the United States Constitution provides that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;…”.
The second consideration is less directly asserted. That is, Article II begins by establishing that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America…”. By tradition, the President of the United States, as the Chief Executive of our government, establishes the foreign policies of this nation. There is nothing that constrains an action by the President in his role as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to enforce those policies, other than to the extent that the President must secure the ratification by Congress for any treaties that he may have negotiated according to Article II; section 2: “He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;…”. In fact, the Constitution never addresses an obligation for a “declaration of war” before undertaking any military action.
The powers of a United States President go further in the same section that addresses the obligation of the President to seek the advice of Congress in Article II; section 3: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;…”
In short, President Obama has chosen to consult Congress regarding an action of enforcement of his foreign policy position that Sarin gas may not be used in the Syrian Civil War and that this would draw a red line to would incur consequences. Whether you liked that bravura moral policy stance then or now makes little difference. The President asserted a position and has an obligation to ensure a strong and believable foreign policy position. Our nation’s word must have credibility in the community of nations, particularly with those likely to violate international standards of humane conduct.
The debate in Congress, as reported in the public media, may lead some to believe that Congress has the authority to determine the President’s actions in this matter. In truth, our Congress may support the President’s foreign policy stance that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot use Sarin gas to cause the deaths of thousands of non-combatant of his own nation, including hundreds of children. Or they may choose to undermine the credibility of our President, his foreign policy and our nation by voting down a punitive strike against Syria.
Interestingly Senator John McCain, a political foe of President Obama seems to get it. He does not like the idea of a limited strike against Syria. He asserted in a September 1, 2013 Face the Nation interview that President Obama has that power to act and should have done so without hesitation.
Prime Minister David Cameron of Great Britain has already made the same mistake that President Obama has embarked upon. In some idealistic impulse to favor the chaos of democracy, he put the matter of participation in a punitive action against the Syrian regime to a vote and lost. Like President Obama, he had no legal or Constitutional obligation to do so. This places foreign policy principles in the hands of the war-weary vagaries of isolationists, oppositional politicians and libertarians who believe in leaving the world to its own devices unless self-interest is directly at stake. If Winston Churchill had taken that posture when Hitler’s Blitzkrieg invaded Poland, we would have a very different world today; a world of genocide and oppression. National leadership, where are you?