B'nai B'rith Where Are You

Where is B’nai B’rith when ethnic hatred is rearing its ugly
head and we have a presidential candidate campaigning using an Adolph Hitler
playbook strategy to promote his campaign of hate and fear. It is not Jews…this
time. It is Muslims who are the target. But how is that different? We can no
longer say it can’t happen here. It is about to unless all of the
anti-defamation organizations of whatever religion, race or ethnicity stand and
denounce what is happening right here in our own America. Can we wait until the
“incidents” of Muslim hate become a krystalnicht? Or should we wait until civil
liberties are suspended and communities are relocated for the security of the
nation. Already, the voices of hate and fear want to exclude suffering refugees
because of who they are. How does that differ from when it was Jewish refugees
being denied?

Where is B’nai B’rith?

I have not heard your voice. The voice of my people

Republican Shame

So let me see if I get this? The Republican Party, now so very unified, has passed legislation in the Senate to deprive millions of Americans of access to medical care due to poverty, limited income or pre-existing conditions by shutting down Obamacare. The same legislation would deprive millions of American women access to essential medical care by shutting down Planned Parenthood as punishment for the 3% of their services that go to abortion. All of this for ideological reasons.

At the same time, the Republican Party has asserted that there will be no consideration of gun law legislation in the wake of mass shootings of innocent people, most recently in San Bernardino. They blame mass shootings on the mentally ill, a disenfranchised and helpless population and on domestic Muslims. We never know which Muslims. There are certainly good Muslim citizens in this country, but how can we tell which ones? the Republican Party will make sure that suffering Muslim Syrian refugees cannot find sanctuary in this great country.

Clearly, the language of the Second Amendment is simple and clear enough that those touting the right to bear arms also know that the same right bears the limitation of regulation for "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...". Clearly, it was never intended that everybody getting a gun can have one without responsibility and accountability. The resistance to gun law regulation has nothing to do with the Constitution. It is ideological.

Again and again, the Republican Party solution seems to be to marginalize vulnerable people in our society by doubt and fear. The very same tactics that Hitler used to attain power. Shame on them and everyone who chooses to support this kind of thinking.

And we wonder how ISIS can attract recruits to their ideological movement from among the marginalized Muslim populations around the world? Is there a difference in their political strategies?

By the way, all of the comments about the Republic Party above are in today's newspaper. I would find it shameful to support that political party in any way given just those three planks of today's political agenda.

Speaker Boehner's invitation violates his oath of office

John Boehner's invitation to Netanyahu was a prepared and a deliberate move to undermine the Presidency. Only the President is Constitutionally charged with the conduct of foreign policy with the advise and consent of Congress. Not the other way around. Speaker Boehner has violated his oath of office. Netanyahu is prepared and agreed to abet Speaker Boehner to disrespect the Presidency of this country.

President Obama and the State Department ought to advise Prime Minister Netanyahu that he is not welcome in the United States under these circumstances and there ought to be a threat to recall our ambassador and to expel Israel's ambassador if Netanyahu insists upon this path. Then there needs to be talks to heal the damage that has been done here by the Speaker and the interference with the protocols and policies of the United States by Israel’s Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Netanyahu faces elections. It may be that he expects that this power play with Boehner and against President Obama will win him stature and votes at home. Strengthening Prime Minister Netanyahu can only be prevented if his move results in embarrassment and consequences for Israel.

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?