THE STATEMENT AT ISSUE:
“The Religious Freedom Restoration Act is unconstitutional….RFRA’s legislative history supports reading it as a takeover of [the Supreme] Court’s power to interpret the Constitution….To say that RFRA is not in fact an attempt to overrule this Court’s constitutional interpretation is to engage in high-level intellectual gymnastics divorced from its text, history, and fundamental common sense. If it were constitutional, RFRA is a formula that would make it possible for Congress to meddle with any constitutional doctrine and decision, and move the Court to the sidelines as political winds shift constitutional standards by simple majority votes.”
– Marci A. Hamilton, a constitutional law professor at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, in a brief filed on Tuesday at the Supreme Court on behalf of seven organizations seeking the nullification of the 1993 law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The brief was filed in two pending cases in which the Court is reviewing religious challenges to a part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…
America has always been, from the very Founding, somewhat ambivalent about religion and worship as constitutional matters. While insisting that government and religion must not be joined or even closely allied, it has nurtured a very wide array of religious beliefs and practices, and it has allowed religious views to permeate its popular politics. Periodically, it sees a revival of religion’s influence, and almost always, the result is quite divisive.
The Supreme Court has had its own part in that ambivalent attitude about religion. Even today, it remains unsure how the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause (maintaining the separation of church and state) can coexist comfortably with the same Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause (protecting private choice in matters of faith). How far can the government go to enable the free exercise of religion without becoming, in effect and even in reality, its official partner or sponsor? How much toleration becomes endorsement?
Those questions have been raised over and over again, about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, since Congress passed that law in 1993 with the explicit aim of overruling a Supreme Court decision three years earlier. In its 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, the Court upheld the power of government at all levels to pass laws that everyone had to obey, even if those laws imposed a burden on the specific religious practice of one sect. Such general laws, the court concluded, did not violate that sect’s constitutional right to freely express its faith.
The Smith decision caused a political uproar, challenged widely as a major threat to religious liberty. Congress passed RFRA to overrule the decision, fashioning its own notions of what would be unconstitutional in general laws that impacted faith practices.
But that very direct form of constitutional expression promptly stirred up some fundamental new issues. Was RFRA a law that changed constitutional law from what the Supreme Court had said it meant, doing so by a simple enactment rather than a constitutional amendment, or was it merely a mandate on how to interpret the scope of laws that impact religious practice, and thus well within Congress’s power to legislate public policy norms? Did it go too far to protect specific religious practices, thus crossing the line into endorsement?
The Supreme Court has never answered those questions in cases in which RFRA applied to a federal law – that is, one passed by Congress. The constitutionality of RFRA, indeed, does not arise often in court cases. As Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked: “Who can possibly be against the abstract proposition that government should not, even in its general, nondiscriminatory laws, place unreasonable burdens upon religious practice?”
Even so, RFRA’s constitutionality did get challenged, in a case involving a local law, not a federal law, and the Court struck it down in that situation. In the 1997 decision in City of Boerne v. Flores, the court ruled that Congress did not have authority under the Fourteenth Amendment to impose RFRA’s strict standard of protection against state or local laws that were challenged as too burdensome on religion practices.
Although that decision was based primarily upon the court’s view that that law intruded upon the legislative power of states, the court’s main opinion contained a number of ominous comments about Congress’s obligation not to intrude upon the court’s powers, and about efforts to change constitutional law as decided by the court without doing so by formal constitutional amendment. (One of the Justices then on the court, John Paul Stevens, wrote in a separate opinion that he thought RFRA as a whole was unconstitutional, under the Establishment Clause.)
RFRA, though, remained on the books as a restriction on federal laws challenged by those who felt burdens on their religious faith. And, now, what is very likely the most significant case in the Court’s history on RFRA’s application to federal laws is unfolding in the Court this term. And, while the constitutionality of RFRA has not been raised by either side in the case, it has been raised in a separate, friend-of-the-court brief by a coalition of advocacy groups, several of which were organized after the revelation of the child abuse scandals by priests or other faith counselors.
Two combined appeals are tests of the government’s power to enforce the federal Affordable Care Act’s so-called “contraceptive mandate,” requiring employers to provide coverage for pregnancy-related services, including birth-control pills. The appeals emerged out of scores of cases filed across the country by religiously devout business owners, or by religious colleges and charities. The cases before the Court involve, at this point, only claims to RFRA protection by profit-making companies with Roman Catholic owners.
In the advocacy groups’ brief urging the court to decide the case by striking down RFRA altogether, the document contended that the law is a form of establishment of religion, is an attempt to revise constitutional law without pursuing a formal amendment, and is an invalid intrusion into the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution.
This argument has arisen late in the cycle for written arguments, so it is unclear whether the Court will ultimately reach that argument, and even whether the federal government and the private businesses involved in the pending cases will respond to it. The Court need not deal with it at all, but, if it does, it would be a daring use of judicial power to nullify the law.
Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.
1/23/14
1/15/14
Who can you trust?
Common knowledge to those who follow the ins and outs of Obamacare is that there is an industry out there to destroy it at all cost. The traditional media has been the major conduit of the lies and misinformation.
Corporate traditional media continues to mislead and misinform.
It isn’t only the smaller media outlets that are generating the barrage of misinformation. CBS News whose ‘60 Minutes’ has been compromised with Benghazi and NSA misleading stories has been a major culprit. After-all CBS’s Jan Crawford reported a story about a woman losing the insurance she loved and could afford. It turned out had CBS made one telephone call or just checked healthcare.gov they could have informed the woman that she could get much better and reliable insurance for a comparable price.
It is a new day in media. Corporate owned major media that sometimes seem to purposely allow themselves to be a conduit to lies and misinformation are being challenged. Bloggers and other independent media that previously had little reach are now fact checking. They are using the power of the internet to inform with fact based information and not hit pieces that is now endemic in the traditional media.
Blogger Maggie Mahar immediately realizes newspaper story is completely wrong.
Maggie Mahar, a prolific blogger at HealthBeat Blog and author of ‘Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So’ wrote the blog post Anatomy of an Obamacare ‘horror story’ detailing yet another misinforming story. It turns out the story in the Fort Worth Star Telegram was not only biased, it was simply not true. Maher writes.
For months, health reform’s opponents have been feasting on tales of Obamacare’s innocent victims – Americans who lost their insurance because it doesn’t comply with the ACA’s regulations, and now have to shell out more than they can afford – or go without coverage.
Trouble is, many of those stories just aren’t true.
Yesterday I posted about a Fort Worth Star Telegram article that leads with the tale of Whitney Johnson, a 26-year-old new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). Her insurer just cancelled her policy, and according to Johnson, new insurance would cost her over $1,000 a month.
That claim stopped me in my tracks. Under the ACA, no 26-year-old could be charged $1,000 monthly – even if she has MS.
Obamacare prohibits insurers from charging more because a customer suffers from a pre-existing condition. This rule applies to all new policies, whether they are sold inside or outside the exchanges.
At that point, I knew that something was wrong.
Blogger did investigative reporting the newspaper should have done.
Maggie Mahar did not just read the story, discount it, and go off to something else. She did something about it. She got involved. She checked healthcare.gov and found out that a comparable policy with much better and secure coverage would cost Whitney Johnson $7 more than she was currently paying.
Maggie Mahar went further. She called the Fort Worth Star Telegrram. After calls not being returned, she finally got a callback. She was informed that the newspaper received an email stating Whitney Johnson did find insurance at a similar price. The newspaper would not confirm that they would correct the story. It is evident the newspaper either has an agenda or is scared of revealing the truth for reasons that can be assumed. They came out with a defense of the story as well as a mea culpa for a less than complete story.
Maggie Mahar discovered that Whitney Johnson was a member of the Tea Party. The newspaper did not attempt to do any background checks. She finally reached the reporter of the story. The reporter told her that she had no experience covering healthcare. Moreover her assignment was to find people who were having problems with Obamacare. When she suggested doing a story on people helped by Obamacare she was not given a green light to do so from her editor.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram has over 200,000 readers. They chose to misinform these users maybe negligently, maybe willfully. What is sure is that so far they have chosen to willfully keep them misinformed.
If this isn’t yet another reason to disregard most of corporate and traditional media, what is? The consequences of misinforming the public are grave. It can even be fatal. The public must be informed constantly that the media that use to be the source of unbiased information that could be depended on is no more.
Corporate traditional media continues to mislead and misinform.
It isn’t only the smaller media outlets that are generating the barrage of misinformation. CBS News whose ‘60 Minutes’ has been compromised with Benghazi and NSA misleading stories has been a major culprit. After-all CBS’s Jan Crawford reported a story about a woman losing the insurance she loved and could afford. It turned out had CBS made one telephone call or just checked healthcare.gov they could have informed the woman that she could get much better and reliable insurance for a comparable price.
It is a new day in media. Corporate owned major media that sometimes seem to purposely allow themselves to be a conduit to lies and misinformation are being challenged. Bloggers and other independent media that previously had little reach are now fact checking. They are using the power of the internet to inform with fact based information and not hit pieces that is now endemic in the traditional media.
Blogger Maggie Mahar immediately realizes newspaper story is completely wrong.
Maggie Mahar, a prolific blogger at HealthBeat Blog and author of ‘Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So’ wrote the blog post Anatomy of an Obamacare ‘horror story’ detailing yet another misinforming story. It turns out the story in the Fort Worth Star Telegram was not only biased, it was simply not true. Maher writes.
For months, health reform’s opponents have been feasting on tales of Obamacare’s innocent victims – Americans who lost their insurance because it doesn’t comply with the ACA’s regulations, and now have to shell out more than they can afford – or go without coverage.
Trouble is, many of those stories just aren’t true.
Yesterday I posted about a Fort Worth Star Telegram article that leads with the tale of Whitney Johnson, a 26-year-old new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). Her insurer just cancelled her policy, and according to Johnson, new insurance would cost her over $1,000 a month.
That claim stopped me in my tracks. Under the ACA, no 26-year-old could be charged $1,000 monthly – even if she has MS.
Obamacare prohibits insurers from charging more because a customer suffers from a pre-existing condition. This rule applies to all new policies, whether they are sold inside or outside the exchanges.
At that point, I knew that something was wrong.
Blogger did investigative reporting the newspaper should have done.
Maggie Mahar did not just read the story, discount it, and go off to something else. She did something about it. She got involved. She checked healthcare.gov and found out that a comparable policy with much better and secure coverage would cost Whitney Johnson $7 more than she was currently paying.
Maggie Mahar went further. She called the Fort Worth Star Telegrram. After calls not being returned, she finally got a callback. She was informed that the newspaper received an email stating Whitney Johnson did find insurance at a similar price. The newspaper would not confirm that they would correct the story. It is evident the newspaper either has an agenda or is scared of revealing the truth for reasons that can be assumed. They came out with a defense of the story as well as a mea culpa for a less than complete story.
Maggie Mahar discovered that Whitney Johnson was a member of the Tea Party. The newspaper did not attempt to do any background checks. She finally reached the reporter of the story. The reporter told her that she had no experience covering healthcare. Moreover her assignment was to find people who were having problems with Obamacare. When she suggested doing a story on people helped by Obamacare she was not given a green light to do so from her editor.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram has over 200,000 readers. They chose to misinform these users maybe negligently, maybe willfully. What is sure is that so far they have chosen to willfully keep them misinformed.
If this isn’t yet another reason to disregard most of corporate and traditional media, what is? The consequences of misinforming the public are grave. It can even be fatal. The public must be informed constantly that the media that use to be the source of unbiased information that could be depended on is no more.
1/7/14
Don't say I never told you...
Among the many visionary goals of our nation’s right wing—impoverish older people, starve the poor, deny climate change, outlaw abortion and contraception, eliminate healthcare for millions—few are more foundational than defunding education in general and higher education in particular. Public colleges and universities nationwide have seen significant funding cuts over the past five years, and while the recession is usually blamed, the Right keeps the fiscal screws tight by cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Here in Michigan, in Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s first budget, there was a 15 percent cut in state aid to universities and a $1.8 billion tax cut for businesses. This equals a win-win for the Right: Keep the fat cats in your corner, and constrain the opportunity for young people to learn a host of things that might, well, make them interrogate right-wing policies. The Pew Research Center and others have found that lower income and less-educated whites arebecoming more likely to vote Republican than Democrat, with 54 percent of those without a college degree identifying as Republican in 2012; only 37 percent identified as Democratic, so the gap is, well, quite wide.
And here’s the ideological bonus: Public universities, clobbered by defunding, raise tuition. Then conservative pundits like S.E. Cupp can scream about the outrageous unaffordability (and elitism, of course) of a college degree and claim that it’s money down a rat hole. As she put it, colleges are “not meeting the demand of manufacturers and employers who want people who can’t just, you know, read Freud and Nietzsche … but who can actually read a business plan.” She’s hardly alone— stories asking “Is College Worth It?” are everywhere now. Few put two and two together: that the government cuts have to be made up somehow.
The recent assaults on the value of a college degree (coupled with the shameful student loan scandal) have borne fruit: According to a College Board and National Journal poll, 46 percent of respondents believe a college degree isn’t necessary for success, while only 37 percent said so in the previous year’s poll. Here is another victory of opinion over fact. Even with the high cost of college, graduates make an average $365,000 more during their lifetimes—after you subtract all the costs of going to school—than their counterparts with only a high school degree. At the University of Michigan, where I teach, a recent calculation showed that after accounting for tuition and fees, a Michigan grad made $901,400 more than a non-college graduate.
Or take California as an example. Disinvestment has been so massive—9 percent over the past ten years—that according to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state now spends more on its prison system than on its public universities. With few choices but to raise tuition, University of California and California State schools have seen enrollments drop by one-fifth over the past five years. If the trend persists, the state faces a significant drop in college graduates just at the time when more and more jobs—some estimate as many as 60 percent—will require some post-secondary education.
But this is also part of the problem: the monetizing of higher education, as if the potential increase in wages is the most important metric of going to college. The liberal arts are especially under siege: Why study literature or history, anyway? Parents ask, “How will this degree help my kid get a job?” Of course they want a “return on investment.” But a liberal arts education, given the new work environment of the 21st century, when people will have multiple career trajectories during their lives, may be more crucial than ever. It trains students to probe and ask questions; to look at more than one side of an argument; to open their hearts and minds to other worldviews; to do research to try to figure out the best solutions to problems; to develop analytical thinking, which never goes out of style; to write and speak clearly and forcefully; to accept failure as part of the process of success; and to be flexible in adapting to new work routines and challenges. This habit of mind—adaptive, open to new ideas and challenges, accepting of difference, understanding of history—is exactly what young people need to succeed now more than ever, and precisely what the defunders of higher education do not want young people to ever acquire.
And here’s the ideological bonus: Public universities, clobbered by defunding, raise tuition. Then conservative pundits like S.E. Cupp can scream about the outrageous unaffordability (and elitism, of course) of a college degree and claim that it’s money down a rat hole. As she put it, colleges are “not meeting the demand of manufacturers and employers who want people who can’t just, you know, read Freud and Nietzsche … but who can actually read a business plan.” She’s hardly alone— stories asking “Is College Worth It?” are everywhere now. Few put two and two together: that the government cuts have to be made up somehow.
The recent assaults on the value of a college degree (coupled with the shameful student loan scandal) have borne fruit: According to a College Board and National Journal poll, 46 percent of respondents believe a college degree isn’t necessary for success, while only 37 percent said so in the previous year’s poll. Here is another victory of opinion over fact. Even with the high cost of college, graduates make an average $365,000 more during their lifetimes—after you subtract all the costs of going to school—than their counterparts with only a high school degree. At the University of Michigan, where I teach, a recent calculation showed that after accounting for tuition and fees, a Michigan grad made $901,400 more than a non-college graduate.
Or take California as an example. Disinvestment has been so massive—9 percent over the past ten years—that according to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state now spends more on its prison system than on its public universities. With few choices but to raise tuition, University of California and California State schools have seen enrollments drop by one-fifth over the past five years. If the trend persists, the state faces a significant drop in college graduates just at the time when more and more jobs—some estimate as many as 60 percent—will require some post-secondary education.
But this is also part of the problem: the monetizing of higher education, as if the potential increase in wages is the most important metric of going to college. The liberal arts are especially under siege: Why study literature or history, anyway? Parents ask, “How will this degree help my kid get a job?” Of course they want a “return on investment.” But a liberal arts education, given the new work environment of the 21st century, when people will have multiple career trajectories during their lives, may be more crucial than ever. It trains students to probe and ask questions; to look at more than one side of an argument; to open their hearts and minds to other worldviews; to do research to try to figure out the best solutions to problems; to develop analytical thinking, which never goes out of style; to write and speak clearly and forcefully; to accept failure as part of the process of success; and to be flexible in adapting to new work routines and challenges. This habit of mind—adaptive, open to new ideas and challenges, accepting of difference, understanding of history—is exactly what young people need to succeed now more than ever, and precisely what the defunders of higher education do not want young people to ever acquire.
1/3/14
Want to have some fun?
If anyone wonders whether Pope Francis has irritated wealthy conservatives with his courage and idealism, the latest outburst from Kenneth Langone left little doubt. Sounding both aggressive and whiny, the billionaire investor warned that he and his overprivileged friends might withhold their millions from church and charity unless the pontiff stops preaching against the excesses and cruelty of unleashed capitalism.
According to Langone, such criticism from the Holy See could ultimately hurt the sensitive feelings of the rich so badly that they become "incapable of feeling compassion for the poor." He also said rich donors are already losing their enthusiasm for the restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan -- a very specific threat that he mentioned directly to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Langone is not only a leading fundraiser for church projects but a generous donor to hospitals, universities and cancer charities (often for programs and buildings named after him, in the style of today's self-promoting philanthropists). Among the super-rich, he has many friends and associates who may share his excitable temperament.
While his ultimatum seems senseless -- would a person of true faith stiff the church and the poor? -- it may well be sincere. And Langone spends freely to promote his political and economic views, in the company of the Koch brothers and other Republican plutocrats.
Still, a pope brave enough to face down the mafia over his financial reform of the murky Vatican Bank shouldn't be much fazed by the likes of Langone.
Yet Langone has reason to worry that the Holy Father is in fact asking hard questions about people like him. Indeed, he could serve as a living symbol of the gross and growing economic inequality that disfigures the American system and threatens democracy.
As a leader of the New York Stock Exchange, he was largely responsible for the scandalous overpayment of his friend Richard Grasso, the exchange president who received nearly $190 million in deferred compensation when he stepped down. Although New York's highest court eventually upheld Grasso's pay package, it was a perfect example of the unaccountable, self-serving greed of Wall Street's elite.
Anything but repentant following the revelation and repudiation of the Grasso deal by NYSE executives, Langone told Forbes magazine in 2004: "They got the wrong f---ing guy. I'm nuts, I'm rich, and, boy, do I love a fight. I'm going to make them s--- in their pants. When I get through with these f---ing captains of industry, they're going to wish they were in a Cuisinart -- at high speed."
He embarked on a furious vendetta against Eliot Spitzer, who had fought to recapture Grasso's millions as New York attorney general. And when Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Langone's public gloating seemed to indicate that he had played a personal role in exposing his enemy's indiscretions. He particularly hated Spitzer for attempting to punish and curtail the worst misconduct in the financial industry.
While Langone passionately defended the outlandish grasping of the super-rich like his friend Grasso, however, he has displayed far less indulgence toward workers, especially those struggling to support their families on poverty wages. Until just last year, he was a director of Yum! Brands, the global fast food conglomerate that includes Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken among its holdings -- and that spends millions annually to hold down the minimum wage and prevent unionization of its ill-paid employees and farmworkers.
What all this adds up to is hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable compensation for financial cronies, but not a dime more for low-income workers. It is exactly the kind of skewed outcome Francis means when he speaks about today's capitalists, "the powerful feeding upon the powerless," and the need for renewed state regulation to bring their burgeoning tyranny under control. He is talking about Langone, the Kochs and an entire gang of right-wing financiers.
"How I would love a church that is poor and for the poor," Francis said not long after his election to the papacy. This could be what he gets -- and that might not be so bad, for the poor and for all of us, Catholic or not, who love justice.
According to Langone, such criticism from the Holy See could ultimately hurt the sensitive feelings of the rich so badly that they become "incapable of feeling compassion for the poor." He also said rich donors are already losing their enthusiasm for the restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan -- a very specific threat that he mentioned directly to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Langone is not only a leading fundraiser for church projects but a generous donor to hospitals, universities and cancer charities (often for programs and buildings named after him, in the style of today's self-promoting philanthropists). Among the super-rich, he has many friends and associates who may share his excitable temperament.
While his ultimatum seems senseless -- would a person of true faith stiff the church and the poor? -- it may well be sincere. And Langone spends freely to promote his political and economic views, in the company of the Koch brothers and other Republican plutocrats.
Still, a pope brave enough to face down the mafia over his financial reform of the murky Vatican Bank shouldn't be much fazed by the likes of Langone.
Yet Langone has reason to worry that the Holy Father is in fact asking hard questions about people like him. Indeed, he could serve as a living symbol of the gross and growing economic inequality that disfigures the American system and threatens democracy.
As a leader of the New York Stock Exchange, he was largely responsible for the scandalous overpayment of his friend Richard Grasso, the exchange president who received nearly $190 million in deferred compensation when he stepped down. Although New York's highest court eventually upheld Grasso's pay package, it was a perfect example of the unaccountable, self-serving greed of Wall Street's elite.
Anything but repentant following the revelation and repudiation of the Grasso deal by NYSE executives, Langone told Forbes magazine in 2004: "They got the wrong f---ing guy. I'm nuts, I'm rich, and, boy, do I love a fight. I'm going to make them s--- in their pants. When I get through with these f---ing captains of industry, they're going to wish they were in a Cuisinart -- at high speed."
He embarked on a furious vendetta against Eliot Spitzer, who had fought to recapture Grasso's millions as New York attorney general. And when Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Langone's public gloating seemed to indicate that he had played a personal role in exposing his enemy's indiscretions. He particularly hated Spitzer for attempting to punish and curtail the worst misconduct in the financial industry.
While Langone passionately defended the outlandish grasping of the super-rich like his friend Grasso, however, he has displayed far less indulgence toward workers, especially those struggling to support their families on poverty wages. Until just last year, he was a director of Yum! Brands, the global fast food conglomerate that includes Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken among its holdings -- and that spends millions annually to hold down the minimum wage and prevent unionization of its ill-paid employees and farmworkers.
What all this adds up to is hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable compensation for financial cronies, but not a dime more for low-income workers. It is exactly the kind of skewed outcome Francis means when he speaks about today's capitalists, "the powerful feeding upon the powerless," and the need for renewed state regulation to bring their burgeoning tyranny under control. He is talking about Langone, the Kochs and an entire gang of right-wing financiers.
"How I would love a church that is poor and for the poor," Francis said not long after his election to the papacy. This could be what he gets -- and that might not be so bad, for the poor and for all of us, Catholic or not, who love justice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
