2016 Oct 14^th

Thomas Sowell’s recent column tells us yet again about the evils of ISIS. He carefully avoids describing the shrinking of the so-called Caliphate under the relentless attacks by our Air Force and that of our allies. As far as Sowell is concerned it seems that America can’t do anything right. He brings up once more the President’s labeling of ISIS as the JV team, but he doesn’t mention that this was said over two years ago when ISIS was not the potent force it subsequently became.

He also claims that Clinton’s “own announced agenda strikes at the very foundation of American Constitutional government on which our freedom depends.” Clinton will do this, he says, by appointing judges who will overturn certain recent SCOTUS decisions. He doesn’t tell us that his Republican friends in the Senate have also decided to appoint only judges who will hue to their agenda: they will repeal Roe v, Wade, they will outlaw same sex marriage and they will, in general follow the Republican Party line.

The President has already nominated Judge Merrick Garland, a well-qualified centrist juror, but hoping to get all of the rightwing goodies an appointee from a Republican president could produce, Judge Garland will not even get the courtesy of a vote. Now whose agenda “strikes at the foundations of American Constitutional government”?

Sowell does not understand that the states and not the federal government decide the charter school–public school issue. He says the Clinton wants to “stop the expansion of charter schools” but that is done by individual states, not by the federal government.

His last appeal is to demonize an increase in the minimum wage. He claims it increases unemployment particularly among poor black men. He provides no evidence for this assertion and hopes you will not ask for any. I guess he wants to keep incomes below the poverty level so that the government can provide food stamps to men who are working full time at the federal minimum wage.

Cal Thomas, another columnist, takes issue with Judge Richard Posner who sits on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal and is on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. President Reagan appointed him to the Seventh Circuit.  Judge Posner is not properly in awe of the Constitution to suit Cal Thomas.  Posner says that he sees no value in spending years studying the constitution given its many amendments. Thomas says, “This is the arrogance of some judges who think they know better than the founders.” Unfortunately for Thomas the founders have since the founding have had to rethink a few things.

There was the Bill of Rights which specifically listed certain freedoms. These ten amendments guaranteed a number of thing not precisely covered by the constitution. The Federalists, by the way, claimed the Bill of Rights was unnecessary. Check Federalist paper #84 for Alexander Hamilton’s opposition to the Bill of Rights. He claimed that it wasn’t necessary, that nothing in the constitution gave the government the right to restrict the freedoms that the Bill of rights made specific.

Then it took 132 years after the constitution was ratified before the 19^th amendment gave women the right to vote. Hey, just a little oversight by the founding fathers.

Could Cal Thomas, the old Moral Majority VP, be just a shade out of his depth here?