Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "Congress Followed Massachusett's Lead" - Tim Murphy

The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by a 5 to 4 vote. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, responding to the ruling in front of the US Capitol, reiterated his pledge to spend his hypothetical first day in office working to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

Romney, the only other elected official in American history to mandate that citizens buy health insurance, probably won't like this passage from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's opinion:

By requiring most residents to obtain insurance, see Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 111M, §2 (West 2011), the Commonwealth ensured that insurers would not be left with only the sick as customers. As a result, federal lawmakers observed, Massachusetts succeeded where other States had failed.  See Brief for Commonwealth of Massachusetts as Amicus Curiae in No. 11–398, p. 3 (not­ing that the Commonwealth’s reforms reduced the number of uninsured residents to less than 2%, the lowest rate in the Nation, and cut the amount of uncompensated care by a third); 42 U. S. C. §18091(2)(D) (2006 ed., Supp. IV) (noting the success of Massachusetts’ reforms). In cou­pling the minimum coverage provision with guaranteed­ issue and community-rating prescriptions, Congress followed Massachusetts' lead.

In a sane political climate, Mitt Romney would happily take credit for this. As it stands, he's in the uncomfortable position of once more distancing himself from his biggest political accomplishment.

The full article is available here

How Many Americans Are Killed by Terrorism? - Micah Zenko

The number of U.S. citizens who died in terrorist attacks increased by two between 2010 and 2011; overall, a comparable number of Americans are crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year. This is not to diminish the real—albeit shrinking—threat of terrorism, or to minimize the loss and suffering of the 13,000 killed and over 45,000 injured around the world. For Americans, however, it should emphasize that an irrational fear of terrorism is both unwarranted and a poor basis for public policy decisions.

This data was included the National Counter Terrorism Center's just-released 2011 Report on Terrorism. The report offers the U.S. government’s best statistical analysis of terrorism trends through its Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS), which compiles and vets open-source information about terrorism

Here are a few points worth highlighting that notably contrast with the conventional narrative of the terrorist threat:

“In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.”

Of 978 terrorism-related kidnapping last year, only three hostages were private U.S. citizens, or .3 percent. A private citizen is defined as ‘any U.S. citizen not acting in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government.’

Of the 13,288 people killed by terrorist attacks last year, seventeen were private U.S. citizens, or .1 percent.

The full article is available here

stART Turns Worcester's Green Street Into A Cultural Landscape - Steven H. Foskett Jr.

stART on the Street is central Massachusetts largest, art, music and performance festival.   

The past few years the spring stART festival has been held in the north Main Street area, but this year the Canal District people invited the group to set up in their neighborhood. A rain out last weekend didn't seem to have an impact on attendance on a warm Sunday under perfect skies.

With Green Street blocked off for the day, thousands of people roamed up and down. Families and couples tried on jewelry and munched on food from local restaurants, while various bands played. A belly dancer stopped festival-goers in their tracks, while an acoustic guitarist gently soothed the crowd above a lot on Gold Street. Puppeteers entertained little ones as they walked by, and a car show, new for this year, offered a small but eclectic display of everything from old Dodges and Pontiacs to a quirky old 1960s Saab 96. The venue was dog-friendly, stroller friendly, and even iguana friendly, as a man walked by holding the large lizard.

Stacy Lord, one of the festival's co-directors, said it seemed to be a good fit early in the afternoon.

“It has a whole flair to itself,” Ms. Lord said.

The full article is available here

Florida: You Cannot Take Our Vote - Lisa Sharon Harper

June 4 marked the 93rd anniversary of the congressional passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. On August 18, 1920 Tennessee became the 36th state to pass the Amendment and on that day women’s suffrage became the law of the land. 

Florida missed that boat. The sunshine state had never voted on the 19th Amendment before it was ratified. Florida’s legislature didn’t actually ratify the 19th Amendment until it took a symbolic vote in 1969.

The current news about Florida’s voter purge has me wondering what happened in the 43 years between Florida’s symbolic thumbs up for suffrage and today’s current voter suppression?

The answer: The year 2000 happened.

Katherine Harris was elected Florida’s Secretary of State in 1998. Soon after, she initiated a voter purge in Florida that had been unseen since the days of Jim Crow. More than 57,700 eligible voters were wrongfully purged from Florida’s voter rolls. Harris claimed the purge was an attempt to block convicted felons from voting, but the purge was conducted in such a way that the state gave itself wide latitude to strike names that were not confirmed felons.

Recently Florida launched a new voter suppression campaign that claims to target non-citizens, but disproportionately affects Latinos and relies on an unreliable list of 2700 potential citizens. 

In a democracy, the ability to vote is one of the most basic ways each citizen is given to exercise agency in her world.  No matter how poor you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter marginalized you are, no matter how much power you wield, no matter obscure your life, and no matter how famous your name - all have the right to exercise a most basic form of agency in our world—the cast of a vote.

So, as we celebrate the anniversary of the congressional passage of the 19th Amendment, I celebrate the Justice Department’s decision to block implementation of Florida’s latest ode to Jim Crow. And I thank the 67 county elections supervisors, 30 of whom are Republican, who have defied Gov. Rick Scott and refused to implement the Florida purge.

The full article is available here