A collection of opinionated commentaries on culture, politics and religion compiled predominantly from an American viewpoint but tempered by a global vision. My Armwood Opinion Youtube Channel @ YouTube I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz
and a Technology Blog @ Technology. I have a Human Rights Blog @ Law
What Ron Paul fails to mention is that the discriminatory laws were state laws strongly supported by the majority of state voters who were white. They never would have been repealed. white jurors would not even convict whites who murdered blacks.
African American voting was restricted until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Ron Paul's position is both dishonest and disingenuous. People of good will must vote against the Republican Party and their extremist, un-American candidates. John H. Armwood
Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee in the New York governor's race, seems to misunderstand how the news media work. And maybe the First Amendment, too.
In an interview with Fox Business News' Judge Napolitano on the program "Freedom Watch" that's scheduled to be shown Saturday, Paladino appears to believe that it's his call whether Fredric Dicker, the New York Post reporter he had his infamous hallway confrontation with, covers his campaign.
Paladino said:
“This reporter is a person that should be out of this campaign. I want him out. My daughter - I worry about her every day, I worry about her security.”
Unfortunately for Paladino, it's not up to him whether Dicker covers his campaign or not. First, that's a decision that can only be made by Dicker's bosses at the New York Post.
And few things get editors' backs up more than when they believe someone, especially a politician, is trying to bully or intimidate them into changing their coverage decisions.
Second, there's the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now, Paladino is supported by the Tea Party movement, which has placed adherence to the first principles of the Constitution at the top of its agenda.
And the Framers couldn't have been clearer; government was not to interfere with press freedom. That would include decisions like who does and doesn't cover a political campaign for government office.
So some reporters may want to ask Paladino, who wants to be governor of a state that operates under the U.S. Constitution and who is also a lawyer, how his demand that Dicker be removed from covering his campaign squares with the spirit of Constitution?
True, he's not governor yet. But there's no indication he wouldn't make a similar demand as New York's chief executive.
Still, how does his wish to ban a reporter from his campaign mesh with the First Amendment? The people of New York, including reporters, have a right to an answer.
Even though he is a law school graduate he has little understanding of the First Amendment.
What a nut! The backlash to Obama's presidential election is producing an unbelievably sick crop of Republican candidates. America will be the laughing-stock of the world if either O'Donnell in Delaware, Paladino in New York or Rand Paul in Kentucky is elected.
John h. Armwood
When Fred Vinson died in the fall of 1953, with Brown v. Board Of Education still undecided and congress out of session, Earl Warren became the second Chief Justice to reach the position by recess appointment. Not wanting to suffer the fate of George Washington’s recess appointee who went unconfirmed, Warren calculated the impact on southern members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and remained silent on Brown v. Board of Education until his confirmation had been secured.
A spokesman says the president prays daily, often with others, sometimes in conference calls with spiritual leaders, including one recently aboard Air Force One. He has given speeches where he has spoken of how his faith helps him in his job, and he has spoken explicitly in Christian terms, as he did this year on Easter Sunday at a White House breakfast reflecting on Christ's final moments on the cross.
Here is what I anticipate: Jim Webb, the senior senator from Virginia, will soon be both vilified and lionized in the ''media'' for attacking affirmative action as wrong-headed and divisive. And one result is that the intense conversation we've endured in recent days about race in the wake of the sacking of Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod is now headed for overtime.
Another take in Jim Webb's Friday July 23, 2010 Op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. Terence Samuel, the writer is more tolerant of Jim Webb than I am. Read this for a slightly different perspective. You may read my comments below a portion of Webb's original piece here.
