a case for the powers for the court system

going by the checks and balances that the constitution has in place, there is a definitive separation of powers between each branch of government that prevents each branch of dealing directly with the issues relating specifically to a given branch of government.

many see that some of the decisions that the justice system has made constitutes the courts overstepping their boundaries. If you actually look at the decisions, you will actually see that the justice system is doing its job. the courts have made decisions that essentially tell the other two branches of government that they cannot act a certain way unless it is governmental law and doesn't interfere with the protections given to us by the constitution.

If I may give a couple examples to prove my point:

Roe versus Wade concerning abortion, the U.S. Supreme in simplistic terms basically stated that until the government explicitly forbids it, it is actually legal. it is a misconception that the court actually did the job of the U.S. Congress. It is also better to keep it legal due to the fact that if women want one bad enough they will find a way of getting one even if it means a forced miscarriage.

Massachusetts the only state that has gay marriage, the state supreme court in its decision did the same thing as the U.S. Supreme Court in their decision. the court basically stated that until you do the necessary legislation on the subject you cannot treat it as if it is illegal until it is illegal. There have been attempts to legislate it and also put it on the ballot but it has not made it past a constitutional convention or sub committee due to it being such a touchy matter.

a few years ago congress passed a law requiring oversight of any activities such as wiretapping of U.S. citizens by the courts so that the rights of the citizens were not trampled by the government. The justice system per order of the president circumvented the law, which when found out about prompted the court to take action against the program forcing it to follow the rules under the law.

We need the checks and balances, and any attempt to counter that system is completely unconstitutional in nature and would never survive an attack on it. the only way the senate were to pass such a law it would be forced to take on the job of the president to enforce the law which would be another abuse of power. it would also mean that there is no more functioning constitution in this country. If the people who sit in the senate truly believe in the constitution, then they cannot legislate powers away from the other branches of government and the other two branches cannot do that to each other or to the senate either.

an opinion on mitt romney

Mitt Romney, he has shown everyone how he made his money by showing his sales prowess. First he did it with Massachusetts when he ran for governor right after his stint running the Olympics in Salt Lake City. He knew what he was doing before he even left to run the Olympics and it showed due to the fact he knew about an obscure law that permits people to live out of state for various reasons but still reside in the state legally under a domicile law, which basically says that your legal address is still an address in Massachusetts.

Now in his campaign for president, he has done something similar in nature by using his summer home in New Hampshire on the banks of Lake Winnipesauke as a way to gain an advantage in the state, by saying that he is one of them due to his home there, which is a tactic that a native of a specific locality would use to gain local support for their ventures.

Now he has moved past the trying pulling the wool over people in areas where he owns a home, he has moved into the realm of the official nominee of the political party even though the party hasn’t had its convention yet to give support to the one candidate that they feel can win. He has shown that he is cocky enough to go straight for the photo-op and point out what he calls a success for his governorship in Massachusetts, even though he had no control over some of the initiatives or forced the initiatives down the throats of the people that it effected whether they wanted it as he had written it or not.

Mitt Romney has also taken to attack ads on the democratic front runners instead of the other republicans who he is currently running against. This shows a great amount of cockiness due to the fact he is acting as if he feels he has the republican nomination in the bag and doesn’t feel that the other republicans are a real challenge to him getting into the White House.

He appears to be trying to position himself to look better to the people who don’t know his record as a politician in regards to what his platform has been in the past versus what he has done after he used that platform to get to where he wanted. He has run for office stating he held views that pertained to one side of an issue whether it be political or religious, then doing an about face after getting what he wanted. In what could be viewed as an overly simplistic interpretation of his actions, he played the groups who offered the most potential for electing a candidate to political office rather than running on his own beliefs.

From my perspective he tends to talk to people in a way that suggests that he thinks he is better than they are, especially when it comes to talking about politics. He tends to keep saying “What I have done”, “what I am doing”, and “what I intend on doing” which may not be phrased exactly like that but close enough to show some arrogance on his part. Even though he was governor of the state I live in, I never met him but from what I have seen of him on T.V. he tends to talk down to people in a manner that would suggest that he believes that he knows what is best for you which showed when he forced the laws regarding health insurance in Massachusetts.

Mitt Romney may have had the best of intentions when pushing the legislation pertaining to health insurance but in the end he didn’t really look after the people who needed it the most which were children for which there is a loop hole basically stating that everyone eighteen and over is required to have health insurance even if it is state sponsored. It also penalizes the people who legitimately cannot afford to have it due to their salary and cost of living expenses.

He had been presented with evidence in an open forum on a Boston Television station that a family even with health coverage offered by the mothers work, the family could not afford the insurance and would not be able to afford the state sponsored insurance due to the fact that the father was disabled and had a fixed income while the mother worked full time to supplement their income. The family showed how much the family made monthly, and what they paid out monthly in bills along with the remaining money after all bills were paid with no extras. He basically stated that they would qualify for the state sponsored insurance but when the premiums came out it was still more than they could afford.

firefighting, policing and communications ideas for mass transit

Firefighting, Policing and Communications ideas Mass Transit

With regards to how to deal with the issues related to communications, policing and firefighting in mass transit, the specific transit systems have to work with the police and fire departments that would be required to respond. This is so that there will be proper communications channels and proper training especially for the fire departments.

· Starting with the firefighters and their training for subway tunnel fires set up an abandoned subway tunnel that can still support train traffic or build a tunnel system that is a realistic mock up of a subway tunnel with stations for each subway line. Also set up trains that are no longer used by the mass transit system in various points in the mock up to help the training along. As part of the training they should be taught too properly maneuver the trains incase the train is hindering their ability to work the fire or dealing with the aftermath of the fire. Include every city and town in the training that has subway tunnels and subway stations in them.

· In the process of training firefighters, find out if current equipment is adequate or if new equipment needs to be designed to better fight the subway fires especially if the firefighters are being hindered in someway from properly fighting the fire.

· Set up firefighting teams that would have the appropriate equipment for subway tunnel and subway station fires, including vehicles that can fit in the tunnels and can be driven on both the streets and on railroad tracks.

· Regarding the transit police, hire more police officers to bring the transit police department up to the necessary staffing levels to appropriately police the property owned by the mass transit system. Give the police more in-depth and more prolonged training with particular emphasis on what is considered suspicious activity. Do it even if it means hiring outside people that are trained to train the private sector to watch for suspicious activity that may have not been considered by the mass transit system but would be useful in promoting better security.

· Any new communications system that is installed has to have the capability of allowing the people trained to operate the system to access the whole system and allow all of the relevant people to directly patch into the system. The communication system should also have the capability to allow people to talk to each other in the tunnels, with it being in real time, with out the need for repeaters phones being hard wired in the tunnels. Each relevant responding city, state and/or federal agency should be able to communicate using a standardized frequency or frequencies designated for emergency responders.

· Design the communication system so that it cuts down on the ability to eavesdrop on the system but allows the mass transit system, along with the local police and fire departments to utilize the system when needed with each department having the proper tools and training to tap into the system. Also design it so that way it will not be adversely affected by intense heat or fire for prolonged periods of time along with designing it so that it has an automatic back up system in place that would compensate for any problems if they should arise.

· For times where the system cannot use a land line, use the same or similar walkie-talkie technology that Nextel uses for its direct connect phones to provide some level of privacy and protection against eavesdroppers. Using the walkie-talkie technology of the Nextel network set up a completely independent communications network specifically for use by the transit workers and the emergency response agencies on all levels.

the current Iraq war

The current Iraq war on a technical basis ended when George W. Bush when he stated that the job was done when he gave that speech on an aircraft carrier with in days of us toppling the dictatorship that was there. Since then we went from being the country’s liberator to the country’s occupier and trying to force the Iraqi people to take on a form of government that they have no understanding of and have no desire of ever having in our lifetime.

We are telling the Iraqi people that they have to take on a government that has no place for their social structure in it and that favors the United States. The Iraqi people are use to having religion play a dominate role in their government and there for would have to want to remove religion from their politics in order for the government we are forcing onto them to work the way it is intended. The removal of religion from politics can and will be tricky, just look at what we are going through here in the United States when trying to keep them separated.

We are now residing over a civil war that has been boiling just below the surface for many generations, but had been kept from happening due to the heavy handedness of the leaders of Iraq. Now that their traditional type of leader is no longer there, it has be come sheer pandemonium in certain parts of the country due to different segments of the same religion vying to be the new government of Iraq by terrorizing and killing the citizens who are just trying to lead average lives and the people trying to regain and maintain a functional government.

There is no longer a reason for us to be there since it was stated that the job was done but yet there is no easy way out of Iraq because we never went in there with an exit strategy which caused us to botch the job of instituting a new government. We rushed in guns blazing without taking the time to study the intricacies of their mentality, social structure and over all way of life. We cannot just up and leave but at the same time we have to find a way to force the Iraqi people to accept responsibility for what happens in and to their country as quickly as possible without causing the country to fall to religious factions not wanting to share power.

comparing the Bush Adminstration to Orwell's "1984"

The current Bush administration reminds me of George Orwell’s book “1984” where the United States Government, is referred to as “Big Brother” which is what it is called by some in today’s society. In the book the government controls the flow of information and constantly watches over the shoulder or every citizen to purposely intimidate the people in an attempt to keep them in line with the government regardless of whether or not they are law abiding citizens.

After reading an article concerning former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, I got to thinking and realized that the Bush administration reminded me of the book “1984”. My train of thought is such that I may just be putting together things, that may not be related, but who knows if it really is that way.

Richard Carmona, had on the record stated while in the office of Surgeon General, to make a long story short had an information officer that would not let him say anything that went against President George W. Bush, and even had to mention him each time he gave a speech. Then you have Cheney, who has in a televised interview stated that regardless of his own personal views on any given subject he has to adhere to Bush’s agenda. You also have Scooter Libby, who was made a scapegoat in order to orchestrate a vendetta against a CIA operative’s husband.

We cannot forget these things either, which are the political firings of the U.S. District Attorney’s or the ouster of the former FEMA director who was made a scapegoat, only to have it come out he was actually doing his job and the Republican hierarchy including Bush acted as if there was nothing wrong for the first few days. There is also the domestic wiretapping program that was started up in done in a way to circumvent the U.S. Court System and later found to be illegal due to the fact that it circumvented the court system.

We also have the aftermath of 9/11 (which is also my niece’s birthday), we initially went after the right place then we got side tracked by President George W. Bush wanting to go after Iraq, which was a threat but just not an imminent threat like he would have us believe. In my opinion, when he landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier and stated job done, for me that was the true end of the war against Iraq and at that point we became occupiers of the country.

For all intensive purposes, George W. Bush feels he is doing what he believes is right, but his playbook is straight out of the mind of George Orwell. In my opinion, George W. Bush loves to hide behind executive privilege when he knows that the facts may incriminate him or his administration, only to saber rattle behind that legal line to stir up a hornets nest so to speak.

He appears to be stubborn to the point he has blinded himself to the consequences of his actions on other. Unlike what I have seen of his father George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush appears to be exceedingly arrogant in nature and enjoys having a condescending attitude towards people who don’t agree with his world views or his agenda.

If he keeps it up we will eventually be heading towards a totalitarian government that would have been initiated by President Bush through Martial Law, instead of the democracy that got him there in the first place.

scooter libby

This may sound very partisan in nature, but I think that what happened with I. Lewis Libby shows the very thing that has even some Republicans steering clear of President George W. Bush.

The whole thing with publicly acknowledging Valerie Plame's identity to a reporter was a farce that allowed the Bush administration to be absolved of any responsibility due to the way it was handled.

First it came out that her identity was top secret which initiated an investigation, then it came out that the President quietly let allowed the her identity to be removed from the ranks of top secret just long enough for there to be questions posed as to whether I. Lewis Libby made the statements about her identity before or after this happened.

In the end he was not convicted of the actual indiscretion, but rather he was convicted of the other charges that stemmed from the initial charge but that he should not have been convicted of since it came out that it was well with in his offices right to acknowledge her identity to the press.

Five hours after the sentence had been handed down, President Bush commuted the jail term of I. Lewis Libby and said that a full pardon may not be totally out of the question.

I am a democrat and find that I. Lewis Libby was used as a scapegoat to keep the focus off of the Bush administration and its attempt to keep people silent on subjects that are questionable in nature stemming from the current administration.