Yesterday, someone over at DU pointed out that the closest thing we have to a precedent for charging a President or a former President is the “arrest” of Grant for speeding (in his horse-drawn carriege.) I had forgotten about it, but, yes, this really happened. Grant, however, accepted accountability and paid the ticket. Since this happened in the open, there were no walls, but who would not wish to have been a horsefly on site in order to have seen it?
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Robert Reich – The Undeserving Rich
Quote – Markets depend on who has the power to design and enforce them — deciding what can be owned and sold and under what terms, who can join together to gain additional market power, what happens if someone cannot pay up, how to pay for what is held in common, and who gets bailed out. These are fundamentally moral judgments. Different societies at different times have decided these questions differently. It was once thought acceptable to own and trade human beings, to take the land of indigenous people by force, to put debtors in prison, and to exercise vast monopoly power.
Click through for full article. Is the idea of “The Deserving Rich” a real thing? I think not. But it’s been around for a long time. If you remember Jesus’s remark about the rich getting into heaven is like a camel getting through the eye of a needle, you may remember his listeners were sghast, and aske, “If they can’t get in, then can anyone?” The name “Prosperity Gospel” may be new but the illusion is not.
The 19th – Nearly 300,000 women served during the Iraq War. Two decades later, they remain ‘the invisible veterans.’
Quote – Theresa Schroeder Hageman, a political science instructor at Ohio Northern University who served as a nurse in the Air Force from 2005 to 2010, said that she’s noticed that veterans like herself who served during the post-9/11 conflict years don’t always claim the veteran status. Schroeder Hageman said she cared for active-duty and veteran patients at one of the country’s largest Air Force hospitals, but she was never deployed overseas. “Sometimes I don’t claim the status because I didn’t deploy, so I feel less than, which is silly,” Schroeder Hageman said. “You think, ‘I’m not a real vet.’ Some women who were deployed but didn’t serve outside the wire will say they’re not a real vet.”
Click through for story. I would say to vets like Schroeder Hageman, “Claim it. It may get ignored. Claim it anyway.”
Food For Thought
