Who the cap fits, let him wear it

After promoting the Birther hoax for years in search of white supremacist votes — and getting the Republican nomination on the strength of that — NOW Donald Trump admits that its basic premise is not actually true. So where does the Klan vote go now?

They’re sticking with Trump. They won’t be persuaded otherwise. Racism is alive and well and a strong contender for the White House and through that control of the US Supreme Court for the next generation.

The only way to stop the white supremacists is a vote for an imperfect candidate, but one who strays not nearly so far from the norm of basic human decency. We do not ask sainthood from presidential candidates, nor infallible health nor 100 percent agreement on the issues. But a man who stands for the proposition that any infamous lie is acceptable if it’s about a black man, even if the man about whom that lie is told is the president of the United States, is way beyond the pale of what is acceptable.

Hapless president, acephalic comarca

It’s an old lesson from The Great White Father. Virtually all US Indian treaties were violated by Washington, the states or freelancing white people anyway. Virtually all concessions of Native American lands and resources were also made under duress. Then there was another common subterfuge — a lot of these “agreements” were made by white-selected “native representatives” or through unethical white-selected interpreters and in no way represented a consensual agreement between two parties. Juan Carlos Varela is dabbling with all of these tactics in his dealings with the Ngabe nation over the Barro Blanco Blanco Dam.

Does he say that the Honduran hoodlums and perhaps other silent partners of GENISA are out? Watch him back down on that by taking a dive on any court challenge. He certainly is not going to step on the claimed rights of Dutch and German banks that invested in theft and fraud, nor take any action at all against the Panamanian lawyers who concocted and filed the bogus “environmental impact study.” He just promised 15 percent of something or the other to go to someone not really specified, and nothing in particular to those families and individuals who have been thrown off of their lands, had their communities cut off by flood waters or lost their livelihoods.

Was it a deal with the Ngabe-Bugle General Congress? By its terms the “accord” said that it had to be ratified by that body. Set aside for a moment the Supreme Court decision that condemned the rigged election by which the Martinelli kleptocracy and the Electoral Tribunal created the present general congress to replace the traditional general congress. Set aside that the tainted general congress can’t even muster half of its purported delegates for a vote on a crucial issue like the dam. Set aside the fact that most of the puppet general congress’s officers and most of the government-recognized regional caciques — including the one representing the people of the area that’s being flooded — would not sign the document. Set aside all that, because the general congress voted to reject the proffered deal and to depose the general cacique who signed it.

Are there good legal arguments to hold that a special congressional session called to consider the Barro Blanco matter lacked the authority and failed to serve proper notice to effectively remove Silvia Carrera as general cacique? That’s probably the case, but the moment that she signed Varela’s document her status as a leader and spokeswoman became a thing of the past. Does she allude to the failure of the comarca’s elected legislators to stop the hated project? That may be a valid point but she’s now in no position to make it. The Martinelli administration ignored and insulted Carrera, but now the Varela administration has destroyed her as a political figure, even if they ignore her purported removal and continue her salary for another year.

The way forward for the Varela administration seems clear enough. Through bribery or coercion they will try to get the half of the delegates who boycotted the ratification session to attend a new gathering and vote for the lesser white father’s offer. Maybe they’ll throw some firewater into the mix. It’s ugly and unseemly. The swing voting comarca is unlikely to elect any Panameñista for a generation to come. With all the political parties in disarray things become unpredictable, but it’s probably safe to say that the post-invasion norm of the party in power losing the next elections is more firmly in place and that if there is a constitutional convention Varela is unlikely to be able to control it.

The comarca is scheduled to have new elections in a year’s time anyway. Meanwhile it has no generally accepted leadership. The nation has annoying and ineffective leadership in all branches of its government and in that same year leading up to a renewal of Ngabe and Bugle leadership, the nation ought to elect delegates to write a new constitution. Among other urgent reforms, any new constitution worthy of being ratified would give Panama’s original nations their due place in the sun and control over their lands, resources and fates. The “Great White Father makes a treaty with the Indians” political model is one of more unbecoming and inappropriate US imports that Panama has ever made.

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The Supreme Court is on the ballot for 2016

by Marge Baker

When voters go to the polls this November, they won’t just be choosing the next president, they’ll also be deciding the direction of the Supreme Court.

The fate of our rights and liberties as Americans — everything from voting rights, to immigration, to reproductive rights — rests with those nine critical individuals who sit on that bench. The outcome of the 2016 election will determine who nominates justices for lifetime appointments to the highest court in the land.

Looking at Trump’s track record of commitments and his list of courtroom contenders shows just how disastrous a Trump Supreme Court would be for everyday Americans.

Take women’s rights for example. Trump has made very clear he’s against the Roe v. Wade decision protecting women’s reproductive rights, saying it was a wrongly decided case. He also infamously called for “some form of punishment” for women who have abortions and has pledged to select anti-choice justices.

One of Trump’s potential picks for the Supreme Court, Judge William Pryor, even went so far as to call Roe v. Wade the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.” Considering the Court’s already weakened standard, a new anti-choice justice on the Supreme Court could significantly jeopardize past precedent.

The executive power to nominate justices is especially important to consider this election cycle given the possibility of multiple Supreme Court vacancies in the next president’s first term. A Trump presidency could put women’s reproductive rights in real danger.

On other issues disproportionately affecting women, like sexual harassment at work, a Trump Court would be just as perilous. Another one of the judges Trump mentioned as a possible nominee, Judge Steven Colloton, argued that a woman fired in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment at work shouldn’t have been able to take legal action.

The same trend follows in cases of civil rights, where Trump’s choices have shown that they’re more likely to rule in favor of the powerful and privileged.

Judge Pryor strongly opposed the ruling that said police must inform people of their Miranda rights when arrested. He was also the judge who argued, in a case about an African American employee being denied a promotion, that the man’s supervisor calling him “boy” was just “conversational” and had no bearing on promotion decisions.

And multiple judges on Trump’s list have upheld disenfranchising voter ID laws, which have an outsized impact on minority and low-income voters.

There are similarly foreboding examples across issues like environmental justice, workers’ rights, and big money in politics, among others that impact our day-to-day lives.

We need a Supreme Court that will defend the rights of everyday Americans instead of rolling them back. The justices our next president chooses should understand that the Constitution is for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

This isn’t likely to be the case if the nominations are coming from Trump — a man who has said all his judges would be picked by the Federalist Society,” an organization backed by the billionaire Koch brothers.

November 8 is “Judgment Day” for the future of the Supreme Court. Even if it’s not printed on our ballots, that’s the day voters will decide the direction of the nation’s highest court — for decades to come.

Marge Baker is the executive vice president of People For the American Way. Distributed by OtherWords.org

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