Author: Michael A. Ventrella

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The true horror of Obamacare

There seems to be one big worry of certain Republican Obamacare opponents. What if people end up liking it?

After all, many of the same arguments against Obamacare were used against Social Security and Medicare (“It’s socialism! It’ll bankrupt us! We will lose all our freedoms and the world will be encased in fire and brimstone!”). Yet here we are, fifty years later, and most people seem to like those things just fine.

Does this man look worried?

Worse yet, Obamacare is working. Kids are not being thrown off their health care for pre-existing conditions. Young adults stay on their parent’s health care longer. People are getting refund checks from their insurance companies who had overcharged them before. And in states that are working to implement it, health care insurance costs have gone down.

Why, if this works, people might actually realize it’s not a bad idea, and may even (shudder) vote for Democrats!

So the GOP has gone into overdrive, banging its head against the wall, trying every damn thing they can think of to stop something that was passed years ago and has no chance of being repealed.

Because the horror of what may become of them if it works is too terrible to imagine.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Life Lessons #4: Luck and Work

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have.”

I always loved that quote. Turns out it’s not from Thomas Jefferson, even though it seems to always be credited to him, and seems to have first appeared in the 1940s.

But it’s true.

Often people are surprised at all the projects I have going — keeping a law practice, having novels published, running an international game, working in politics, writing two blogs — and ask how I find time for all of these things.

Well, I don’t know. I just do them. Often these same people tell me about all the great TV shows, video games, and movies I am missing, and while they are right, that’s just a choice I have made. I’d rather spend my time working on these other projects.

And it’s not like these things are hard work. I really like doing all these things or I wouldn’t do them.

I’m not trying to tell anyone how to have fun in their life. You do what makes you happy — that’s what life is all about.

But I know people who could write great novels or accomplish other great things, but they just don’t do it. They start a project and never finish.

Yeah, there really is work involved.

Editorial cartoon of the day

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Hooters loves women’s rights

A Hooters restaurant (and I use that term loosely) recently posted a sign saying that they wouldn’t serve San Diego Mayor Bob Filner because they believe, and I am not making this up, that “women should be treated with respect.”

When I commented upon this on a liberal Facebook page, I had a number of people who agreed but many more saying something along the lines of “Hey, those women have every right to be proud of their sexuality” and so on.

Well, that’s true. I am certainly not one to advocate closing Hooters simply because they only hire women who are good-looking and fire them if they gain weight. If women want to take those jobs, let them.

But don’t go kidding yourself and think that strutting around in shorts and a tight t-shirt while working in a place called “Hooters” where you are hired primarily because of how you look is the same thing as “respect.”

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Another case for the Birthers

You know those Birther people – the ones who claim that Obama can’t be a legitimate President because his father wasn’t an American? This despite the fact that he was born in America, and his mother was an American from Kansas (and as we know any child born of an American is a “natural born” American)?

Donald Trump and a bunch of others won’t let the issue go, convinced that this should have kept him from being President.

Well, now there’s another person thinking of running for President. Get this — we have absolute proof that he was born in Canada, and he doesn’t even deny it! Worse yet, his father was a non-citizen from Cuba! Clearly, all the Birthers are falling over themselves to prevent him from being President, using the exact same logic they use against Obama!

Oh, wait. This person, Ted Cruz, is a Republican. And a conservative. And white (well, Latino white, so that’s close enough.)

That makes all the difference in the world.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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World’s easiest law school exam question

You don’t even have to go to law school to get this one right:

Is it Constitutional for the police to randomly stop people on the street and search them?

I mean, duh, you’d have to be really stupid to get that one wrong, wouldn’t you?

Well, I suppose you could be the Mayor of New York. Or a bunch of people who apparently have never taken the time to read the Constitution.

But a court recently ruled in a “No, duh” decision, that New York city’s policy of randomly stopping young black men and searching them for no reason was not allowed.

Sadly, I wish they’d go farther. The 4th Amendment says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”police car

Requires a warrant. Clear and plain as day. No exceptions listed.

The courts, of course, have found exceptions to this all over the place, the most obvious one being that police can search if they have “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed or that the suspect is armed and so on. The general idea of “reasonable suspicion” is not bad — I don’t mind letting police search someone for their own safety after an arrest — don’t want to waste time getting a warrant in every single instance. But that has been defined in such a way lately that they can search in almost every instance. The next logical step was, of course, a policy like New York city’s, which, for quite some time, was perfectly legal.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said he’d appeal, so this isn’t over. Your tax dollars at work.