Back in 1803, the Supreme Court of the United States gave itself the power of judicial review. This ruling gives the Supreme Court the right to review the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress and declare it void if the judges feel the law violates the constitution. Judicial review is both celebrated and denounced by both Republicans and Democrats depending on which side of the fence the ruling finally lands. The Supreme Court has to interpret a document written over two hundred years ago and is subject to much interpretation…
Category: Quiet Mikes Mumblings
2012 Canadian Budget: A Nickel for my Thoughts
They say the first budget of a majority government is always the harshest; it’s a time when the government can do whatever it likes without the fear of answering to voters in an upcoming election. That being said, the first Majority Conservative budget in a generation could have been worse, but it could have been much better. The Conservatives plan to cut $5.2 billion over the next few years in an attempt to balance the budget before the next election. I have no qualms…
The Real Tragedy of Trayvon Martin
As much of the world knows by now, a young black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin was killed last month by a volunteer Neighborhood Watch captain named George Zimmerman. Martin was walking back to his father’s house with a bag of skittles and talking to a friend on his cell phone. As he was walking, he noticed Zimmerman looking at him from his car and promptly lifted the hood of his hoodie over his head in an attempt to go unnoticed…
The War on Women
Conservatives in the United States have a habit of declaring war on anything, so long as the object of their aggression is in contrast with […]
The Progressive Revolution
For much of the past thirty years conservative leaders have been driving the nation uncompromisingly and unapologetically rightward. In the 21st century, that right curve has revolved so much that it is now going completely backwards. Woman’s rights, union rights, the poor and even the middle class have been under constant attack for years, but as of late conservatives have been going to extremes…
The Conning Cons
The rapidly unfolding Robocall scandal is rocking our nation’s capital and has become the main issue in Canadian politics virtually overnight. The scandal started about a week ago when Elections Canada suspected a Conservative operative used automated calls to suppress the opposition vote in Guelph, Ontario. The operator known as “Pierrre Poutine” used the robocalls to falsely state to would be Liberal/NDP voters that their polling station had changed…
Passing Gas
Something smells in our democracies. We the people control our government, we all own our public land, but the resources found on that land get sold to whomever the government decides to offer contracts to (without our permission). The end result is that multi-national oil conglomerates rake in hundreds of billions of dollars while the average North American family winds up paying an average $4200 a year on gasoline…
Politics, Economics and Automobiles
was the headline of Mitt Romney’s 2008 New York Times article describing his views on the then-troubled American auto industry. “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”…
UN-Dependable
When the United Nations was created back in 1945, it was supposed to succeed where the League of Nations had failed. While there has been some success since the war of wars, there have also been countless failures. In part because of inaction (Sudan), apathy (Rwanda) and the inability to enforce international law (USA, Israel, Palestine). Last week we saw another failure…
Caterpillar Crawls Away
The locked-out Electro-Motive plant in London, Ontario has decided to close the plant permanently. The announcement comes just over a month after Progress Rail decided to lockout its workers citing operating costs as its main motivation. Progress Rail Services Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. construction equipment conglomerate Caterpillar that owns the Electro-Motive plant had locked out its unionized workers on New Year’s Day…