Important observance

On behalf of the State Bar of Georgia, I wish to extend congratulations to all members of the Columbus Bar Association on its recent observance of Law Day 2017, featuring Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Dillard as keynote speaker.

The national theme for this year’s celebration of Law Day is “The 14th Amendment: Transforming American Democracy,” which commemorates the amendment’s citizenship, due process and equal protection clauses in our Constitution, thus advancing the rights of all Americans.

We thank Judge Dillard for his participation, and we salute Columbus Bar Association President Brandon Peak, Chief Judge Gil McBride and other local Bar members for their leadership in coordinating a most successful Law Day observance.

Selective outrage

Faithful Trumpites are mass-producing complaints to the FCC designed to stifle Stephen Colbert’s comedic criticisms of The Donald. The May 10 letter headlined “Plain indecency” is merely an echo. Unfortunately, thousands like me are still waiting for the FCC to take action on Rush Limbaugh’s nefarious and often profane rants.

But attacking The Donald is different. Like his taxes, federal rules and laws are selectively enforced or changed to benefit the Mad Twitter. Think I’m kidding? On May 1, Trump adviser Reince Priebus let slip that the administration has considered pushing for changes to the First Amendment after Trump ranted against the New York Times in a tweet and asked, “Change the libel laws?”

I listened to Colbert’s May 1 monologue. I thought it was funny. I also knew it would incur the ire of the Trumpites. I also read the threat by FCC chair Ajit Pai, a Trump sycophant. His words were eerily reminiscent of the Nixon era.

I didn’t particularly care for the homophobic joke. But the author wants to shut down CBS for a miniscule part of Colbert’s performance. I suppose so we could watch reruns of Fox’s lies and propaganda. The author also forgets to mention CBS bleeped out the one word that clearly “stepped over the line.” That said, my guidance to the author is simple. If you’re that thin-skinned – enjoy your God-given constitutional right to change the channel.

The letter’s author used phrases like “the man controlling the microphone intentionally acting in an unacceptable manner” and “common decency.” For a second, I thought he was talking about Donald Trump.

What’s enough?

“Each year the average taxpayer making $50,000 a year pays $36 towards food stamps and $6 for housing and other safety net programs.” What Fox doesn’t tell you is that “he also pays $870 for corporate subsidies, $1,600 to offset corporate tax loopholes and $1,231 to offset losses from corporate tax havens” (Citizens for Tax Justice, The Tax Foundation). That’s $42 for social welfare and $3,701 for corporate welfare:

$37 billion/year in Big Oil subsidies (The most profitable industry in history).

$270 billion/year in Big Pharma subsidies (In 2003 Bush signed Medicare Part D which prevents Medicare from negotiating drug prices. Then the biggest drug makers buy patents for drugs developed with taxpayer-funded research and then hike costs by absurd amounts after cornering the market).

$51 billion/year capital gains tax breaks.

$80.4 billion/year for corporate tax subsidies from state and local governments (often no reimbursement is made when these companies close and move overseas).

$83 billion/year for Wall Street welfare. (Allows Too Big To Fail (TBTF) banks to borrow money at obscenely low rates and bails them out when they crash the system).

$112 billion/year Export Import Banks (A slush fund for primarily 10 multinational corporations).

$880 billion/year federal contracts for the top 200 biggest companies -- companies that have an unfair advantage over their competitors due to heavy lobbying – $5.8 billion in lobbied funds resulting in $4.4 trillion in contracts (Sunlight Foundation).

When corporations (with the aid of Republican deregulation and Fox “alternative fact” propaganda) tire of meager $trillion corporate welfare and move to confiscate our biggest safety nets — healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and Wall Street-held teachers’, veterans’ and personal retirement pensions — will taxpayers just give it to them?

Not an ‘issue’

A letter writer described the studies of CSU scientists to explain climate change as “climate hoax.” He described CSU scientists as “evolution pushing, God-denying” group. We need Holy Scripture to keep our faith and we need science to understand natural phenomena.

Global warming is real and it is happening in front of our eyes. Cars emit carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Another major culprit of global warming is cutting billions of trees annually to build highways and citiesTrees remove carbon dioxide from the air and give off the oxygen we breathe.

There are natural causes of lobal warming — solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, drought, forest fires, fluctuations in ocean currents. However, human activities are the main cause for the recent rapid acceleration.

Global warming may cause floods, hurricanes, drought, sea level rise, glacier retreat, changes in agricultural yields, extinction of some species, breeding of disease-carrying pests such as mosquitoes, and increases in forest fires. It is one of the biggest challenges facing our civilization. We can’t afford to view it as a political or a religious issue.

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Important observance."