Just as I had been thinking that the Democratic primary had been quiet on the issues front, I read that Dennis McDonald issued a press release advocating a single-payer health plan:
According to McDonald, “Families in Montana are struggling, and right now we have the chance to seize on health care reform that will ensure everyone has access to the medical care they deserve. The rumors that we cannot afford a single payer plan are false, rather, what we cannot afford is further delay.”
Remember The Hardliner? A blog that is so transparently a GOP astroturf operation that it resorted to manufacturing comments to make it appear like it had a vibrant community reading it? And then banning my IP from the site when I called them out on it?
Well, they are back to their old tricks. Yesterday, they breathlessly posted that “Tantalizing accusations abound in the comment section of this story published yesterday in the Billings Gazette,” referencing a comment that claimed that Senator Baucus had not only had an affair, but had also found a job for the woman.
Let’s see if I have this straight. The Hardliner, a faux grassroots Republican site written by a pseudonym, ran with a claim written by another pseudonym on an anonymous comment on the Billings Gazette. That certainly seems credible, doesn’t it?
I understand why Republicans would be desperate to turn the talk away from the fact that their party of professed piety is packed with philanderers, but using an anonymous comment as justification for a sock puppet site to make claims about Senator Baucus’s marriage is just pathetic.
The party of no ideas in Montana seems headed towards being the party of no ethics. How about fighting health care on its merits, instead of anonymously slinging mud?
Justice Thomas and his supporters like to repeat that they, and not liberals, uphold the original intent of the Constitution. In their worldview, any expansion (or even protection) of civil liberties goes beyond the vision of the founders. I wonder how these “originalists” can even pretend that Justice Thomas has the read the Constitution or the documents that preceded it, given his rationale for voting to allow a school district to strip search a 13 year old girl:
Justice Clarence Thomas, while agreeing that the school officials should have qualified immunity, dissented on the matter of the strip search, writing in his opinion that the decision “grants judges sweeping authority to second-guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.”
Thomas stated that searching Redding’s underwear was not a violation of the Constitution’s privacy protection because “school officials searched in a location where the pills could have been hidden.”
Perhaps it’s just me, but wouldn’t the British governors and Europeans monarchs in general have justified searches of their subjects on exactly the same grounds? The 4th Amendment was a response to precisely this kind of heavy-handed intrusion into the lives of citizens.
An original interpreter of the intent of the Constitution? I think not, Justice Thomas.
Fortunately, the rest of the court (even Scalia) had the good sense to rule that the school’s actions were illegal.
Matt already mentioned Bozeman’s insane policy requiring potential job applicants to hand over their login names (and passwords!) for all web sites they belong to, but I thought I would take a look at the requirement and the city’s response.
Reading the form is bizarre.
What struck me, beyond the incredibly broad nature of the request, was its awkward working. Why does the first paragraph end with the ungrammatical and incorrect phrase “employment with Company.”?
It looks like the legal language vetted by the City Attorney is nothing more than a legal document template that someone forgot to edit completely. That’s certainly a reassuring detail about the legal thoughtfulness that went into approving this document.
What legal scholar approved the city asking for clearly private information? Constitutional scholar and City Attorney Greg Sullivan, who offered this defense:
"So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City," Sullivan said.
It seems to me that neither a government agency nor a private employer have any business investigating an applicant’s “moral character” or determining anyone’s suitability for employment based on their choice of a MySpace background or religious views. While city officials are “looking into the legality” of the requirement, it’ s evident that the condition for employment will not stand legal scrutiny for a moment.
Until then, because of my concerns about his moral character, I’d like to see Mr. Sullivan list every web site he has a membership to, along with his username.
I’ll start with one he should look into.
Montana Blog Feed
