Tim Trott’s Blog

The latest media rumblings suggest that the public option, a hallmark of the Obama Health Care Plan, is in trouble. It seems the GOP inspired screaming and yelling, born of ignorance, is scaring our elected representatives into quite possibly walking away from this essential element of the plan.

This would be most unfortunate. Anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at this lengthy piece of legislation knows that it doesn’t involve a federal government takeover of the entire American health care system. There are no death panels. No one is pulling the plug on Grandma or denying care to special needs children. If you have private insurance you can keep it. If you have a preexisting condition, you cannot be barred from getting health care insurance.

Frankly, from my point of view, the bill as written does not go far enough. I would prefer a single-payer system along the lines of the care available in Europe. But that’s me, and I learned to compromise at an early age.

Yet I cannot understand why anyone would oppose the public option. The public option is not mandatory for all. It simply provides a means for those without affordable health care coverage to get it. Have you ever seen the cost of current health care insurance plans for individuals and families where there is no employe contribution? Outrageous. What can possibly be wrong with a public option? Nothing.

However, the dysfunctional Republican party will do anything to defeat a Presidential initiative. So, the facts of the legislation notwithstanding, the fear-and-hate-mongers who lead what is left of the Republican party have frightened otherwise decent, hardworking, honest citizens into thinking that the proposed health care reform will take us on a rollicking ride on the slippery slope to socialism. Just as bad are those Democratic legislators, afraid of losing their cushy jobs at the mid-term elections, who are now backing away from the public option portion of the bill.

Failure to pass meaningful health care reform–with a public option– will emasculate the Obama presidency. The wars rage on (although they are hardly mentioned these days). Big Money, bailed out by Bush, is back on its bonus bonanza, albeit this time with our money. Mortgage foreclosures and unemployment continue to climb. If meaningful health care reform does not pass, then I am not sure we got the change we voted for last November.

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York for my nephew’s wedding. At the reception,  a cousin regaled me with a tale of his encounter with Homeland Security at the Minneapolis airport. The upshot is that the security folks seized my cousin’s toothpaste.

Fast forward to this past weekend in New York City. An airplane and a helicopter collide, killing nine people. While following this story I found out that under 1100 feet in altitude, over the Hudson river, there is no regulatory control. That’s right, that area is a free fly zone. Now this is in New York City, site of the tragedy of 9/11. As Joe Scarborough said on this morning’s edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC, all a terrorist would have to do is take a small plane at a small, local airport, fill the plane with an explosive, stay under 1100 feet, and fly it into Times Square. He would go unnoticed. Voila! A weapon of mass destruction. Another tragedy.

But watch out for that toothpaste.

The Associated Press issued this story just a few hours ago:

We are all familiar with the incident that occurred outside the home of distinguished Harvard University professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., so I won’t rehash the facts. Here’s my concern.

If the police feel, in their subjective judgment, that they have been disrespected by someone, they can issue a citation or even arrest that person. But what happens when an individual with no badge or gun or district attorney or judge to back him up is disrespected by the police? Not a damn thing.

For the record, I am related to several former New York City Police officers. I understand there is no such thing as a routine traffic stop and that any encounter has the potential to be deadly. Yet that does not give the police the right to disrespect, insult and harass people. All too often, sadly, this is exactly what happens, and the police get away with it.

Many police departments use the motto, “To protect and to serve”. They should remember the meaning of these words when they deal with individuals. The police are paid to be public servants and protectors. They are not paid to be public bullies.

Clarence Thomas notwithstanding, the United States Supreme Court stood up for the Fourth Amendment, and in particular, the rights of children in school. It also struck a blow against overzealous school administrators who all too often think themselves an arm of the police department. In an 8-1 vote, the court held that a strip search of 13 year old Savana Redding violated her constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

One day in October 2003, a school administrator, believing that Savana was giving ibuprofen to friends directed that the school nurse conduct a strip search of Savana. Further description of the event is unnecessary.

It is well settled that children do not surrender their civil rights at the schoolhouse door. American schools are all too often little more than warehouses for children, where the goal is more order than education. I have seen in my own practice how school administrators have abused the vast power they wield in the schoolhouse. In one case of mine a student dropped a prescription pill he had, lawfully, on his person. What was the school’s first reaction? To get the student to the school nurse to see if there might be some immediate medical problem? To call the student’s parent to be sure the medication was proper? No. The child was sent home under suspension. The the police were called. By the time I was contacted, local law enforcement was about to launch an investigation aimed at charging this student with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, i.e. drug dealing. The kid dropped a pill he was supposed to take with his lunch. It was a misunderstanding. But when I met with school administrators, they treated this child as if he were a criminal..with disdain and disregard. Unacceptable.

This is not to say that school administrators should not be concerned about possible drug trafficking on school premises. Of course they should. However, as the court said in this decision, while latitude must be allowed to school administrators in order that they protect the students in their charge, the Fourth Amendment places limits on how far they can go. This time they went too far.

Score one for the Bill of Rights.

RIP

After 3 months of inactivity, I thought it might be worth an explanation to the legions who check this blog in search of wisdom and entertainment. It occurred to me that with the abundance of bloggers out there, there wasn’t a lot to say that wasn’t already said or said better. Mostly there was a lot just not worth saying. I cannot, contrary to popular opinion, wax eloquent on the law all the time. Nor do I want to. So I bailed for a bit.

I’ve been teaching college and, of course, I continue to practice law. This hasn’t left time for much else. So what has this to do with the today’s commentary? Nothing.

Recently I have come back to the game of chess the way one comes back to a long lost faithful lover. I have always loved chess. I’ve never been very good at it, but I have loved it since I was 17 and Bobby Fischer took on Boris Spassky for the World Championship in 1972 in Iceland. Public TV was not much more than Sesame Street and some cooking shows, but in the summer of 1972, all that changed. Channel 13 in New York City, where I grew up, covered the championship. There were no cameras at the site and no ESPN type commentary. There’s was a just a mild mannered professor named Shelby Lyman who showed the moves on a large , wall mounted chessboard. The show was mostly analysis by Lyman and his compadres, including Bruce Pandolfini, who became famous much later in the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer.

I’ve bought countless books and software programs, taken lessons, played in the holds of U.S. Navy ships, played in Washington Square Park in NYC, played in dingy saloons where respectable people don’t go, played on a hand held chess computer on the train to Philadelphia, but never really improved. But I am so in love.

In chess, mediocrity is failure. Poor players are called woodpushers. They don’t really play chess, they just push the wood pieces. Patzer is a German word for bungler. In chess, a patzer is a weak player. To call a chess player a Patzer is the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. Want to describe a poor-to-fair chess player? He’s a patzer. My name is Tim, and I am a patzer.

And in serious chess, there is no place for patzers. We are not welcome at tournaments. We are not welcome at chess clubs, either. In fact, a former chess coach of mine was very clear about this. I asked him about going to clubs to play casual games. His response? I needed at least a solid year of intensive study (no doubt under his tutelage) before I should even think of playing at a club. That’s why he’s a former chess coach of mine. Serious chess players can be borderline rude.  Good grief, we’re talking about playing with a $5.00 toy!

So, I live my closeted life as a patzer. I play on my chess computer at home and sometimes at my office. Occasionally I get the nerve to ask a friend to play a real over-the-board game. I still love the game. But it’s tough to find other patzers to play with. As I said, we keep closeted.

Recently I have drawn what I think is an apt analogy. Look at all those out of shape guys who play slow-pitch softball for the local tavern. They all wanted to be Babe Ruth once (or perhaps even Bobby Bonds). Yet, every Sunday afternoon when they step into the batter’s box, beer gut hanging over the tight baseball pants, girlfriends, wives and drinking pals cheering wildly, they are Babe Ruth. They are Ted Williams. Why is there no place like that in chess for patzers?

When I step up to the chess board, I am Fischer. I am Kasparov. I am Morphy. I too open with the Ruy Lopez. I too can play the Nimzo-Indian Defence. And I can fianchetto a bishop like nobody’s business. But once the game gets too far along, I know what I am. I’m just the woodpushing equivalent of that overfed, beer-soaked softball player. I am a patzer.

Backgammon, anyone?

Lawrence Summers, educated at MIT and Harvard, Ph.D. in economics, former President of Harvard and now President Obama’s Director of the National Economic Council recently said the government cannot step in and abrogate the contracts of the AIG bonus burglars. This puzzles me.

Tonight Keith Olbermann of MSNBC asked why are executive contracts sacrosanct, while busting union contracts is viewed as necessary to saving the American auto industry?  Keith, I have no idea. No idea other than perhaps the people who run our government have more in common with our corporate crooks than they do with decent hard working Americans. Let us also not forget these executives control lots of campaign contributions, too.

What’s funny in this tragedy is that Edward M. Liddy, Chairman and CEO of AIG said these bonuses were necessary for retaining the best and brightest talent for AIG. What he didn’t say was that the bonus pool included executives who ran the derivative division that ran AIG into the ground! Remember the old days? When you had to perform successfully to get a bonus?

Michael Phelps, Olympic champion, idol of millions and America’s Endorser in Chief has admitted that the picture of the guy with the bong was indeed, himself.

It’s always tough when we find that people we admire have feet of clay like the rest of us. But I give him credit. Unlike the folks who run our government (local, state and federal–no entity is exempt) and our banks, Phelps admitted his mistake. He didn’t try to spin the thing. He apologized. He admitted he was wrong. Not like that guy who said he didn’t inhale.

But our take no prisoners (take all prisoners?) law enforcement officials aren’t letting this Phelps character get away with this. No sirrreee bob. According to The Huffington Post, the Sheriff of Richland County said he will charge Phelps with a crime if he can determine the weed was smoked in Richland County.

Now, Phelps broke the law. He should be accountable. His celebrity status should not afford him any special treatment by law enforcement. Cite him for disorderly conduct and end it. If Phelps had not admitted he was the Phantom Toker, the Sheriff would have had to spend a whole lot of time and money trying to prove it was Phelps. Does the Richland County Sheriff have nothing better to do? Surely there must be a double parked car somewhere in his jurisdiction.

This tale shows the utter futility and absurdity of American drug policy. I’ll be writing more on this in the future. Drugs are poison. They hurt our young and destroy communities. But the current war on drugs is about as effective as prohibition was in the last century. By treating drug abuse as a criminal matter rather than a public health matter, we have done little more than overpopulate our jails and create new classes of criminals. More to come on this later.

Hang loose, Michael.

I was going to add to my critique of Sen. Daschle’s appointment. This additional criticism was to stem from the potential conflicts of interest given the millions the Good Senator was paid for consulting (read: lobbying) for the health care industry. Today, Sen. Daschle saved me the trouble. He withdrew his nomination for the post of Secretary of HHS.

But wait, there’s more. Yet another potential Obama appointment went down due to tax problems.

Nancy Killefer was the President’s nominee for  Chief Performance Officer, a title almost as Big Brotherish as Homeland Security. Killefer, a graduate of Vassar and MIT, clearly also attended the Geithner School of Tax Returns. Yes,  as she has her tax problems. By the way, she works for the world-famous management consulting firm, McKinsey and Co. Hmmmm…Vassar, MIT and McKinsey, and didn’t understand her own income tax position? What makes this even more amusing, or frightening, is that Killefer was to be our Nation’s first Chief Performance Officer. In plain English, she was going to be the person who was to be sure government was efficient.

I wonder what she charges by the hour at McKinsey where she tells other businesses how to mind their business.

Now for the commercial: If you have concerns about your own tax situation with the IRS, please give me a call at (610) 430-6500 or send an email to tim@ttrottlaw.com. I’ll help you avoid those problems so your political appointment can sail right on through.