COMIC RELIEF

I needed something light

AN ELECTION IN ONE WEEK

It is a week before elections. Please bear with my intermittent blogging as a substitute to the now unavailable blogs by Dan whom I hope will be back soon and Bernice’s defunct blog. I can give you no update on Dan except to say that as you get older it is possible to have medical problems.

As to the local elections; I have already mailed by absentee ballot; and I must confess that I did not vote for anyone for Governor. This has been entirely a negative TV campaign. Neither major party candidate gave an indication of a program and how to pay for it. Of course a Democrat legislature will have no reluctance to further mortgage our (and our children’s) future.

I did receive two flyers from Green’s faction which, pardon the Trumpism, boasted about how much he did for Plainfield. Unfortunately has chairman of the (I forget the exact name important committee that oversees hospitals he did nothing to prevent the closure of Muhlenberg. N or did he mention his then affiliation with the Alman group who supposedly had a business relationship with JFK.

There is of course no choice to consider between an incumbent mayor with known faults and a challenger with a questionable history. By default the Mayor.

The two public questions on the ballot are worth supporting.

As to the Board of Education candidates, I have always been an advocate of a Mayor’s appointed Board where responsibility can be pointed. In this nonpartisan elected board with two not recognized “slates” on the ticket the one with the mayor’s “support” should take preference.

ABOUT MUHLENBERG

Blogging on hold due to unexpected visit from daughter an son-in-law. Here is a  letter from Nancy Piwowar

Dear Friends and Supporters,

I am cautiously optimistic about the final order by the Judge concerning the trusts before the court today.

We were up against 5 attorneys and one pro se litigant.  Two Muhlenberg attorneys, PNC Bank attorney, Deputy Attorney General, and City Corporation Counsel.

I was the only objector (pro se).  My two points were "keeping healthcare services in Plainfield and the trusts and endowment money in Plainfield."

I am cautiously optimistic because the Judge said that they needed to be more transparent, that they needed to certify that two people (who were listed in one of the wills and who were not notified) be notified, and that she agreed that the money needs to be kept in Plainfield.   It is unclear to me how the court order will be written, but it was apparent that the one that was prepared prior to this hearing had to be changed - to what extent I do not know.

This is a baby step.  This may have an impact on the public hearing Monday because the Deputy Attorney General who is leading the hearing will have to take into account what the Judge said.

I appreciate everyone's support, good thoughts, and prayers because this was a good day for Muhlenberg.

I hope to see you on Monday night.  I plan on asking about the trusts and endowments and keeping healthcare in Plainfield.  Whatever is decided I want to see it in writing.

Thank you.

THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS-2nd AMENDMENT

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That which I write about the Second Amendment perhaps is clouded my own opinion. After reading the history and laws related to the 2^nd Amendment you can see that there is still no clear opinion as to what the 2nd permits an individual can possess. I feel that owning a personal gun is a privilege that can be regulate by Federal law not State law; it is not a right.

The 2^nd Amendment deals with “militia” not individuals and was written at the era when there was a distrust of standing armies controlled by a national government. The Continental Congress armies of the revolution were composed of States’ militias.

The original intent of this Amendment was to preserve States’ rights of having armed militia; not for the individual to own weapons for personal use. Of course it stands to reason that he (a sexist society) had to have at least one gun to fulfill his obligation as a militiaman.

It was a compromise between the Federalist led by Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams. Who believed in a strong central government and the Anti-Federalist championed by Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Jay, and John Adams.as Advocates?

The conflict which had begun in the Continental Congress gradually became moot as the individual states stopped having organized militia.  There was no true challenge to the Individual right until after the Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago and the passing of Firearms Act of 1934.

In 1939 SCOPUS in United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” This had to do with the transportation of a sawed off shotgun.

In 1968 after the assassinations of JFK and King Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968

In 1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 produces a 10-year federal ban on the manufacture of new semi-automatic assault weapons. It limited magazines to 10 rounds and defined assault guns that individual could not possess but unfortunately this law expired in 2003 and was not renewed.

After 70 uncontested years in 2008 a more definitive opinion was stated. The case was the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), in which the Supreme Court examined the Second Amendment in exacting detail. In a narrow 5–4 majority, and held that self-defense was the “central component” of the amendment and that the District of Columbia’s “prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense” to be unconstitutional.

This was the first of several rulings on the issue of individual rights of gun ownership.

More recently, the Supreme Court reinforced its Heller ruling in its Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) decision. The Court found that the lower "Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was wrong in the three reasons it offered for why the state could ban personal possession or use of a “stun gun” without violating the Second Amendment.

Thus you can see that there is still no clear opinion as to what the 2nd permits an individual can possess.

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws

 Section 1 reads “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

This section is also important in determining the right to vote.

Congress should and could make appropriate laws that will stand the SCOTUS challenges.

FOR MONDAY

It was a bad couch weekend, 0 for 4 . As to the Yankees we can wait for next year, b ut the Giants and Jets appear to be lost causes. The Whoos game was a disaster. TG Basketball, the college game, is around the corner.

While researching data for my upcoming blog on the 2nd Amendment I have run into such a veritable ocean of data that takes time to digest including the impact of the 14th Amendment on the court’s rulings that I t may be another day or two before posting.

Meantime I ran into this word document notes saved as part of a 2015 blog.

“It is almost 15 months before we have to choose a new President. The ones that I may favor today most likely will not be on the horizon then. Thus I will not even focus on who my top choice is.

Hillary seems to have the Democrat’s nomination. I can’t trust any Clinton. Worse would be Sanders who would give away everything we own to get votes. His ideal socialist nation can’t work, you can’t get everything for nothing.

Of the Republicans it would be a national catastrophe if the likes of Perry, Cruz, Santorem, and Huckelbee. If one is on the ballot I will vote for the other party’s candidate! GF that it too will be a clown. Of course the ultimate farce would be if the Republican nominee is TRUMP.”

Was I prophetic or not?