The Legacy of Notorious RBG – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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On Friday, September 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the pillar of the current Supreme Court. She served as the Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Affectionately known as Notorious R.B.G., to emulate late rapper and icon Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls), because of her strong passion to keep pushing regardless of life’s circumstances or obstacles that she may have faced… whether it was discrimination, health issues, or other challenges she faced.

She is known as the most powerful liberal Justice on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg became a US Court Appeals judge in Washington DC Circuit Court in 1980 when she was nominated by President Jimmy Carter. She was then nominated by President Bill Clinton as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1993. She was confirmed by Congress 96-3. An impressive confirmation you almost never will see in Congress today. She served as the second woman to be on the Supreme Court.  The first woman of the Supreme Court was Sandra Day O’Connor who served from 1980 to 2006 when she retired. Justice Ginsburg has served the people for many years. 

It was at Columbia Law School where she became the first woman to tenured. There she also co-authored the first law school casebook dealing with sexual discrimination. She co-founded the Women’s Right Law Reporter in 1970, the first law journal in the United States that focused exclusively on women’s rights. In 1972, she co-founded the Women’s Right Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); she also became the General Counsel for this project. She has fought time and time again for women’s rights, including women’s right to choose what to do with their own bodies, rights to not be improperly searched as a woman, rights to fight for equal pay for equal work, rights for the LGBTQ community, women’s voter right, as well as many other civil rights issues.  

Her legacy must live on and we should always remember and celebrate what she fought for and whom she fought for. But we are living in a time where those who are supposed to protect the law are covering up and ignoring the law. A time, where people who claim they believe in the rule of law only believe in the rule of law against minorities. A time, where women’s Right to choose to have an abortion could possibly be abolished. The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) could no longer be the law of the land causing millions of people to lose their health care in the midst of a horrific pandemic. Her legacy is of utmost importance, considering Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done nothing but stack the federal courts with far-right judges who will do everything they can to uphold discriminatory policies and inequalities.

Ginsburg’s last wish she dictated to her granddaughter was that Congress would not replace her seat until the country gets a new President. Within just a few hours of her death, Mitch McConnell said he would put her replacement up for a vote on the Congress floor. This is a time where the person who can be selected on the Supreme Court could change the lives of America for decades. We say this often, election after election; if there ever was a time we need to vote that time is now. That time to vote is seriously now. Justice Ginsburg passed on the same day the nation begin voting for this election year. It is important that we the people vote not just for the President and Vice President but straight down the line, US Congress, State Congress, State, Local, Judges, Sheriffs, Prosecutors, and School Board Members. We need to exercise our right to vote and maintain the legacies of the late Georgia Representative John Lewis and late Senior Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We need to be Notorius Citizens exercising our right to vote.

Similar Read: Legal Attack on Women’s Right to Choose (How Did We Get Here?)

911… What’s Your Emergency?

by with No Comment CultureFeatured

The opioid epidemic in the United States is continuing at an exponential rate.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 28,000 people died from an opioid overdose in 2014.  In 2015, that number jumped to more than 33,000, then more than doubled to over 64,000 deaths in 2016.  At the current rate, more than 145 people die per day from opioid overdoses, with the majority of those affected living in rural, White America.

The beginning of the opioid epidemic started in the late 1990s.  During this period, pharmaceutical companies began marketing new opioid pain relievers, promising the medical community that opioids prescribed for pain relief were not addictive.  With such reassurance, medical providers began prescribing opioids at higher rates than the staple pain relievers of the time, Motrin and Tylenol. The increased amount of prescription opioids in circulation lead to the widespread misuse and abuse of prescription opioids, as well as an increased use of heroin.

In response to the opioid epidemic, America has funneled millions of federal funding to combat the crisis, with some of the funds directed towards law enforcement programs that assist those battling addiction and facing prison time.  The passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was one of the first measures to combat the opioid crisis.  The ACA required coverage of substance abuse treatment with all marketplace plans. In late 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which created $1 billion in Opioid State Targeted Response (STR) grants to enhance states’ response to the epidemic.  In 2017, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency and rolled out HHS’s 5-Point Strategy to combat the epidemic.  A Traveling Opioid Memorial was also created to educate the masses on the effects of opioid addiction.

I can’t help but wonder where were all these resources and sympathy during the crack cocaine epidemic of the inner cities in the mid-1980s and early-1990s when the majority of faces affected were black and brown?  Instead of allocating funds to prevention and recovery of crack cocaine addictions, America used billions to fund the ‘War on Drugs.’ Congress enacted mandatory sentencing via the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, with harsher sentences given to offenders of crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine at a rate of 100-to-1.

Just recently, Demi Lovato was hospitalized for an apparent drug overdose. There has been an outpouring of support. Fans have even created a hashtag #HowDemiHasHelpedMe to showcase how Demi helped fans with their own struggles. Demi and those battling addiction now are offered rehab and protection from jail, while those who battled crack cocaine addictions were shuttled off to jail by the thousands.  I am all for shifting sentiment as we evolve as a society, but I can’t help but wish that Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse had similar support during their battles with addiction.

The effects of criminalization and mass incarceration of crack cocaine addiction, rather than treating it as a disease, are still felt to this day.  Before the ‘War on Drugs,’ the number of people in the US imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses was well under 50,000. By the year 2000, this number increased more than 6-fold, with the majority of those imprisoned being Black men, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics.  Due to this high incarceration rate, there were more Black men in prison than there were in all of higher education across America. It wasn’t until 2010 when the Fair Sentencing Act was passed did the discrepancy between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses reduce from 100:1 to 18:1; however, due to mandatory sentencing, many offenders are still locked up.  The economic setbacks caused by a lack of family unit and poor education will continue to impact the Black community for years to come as they struggle to catch up to their White counterparts.

In the end, I wish Demi Lovato well.  As a healthcare professional, I’ve understood for years that addiction is a disease with constant battles and many setbacks no matter how strong-willed a person is.  I’m certified to administer and carry naloxone, the drug used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, and I do my part to ensure opioids are only prescribed for legitimate reasons.  The battle to conquer the opioid epidemic is far from over. In order to resolve this crisis, America needs to do a lot of self-reflection and figure out why are so many Americans self-medicating.

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(Feature image description: Len Bias, drafted by the Boston Celtics with the second overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft. Ironically, Len never got a chance to wear a Celtics uniform.  He unfortunately died from a cocaine overdose 2 days after the Draft.  Artwork by  TruArtist83.  Visit his Website or Instagram for more conscious art.)  

Trump’s Tax Bill Might Destroy the Middle-Class

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Inside the numbers… According to a recent WSJ Poll, only 24% of Americans believe this is tax bill is a good idea and 41% think it’s a bad idea; 63% of Americans think it’s designed for corporations and the wealthy, and only 7% think it’s designed for the middle-class, which has been a Republican talking point over the past few weeks.

As this recent poll states, this tax plan is highly unpopular.

Without going into grave policy detail… this tax plan will absolutely benefit corporations and wealthy individuals more than the middle-class. It will increase wage inequality and shrink the middle-class, sending more households to the lower class and fewer to the upper class. Also, this tax plan repeals the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), a nonpartisan group of economists, roughly 13 million people will lose their health insurance due to repealing the mandate.

What Republicans are not telling us, excuse me, what they’re not admitting, is that they know trickle down economics doesn’t work. They also know that corporations likely won’t hire more employees or increase wages when these tax cuts are signed into law, instead, they’ll reinvest in their businesses, buy back stock, and give out record bonuses to their top management and c-suite executives. While this tax bill adds $1.5 trillion to our national debt, they’re already planning on proposing huge cuts to entitlement programs in 2018_ all while 6-7-8 figure earners, as well as select groups like real estate developers and private equity professionals, benefit from these massive tax cuts.

With all that being said, Republican’s brilliantly designed this bill to have an immediate positive impact on most middle-class households [short-term]. But considering the personal tax provisions are set to expire in 10 years, it’s important to note that the business tax cuts will not. Therefore, the positive impact for corporations and the wealthy [in the long-term] is astounding and much greater. For example, in 2027, two-thirds of middle-class households will see a tax increase in their personal income taxes, and none of them will see a tax cut.

By design, this middle-class tax honeymoon will surely last long enough to surpass the 2018 mid-terms and 2020 presidential election. However, can Democrats capitalize on recent big wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and most recently Alabama, and pick up enough seats to challenge Trump and maybe win the White House? IF Democrats can somehow win the House and Senate, and the White House in 2020, can such a massic tax bill be easily reversed, or amended to thwart such a negative long-term impact on lower and middle-class households?

Hurricane Trump

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The last 10 months of the Trump Administration have been fraught with upheaval, uncertainty, and unpreparedness. It’s one thing to have a president who doesn’t know what he’s doing; it’s quite another to have a president who doesn’t know what he’s doing and sabotages the efforts of the people who do.
Trump is the enemy who doesn’t realize he is the enemy. Blustering his way around the White House, the country and the world, he seeks only his own glorification, and is oblivious to the damage he inflicts while doing so. His extreme self-centeredness is not unlike that of Kim Jong Un, another self-centered narcissist who just happens to be the leader of a country with nuclear capability. And he is not afraid to flaunt it.
Trump’s dismantling of the Paris Accord, the multiple efforts at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, the ham-fisted attempts at diplomacy and as “comforter-in-chief” – all of this pales in comparison to the very real threat he has become.
De-certifying the Iran nuclear deal takes the cards out of the hands of all of the countries supporting it, and into the hands of the Iranian government in one swipe. Sanctions will take its place, which will produce the opposite effect intended. Iran will find a way to work around those sanctions and step up its uranium production.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a trifecta of nukes. 
Playing one-upmanship games with North Korea, while his top diplomat is trying to calm the waters, is proof positive that the US president has no understanding of the world. He is crippling any attempt to prevent a conflict, merely because he wants to be right.
This childish chest-beating between Trump and Kim is likely to escalate now that the Iran deal is slotted for dismantling – because there will be a third player in this dangerous triad. John Kelly, brought in to try to rein in Trump’s disastrous behavior, is not likely to have much, if any, effect on how Trump plays his games. Believing that anyone can control such an uncontrollable force might as well try to stop a hurricane. 
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