www.dailycorinthian.com
Reece Terry, publisher
Opinion
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, April 12, 2013
Corinth, Miss.
Legislature often like extended family JACKSON, Miss. — It was a poignant bookend to the 2013 session of the Mississippi Legislature — the passing of a House of Representatives seat from father to surviving son. During the session’s openEmily ing hours on Jan. 8, lawmakWagster ers were told that Rep. David Pettus Gibbs of West Point was stepCapitol Dome ping down because of poor health. The resignation letter for 76-year-old Democrat was never filed with the secretary of state’s office, though, and he remained a House member until he died of cancer less than a week later, on Jan. 13. During the session’s closing hours this past Thursday, Gibbs’ only child, 43-year-old Karl Gibbs, stood at the front of the House chamber with his wife, son and mother, put his hand on a Bible and took the oath of office to represent District 36. It’s the seat his father had held since January 1993, in parts of Clay, Lowndes and Monroe counties. Rep. Karl Gibbs, D-West Point, received a standing ovation from his new colleagues. “I’m very excited,” he told reporters a few minutes later. “I grew up with this ... watching my father and helping him do various things.” Mississippi lawmakers engage in tough debates over policy issues. But during the past few months, a series of tragedies, including the death of Gibbs, caused them to set aside political differences, if only for a few hours or days, to help each other grieve. “It is a family down here,” said House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton. “We come from different backgrounds and races and parties, but we do pull together in those times of tragedy.” When all the seats are filled, the Mississippi House has 122 members and the Senate has 52. It’s not unusual for one or two lawmakers to become ill each year — but it is out of the ordinary for multiple members of the Legislature to die within a matter of months. ■ Sen. Bennie Turner, D-West Point, died Nov. 27 at age 64, after an extended illness. He had served at the Capitol 20 years. His daughter and law partner won a special election to fill his seat in District 16, which covers all of Clay County and parts of Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Noxubee counties. Sen. Angela Turner, D-West Point, took her oath Jan. 23. ■ Sen. Alice Harden, D-Jackson, died Dec. 6 at age 64, also after an extended illness. She made history in 1987 by becoming the first black woman to win a seat in the Mississippi Senate. Sen. Sollie Norwood, D-Jackson, took his oath March 4, after winning a special election in District 28, entirely in Hinds County. ■ Rep. Joe Gardner, D-Batesville, died of a heart attack Feb. 4 at age 68. He had served in the House since 2007. A special election runoff April 16 will determine who will succeed Gardner in District 11, in parts of Panola and Tate counties. ■ Rep. Jessica Upshaw, R-Diamondhead, died March 24 in Mendenhall, of what the local sheriff said appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot. She had represented District 95, in parts of Hancock and Harrison counties, since January 2004. Gov. Phil Bryant has set a May 28 special election, with a June 18 runoff, if needed. The fathers of two House members died mid-session, and the young niece of one was killed in a wreck. Two House members were hospitalized. Each time, lawmakers bowed their heads and prayed together. “It has been a very unique and difficult year,” Gunn said. “I talked to one of the members, a Democratic member, who had been here 30 years. He said in 30 years, he has never seen a session filled with as much personal tragedy.”
Prayer for today Lord, help us realize faith that is not tested is faith that cannot be trusted, so we pray we will remain faithful in the testing of our faith, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A verse to share “Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:” — Deuteronomy 8:11
Worth quoting Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. — David Ogden Stiers
The new political wedge issue: Gold BY DICK MORRIS AND EILEEN MCGANN As public concern mounts over Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s policy of unlimited and unrestrained printing of currency, the political focus on gold is increasing. Each month now, our currency expands by over $80 billion. Each year, the amount that comes into circulation equals the total money supply that was in circulation in 2007, before Bernanke went crazy with the printing press. By excluding food and fuel from the calculations, he has managed to bring in the Consumer Price Index at less than his 2 percent annual inflationary target, but few doubt that the dollar is fading fast. From abroad, the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have committed to using gold -- not dollars -- in their trade with one another and Australia has agreed with China to base its trade on the value of the Yuan, the Chinese currency. Domestically, Arizona and Utah are passing laws
allowing gold to circulate as legal tender in their states. The University of Texas Investment Management Company has bought $1 billion of gold as part of its investment portfolio, and a bill backed by Governor Rick Perry would store it in a newly created Texas Bullion Depository. The facility would also accept deposits from individuals and could become the basis for an emergency currency should the need arise. The very fact that people are thinking in these terms is indicative enough of the uncertainty Bernanke is catalyzing. The saving grace of the dollar in today’s markets has always been that every other currency is worse. The euro is dissolving before our eyes. The yen and the pound are too limited a basis for global transactions and China deliberately keeps the yuan weak so as to procure trading advantages. This situation has led the International Monetary Fund to issue Special Drawing Rights as a global currency based on a market basket of the world’s cur-
rencies. Over a trillion dollars of SDRs are now in circulation, largely in poorer countries, where the IMF has sent foreign aid in the form of SDRs. Other nations cannot print money as we do since theirs’ is not the universally recognized global currency. But the Fed is abusing our prerogative to print so blatantly that one wonders how long the world will accept the dollar at face value. The Fed is trying to hold down the price of gold so as not to stoke fears of inflation and to reassure us that all is fine despite its profligacy. But the potential for a banking collapse and a dollar crash are looming ever larger. The world has an economy worth about $80 trillion. But banks have wagered $1.6 quadrillion in derivative trades. If, or rather when, those bets come crashing down, banks will not be able to make good their losses. And governments will be hard pressed to do so either. Enter Cyprus, where we are all seeing what happens when measures like even
the massive TARP lending prove inadequate to protect banks. There, the European Central Bank (ECB) -- the Euro equivalent of the Federal Reserve -- is invading private bank accounts and seizing up to one-third of the amounts on deposit (a practice usually limited to asset forfeiture in drug cases) to shore up the banking system. This step is sending chills down all of our spines. FDIC insurance would be worthless in the face of a global policy to seize accounts. Let’s face it. Politicians have abused the right to print money. We cannot trust them to limit their power and to face fiscal facts. The abuses of President Obama and Bernanke illustrate this grim fact for all to see. Gold is coming! (Daily Corinthian columnist Dick Morris, former advisor to the Clinton administration, is a commentator and writer. He is also a columnist for the New York Post and The Hill. His wife, Eileen McGann is an attorney and consultant.)
High court supremely confused about marriage equality Confusion reigned supreme in the nation’s highest court last month as it heard arguments on two same-sex marriage cases. Confronted with the possibility of endorsing the right of men to marry men and women, women, the Justices resembled nothing so much as a group of kittens playing with a ball of barbed wire. They poked at the cases and retreated from them. Then they circled around and poked again, never quite daring to confront the issue directly. Admittedly they’re strange cases. In one, the Supreme Court was asked to overrule a lower court’s decision that had found unconstitutional California’s Proposition 8 — a ban on marriage equality the state itself wasn’t willing to defend. Instead, a group of private citizens with no real standing in the case brought the appeal. “I just wonder if the case was properly granted,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy, seemingly speaking for a majority of the Court. So why did the Court agree to hear the case in the first place? Two words: Antonin Scalia. You can always count on him to be on the
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
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wrong side of an issue. C o u r t observers say that he, above all the other Donald J u s t i c e s , Kaul d e s p i s e s the growing Other Words trend toward samesex marriage rights. Thinking that this would be the Court’s best shot to knock it down before it gains even more acceptance, he reportedly talked three fellow conservatives into taking up the case. The Court spent half the day arguing about whether they should be considering the case in the first place, rather than struggling with its central question: Do gay people have a right to lawful wedded bliss like everyone else? Not that the rest of the debate was marked by much more clarity. At one point, Justice Elena Kagan asked how marriage equality would damage traditional marriage. The lawyer for those supporting Proposition 8 responded that the key to marriage is procreation. That’s news to many heterosexual couples that have
no intention of having children. Hasn’t he heard of birth control — you know, condoms, diaphragms, the pill, things like that? The questioning then veered off into an unproductive discussion of infertile couples, elderly couples, Strom Thurmond, and other matters that had nothing to do with anything. The bottom line is this: The opponents of marriage equality have yet to explain satisfactorily how allowing gay people to marry would harm “the sanctity of marriage.” I think that expanding the franchise would make the institution stronger, not weaker. LGBT people aren’t attacking marriage, they’re improving it. More power to them. Supreme Court watchers, by the way, expect the justices to duck the issue and send it back to the state. That would be too bad. Rights shouldn’t be left to individual states to grant or not. We have constitutions to protect minorities from majorities, not to let them be oppressed by them. The second case involved the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” in which Congress defined marriage as the union of one man and
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one woman. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, who now says he regrets doing so. The law was challenged by an 83-year-old woman who was forced to pay much higher inheritance taxes when her wife died than she would have had the federal government recognized their marriage. Once again, the government had second thoughts and decided not to defend its own law in court. The Republican anti-gay wing of the House took on that task. The Court’s discussion of the case was just as confused as that of the California case. Bringing clarity to the matter was the woman who brought the claim, Edith Windsor. She and her partner had been together 40 years but only married the last two. And she said it was the best two. “For anybody who doesn’t understand why we want it and why we need it,” Windsor said, “it is magic.” You’d think that true defenders of marriage would embrace that sentiment, not oppose it. (Daily Corinthian and OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Mich. OtherWords. org)
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