Latest news with #EnablingAct
Chicago Tribune
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Obama signs the Affordable Care Act
Today is Sunday, March 23, the 82nd day of 2025. There are 283 days left in the year. Today in history: On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, a $938 billion health care overhaul. Also on this date: In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which it is said he declared, 'Give me liberty, or give me death!' In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers. In 1942, the first Japanese Americans incarcerated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp at Manzanar, California. In 1965, America's first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight orbiting Earth. In 1993, scientists announced they'd identified the gene that causes Huntington's disease. In 1998, 'Titanic' tied an Academy Awards record by winning 11 Oscars, including best picture, best director for James Cameron and best original song for 'My Heart Will Go On.' In 2021, a cargo ship the size of a skyscraper ran aground and became wedged in the Suez Canal; hundreds of ships would be prevented from passing through the canal until the vessel was freed six days later. Today's Birthdays: Singer Chaka Khan is 72. Basketball Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma is 71. Fashion designer Kenneth Cole is 71. Actor Amanda Plummer is 68. Actor Hope Davis is 61. Musician Damon Albarn is 57. Basketball Hall of Famer Jason Kidd is 52. Actor Randall Park is 51. Actor Michelle Monaghan is 49. Actor Keri Russell is 49. Country singer Brett Young is 44.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
On This Day, March 23: Obama signs Affordable Care Act into law
March 23 (UPI) -- On this date in history: In 1775, in a speech supporting the arming of the Virginia militia, Patrick Henry declared, "Give me liberty or give me death." In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt began his post-presidency, embarking on the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition, part specimen collection, part hunting trip. In 1933, the Enabling Act was passed by the German government, giving Chancellor Adolf Hitler the ability to enact laws unilaterally. Opening a session of the Reichstag, Hitler threatened to "destroy all those seeking to damage our people," while at the same time stressing "we are sincere friends of peace and shall heal the wounds from which all are suffering." In 1965, astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young were launched in Gemini 3, the first U.S. two-man crew in space. Along for the ride, a corned beef sandwich snuck aboard the Gemini 3 probe by astronaut John Young. In 1966, Pope Paul VI met Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, the first meeting between the heads of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in 400 years. In 1983, the world's first recipient of a permanent artificial heart, Barney Clark of Seattle, died in a Salt Lake City hospital. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan called for the development of an anti-missile defense system to protect the United States from potential nuclear attacks. The Strategic Defense Initiative was dubbed "Star Wars" by some. In 1985, the United States completed the secret air evacuation of 800 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. In 1994, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party was fatally shot during a campaign appearance in Tijuana. In 1996, Taiwan elected Lee Teng-hui in the island's first direct presidential election. In 1998, Titanic won 11 Academy Awards, tying the record total won by Ben-Hur in 1959. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King also won 11 -- in 2004. In 2001, the Russian space station Mir was brought down in the Pacific Ocean near Fiji after more than 15 years in orbit. In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The landmark legislation was designed to extend health insurance to about 32 million Americans over a 10-year period. Obama said it would "set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see." In 2021, the Ever Given, a large container ship, ran aground and became stuck horizontally in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic for six days. In 2023, Canada announced it had a record 1 million increase in population in 2022 as the government's strategy to address labor shortages and an aging population through immigration stepped up a gear.
Boston Globe
23-03-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Today in History: March 23, ‘Titanic' wins record-tying 11 Academy Awards
In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers. Advertisement In 1942, the first Japanese Americans incarcerated by the US Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp at Manzanar, Calif. In 1965, America's first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight orbiting Earth. In 1998, 'Titanic' tied an Academy Awards record by winning 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for James Cameron and Best Original Song for 'My Heart Will Go On.' In 1993, scientists announced they had identified the gene that causes Huntington's disease. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, a $938 billion health care overhaul. In 2021, a cargo ship the size of a skyscraper ran aground and became wedged in the Suez Canal. Hundreds of ships would be prevented from passing through the canal until the vessel was freed six days later.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
America's Enabling Act moment: Congress' coming denouement and the Reichstag test
Nearly one month into Donald Trump's second term, the courts, the Congress, and the American people are facing the denouement of our democracy's power. Each will have to decide to either enforce the Constitution or succumb, as Germany did, to dictatorship. The president has faced several court rulings that question whether his actions and policies are consistent with the Constitution of the United States that he swore to defend and uphold. The question now is, will he be prudent and begin to follow court orders, will Congress act, or must the American people shut the country down? One court has ruled that he defied the Constitution's 14th Amendment that defines citizenship and two other courts – so far – have put on hold his freeze on congressionally-authorized spending, his attempt to usurp the Article 1, power of the purse, rights of Congress. Here we see an ongoing parallel with how Hitler chose to govern, a parallel that must inevitably lead to a denouement in which we will learn whether Trump's America goes the way of continued democracy or the hellish way of Hitler's Germany. Two months after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he, like Trump today, disregarded his country's Constitution. In March of 1933, with the National Socialist Party shy of a majority in the Reichstag, Hitler sought and obtained a two-thirds majority vote in the chamber that passed what we know as the Enabling Act. That act stripped the Reichstag's members of the authority given to them by the voters. The Enabling Act allowed Hitler to override laws passed by the legislature; it allowed him to make laws himself; it allowed him to ignore the Constitution; it allowed him to ban and jail his political opponents. It made Hitler the dictator of Germany. All of this was done with proper procedure and behind the veil of the seemingly best of intentions. Hitler did not unilaterally declare himself dictator. Rather, he and the Nazi Party said that all they wanted was to restore Germany's lost stature and its people's well-being. The National Socialists, put plainly, wanted to make Germany great again. The Enabling Act was known at the time as 'The Act for the Removal of the Distress of the People and the Reich.' The Reich's distress originated in Germany's surrender in World War I and the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The reparation payments imposed by the treaty drove Germany's economy into hyper-inflation and massive unemployment. The German currency became nearly worthless. Employment, standing at about 20 million in 1929, dropped to 11.5 million by the time the Reichstag voted to endorse the act. These were, of course, the very distress of the people that the legislation was purportedly aimed at alleviating. Donald Trump has promised to Make America Great Again and to undo the carnage allegedly created by the Biden administration. That, of course, is his right — if the Congress goes along with his wishes. And Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign to cut deeply into what he deems to be wasteful spending, the politicization of justice, and the biases of the civil service. As well, he promised to rid the country of illegal immigrants and to undo birthright citizenship. Much of his economic agenda and his withdrawal of birthright citizenship, however, are not rights that fall under the sphere of the American president. Indeed, when it comes to citizenship rights and spending decisions the Constitution is clear. Like Hitler, Trump seems to be signaling that he is not terribly concerned with obeying the constraints that the Constitution and Congress impose on him. Like Hitler, he seems committed to purging anyone who has opposed him and to making the law himself. Here is where the lessons of the Enabling Act become crucial. While Hitler sought legislative authorization for his dictatorial rule, so far Trump has not. Whether he subsequently does or does not, the American people and Congress will face hard, fundamental choices. Donald Trump believes, perhaps rightly, that Congress has authorized enormous amounts of wasteful spending. Those expenditures, he contends, impose an enormous burden on the American people, creating national distress. But, as courts have now held, it is at best questionable whether the president can undo the appropriations passed by Congress, contravening the power given Congress under the Constitution. Hitler followed the German Constitutional procedure to eliminate the authority of the Reichstag. Will Trump attempt to do the same? Will the Congress go along if he does? The House and the Senate, both with small Republican majorities, may soon be compelled to face the choice that the Reichstag faced in March 1933. When the courts rule against Donald Trump's efforts to strip away those sections of the Constitution that he doesn't like, such as the 14th Amendment's language on birthright citizenship, then President Trump will have to make a momentous decision. Does he prefer the rule of law over his own desires, or is he prepared to put his own preferences ahead of a ruling by the Supreme Court against his effort to eliminate birthright citizenship or his effort to grant to himself legislative and appropriations authority as Hitler did through the Enabling Act? If he follows the law, as his oath and prudence indicate he must, then democracy survives. If, instead, he ignores the Supreme Court, then it is up to the Republican members of Congress to determine whether they are in their jobs to fulfill their oath of office or they are just there to draw a paycheck while the President usurps their function and, as happened to the Reichstag in 1933, denudes them of any say over how their own constituents are governed. If Trump chooses to ignore the court rulings, then Congress must remove Donald Trump from office or hide behind the pretense that their actions are merely intended to remove the distress of the people and the regime. The heinous results of the Reichtag's choice are all too clear. They could have chosen otherwise. Hitler needed the support of the divided Catholic Center Party and bought it with side-deals. Trump is a deal maker and that is certainly politics as usual. But such side-deals stop being normal when they result in the legislative branch agreeing to become decoration, as the Reichstag did. Well-entrenched democracies—for example, most recently the Republic of Korea—have withstood pressures to undo democracy. Democracy rewards average people so much better than any other form of government that if Trump is not prudent, he should anticipate being deposed by Congress or by mass protest, perhaps even extending to shutting down the economy. Wanting nothing more than to be a winner, we should expect that he will submit to the courts, the Congress, and, if necessary, the people. Then democracy is preserved. If he does not, we should expect that he will lose his office, his power, his dignity, and his legacy. If we come to an American Enabling Act moment, the Republicans in Congress should be expected to put democracy and their oaths to the Constitution ahead of any momentary side-deal that profits them politically while destroying the United States and their own political future in the process.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The battle for Utah's public lands
Environmentalists, legal experts and lawmakers have staked out varying opinions on Utah's controversial federal lands case, which the U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to take up. Utah has the second-most federally owned land in the country, with 64.9% within its boundaries. In its bill of complaint, Utah said the land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management was making the federal government money, and they weren't sharing it. The state argued that as many as 18.5 million acres of federally-owned land weren't being used validly and should be given to the state to manage. Though the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the future of Utah's federal lands and who manages it is still very much up for debate. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and Speaker of the House Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, announced they will continue their efforts to control Utah's 'unappropriated' lands and likely file the suit in federal district court. Steve Bloch, the legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, told the Deseret News he's taking the state leaders' statement at face value. A legal thorn in the state's side, Bloch filed a response lawsuit last December. Filed against Cox and former Attorney General Sean Reyes, the lawsuit accuses Utah's state leaders of violating Article Three of the Utah Constitution, which states that the people of Utah will 'forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands within (its) boundaries' in favor of the U.S. government. He said SUWA is moving forward with its case so that the courts can clarify and 'ultimately issue a decision making clear that the language in the (Utah) Enabling Act and the Constitution means what it says' regarding management of public lands. However, some call for government intervention via legislative power. During an episode of the Sutherland Institute's 'Defending Ideas' podcast, Sutherland Constitutional Law & Religious Freedom Fellow Bill Duncan said Congress should take the next step regarding federal land management. 'Congress should step forward and say it's not reasonable for the federal government to continue to manage so much land in the Western states' and that management should be given to the states via their elected representatives. 'They can make changes to existing law, they can create new laws that clarify exactly what executive branch agencies can and can't do in terms of managing land,' he said, 'or they can require that the federal government dispose of that land, meaning allow states to use it as state public land' or other purposes. Duncan said that some of the nearly 65% of managed land is used appropriately (such as for military bases or national parks) but agreed with the state that much of it is not used for a federal purpose. It's an important argument, he said, 'because the people who live close to that land, who benefit from it, (and) who could be affected by decisions about how it's controlled, clearly would like more say in how it's being used and managed through their representatives who are close to them. State and local officials.' Approximately 93% of Garfield County in southern Utah is managed by the federal government. County Commissioner Leland Pollock expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court declined to hear the state's case, noting that the county's economy depends heavily on the land's natural resources for industries such as mining, logging and grazing. He told the Deseret News that his entire county has a year-round population of around 5,300 because less than 10% of the land is available for private use and jobs are scarce. 'The reason it would have been good for my county if this would have gone forward is because, eventually, the state would have had some kind of jurisdiction of the management, and all of those jobs we have lost through the years would have come back,' he said, explaining that jobs have gradually decreased since former President Bill Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — that spans 1.7 million acres — under the Antiquities Act in 1996. Opponents of the state's lawsuit argue that transferring control to the states would deny all Americans the right they currently have to access and enjoy lands that are federally owned. A recent HarrisX poll for Desert News of 1,512 registered voters in seven western states (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) found that people are generally pretty evenly split on whether the federal government owns too much land or just enough. Utah had the most significant difference: 67% believe the U.S. owns too much, compared to 30% who are content with the amount managed. Deeda Seed, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Deseret News that although the BLM has historically favored using federal land for industry purposes, 'they've started to incorporate conservation of land as a resource and recognizing that conserved land has inherent value, especially as our population grows and pressure to develop every last inch increases.' The state's marketing campaign, Stand For Our Land, has been showcased across billboards and shared online to show Utahns how little of the state is actually private versus public land. According to the website, 'the state wants to see public lands remain in public hands and available to all Utahns and visitors of all ages and abilities to be managed for multiple uses for current and future generations.' When Westerners were asked what state's should be allowed to do with public lands, the poll showed they were most likely to support states setting their own tax policies and regulations for the land. They also liked the idea of Utah's lawsuit setting a precedent for federally-owned land. But Westerners were split 50-50 on whether states should be allowed to 'develop, lease, or sell land' turned over to them. Bloch said that if the state of Utah gained control of federal land, it would not become the recipient of it. 'Why would we think that Utah would be the one that would be the recipient of those lands at the end of the day, as opposed to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or any other billionaire/millionaire,' he said. The state has been 'spending so much time talking about how state government would like to be the land manager for those lands, but that's not the result that they're asking for. ... So when they talk about how the state would be a good steward of the land, the state won't be the one who ends up holding these vast tracts of federal land if they're ever successful in their litigation.' From the perspective of a concerned Utahn, Seed views the lawsuit as a 'pointless battle' and a misuse of taxpayer dollars that is causing confusion amongst residents: 'People should be asking themselves, 'why there's such a furor over this?' Because, actually, public lands in Utah are managed fairly well.' 'Obviously, there are lots of things that everyone could do better, but this isn't the problem that the state makes it out to be,' she said, adding that she believes the only reason the state considers federal land management an issue is because they want the power to dispose of these lands themselves. Ultimately, Seed said it's a tactic to take land that belongs to all of us and put it under the control of the Utah Legislature. Here are three federal land-related bills to track in this year's Utah legislative session: SB61, 'Energy Corridor Amendments' (Sen. Derrin R. Owens, R-Fountain Green): This bill strengthens property owner protections during eminent domain actions, promotes the use of federal lands for utility projects where feasible and increases accountability through mandatory reporting and federal coordination. SB158, 'Sale or Lease of Federally Managed Public Land Amendments' (Sen. Keven J. Stratton, R-Orem): Aims to streamline the process for state and local entities seeking to acquire federally managed public land and improve oversight of these activities. SB236, 'State Parks Amendments' (Sen. Kathleen A. Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights): Seeks to formally establish Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons as state parks, provide mechanisms for land management, and ensure the parks' financial self-sufficiency.
