Portside

It’s Your Birthday Medicaid, Chin Up!

JULY 30 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of President Lyndon Johnson signing the bill that created both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The anniversary is of special note this year because after nearly six decades of steady expansion of both programs, Medicaid began to shrink in 2024 for the first time ever as a result of the end of the emergency caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. 

The contraction of Medicaid that began in 2024 will continue for the next decade if the law is not amended. The cuts in Medicaid will have the spillover effect of causing the Medicare program to shrink for the first time since it began in 1966. The continuing shrinkage of both programs will be a result of the restrictions placed on them by the Trump administration’s omnibus domestic spending bill, which was enacted on July 4.

Right now, 26 million people in the U.S. have no health insurance. A decade from now, unless something changes, that number will have risen to 38 million. Nice job, MAGA! https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/articles/news/commentary/what-do-cuts-to-medicaid-really-mean

In the photo, former President Harry Truman grins during the signing ceremony for the Medicare/Medicaid bill, which was a program that Truman had first proposed two decades previously.

A Night at the Opera in the Infield

AUGUST 1 IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of New York City’s very first free outdoor opera performance, which took place in front of some 25,000 spectators at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn. The performance of Verdi’s Aida, with a cast of 400 singers, an 125-piece orchestra, plus elephants, camels, and 60 horses, was broadcast live by the city’s municipal radio station, WNYC, which was just a year old. https://www.wnyc.org/story/christie-bohnsack-wnycs-first-director/

Who Won the Civil War, Anyway?

AUGUST 2 IS THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY of the 1900 North Carolina election that amended the state’s Constitution to make it almost impossible for any African-American to cast a vote in any election. For the next 65 years, Blacks in North Carolina lacked the right to vote. https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/aug/02

Candidate Reagan Shows His True Colors

AUGUST 3 IS THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY of presidential candidate Ronald Reagan’s first speech after he was nominated by the Republican Party two weeks earlier.

For his maiden speech as the Republican nominee, Reagan’s choice of  language and a location that made crystal clear his intention to win the support, and the votes, of "George Wallace-inclined voters." White-supremacists that is.

To kick off his campaign, Reagan chose to speak to a nearly all-white crowd at the Neshoba County Fair just outside Philadelphia, Miss.

While he spoke, he was within walking distance of the location of the infamous 1964 murders of three civil rights workers -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner -- by the Ku Klux Klan. 

In his speech Reagan didn't refer to the murders or the Klan, but he did say "I believe in states’ rights. … And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment. …" 

The message was loud and clear.  Visit the Zinn Education Project site at https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/reagan-speech-at-neshoba/ for much more.

Robert Purvis, Fighter for Justice

AUGUST 4 IS THE 215TH ANNIVERSARY of the birth of the militant abolitionist Robert Purvis in Charleston, South Carolina. Purvis was the son of William Purvis and Harriet Judah. His father was a wealthy white cotton merchant and his mother a free Black woman. The couple would have been married to except that the racist laws of South Carolina made interracial marriage a crime.

Purvis’s father moved the whole family, which included Robert’s two mixed-race brothers, to Philadelphia in 1819, where the family would be able to live at least somewhat less stressfully. Robert and his brothers all attended the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society's Clarkson School, after which Robert studied at the Amherst Academy secondary school in Massachusetts.

When Robert was 16, his father died, leaving each of his sons a small fortune.  Robert devoted the rest of his life to promoting the abolition of slavery, to the work of the Underground Railroad, to the civil rights of all citizens and to the political rights of women. https://www.socialstudies.org/social-education/86/6/one-his-choicest-treasures-robert-purvis-and-meaning-equality

Zenger’s Jury Knew Right from Wrong

AUGUST 5 IS THE 290TH ANNIVERSARY of a stunning and unexpected victory for freedom of the press, when a jury acquitted printer and publisher John Peter Zenger of libel against the governor of the New York colony.

Zenger’s legal victory is particularly memorable because it was the result of a clear case of jury nullification. According to the law at the time, a person committed libel by printing information that was “scandalous, virulent, or seditious.” As far as the law was concerned, the truth or falsity of the information was irrelevant.

If Zenger were to be found guilty of seditious libel, he stood to lose a lot. His penalty – a fine, imprisonment, or both – was entirely up to the discretion of the judge, whose prejudice against Zenger was manifest. 

Zenger’s lawyer, knowing that Zenger’s defense – that his criticism of the governor was accurate – was hopeless as a purely legal matter, focussed all of his attention on the jury, showing in great detail how everything Zenger had printed about the governor was true, and that Zenger did not deserve to be punished for printing the truth, no matter what the law said.

After 10 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty. Zenger walked out of the courtroom a free man. 

Despite the outcome of Zenger’s case, the law in New York colony remained unchanged.  It was not until 1821 that New York State adopted a constitutional provision that truth was, indeed, a defense against a libel charge. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/criminal-libel/

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