Friday, August 27, 2010
Nazism.
"The Nazis killed an estimated one million children in the chambers of concentration camps." Juvenile Court Judge Aaron Cohn.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
It is after 1984, and War is Peace.
President Obama is claiming an end to the war in Iraq. His end will mean 50,000 troops remaining and at least that many private troops, mercenaries. While the troops are no longer engaged in "combat" they will be "fighting terrorism." And, there is more and more talk of U.S. troops remaining much longer. As you can see the end of the war seems to mean the continuation of it.
The peace movement is coming together to point out the incomplete truth of the end of the Iraq War. The U.S. media is reporting on the claims by the White House without any criticism or commentary that it is not really an end to the war, but the continuation of it under new rhetoric.
You can see a list of events occurring around the country on the website of our colleagues at CODE PINK. Please let us know if you are planning a local event so it can be added to the list. And, if you can participate in any of the events listed, please do so. It is important for the peace movement to get out the word - the Iraq War is not ending, more than 100,000 U.S. troops and mercenaries are still in Iraq, still fighting the war.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Stepp.
The peace movement is coming together to point out the incomplete truth of the end of the Iraq War. The U.S. media is reporting on the claims by the White House without any criticism or commentary that it is not really an end to the war, but the continuation of it under new rhetoric.
You can see a list of events occurring around the country on the website of our colleagues at CODE PINK. Please let us know if you are planning a local event so it can be added to the list. And, if you can participate in any of the events listed, please do so. It is important for the peace movement to get out the word - the Iraq War is not ending, more than 100,000 U.S. troops and mercenaries are still in Iraq, still fighting the war.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Stepp.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Ron Paul speaks on military reduction!
Jim Holbert says "Bring them Home!" Elect Jim Holbert to U.S. House KY-05!
Time to cut military spending.
"Lucia Graves lucia.graves@gmail.com | HuffPost Reporting Become a Fan
Barney Frank, Ron Paul Call For Cuts In Military Spending
First Posted: 08-17-10 04:34 PM | Updated: 08-17-10 04:34 PM
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) are urging lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to push the President's Commission on Deficit Reduction for cuts in military spending, as they seek signatories to a letter circulated Tuesday.
The effort comes just a few months after Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, appointed his own bipartisan commission to look at ways to reduce America's bloated military budget.
The commission released a report in June, outlining how to cut $1 trillion in defense budget and reduce the deficit over the next decade, without compromising national security.
The "most important part of the report," Frank said in a statement Tuesday "is that we cannot achieve the necessary spending reductions simply by becoming more efficient in what we do, although that is obviously essential. It is imperative that we also reduce the overreach of America's military involvement in parts of the world where we have no legitimate security interest and in fact often do more harm than good because of the political reaction to our intervention in difficult situations. We do not honor the brave men and women of our armed forces when civilian officials insert them into situations where their presence in not appropriate."
The Department of Defense currently takes up 56 percent of all discretionary federal spending, and lawmakers say it accounts for nearly 65 percent of the increase in annual discretionary spending levels since 2001.
In the letter, Frank and Paul emphasize that they are not urging for reductions "that in any way cut resources and supplies necessary to protect American troops in the field" and that they "are opposed to cuts in services and increased fees for our veterans and military retirees." Rather they support reducing the number of overseas bases, especially in the wealthy nations of Western Europe and Japan.
A spokesman for Frank says the letter currently has fewer than 10 cosigners, and though the Commission on Deficit Reduction has paid some lip service to the idea, there's no clear indication that the requisite 14 of the group's 18 members will agree on anything regarding defense cuts."
Jim Holbert says let's bring troops home. Vote for Jim Holbert KY-05!
Barney Frank, Ron Paul Call For Cuts In Military Spending
First Posted: 08-17-10 04:34 PM | Updated: 08-17-10 04:34 PM
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) are urging lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to push the President's Commission on Deficit Reduction for cuts in military spending, as they seek signatories to a letter circulated Tuesday.
The effort comes just a few months after Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, appointed his own bipartisan commission to look at ways to reduce America's bloated military budget.
The commission released a report in June, outlining how to cut $1 trillion in defense budget and reduce the deficit over the next decade, without compromising national security.
The "most important part of the report," Frank said in a statement Tuesday "is that we cannot achieve the necessary spending reductions simply by becoming more efficient in what we do, although that is obviously essential. It is imperative that we also reduce the overreach of America's military involvement in parts of the world where we have no legitimate security interest and in fact often do more harm than good because of the political reaction to our intervention in difficult situations. We do not honor the brave men and women of our armed forces when civilian officials insert them into situations where their presence in not appropriate."
The Department of Defense currently takes up 56 percent of all discretionary federal spending, and lawmakers say it accounts for nearly 65 percent of the increase in annual discretionary spending levels since 2001.
In the letter, Frank and Paul emphasize that they are not urging for reductions "that in any way cut resources and supplies necessary to protect American troops in the field" and that they "are opposed to cuts in services and increased fees for our veterans and military retirees." Rather they support reducing the number of overseas bases, especially in the wealthy nations of Western Europe and Japan.
A spokesman for Frank says the letter currently has fewer than 10 cosigners, and though the Commission on Deficit Reduction has paid some lip service to the idea, there's no clear indication that the requisite 14 of the group's 18 members will agree on anything regarding defense cuts."
Jim Holbert says let's bring troops home. Vote for Jim Holbert KY-05!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Dred Scott Decision!
Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision
"There are two leading questions presented by the record:
1) Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And
2) If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?
...
The plaintiff [Dred Scott]... was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant [Sanford], in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for [Missouri], to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.
The declaration is . . . that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that... he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.
...
The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....
The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.
...
The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded....
...
It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted....
... [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.
It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted....
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery. . . . He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.
And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.
The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the
time.
The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact....
The province of Maryland, in 1717, passed a law declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes bom of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants
for seven years. . . ."
The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705. It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue," &c.; and it provides, that "if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped......
... [T]hese laws ... show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.
We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted ... in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.
The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally Conclusive: ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appeared, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements -- high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separate from white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.
This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language....
...
[There] are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.
One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808.... And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the fight of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories.... And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.
No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other part of the Union.
...
It would be impossible to enumerate ... the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in ... his Commentaries ... that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.
The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, . . . and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; ... and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.
It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them....
To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given....
The first of these acts is the naturalization law ... [of] March 26, 1790, [which] confines the right of becoming citizens "to aliens being free white persons." . . .
Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant.... It directs that every "free able-bodied white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word citizen to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.
The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809) and it provides: "That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States."
Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States....
The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he was the Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens of the United States....
No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty....
...
And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous....
... [I]t appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.
It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.
We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.
...
But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the Sate of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.
Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham [1850]. In that case, the slave had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and aftewards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were bourght back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgement of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had no jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.
So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....
Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no juisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequestly, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Copyright © 3/97 by Bedford/ St. Martin's Press, Inc.
From: Dred Scott v. Sanford
By: Finkelman"
Reproduced by permission of St. Martin's Press"
Let's elect more Democrats. Let's keep the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment over-ruled the Dred Scott Decision. The Dred Scott Decision is what the Dred Scott Republicans want to bring back into the law by repealing the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees U.S. citizenship for all persons born on the U.S.A. America! Free Forever!
"There are two leading questions presented by the record:
1) Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And
2) If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?
...
The plaintiff [Dred Scott]... was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant [Sanford], in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for [Missouri], to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.
The declaration is . . . that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that... he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.
...
The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....
The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.
...
The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded....
...
It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted....
... [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.
It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted....
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery. . . . He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.
And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.
The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the
time.
The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact....
The province of Maryland, in 1717, passed a law declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes bom of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants
for seven years. . . ."
The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705. It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue," &c.; and it provides, that "if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped......
... [T]hese laws ... show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.
We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted ... in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.
The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally Conclusive: ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appeared, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements -- high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separate from white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.
This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language....
...
[There] are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.
One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808.... And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the fight of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories.... And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.
No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other part of the Union.
...
It would be impossible to enumerate ... the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in ... his Commentaries ... that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.
The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, . . . and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; ... and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.
It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them....
To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given....
The first of these acts is the naturalization law ... [of] March 26, 1790, [which] confines the right of becoming citizens "to aliens being free white persons." . . .
Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant.... It directs that every "free able-bodied white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word citizen to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.
The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809) and it provides: "That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States."
Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States....
The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he was the Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens of the United States....
No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty....
...
And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous....
... [I]t appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.
It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.
We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.
...
But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the Sate of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.
Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham [1850]. In that case, the slave had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and aftewards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were bourght back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgement of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had no jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.
So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....
Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no juisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequestly, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Copyright © 3/97 by Bedford/ St. Martin's Press, Inc.
From: Dred Scott v. Sanford
By: Finkelman"
Reproduced by permission of St. Martin's Press"
Let's elect more Democrats. Let's keep the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment over-ruled the Dred Scott Decision. The Dred Scott Decision is what the Dred Scott Republicans want to bring back into the law by repealing the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees U.S. citizenship for all persons born on the U.S.A. America! Free Forever!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Bailout Money Went Overseas!
"TARP Billions Shipped Overseas Can't Halt Global Slowdown
Thursday, 12 Aug 2010 02:04 PM Article Font Size
By: David A. Patten
Economists and conservatives reacted sharply Thursday to reports that tens of billions in TARP bailout money flowed out of the United States and into the coffers of big banks in France, Germany, and other nations during the government rescue of the U.S. financial system.
That news came as the U.S. economic picture continued to worsen, with rising unemployment claims and a surge in U.S. homes lost to foreclosure.
CATO Institute budget analyst Tad DeHaven tells Newsmax: “The economy has become increasingly global, so it’s not shocking that TARP bailout money ended up at foreign financial institutions. Nonetheless, bailing out U.S. financial firms was bad enough — that foreign institutions also benefitted from the largesse just adds insult to injury.”
J.D. Foster, senior economics fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said: "The overwhelming force slowing the economy down now is a lack of confidence among American businesses and consumers. The primary reason for that lack of confidence is the policies out of Washington seem completely out of touch with that reality."
That reaction follows Thursday's report from the Congressional Oversight Panel report that, when the United States injected hundreds of billions of TARP money to stabilize the U.S. financial system in September 2008, it also bailed out more than 40 major institutions based overseas that had invested in collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities.
"There were no data about where this money was going," Elizabeth Warren, head of the panel investigating the bank bailout, explained in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The American people have a right to know where the money went."
The TARP money flowed to overseas banks largely because of their investment in AIG, which received about $182 billion in federal bailout funds. Roughly half of the 87 banks and investment firms who would have lost billions without the AIG bailout were headquartered overseas, the Oversight Panel reports.
The major foreign beneficiaries included the French bank Societe Generale ($11.9 billion in AIG money), the French bank BNP Paribas ($4.9 billion in AIG funds), and Germany's Deutsche Bank ($11.8 billion), according to The Associated Press. Banks in Canada, Switzerland, and Britain cashed in on the AIG rescue as well.
Many economists credit TARP with staving off a worse financial crisis. But TARP, and the subsequent $862 billion stimulus, also failed to lift the economy out of chronic, massive joblessness and spiraling federal debt.
"TARP was a waste of money and should never have been implemented," Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Employment Policy for the Hudson Institute, tells Newsmax. "Rather, the funds should have been spent on tax cuts to stimulate the economy."
The news that foreign as well as U.S. firms were bailed out by TARP, a program already unpopular with voters, is expected to add intensity to the recent Republican mantra of House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner and RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who continue to demand, "Where are the jobs?"
The Oversight Panel offered the veiled criticism that U.S. leaders should have asked the countries whose banks received the most benefit from TARP to share in its cost.
One criticism of the global bailout is that the United States contributed more, via is action to salvage AIG and other institutions, than foreign governments spent on their entire bailout plans. France spent $35 billion on its financial rescue plan, for example. Germany spent $133 billion. The Oversight Report states the TARP bailout probably helped overseas banks more than their own nations' financial rescue packages did.
Reports on the economy issued Thursday, meanwhile, indicate the nation's economic problems continue to worsen.
The RealtyTrac organization reported that July marked the 17th consecutive month when foreclosure activity exceeded 300,000 homes. The company reported "near-record levels of bank repossessions," which have increased for eight months in a row.
One a brighter note, total foreclosure filings dropped down 9.7 percent compared to July 2009. That marks the second straight month of year-to-year declines.
Adding to the overall sense of economic malaise, the Labor Department released weekly jobless numbers that show an uptick in first-time claims for unemployment benefits, which reached 484,000 last week. That's a seasonally adjusted increase of 2,000 from the week before. Those claims have increased three of the past four weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial average reacted to the economic news by dropping over 70 points before rebounding.
Thursday's economic news also indicates the global economy now appears to be softening, making it unlikely that economic growth in China or India can stimulate business in America.
Derek Scissors, the Heritage Foundation's international economic analyst, tells Newsmax that the notion that strong economic growth overseas, in China for example, could be relied upon to boost the U.S. economy was always suspect and based on "misinformation."
"China's economy is slowing," Scissors confirms. "We continue to be an engine for the world economy, and China continues to benefit from that. It doesn't work the other way, and it's not going to work the other way this year, or next year, or for the foreseeable future."
Adds Scissors: "All of this is very easy to anticipate. You have this massive government stimulus, and it automatically works for a while because they're injecting money into the country, then it doesn't work as well. That happened in the U.S. and it happened in China and it happened everywhere where government stimulus was relied upon as the savior. When you spend a lot of money the first year it has an effect, then the next year it doesn't have that much of an effect. And that's what we're seeing now."
It's time to replace some Republican incumbents with some Democrats! Upset? Vote Holbert For Congress KY-05!
Thursday, 12 Aug 2010 02:04 PM Article Font Size
By: David A. Patten
Economists and conservatives reacted sharply Thursday to reports that tens of billions in TARP bailout money flowed out of the United States and into the coffers of big banks in France, Germany, and other nations during the government rescue of the U.S. financial system.
That news came as the U.S. economic picture continued to worsen, with rising unemployment claims and a surge in U.S. homes lost to foreclosure.
CATO Institute budget analyst Tad DeHaven tells Newsmax: “The economy has become increasingly global, so it’s not shocking that TARP bailout money ended up at foreign financial institutions. Nonetheless, bailing out U.S. financial firms was bad enough — that foreign institutions also benefitted from the largesse just adds insult to injury.”
J.D. Foster, senior economics fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said: "The overwhelming force slowing the economy down now is a lack of confidence among American businesses and consumers. The primary reason for that lack of confidence is the policies out of Washington seem completely out of touch with that reality."
That reaction follows Thursday's report from the Congressional Oversight Panel report that, when the United States injected hundreds of billions of TARP money to stabilize the U.S. financial system in September 2008, it also bailed out more than 40 major institutions based overseas that had invested in collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities.
"There were no data about where this money was going," Elizabeth Warren, head of the panel investigating the bank bailout, explained in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The American people have a right to know where the money went."
The TARP money flowed to overseas banks largely because of their investment in AIG, which received about $182 billion in federal bailout funds. Roughly half of the 87 banks and investment firms who would have lost billions without the AIG bailout were headquartered overseas, the Oversight Panel reports.
The major foreign beneficiaries included the French bank Societe Generale ($11.9 billion in AIG money), the French bank BNP Paribas ($4.9 billion in AIG funds), and Germany's Deutsche Bank ($11.8 billion), according to The Associated Press. Banks in Canada, Switzerland, and Britain cashed in on the AIG rescue as well.
Many economists credit TARP with staving off a worse financial crisis. But TARP, and the subsequent $862 billion stimulus, also failed to lift the economy out of chronic, massive joblessness and spiraling federal debt.
"TARP was a waste of money and should never have been implemented," Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Employment Policy for the Hudson Institute, tells Newsmax. "Rather, the funds should have been spent on tax cuts to stimulate the economy."
The news that foreign as well as U.S. firms were bailed out by TARP, a program already unpopular with voters, is expected to add intensity to the recent Republican mantra of House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner and RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who continue to demand, "Where are the jobs?"
The Oversight Panel offered the veiled criticism that U.S. leaders should have asked the countries whose banks received the most benefit from TARP to share in its cost.
One criticism of the global bailout is that the United States contributed more, via is action to salvage AIG and other institutions, than foreign governments spent on their entire bailout plans. France spent $35 billion on its financial rescue plan, for example. Germany spent $133 billion. The Oversight Report states the TARP bailout probably helped overseas banks more than their own nations' financial rescue packages did.
Reports on the economy issued Thursday, meanwhile, indicate the nation's economic problems continue to worsen.
The RealtyTrac organization reported that July marked the 17th consecutive month when foreclosure activity exceeded 300,000 homes. The company reported "near-record levels of bank repossessions," which have increased for eight months in a row.
One a brighter note, total foreclosure filings dropped down 9.7 percent compared to July 2009. That marks the second straight month of year-to-year declines.
Adding to the overall sense of economic malaise, the Labor Department released weekly jobless numbers that show an uptick in first-time claims for unemployment benefits, which reached 484,000 last week. That's a seasonally adjusted increase of 2,000 from the week before. Those claims have increased three of the past four weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial average reacted to the economic news by dropping over 70 points before rebounding.
Thursday's economic news also indicates the global economy now appears to be softening, making it unlikely that economic growth in China or India can stimulate business in America.
Derek Scissors, the Heritage Foundation's international economic analyst, tells Newsmax that the notion that strong economic growth overseas, in China for example, could be relied upon to boost the U.S. economy was always suspect and based on "misinformation."
"China's economy is slowing," Scissors confirms. "We continue to be an engine for the world economy, and China continues to benefit from that. It doesn't work the other way, and it's not going to work the other way this year, or next year, or for the foreseeable future."
Adds Scissors: "All of this is very easy to anticipate. You have this massive government stimulus, and it automatically works for a while because they're injecting money into the country, then it doesn't work as well. That happened in the U.S. and it happened in China and it happened everywhere where government stimulus was relied upon as the savior. When you spend a lot of money the first year it has an effect, then the next year it doesn't have that much of an effect. And that's what we're seeing now."
It's time to replace some Republican incumbents with some Democrats! Upset? Vote Holbert For Congress KY-05!
Phone Hal Rogers now!
Shawn Amoei.Foreign policy writer
Posted: August 12, 2010
"Neocon War Plans Undermine Iranians' Quest for Democracy
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The "Bomb Iran" crowd, fresh off their historic blunder in Iraq, is now at it again with Iran. As if the daily drumbeat of articles and op-eds advocating war with Iran was not enough, Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a truly dangerous resolution -- explicitly green-lighting the use of force by Israel against Iran.
Any military strike -- whether by the United States or Israel -- is likely to pull the United States into a regional war and cause mass civilian casualties. Such an attack would truly be "calamitous" -- to use the same description as the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen.
One could use the same word to describe what effect an attack would have on Iran's struggle for democracy. If war breaks out with Iran, Iranians across the political spectrum would rally behind the government, and the emboldened government would be free to unleash the full potential of its terror to ruthlessly seek out and decimate the Green Movement -- America's best hope for a peaceful and democratic partner in Iran.
The recent influx of articles arguing for an Israeli or American-led attack downplays the unintended consequences such a strike would have inside Iran. Proponents of war argue that it would create outrage amongst Iranians against the government who brought the attack upon them, and would even potentially cause Iranians to overthrow their regime. To believe this is to seriously misunderstand nationalism, the Iranian people, and Iranian history.
The constant in Iran's century long quest for democracy has been progress in times of peace and steps back in times of siege. From the time of the Tobacco Revolt in 1891 onward, attempts at democracy have been repeatedly frustrated by acts or threats of foreign intervention.
In the wake of last June's disputed elections in Iran, members of Congress such as Mike Pence, Dan Burton and Kay Granger all sponsored resolutions expressing support for the Iranian people, their human rights, and democratic aspirations. Yet all of them are also sponsors of Gohmert's resolution encouraging an attack on Iran--an attack that would have the exact opposite effect of what they claim to support. This is the height of hypocrisy.
Nine days after the 9/11 attacks, neoconservatives Reuel Marc Gerecht and William Kristol sent a letter to President Bush urging war with Saddam "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack." It is Déjà vu all over again as Kristol and the crowd over at the Weekly Standard now scream for an even more foolish assault on Iran. Kristol recently berated President Obama for purportedly failing to support Iranian protestors last summer. One cannot claim to support the Iranian people while simultaneously working tirelessly to promote war with Iran. Kristol seems to want to have it both ways.
Reuel March Gerecht on the other hand is just wrong. Gerecht doesn't even pretend to care about the Iranian people, and in his recent 11-page war opus in the Weekly Standard pushes for a war scenario in Iran that he says should "rock the system." Gerecht argues that now is the best time to attack Iran and that an attack would help the Green Movement thrive. But such reckless disregard for Iran's history and internal dynamics is to be expected from someone who claims "Iranians have terrorism in their DNA."
Many Iranians strongly dislike or even despise their government, but Iranians have historically rallied around unpopular governments when faced with an external threat. Eight years of war with Iraq strengthened the nascent Islamic revolution by mobilizing people against Iraq and giving Iran's most ruthless leaders the cover necessary to purge political opponents. While we witness and read seemingly endless reports of human rights abuses being committed on a daily basis in Iran, it is worth remembering that Iran executed as many as thirty-thousand political prisoners under the cover of the Iran-Iraq war.
More recent history proves the same. Iranians took to the streets in 1999 in student protests that posed the most serious challenge to the Islamic system since the 1979 revolution. This occurred at a time when moderates ruled both in Iran and the United States, and tensions with the West were at an all-time low. Under the Bush administration, however, Iranians fearful of an attack were forced to scale back their criticisms and attempts at political liberalization.
In the words of the prominent Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji, "Since Iranians, in particular opposition groups, do not want to see a repeat of Afghanistan or Iraq in Iranthey've actually had to scale back their opposition to the government in order not to encourage an invasion [by the U.S.]"
It was not until 2009 that Iranians were again given the same political space. The Obama administration's less-threatening language toward Iran allowed reform-minded Iranians to challenge the status quo without being labeled enablers of the enemy. "Obama offered a dialogue with Iran and this change in discourse immediately gave rise to that outpouring of sentiment against the Islamic Republic last year," Ganji said.
In short, a war against Iran would be the external influence needed by the regime to extend its shelf life. It will decimate the Green Movement by giving hardliners an excuse to crack down on dissent and ruin any hope for liberalism and democracy for the foreseeable future.
In the words of one Iranian merchant in Tehran's Grand Bazaar who participated in the recent strikes against the Iranian government's proposed tax hikes, "We are a people with a strong sense of national awareness. We have serious disagreements with the government, but if there's war everyone will fight."
Bombing Iran would do nothing short of destroy Iran's chances for democracy. Neoconservatives who argue an attack on Iran would do wonders for the Green Movement are pushing an idea that is not just wrong, but dangerous. The same individuals told us once before that we would be greeted as liberators. We would be wise not to let them fool us twice.
Phone Hal Rogers today and ask him to prevent us from bombing Iran!
Posted: August 12, 2010
"Neocon War Plans Undermine Iranians' Quest for Democracy
What's Your Reaction:diggfacebook Twitter
The "Bomb Iran" crowd, fresh off their historic blunder in Iraq, is now at it again with Iran. As if the daily drumbeat of articles and op-eds advocating war with Iran was not enough, Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a truly dangerous resolution -- explicitly green-lighting the use of force by Israel against Iran.
Any military strike -- whether by the United States or Israel -- is likely to pull the United States into a regional war and cause mass civilian casualties. Such an attack would truly be "calamitous" -- to use the same description as the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen.
One could use the same word to describe what effect an attack would have on Iran's struggle for democracy. If war breaks out with Iran, Iranians across the political spectrum would rally behind the government, and the emboldened government would be free to unleash the full potential of its terror to ruthlessly seek out and decimate the Green Movement -- America's best hope for a peaceful and democratic partner in Iran.
The recent influx of articles arguing for an Israeli or American-led attack downplays the unintended consequences such a strike would have inside Iran. Proponents of war argue that it would create outrage amongst Iranians against the government who brought the attack upon them, and would even potentially cause Iranians to overthrow their regime. To believe this is to seriously misunderstand nationalism, the Iranian people, and Iranian history.
The constant in Iran's century long quest for democracy has been progress in times of peace and steps back in times of siege. From the time of the Tobacco Revolt in 1891 onward, attempts at democracy have been repeatedly frustrated by acts or threats of foreign intervention.
In the wake of last June's disputed elections in Iran, members of Congress such as Mike Pence, Dan Burton and Kay Granger all sponsored resolutions expressing support for the Iranian people, their human rights, and democratic aspirations. Yet all of them are also sponsors of Gohmert's resolution encouraging an attack on Iran--an attack that would have the exact opposite effect of what they claim to support. This is the height of hypocrisy.
Nine days after the 9/11 attacks, neoconservatives Reuel Marc Gerecht and William Kristol sent a letter to President Bush urging war with Saddam "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack." It is Déjà vu all over again as Kristol and the crowd over at the Weekly Standard now scream for an even more foolish assault on Iran. Kristol recently berated President Obama for purportedly failing to support Iranian protestors last summer. One cannot claim to support the Iranian people while simultaneously working tirelessly to promote war with Iran. Kristol seems to want to have it both ways.
Reuel March Gerecht on the other hand is just wrong. Gerecht doesn't even pretend to care about the Iranian people, and in his recent 11-page war opus in the Weekly Standard pushes for a war scenario in Iran that he says should "rock the system." Gerecht argues that now is the best time to attack Iran and that an attack would help the Green Movement thrive. But such reckless disregard for Iran's history and internal dynamics is to be expected from someone who claims "Iranians have terrorism in their DNA."
Many Iranians strongly dislike or even despise their government, but Iranians have historically rallied around unpopular governments when faced with an external threat. Eight years of war with Iraq strengthened the nascent Islamic revolution by mobilizing people against Iraq and giving Iran's most ruthless leaders the cover necessary to purge political opponents. While we witness and read seemingly endless reports of human rights abuses being committed on a daily basis in Iran, it is worth remembering that Iran executed as many as thirty-thousand political prisoners under the cover of the Iran-Iraq war.
More recent history proves the same. Iranians took to the streets in 1999 in student protests that posed the most serious challenge to the Islamic system since the 1979 revolution. This occurred at a time when moderates ruled both in Iran and the United States, and tensions with the West were at an all-time low. Under the Bush administration, however, Iranians fearful of an attack were forced to scale back their criticisms and attempts at political liberalization.
In the words of the prominent Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji, "Since Iranians, in particular opposition groups, do not want to see a repeat of Afghanistan or Iraq in Iranthey've actually had to scale back their opposition to the government in order not to encourage an invasion [by the U.S.]"
It was not until 2009 that Iranians were again given the same political space. The Obama administration's less-threatening language toward Iran allowed reform-minded Iranians to challenge the status quo without being labeled enablers of the enemy. "Obama offered a dialogue with Iran and this change in discourse immediately gave rise to that outpouring of sentiment against the Islamic Republic last year," Ganji said.
In short, a war against Iran would be the external influence needed by the regime to extend its shelf life. It will decimate the Green Movement by giving hardliners an excuse to crack down on dissent and ruin any hope for liberalism and democracy for the foreseeable future.
In the words of one Iranian merchant in Tehran's Grand Bazaar who participated in the recent strikes against the Iranian government's proposed tax hikes, "We are a people with a strong sense of national awareness. We have serious disagreements with the government, but if there's war everyone will fight."
Bombing Iran would do nothing short of destroy Iran's chances for democracy. Neoconservatives who argue an attack on Iran would do wonders for the Green Movement are pushing an idea that is not just wrong, but dangerous. The same individuals told us once before that we would be greeted as liberators. We would be wise not to let them fool us twice.
Phone Hal Rogers today and ask him to prevent us from bombing Iran!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Weght Loss and Weight Gain!
"Understanding the Physics of Weight Loss
Dr. David Katz
I recently addressed the reason why weight loss drugs have historically fared quite badly, and in my view are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. Weight gain is normal when calories in exceed calories out on a daily basis. You cannot medicate away normal human physiology -- any more than you give a fish a pill to let it breathe out of water.
Now, I would like to pick up the tale where I left off. Because there is more to the story of human weight gain than calories in versus calories out, as not a few of you have stressed in your comments and correspondence. Fundamentally, we are all a lot alike, but also quite a bit different.
The ways we are alike are what I have emphasized so far. It is, indeed, normal for the human body -- any human body -- to turn surplus calories first into glycogen (a small carbohydrate energy reserve) and then into fat (a much larger potential energy reserve).
And we are all governed by the prevailing laws of physics that relate matter and energy. Calories are a measure of energy, and matter cannot be created without energy input. Arguments against the fundamental role of energy balance in weight regulation -- against calories in versus calories out -- are arguments with Isaac Newton. Folks, nobody wins an argument with Isaac Newton!
And yet, I believe the innumerable patients I've had over the years who tell me something doesn't quite add up for them. I believe them when they tell me they eat and exercise the same amount as someone else -- but they get fat, while the other person stays slim. Or, worse still, that happens even though they eat less, and exercise more. If they are telling the truth- and I am thoroughly convinced they are- doesn't it mean Newton had it wrong?
Nothing of the sort. All it means is that we are different, as well as alike.
While it is true for all of us that weight control is overwhelmingly, if not entirely, about calories in versus calories out, it is equally true that the number of calories required for weight loss, weight maintenance and weight gain vary drastically among us. And we even know why, for the most part.
There are, once we are done growing up, three ways we burn calories: physical activity, the generation of heat and just existing. There are technical terms for the second and third: thermogenesis, and resting energy expenditure (sometimes referred to as basal metabolic rate). What should be noteworthy right away is that you are not in charge of two out of the three!
You can choose how much exercise to do. But you don't get to choose how thermogenic you tend to be, and that can matter quite a lot. Like exercise, thermogenesis accounts for roughly 15 percent of total energy expenditure on average, but there is lots of variation on the theme of average. People who generate more heat from calories have fewer available with which to make fat. They tend to be people who can eat a bit more, and stay thin anyway.
But that's a drop in the bucket compared to resting energy expenditure. Roughly 65 percent of calories are burned to support the fundamental workings of cells and organs that keep us alive. The number of calories burned at rest, and the actual percentage of total calories burned this way, also vary substantially around the average. People with a high resting energy expenditure are, in our modern world of epidemic obesity, the fortunate few most people love to hate: the folks who cannot seem to get enough to eat, and can't put weight on when they try.
If you don't control your thermogenic tendencies, nor your resting energy expenditure -- who does? The idiosyncrasies of the genetic hand you were dealt, which are not necessarily idiosyncratic at all.
Take the case of the Pima Indians, for instance.
When the Pimas live a traditional lifestyle and eat traditional Pima foods -- mesquite and tepary beans, for example -- they have unremarkable health. When they live and eat like everyone else in America, they develop almost universal, severe obesity and diabetes. For a time, the Pimas had the highest rates of obesity and diabetes on the planet, and they are still, alas, contenders for those laurels.
The dire plight of the Pimas resulted in intensive study of them, and it led to both revelations, and the obvious. The Pimas have, uniformly, a very low resting energy expenditure. They are, in other words, highly fuel efficient -- even for a fuel efficient species -- and it makes perfect sense. The Pimas lived for generations in a harsh desert climate where food was unusually scarce, and physical activity demands unusually high. Pimas who were not highly fuel efficient simply didn't survive long enough to pass on their disadvantage to any future generation of Pimas. (People who don't live to make babies make very poor ancestors.)
Presumably, the variations in metabolic efficiency to which we are all subject can also be traced to variations in the experiences of our ancestors. But for most of us, the magnitude of genetic mixing that has gone on makes those pathways impossible to follow.
So we wind up feeling -- those among us who gain weight easily and lose it with extreme difficulty, if at all -- that we are enigmas, outcasts, anomalies. We feel that the claim that we can eat less, exercise more, and weigh more nonetheless falls on unsympathetic ears.
Mine are not such ears. I hear you, and I believe you. It is about calories in versus calories out, but the calories required to reach or exceed a personal threshold vary widely, and under influences we neither choose nor control. That isn't fair, but who every promised it would be?
As a practical response to this, I am considering the establishment of a national exchange for the weight loss resistant, so these stories come together and reach a critical volume. I would also like to use it as a means of troubleshooting the problem; many heads will be better than any one. Let me know via email if you would like to join us.
In the interim, I remain unwilling to refute Sir Isaac. But that we are, despite being much the same, quite a bit different -- I fully appreciate. I bet Newton would agree; I hope everyone does.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com "
Let's go out and improve our weight today.
Dr. David Katz
I recently addressed the reason why weight loss drugs have historically fared quite badly, and in my view are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. Weight gain is normal when calories in exceed calories out on a daily basis. You cannot medicate away normal human physiology -- any more than you give a fish a pill to let it breathe out of water.
Now, I would like to pick up the tale where I left off. Because there is more to the story of human weight gain than calories in versus calories out, as not a few of you have stressed in your comments and correspondence. Fundamentally, we are all a lot alike, but also quite a bit different.
The ways we are alike are what I have emphasized so far. It is, indeed, normal for the human body -- any human body -- to turn surplus calories first into glycogen (a small carbohydrate energy reserve) and then into fat (a much larger potential energy reserve).
And we are all governed by the prevailing laws of physics that relate matter and energy. Calories are a measure of energy, and matter cannot be created without energy input. Arguments against the fundamental role of energy balance in weight regulation -- against calories in versus calories out -- are arguments with Isaac Newton. Folks, nobody wins an argument with Isaac Newton!
And yet, I believe the innumerable patients I've had over the years who tell me something doesn't quite add up for them. I believe them when they tell me they eat and exercise the same amount as someone else -- but they get fat, while the other person stays slim. Or, worse still, that happens even though they eat less, and exercise more. If they are telling the truth- and I am thoroughly convinced they are- doesn't it mean Newton had it wrong?
Nothing of the sort. All it means is that we are different, as well as alike.
While it is true for all of us that weight control is overwhelmingly, if not entirely, about calories in versus calories out, it is equally true that the number of calories required for weight loss, weight maintenance and weight gain vary drastically among us. And we even know why, for the most part.
There are, once we are done growing up, three ways we burn calories: physical activity, the generation of heat and just existing. There are technical terms for the second and third: thermogenesis, and resting energy expenditure (sometimes referred to as basal metabolic rate). What should be noteworthy right away is that you are not in charge of two out of the three!
You can choose how much exercise to do. But you don't get to choose how thermogenic you tend to be, and that can matter quite a lot. Like exercise, thermogenesis accounts for roughly 15 percent of total energy expenditure on average, but there is lots of variation on the theme of average. People who generate more heat from calories have fewer available with which to make fat. They tend to be people who can eat a bit more, and stay thin anyway.
But that's a drop in the bucket compared to resting energy expenditure. Roughly 65 percent of calories are burned to support the fundamental workings of cells and organs that keep us alive. The number of calories burned at rest, and the actual percentage of total calories burned this way, also vary substantially around the average. People with a high resting energy expenditure are, in our modern world of epidemic obesity, the fortunate few most people love to hate: the folks who cannot seem to get enough to eat, and can't put weight on when they try.
If you don't control your thermogenic tendencies, nor your resting energy expenditure -- who does? The idiosyncrasies of the genetic hand you were dealt, which are not necessarily idiosyncratic at all.
Take the case of the Pima Indians, for instance.
When the Pimas live a traditional lifestyle and eat traditional Pima foods -- mesquite and tepary beans, for example -- they have unremarkable health. When they live and eat like everyone else in America, they develop almost universal, severe obesity and diabetes. For a time, the Pimas had the highest rates of obesity and diabetes on the planet, and they are still, alas, contenders for those laurels.
The dire plight of the Pimas resulted in intensive study of them, and it led to both revelations, and the obvious. The Pimas have, uniformly, a very low resting energy expenditure. They are, in other words, highly fuel efficient -- even for a fuel efficient species -- and it makes perfect sense. The Pimas lived for generations in a harsh desert climate where food was unusually scarce, and physical activity demands unusually high. Pimas who were not highly fuel efficient simply didn't survive long enough to pass on their disadvantage to any future generation of Pimas. (People who don't live to make babies make very poor ancestors.)
Presumably, the variations in metabolic efficiency to which we are all subject can also be traced to variations in the experiences of our ancestors. But for most of us, the magnitude of genetic mixing that has gone on makes those pathways impossible to follow.
So we wind up feeling -- those among us who gain weight easily and lose it with extreme difficulty, if at all -- that we are enigmas, outcasts, anomalies. We feel that the claim that we can eat less, exercise more, and weigh more nonetheless falls on unsympathetic ears.
Mine are not such ears. I hear you, and I believe you. It is about calories in versus calories out, but the calories required to reach or exceed a personal threshold vary widely, and under influences we neither choose nor control. That isn't fair, but who every promised it would be?
As a practical response to this, I am considering the establishment of a national exchange for the weight loss resistant, so these stories come together and reach a critical volume. I would also like to use it as a means of troubleshooting the problem; many heads will be better than any one. Let me know via email if you would like to join us.
In the interim, I remain unwilling to refute Sir Isaac. But that we are, despite being much the same, quite a bit different -- I fully appreciate. I bet Newton would agree; I hope everyone does.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com "
Let's go out and improve our weight today.
Fed to Buy Treasuries With Maturing Mortgage Debt in Bid to Revive Economy
"Fed to Buy Treasuries With Maturing Mortgage Debt in Bid to Revive Economy
Tuesday, 10 Aug 2010 02:18 PM Article Font Size
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday took fresh steps to lower borrowing costs amid a softening economic recovery, announcing it would use proceeds from its maturing mortgage bonds to buy more government debt.
The decision to reinvest proceeds from the more than $1.3 trillion in mortgage-related debt the Fed holds, an effort to keep market-set borrowing costs down, represents a significant policy shift.
Just a few months ago, the central bank had been avidly debating an exit strategy from the extraordinary stimulus delivered during the financial crisis.
"To help support the economic recovery in a context of price stability, the committee will keep constant the Federal Reserve's holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities," the Fed said in a statement.
The move was somewhat surprising.
Although many analysts and investors had expected the Fed to announce it was reinvesting the mortgage proceeds, most had thought it would buy more mortgage debt instead of government bonds.
Some analysts believe the Fed will end up having to go further in coming months and restart its shuttered program of outright asset purchases.
"The Fed is a step closer to reviving its program, but it will likely take somewhat slower growth to push it off the fence," said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
The Fed also left benchmark overnight interest rates steady in a zero to 0.25 percent range, and renewed its pledge to keep them low for an extended period.
U.S. stocks trimmed losses on the announcement, while prices for U.S. government debt rose, with the 30-year bond gaining more than a point. The dollar fell against both the euro and the yen.
In their statement at the close of a one-day meeting, Fed officials offered a gloomier outlook for the economy, saying the recovery in output and employment "has slowed in recent months." When it last met in late June, it said the recovery was "proceeding."
Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig dissented for a fifth straight meeting over the Fed's vow to keep rates low for a long time.
However, he also was more optimistic about the economy than his colleagues, saying it was "recovering modestly," and that he did not think the Fed needed to keep its balance sheet from shrinking.
Data has been decidedly weak since the U.S. central bank's last meeting in late June. Consumer spending has softened and manufacturing appears to be losing steam. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, is stuck at 9.5 percent.
With U.S. interest rates already effectively at zero, the central bank has run out of easy policy options.
While the decision to reinvest proceeds that would otherwise roll off its balance sheet was only a small move, it could open the door to further steps in the future.
The Fed could lower the rate it pays banks to park their excess reserves at the central bank, currently at an already low 0.25 percent, or somehow redoubling its already-stated commitment to keep interest rates low.
It could also relaunch its bond-buying program if it felt the recovery was about to stall.
This policy would not come without risks, however.
It could expose the central bank to accusations it is printing money to help the fund the large U.S. government budget deficits, something Fed officials have said they would never do.
The idea behind further assets purchases would be to prevent a deflationary cycle of falling prices and depressed consumption from taking hold.
Consumer prices outside food and energy rose just 0.9 percent in the 12 months through June, holding for a third straight month at the lowest level seen since January 1966.
Hourly compensation for U.S. workers fell at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the government said on Tuesday in a report that underscored the lack of an inflationary threat.
A San Francisco Fed study released Monday found a significant chance the economy would slip back into recession in the next two years, while a monthly survey of economists found that 55 percent believe the Fed will take more steps to support growth in the next 12 months.
"They have the ammo. The question is how effective it is," said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Bank of Japan, which also met Tuesday, decided to hold off on any further easing measures despite a rise in the yen, which has rallied near record highs on expectations of further measures by the Fed." from moneynews.com
Now is the time to replace Hal Rogers. He won't help supervise the Fed. Now the Fed plans to use printing press money to buy up Federal debt. Shouldn't they be audited? Isn't this just a plan to monetize the debt? This was predicted months ago, but most ignored the prediction. Now the respectable press is predicting that the Fed will buy up the U.S. Debt. Elect more Democrats. The Fed should be audited.
Tuesday, 10 Aug 2010 02:18 PM Article Font Size
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday took fresh steps to lower borrowing costs amid a softening economic recovery, announcing it would use proceeds from its maturing mortgage bonds to buy more government debt.
The decision to reinvest proceeds from the more than $1.3 trillion in mortgage-related debt the Fed holds, an effort to keep market-set borrowing costs down, represents a significant policy shift.
Just a few months ago, the central bank had been avidly debating an exit strategy from the extraordinary stimulus delivered during the financial crisis.
"To help support the economic recovery in a context of price stability, the committee will keep constant the Federal Reserve's holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities," the Fed said in a statement.
The move was somewhat surprising.
Although many analysts and investors had expected the Fed to announce it was reinvesting the mortgage proceeds, most had thought it would buy more mortgage debt instead of government bonds.
Some analysts believe the Fed will end up having to go further in coming months and restart its shuttered program of outright asset purchases.
"The Fed is a step closer to reviving its program, but it will likely take somewhat slower growth to push it off the fence," said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
The Fed also left benchmark overnight interest rates steady in a zero to 0.25 percent range, and renewed its pledge to keep them low for an extended period.
U.S. stocks trimmed losses on the announcement, while prices for U.S. government debt rose, with the 30-year bond gaining more than a point. The dollar fell against both the euro and the yen.
In their statement at the close of a one-day meeting, Fed officials offered a gloomier outlook for the economy, saying the recovery in output and employment "has slowed in recent months." When it last met in late June, it said the recovery was "proceeding."
Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig dissented for a fifth straight meeting over the Fed's vow to keep rates low for a long time.
However, he also was more optimistic about the economy than his colleagues, saying it was "recovering modestly," and that he did not think the Fed needed to keep its balance sheet from shrinking.
Data has been decidedly weak since the U.S. central bank's last meeting in late June. Consumer spending has softened and manufacturing appears to be losing steam. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, is stuck at 9.5 percent.
With U.S. interest rates already effectively at zero, the central bank has run out of easy policy options.
While the decision to reinvest proceeds that would otherwise roll off its balance sheet was only a small move, it could open the door to further steps in the future.
The Fed could lower the rate it pays banks to park their excess reserves at the central bank, currently at an already low 0.25 percent, or somehow redoubling its already-stated commitment to keep interest rates low.
It could also relaunch its bond-buying program if it felt the recovery was about to stall.
This policy would not come without risks, however.
It could expose the central bank to accusations it is printing money to help the fund the large U.S. government budget deficits, something Fed officials have said they would never do.
The idea behind further assets purchases would be to prevent a deflationary cycle of falling prices and depressed consumption from taking hold.
Consumer prices outside food and energy rose just 0.9 percent in the 12 months through June, holding for a third straight month at the lowest level seen since January 1966.
Hourly compensation for U.S. workers fell at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the government said on Tuesday in a report that underscored the lack of an inflationary threat.
A San Francisco Fed study released Monday found a significant chance the economy would slip back into recession in the next two years, while a monthly survey of economists found that 55 percent believe the Fed will take more steps to support growth in the next 12 months.
"They have the ammo. The question is how effective it is," said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Bank of Japan, which also met Tuesday, decided to hold off on any further easing measures despite a rise in the yen, which has rallied near record highs on expectations of further measures by the Fed." from moneynews.com
Now is the time to replace Hal Rogers. He won't help supervise the Fed. Now the Fed plans to use printing press money to buy up Federal debt. Shouldn't they be audited? Isn't this just a plan to monetize the debt? This was predicted months ago, but most ignored the prediction. Now the respectable press is predicting that the Fed will buy up the U.S. Debt. Elect more Democrats. The Fed should be audited.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Boehner: End to Birthright Citizenship Possible
Boehner: End to Birthright Citizenship Possible
Sunday, 08 Aug 2010 10:22 PM Article Font Size
House Minority Leader John Boehner says he's open to the idea of changing the U.S. Constitution so that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are not automatically U.S. citizens.
"I think it's worth considering," Boehner said.
Boehner joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday and other prominent Republicans in studying the idea of amending the Constitution to eliminate so-called “birthright citizenship.”
Though it faces long odds of succeeding – experts say the Constitution would have be amended through an arduous process of state-by-state conventions and votes – the idea has impressed some lawmakers who say it would be a way to minimize the incentive for illegal immigration.
"There is a problem. To provide an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here so that their children can be U.S. citizens does, in fact, draw more people to our country," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I do think that it's time for us to secure our borders and enforce the law and allow this conversation about the 14th Amendment to continue."
He continued: "In certain parts of our country, clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by illegal immigrants -- a lot of whom came here just so their children could become U.S. citizens."
Read the entire story at FoxNews.com
Stop those fools! Elect More Democrats!
Sunday, 08 Aug 2010 10:22 PM Article Font Size
House Minority Leader John Boehner says he's open to the idea of changing the U.S. Constitution so that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are not automatically U.S. citizens.
"I think it's worth considering," Boehner said.
Boehner joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday and other prominent Republicans in studying the idea of amending the Constitution to eliminate so-called “birthright citizenship.”
Though it faces long odds of succeeding – experts say the Constitution would have be amended through an arduous process of state-by-state conventions and votes – the idea has impressed some lawmakers who say it would be a way to minimize the incentive for illegal immigration.
"There is a problem. To provide an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here so that their children can be U.S. citizens does, in fact, draw more people to our country," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I do think that it's time for us to secure our borders and enforce the law and allow this conversation about the 14th Amendment to continue."
He continued: "In certain parts of our country, clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by illegal immigrants -- a lot of whom came here just so their children could become U.S. citizens."
Read the entire story at FoxNews.com
Stop those fools! Elect More Democrats!
America! Free Forever!
"HERE ARE ALL THE DEVELOPED NATIONS OF THE WORLD
THAT OFFER BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP TO THE BABIES
OF TOURISTS AND ILLEGAL ALIENS:
•United States
That's right, every other modern Developed nation in the world has gotten rid of birthright citizenship policies.
Yet, most of U.S. news media and politicians the last two weeks have ridiculed the comments by some other politicians that it is time for the U.S. to put an end to birthright citizenship for tourists and illegal aliens.
Folks, the U.S. stands alone."
That's right, the U.S. stands alone. And that makes me proud to be an American and proud to be a Democrat. In Hitler's Nazi Germany, people that had been born in Germany during the Kaiser's reign could be arrested, sent to death camps, and killed without a trial because they were not citizens of the Third Reich. We are different from that. When a person is born in the U.S.A. they are automatically a U.S. Citizen and a citizen of the State in which they reside because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was put in the United States Constitution to overrule the Dred Scott Decision of the United States Supreme Court, which had ruled that, although he was born in the U.S.A., Dred Scott was not a citizen of the U.S.A., and should go back to the slave state where he had been a slave and spend the rest of his life in slavery. There are a lot of people who believe that Dred Scott is good law and should not have been overturned by the Fourteenth Amendment. I believe the Fourteenth Amendment is Good Law. It is true that the European Union does not have a Bill or Rights, a Thirteenth, Fourteenth, nor Fifteenth Amendment to their Constitution like ours, nor does Russia, but let's not come down to their level. America! Free Forever!
THAT OFFER BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP TO THE BABIES
OF TOURISTS AND ILLEGAL ALIENS:
•United States
That's right, every other modern Developed nation in the world has gotten rid of birthright citizenship policies.
Yet, most of U.S. news media and politicians the last two weeks have ridiculed the comments by some other politicians that it is time for the U.S. to put an end to birthright citizenship for tourists and illegal aliens.
Folks, the U.S. stands alone."
That's right, the U.S. stands alone. And that makes me proud to be an American and proud to be a Democrat. In Hitler's Nazi Germany, people that had been born in Germany during the Kaiser's reign could be arrested, sent to death camps, and killed without a trial because they were not citizens of the Third Reich. We are different from that. When a person is born in the U.S.A. they are automatically a U.S. Citizen and a citizen of the State in which they reside because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was put in the United States Constitution to overrule the Dred Scott Decision of the United States Supreme Court, which had ruled that, although he was born in the U.S.A., Dred Scott was not a citizen of the U.S.A., and should go back to the slave state where he had been a slave and spend the rest of his life in slavery. There are a lot of people who believe that Dred Scott is good law and should not have been overturned by the Fourteenth Amendment. I believe the Fourteenth Amendment is Good Law. It is true that the European Union does not have a Bill or Rights, a Thirteenth, Fourteenth, nor Fifteenth Amendment to their Constitution like ours, nor does Russia, but let's not come down to their level. America! Free Forever!
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
Senator Graham fears "Unholy Alliance" to stop the killing.
"August 1, 2010
"Graham fears left, right in 'unholy alliance' on Afghanistan
"Posted: August 1st, 2010 09:32 AM ET
"From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart
"About President Obama and Afghanistan, Sen. Graham told CNN, 'He's got a political problem. But we've got a national security problem.'
Washington (CNN) - A prominent Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is praising President Barack Obama's approach to fighting terrorism in Pakistan.
"However, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, is also worried that conservatives and liberals could join forces to undermine Obama's efforts in Afghanistan.
"Obama has set July 2011 as the target date to begin to draw down the additional troops he's surged into Afghanistan. But, in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Graham predicted that conditions may not allow the troops to begin to come home by that date.
"[G]enerally speaking, this time next summer, we're still going to be engaged in one hell of a fight," Graham said. "We're going to need every troop we have today, I think, still in Afghanistan next year."
"According to Graham, it will be clear by the end of this year where things stand in Afghanistan.
""If, by December, we're not showing some progress, we're in trouble," he said. "And the question is: what is progress? Without some benchmarks and measurements, it's going to be hard to sell to the American people a continued involvement in Afghanistan."
"Asked about the growing tide of sentiment against the Afghanistan war, particularly among Obama's base of supporters and some Democrats on Capitol Hill, Graham said he is worried about conservative and liberal forces joining together to frustrate Obama's efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
""You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left," Graham said. "That there are some Republicans who are not going to take a, you know, do-or-die attitude for Obama's war. There are some Republicans that want to make this Obama's war. . . There will be some Republicans saying you can't win because of the July 2011 withdrawal date, he's made it impossible for us to win, so why should we throw good money after bad?"
"Graham added that liberals could also refuse to back the president's plans in Afghanistan.
""You've got people on the left who are mad with the president because he is doing exactly what [former President George W.] Bush did and we're in a war we can't win," Graham said, adding: "My concern is that, for different reasons, they join forces and we lose the ability to hold this thing together."
"But, Graham said, he thinks the president understands the consequences of losing in Afghanistan.
""He's got a political problem. But we've got a national security problem," the Republican senator said.
"Graham also said that the situations in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are linked when it comes to national security.
""How do you win in Pakistan if you lose in Afghanistan?" Graham said. "And I asked the president that. How can we be successful in Pakistan, protect that regime from extremists, if all goes to hell in Afghanistan?"
"While Graham expressed concern about the short and long-term situations in Afghanistan, he offered praise for what Obama is doing across the border in Pakistan.
""Things generally are the best they've been with Pakistan in a long time," Graham said. "And this is one area where President Obama doesn't get enough credit. His team, in my view, have brought out the Pakistanis into the fight better than anybody in recent memory. They're cooperating with us more."
"Graham added: "So I would say that the Obama administration has done a very good job at taking the fight to the enemy in Pakistan and trying to bolster the Pakistanis' capability to take the fight to the enemy."
"In addition to sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Graham is also a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee.
"Graham has served active duty in the military as an Air Force lawyer and continues to serve in the Air Force Reserves. He holds the rank of colonel and is assigned as an instructor at the Air Force Judge Advocate General School. Graham said he will be going to Afghanistan to do his reserve duty during the upcoming Senate recess in August."
Let's Stop the Killing Now. Sure an alliance between anti-war Democrats and anti-war Republicans seems like an un-holy alliance, but let's go with it. Let's end the war, now. Hal Rogers out! Jim Holbert in! Bring home the troops now!
"Graham fears left, right in 'unholy alliance' on Afghanistan
"Posted: August 1st, 2010 09:32 AM ET
"From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart
"About President Obama and Afghanistan, Sen. Graham told CNN, 'He's got a political problem. But we've got a national security problem.'
Washington (CNN) - A prominent Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is praising President Barack Obama's approach to fighting terrorism in Pakistan.
"However, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, is also worried that conservatives and liberals could join forces to undermine Obama's efforts in Afghanistan.
"Obama has set July 2011 as the target date to begin to draw down the additional troops he's surged into Afghanistan. But, in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Graham predicted that conditions may not allow the troops to begin to come home by that date.
"[G]enerally speaking, this time next summer, we're still going to be engaged in one hell of a fight," Graham said. "We're going to need every troop we have today, I think, still in Afghanistan next year."
"According to Graham, it will be clear by the end of this year where things stand in Afghanistan.
""If, by December, we're not showing some progress, we're in trouble," he said. "And the question is: what is progress? Without some benchmarks and measurements, it's going to be hard to sell to the American people a continued involvement in Afghanistan."
"Asked about the growing tide of sentiment against the Afghanistan war, particularly among Obama's base of supporters and some Democrats on Capitol Hill, Graham said he is worried about conservative and liberal forces joining together to frustrate Obama's efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
""You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left," Graham said. "That there are some Republicans who are not going to take a, you know, do-or-die attitude for Obama's war. There are some Republicans that want to make this Obama's war. . . There will be some Republicans saying you can't win because of the July 2011 withdrawal date, he's made it impossible for us to win, so why should we throw good money after bad?"
"Graham added that liberals could also refuse to back the president's plans in Afghanistan.
""You've got people on the left who are mad with the president because he is doing exactly what [former President George W.] Bush did and we're in a war we can't win," Graham said, adding: "My concern is that, for different reasons, they join forces and we lose the ability to hold this thing together."
"But, Graham said, he thinks the president understands the consequences of losing in Afghanistan.
""He's got a political problem. But we've got a national security problem," the Republican senator said.
"Graham also said that the situations in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are linked when it comes to national security.
""How do you win in Pakistan if you lose in Afghanistan?" Graham said. "And I asked the president that. How can we be successful in Pakistan, protect that regime from extremists, if all goes to hell in Afghanistan?"
"While Graham expressed concern about the short and long-term situations in Afghanistan, he offered praise for what Obama is doing across the border in Pakistan.
""Things generally are the best they've been with Pakistan in a long time," Graham said. "And this is one area where President Obama doesn't get enough credit. His team, in my view, have brought out the Pakistanis into the fight better than anybody in recent memory. They're cooperating with us more."
"Graham added: "So I would say that the Obama administration has done a very good job at taking the fight to the enemy in Pakistan and trying to bolster the Pakistanis' capability to take the fight to the enemy."
"In addition to sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Graham is also a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee.
"Graham has served active duty in the military as an Air Force lawyer and continues to serve in the Air Force Reserves. He holds the rank of colonel and is assigned as an instructor at the Air Force Judge Advocate General School. Graham said he will be going to Afghanistan to do his reserve duty during the upcoming Senate recess in August."
Let's Stop the Killing Now. Sure an alliance between anti-war Democrats and anti-war Republicans seems like an un-holy alliance, but let's go with it. Let's end the war, now. Hal Rogers out! Jim Holbert in! Bring home the troops now!
A Report on how the New Health Care Law Affects Kentuckians.
"News - News Columnists - Tom Eblen
"Monday, Aug. 02, 2010
"Report details how Kentuckians benefit from new health care law
"Tom Eblen - Herald-Leader columnist Discussion about health care reform has generated a lot more heat than light. Much of the controversy has been grounded in politics, but the new federal law can be complex and confusing.
"After all, the whole subject of medical insurance and public health care policy could qualify as rocket science, if only rockets were involved.
"A report published last week explains in clear, plain language how the new law will affect Kentuckians. It was put together by Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of nearly 100 groups including AARP Kentucky, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Kentucky Council of Churches and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.
"Tom Eblen
"The report paints a generally positive picture of how the law will affect Kentucky, the 47th-poorest state in per-capita income, at only 80 percent of the national average. And it provides an interesting group of statistics to show why reform was needed in Kentucky.
"The report says that an estimated 626,000 of the state's 4.3 million people didn't have health insurance last year. About 80 percent of them have jobs, but many of those jobs are part-time or low-wage and don't include health insurance. Only 41 percent of Kentucky employers with fewer than 50 workers offer health insurance.
"The report cites surveys conducted by University of Kentucky researchers that show that uninsured Kentuckians are three times more likely not to go to a doctor, twice as likely to skip a medical test or doctor-recommended treatment, and twice as likely not to fill a prescription than Kentuckians who have insurance.
"How will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 help Kentuckians?
"For one thing, the report said, insurers will now be barred from denying coverage to people, including 920,000 Kentuckians, with pre-existing medical conditions. That part of the law takes effect Sept. 23 for children and will include everyone by 2014.
"Expansion of Medicaid eligibility for poor people will extend coverage to an estimated 261,000 Kentuckians — or about 40 percent of the state's currently uninsured population — by 2014, the report says.
"The law will allow 16,800 young adults in Kentucky, up to age 26, to remain on their parents' insurance policies if they don't have coverage available through their own employer.
"That's a big deal. Not only has the lagging economy made the job market tough for young adults, but more and more entry-level jobs don't include health insurance. Nationally, about 30 percent of young adults now lack health insurance coverage, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"The new law helps older people in two important ways, the report says.
"There will be gradually better coverage for people who now fall into the Medicare prescription drug program's "donut hole" of cost-sharing. The report estimates that this will apply to 129,000 Kentucky seniors next year. In addition, about 63,200 Kentuckians will benefit from a reinsurance program for early retirees who are not yet old enough for Medicare.
"The report also notes that, by 2014, the law will provide tax credits to 221,000 Kentucky families and 51,500 small businesses to help cover the cost of health insurance.
"You can download the report and find more health care information and resources at the coalition's Web site, www.kyvoicesforhealth.org.
"It remains to be seen how well this new law will deal with some fundamental problems, especially rising costs, in the nation's health and insurance systems. But this big first step in what is likely to be a long, continuing process of health care reform promises to at least put care within the reach of more Kentuckians."
Let's keep America moving forward! Elect More Democrats! Elect Holbert. Out With Rogers. Ky-05 Democrats!
"Monday, Aug. 02, 2010
"Report details how Kentuckians benefit from new health care law
"Tom Eblen - Herald-Leader columnist Discussion about health care reform has generated a lot more heat than light. Much of the controversy has been grounded in politics, but the new federal law can be complex and confusing.
"After all, the whole subject of medical insurance and public health care policy could qualify as rocket science, if only rockets were involved.
"A report published last week explains in clear, plain language how the new law will affect Kentuckians. It was put together by Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of nearly 100 groups including AARP Kentucky, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Kentucky Council of Churches and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.
"Tom Eblen
"The report paints a generally positive picture of how the law will affect Kentucky, the 47th-poorest state in per-capita income, at only 80 percent of the national average. And it provides an interesting group of statistics to show why reform was needed in Kentucky.
"The report says that an estimated 626,000 of the state's 4.3 million people didn't have health insurance last year. About 80 percent of them have jobs, but many of those jobs are part-time or low-wage and don't include health insurance. Only 41 percent of Kentucky employers with fewer than 50 workers offer health insurance.
"The report cites surveys conducted by University of Kentucky researchers that show that uninsured Kentuckians are three times more likely not to go to a doctor, twice as likely to skip a medical test or doctor-recommended treatment, and twice as likely not to fill a prescription than Kentuckians who have insurance.
"How will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 help Kentuckians?
"For one thing, the report said, insurers will now be barred from denying coverage to people, including 920,000 Kentuckians, with pre-existing medical conditions. That part of the law takes effect Sept. 23 for children and will include everyone by 2014.
"Expansion of Medicaid eligibility for poor people will extend coverage to an estimated 261,000 Kentuckians — or about 40 percent of the state's currently uninsured population — by 2014, the report says.
"The law will allow 16,800 young adults in Kentucky, up to age 26, to remain on their parents' insurance policies if they don't have coverage available through their own employer.
"That's a big deal. Not only has the lagging economy made the job market tough for young adults, but more and more entry-level jobs don't include health insurance. Nationally, about 30 percent of young adults now lack health insurance coverage, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"The new law helps older people in two important ways, the report says.
"There will be gradually better coverage for people who now fall into the Medicare prescription drug program's "donut hole" of cost-sharing. The report estimates that this will apply to 129,000 Kentucky seniors next year. In addition, about 63,200 Kentuckians will benefit from a reinsurance program for early retirees who are not yet old enough for Medicare.
"The report also notes that, by 2014, the law will provide tax credits to 221,000 Kentucky families and 51,500 small businesses to help cover the cost of health insurance.
"You can download the report and find more health care information and resources at the coalition's Web site, www.kyvoicesforhealth.org.
"It remains to be seen how well this new law will deal with some fundamental problems, especially rising costs, in the nation's health and insurance systems. But this big first step in what is likely to be a long, continuing process of health care reform promises to at least put care within the reach of more Kentuckians."
Let's keep America moving forward! Elect More Democrats! Elect Holbert. Out With Rogers. Ky-05 Democrats!
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