Mitt Romney Made his Money the Old-Fashioned way.

Mitt Romney Made his Money the Old-Fashioned way...
He inherited it!

the original intent of the Founding Fathers

So you want to go back to the original intent of the Founding Fathers like the “Originalists” want?

Then you want to go back to a country where…

• Only free white men who owned property could vote.
• Slavery was legal in all states, but one
• The Senate was not elected by the People.
• The Electoral College was solely responsible for choosing the president.
• There was no Air Force.
• There was no standing army.
• The Navy was made up primarily of privateers.
• There were only thirteen states.
• The United States ended at the Mississippi River.
• Women had no rights.
• The state militias (National Guard) would not cross state lines.
• There was no restriction on immigration.
• Spain owned Florida, Texas and much of the Gulf Coast.
• New York was the capital.

Oh, I guess that’s not what you meant?  Well, I hope your flintlock musket protects you!

Washington State Redistricting Plan

Washington now has ten congressional districts!


Click on the following link to find out the details.


New Redistricting Plan  http://www.redistricting.wa.gov/maps_final_2011.asp

Family Values?

Future of the Court?

Ponder this:  if we accidentally elect  Newt Gingrich president  will he have Justices Roberts, Alioto, Thomas and Scalia arrested and brought before him in him in handcuffs for the crime of being judicial "activists?" Three Supreme Court Cases That Should Worry You Email    Print    Share x RSS Feed Digg Facebook TwitThis StumbleUpon Reddit YahooBuzz Email BlinkList del.icio.us Fark Furl Google LinkedIn Mixx MyShare NewsVine Propeller SphereIt Technorati YahooMyWeb Share Posted on Dec 18, 2011 AP / J. Scott Applewhite Justices Alito, left, and Roberts pose in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. The two men have helped engineer radical legal change in America. By Bill Blum At his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, John Roberts, the nominee of President George W. Bush to become the 17th chief justice of the United States, promised to serve in the neutral fashion of a baseball umpire and lead the Supreme Court away from all manner of judicial activism. “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes,” he testified, “and not to pitch or bat.” Few, if any, observers took Roberts at his word, given his track record as a Republican warhorse, including stints as a clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist and as deputy solicitor general under the first President Bush. But even the skeptics were not prepared for the judicial counterrevolution that Roberts and his conservative high court brethren have engineered since. In the space of a few short years, the Roberts court has transformed American law with its miscarriages of justice. Among its dubious lowlights, the court has invented [italics and bold-face added] a Second Amendment individual right to bear arms, erected new barriers to age and sex discrimination lawsuits, undercut environmental protection, and, in the Citizens United case—its crowning glory to date—it has recognized corporations as people under the First Amendment with the constitutional right to spend without restraint on political attack ads. Anyone hoping the pace of the counterrevolution might slow is apt to be disappointed by the time the court completes its current term. If present trends persist, and there is little reason to believe they won’t, 2012 will be remembered as the year the court rewrote the constitutional boundaries between federal and state authority, severely curtailing federal initiatives on behalf of working people, minorities and the poor. Here are the three pending cases that best define the agenda: When the 2010 census revealed that the population of Texas had grown by 4.2 million, the state’s Legislature was required to redraw congressional voting districts to comply with the one-person, one-vote standards of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in a classic “oops” moment, the Legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Perry remapped the playing field in a way that minimized the electoral clout of the 2.8 million Hispanics who had migrated to the Lone Star State in the previous decade. Texas, like most southern states and counties with a history of using poll taxes and literacy tests to stifle minority voting, is required under the Voting Rights Act to obtain “pre-clearance” from the Justice Department or a three-judge court in Washington, D.C., before changes to electoral maps can take effect. The Perry plan was so outrageous that even before the review process was completed, civil rights groups persuaded a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio to scuttle the Republican remap and craft a redistricting plan fashioned by the judges.  With Texas gaining four new House seats in the 2012 elections, the Roberts court is poised to hand Perry an undeserved legal victory that could ensure continued Republican dominance of the lower chamber. A pro-Perry ruling could also deal a death blow to the pre-clearance mandate in general, after a 2009 decision, also from Texas, which eased the ability of municipalities to claim exemptions from the mandate (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility Dist. v. Holder). Oral argument has been set for Jan. 9, and a decision is expected in time for the March Texas primary. The Arizona Immigration Law: Arizona v. United States Enacted in 2010, Arizona’s SB 1070 is the love child of former state senator and rabid immigrant-rights basher Russell Pearce and Gov. Jan Brewer. Among its several provisions, the statute requires state law enforcement officers to ascertain the immigration status of anyone they stop if they have reason to believe the detainee might be an undocumented immigrant. The statute also makes it a crime under state law for undocumented workers to seek employment if they are not registered and authorized to work by the federal government. In April, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined the act’s offending provisions, holding that under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Arizona’s attempt to criminalize aspects of immigration were “pre-empted” by federal immigration law. The pre-emption doctrine is the long-standing principle that only Congress and the federal government have the authority to exercise certain powers, such as the right to declare war, make foreign policy or print money. In 1956, in a case with haunting similarities to the Arizona challenge and that ought to be controlling precedent, the Supreme Court cited the pre-emption doctrine to strike down a Pennsylvania law that had made it a state crime to advocate overthrow of the federal government (Pennsylvania v. Nelson). But in May, in yet another signal that the Roberts court is intent on altering the federal-state balance, the Supreme Court brushed aside pre-emption concerns to uphold an Arizona law authorizing the state to revoke the licenses of employers who knowingly hire the undocumented (Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting). Oral argument on the fate of SB 1070 has yet to be set. In the meantime, Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself from deliberations because of her prior involvement in the issue as solicitor general. Copycat legislation mirroring Arizona’s has spread to South Carolina, Utah, Georgia and Alabama, whose new immigration law has been blasted in a recent Human Rights Watch report as “grounded in discrimination” and fostering “a culture of fear.” The court’s decision on SB 1070 will likely determine the fate of these other laws as well, accelerating the transfer of powers long held by the federal government to individual states determined to scapegoat the undocumented. Obamacare: Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Baseball has its World Series, football its Super Bowl. The concerted legal attack on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is the dream moment the Roberts court has been longing for. The immediate legal issue before the court is vitally important and by now well known: whether Congress has the constitutional power to require virtually all adult U.S. citizens and legal residents to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. But as critical as health insurance is in the everyday lives of all people, there is an underlying legal issue the case raises that is even more critical: whether Congress and the president in enacting national health care legislation have overstepped their authority under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as “the Commerce Clause,” which grants Congress the power to regulate “Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States. …” Although it lacks the fanfare of the First Amendment and concepts like due process and equal protection, the Commerce Clause has been the basis for a vast panoply of progressive federal legislation, ranging from the National Labor Relations and Fair Labor Standards acts of the 1930s to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as Occupational Health and Safety, Equal Pay and Clean Air and Water acts of more recent vintage.  It took FDR’s threat to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 11 members to move the court to reconsider its once highly restrictive interpretation of the Commerce Clause that threatened to derail the New Deal. And it was not until the 1990s and 2000s that the judicial pendulum began to reverse course, as the court under Rehnquist inaugurated what some on the right have touted as an era of New Federalism, with decisions curbing federal regulation of education and invalidating portions of the Violence Against Women Act. Since the federal circuit courts are split on the constitutionality of Obamacare, it’s understandable that the Supreme Court would step in to provide clarity. But here, as elsewhere, the trend is ominous. The challenge to Obamacare affords the Roberts court the opportunity to finish the job of New Federalism, and the implications for the country’s future could not be more profound. Would the demise of Obamacare have a legal domino effect, leading piece by piece, case by case, to future efforts to eviscerate Medicare, environmental protection and even Social Security? Oral arguments are expected late in the court’s term. In Federalist Paper No. 78, Alexander Hamilton supported the creation of an independent court system, terming the judiciary the “least dangerous” branch of government because it lacked the capacity to “annoy or injure” what he called “the political rights of the Constitution.” But as the three cases topping its 2012 docket suggest, the Roberts court is moving to consolidate nothing less than a judicial counterrevolution.  Thanks to David Allen Tree for this post. editor's note:    definition:  Judicial Activism:  a decision that you do not agree with.

The Bottom Line

This election can be simplified into one choice.


Who do you trust more to make the vital decisions that affect your life?


Multinational corporations (aka "people")


or


Your fellow citizens


Come to think of this, didn't we settle the matter in 1776?

Quayle endorses Romney

So Dan (the Quiz Kid) Quayle endorses Mitt Romney?
Is he really working for Gingrich's camp?
Does anyone remember Dan Quayle?  Wasn't he related to Chicken Little?

Simplified Republican Paper Ballot

There has been much discussion lately over the use of paper and electronic ballots.  Please find the type of ballot that the Republicans find most useful.  It saves the bother of registration and checking identification.

Dysfunction of America article

I received this from a friend and thought you might be interested in it. -ed

I received the following article from a Canadian friend of mine.  It is from the Montreal Gazette.  Written by a former leader of the Progressive Conservative party in Canada.  I found his analysis of the current state of the US to be very well written and thought out.  Let me know what you think.
[mk]

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The Dysfunction of America (1): The rule of greed

MONTREAL - The U.S. economy remains the most powerful, creative and dynamic in the world, but it faces major difficulties. No longer is it a true capitalist free-market system. It has become a gigantic welfare state whose prime beneficiaries are the rich and major corporations.

Think of the legions of millionaire lobbyists in Washington; the shuttle-bus-type ferrying of people back and forth between senior Washington positions and executive suites in the business world; the enormous subsidies paid to myriad industries, including agriculture; the complex loopholes that render the tax code incomprehensible to all but the beneficiaries; the deregulation of the financial system that led to the crisis of 2007 and 2008, followed by the trillion-dollar bailouts; and that’s to say nothing of the dramatically increasing inequality of income distribution.

Greed may be good, as Gordon Gekko famously declared in Wall Street, but it is good only for the rich.

Notwithstanding the fatuous blathering of the current Republican candidates for the presidency, to say nothing of the Tea Party movement, Americans do not really want smaller government and serious cuts to government spending. During the presidencies of those alleged fiscal conservatives Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, government and, more especially, deficits and debt grew dramatically.

Almost without exception, independent experts and analysts (a group that, sadly, excludes all active politicians), know that to put America’s financial house in order requires both tax increases and spending cuts. President Barack Obama’s proposed tax increase for Americans earning $1 million a year, which will never become law, is an almost invisible drop in the deficit bucket. The chances of anyone who advocates serious tax increases, in whatever form, being elected are not merely slim; they are zero.

The same is true for any politician advocating significant cuts to defence spending, social security, and Medicare and Medicaid.

What Americans want are more services for which they do not pay. They want the banquet table to be set, at the cost of others, for themselves alone. The most recent agreement to raise America’s debt ceiling did not actually reduce government spending; it merely slowed its rate of growth.

Tax rates in the United States – whether income, capital gains or corporate tax – are the lowest they have been in decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, the top 1 per cent of the population earned between 8 and 9 per cent of the nation’s income. Today that figure is approaching 25 per cent. Middle-class income, in real terms, has been at best stagnant for the last decade or more. Last year the average income of the top 25 hedge-fund managers in the U.S. was $1 billion. To put that figure in perspective: assuming a working year of 250 days, it represents $4 million per day, more than an overwhelming majority of people will earn in a lifetime.

How much is enough? Apparently there is no limit. Ergo, Occupy Wall Street.
The usual justification for these enormous incomes and this devastating inequality is that these high earners are the creators of jobs. With some exceptions, that is rubbish. In almost the same breath, the Republican candidates argue (correctly) that the leading creators of jobs are small businesses. The two positions are in almost complete contradiction. No economic research has ever established a direct causal link between tax rates and economic growth and job creation.

In recent years an overwhelming proportion of America’s national income has been generated by its financial industries. It was paper-shufflers (see Margin Call, the movie) – whose creations, however ingenious, were collateralized debt obligations, credit-default swaps and other forms of derivatives, and not jobs – who took home obscene amounts of money. The very highly paid CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were not only not creating jobs, they were eliminating them, and hollowing out America’s manufacturing industries by outsourcing.
Generally speaking, it is not the true entrepreneurs – those who start and build companies, thereby creating real jobs and deserving every dollar they earn – who are among the obscenely paid. Nor do true entrepreneurs earn millions while simultaneously losing their clients’ money in stock-market “corrections.” Obviously a properly functioning economy needs strong and effective financial institutions (Canada being a reasonably good example), not casinos operating giant Ponzi schemes. For true entrepreneurs, money is merely a by-product of their passion; for Wall Street, it is the only passion.

With the necessary political will, it would be relatively easy – although painful – to eliminate the U.S.’s deficit and debt problems. The Simpson-Bowles Commission – set up by President Obama and tasked with finding ways to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability for the U.S. – and many others have made practical suggestions, including closing tax loopholes, modestly increasing tax on the well-off, instituting a national sales tax and a gasoline tax, reducing defence spending, and limiting entitlements to those who really need assistance. However, as the saying goes: “It ain’t gonna happen.”

Can America recover its prominence and world leadership in areas other than military strength? Of course it can, but only if, as a nation, it ceases being in denial; only if it recovers its moral and ethical compass; only if its political leaders see their role as true service to their country; only if steps are taken to reduce the devastating inequality of income.

Peter Blaikie is a founding partner of the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie. He was president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1981 to 1983.

The dysfunction of America (II): Political gridlock and beyond

Leo Tolstoy famously wrote that "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." To adapt that somewhat: it is almost certainly true that all families, in different ways and to a greater or lesser extent, are dysfunctional. The same is true of nations. The rub lies in "to a greater or lesser extent."

To the extent that Canada is dysfunctional - and it is - it matters very little, if at all, at a global level. Think about it like Greece: were that county the only one of the nations of Europe to be in so many ways chaotic, it would be material for comedians, not an item on the daily news.

But when the United States is massively dysfunctional - well, to borrow the line of Crocodile Dundee as he flashes his blade before some New York City punks: "That's a problem."
Because of the unique role that the United States plays in the world, we all, and particularly we Canadians, need it to function well, and we all share the dramatic consequences when it does not. (The same is true, to a lesser extent, of dysfunctional Europe.) The world needs America to become once again the "shining city on a hill."

At its best, whether it be in science, innovation, business, medicine, philanthropy, education or the arts, to name but a few, America's genius is unrivalled.

Furthermore, to their own and their country's credit, there are tens of millions of Americans who lament their country's failures. For evidence of that, in addition to the "Occupations" of Wall St. and beyond, one need only stay aware of commentary and analysis by independent experts, observers and, more importantly, informed U.S. citizens.

But right now there is a massive failure in America's political system - the most consequential kind of dysfunction. "Gridlock," the usual description, is inadequate, because it creates the impression of a temporary problem. The real difficulties are far more systemic.

The U.S. president is frequently described as "the most powerful individual in the world," but the actual powers constitutionally attributed to the office are remarkably limited. In the British parliamentary system, a prime minister with a majority is far more able to make his or her wishes reality. In most European systems, presidential powers are far greater than those the American head of state wields. When, in addition, the president is weak and inexperienced, as is currently the case, the impasse is exaggerated. With the art of compromise having been drowned in extremism and zealotry, the constitutionally ordered system of checks and balances in the U.S. legislative system (for example, the need for Congress and the president to approve major spending decisions, raising the national debt ceiling or changing tax rates), the goal of which has always been to prevent excessive concentration and possible abuse of power, has been derailed so as to cause a gigantic seizure in the machinery of government.

Surfers speak of the "endless summer." The United States lives the endless political campaign, especially for the presidency. From the day after inauguration, the incumbent begins the next election campaign - as do his or her opponents. Nothing could be more obvious right now than that the strategy of the Republican Party, expressed through its leaders and presidential candidates, has nothing to do with solving America's enormous economic difficulties, and everything to do with the 2012 presidential election. Obviously they see a weak economy as the yellow brick road to the White House. Obstructing every proposal of the administration, without a single positive suggestion, is the strategy.

Since too many people's political attention span is measured in nanoseconds, this is the age of pure image politics. It is also the age of unlimited spending on political campaigns, brutally negative television ads, and slogans replacing serious discussion. With the occasional exception of a televised debate, campaigns consist of highly structured appearances before committed supporters, carefully staged photo opportunities and nine-second clips on the nightly news.

Another problem: in essence, only the very rich, or those supported by the very rich, need apply for legislative positions, especially the Senate. Does anyone truly expect that a government made up of such people will actually pass laws, particularly with respect to taxation, against their apparent interests and those of their financiers (Warren Buffett excepted)? Abraham Lincoln's ringing words at the end of the Gettysburg Address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people," are being, before our eyes, transformed into "government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich." "Sir Charles" Barkley, the iconic former National Basketball Association star, put it beautifully: "I'm sad to see an America with rich people screwing poor people."

Another area of dysfunction in the U.S. is education. America's best schools and universities are without peer. That said, every independent assessment of America's overall world ranking on education illustrates enormous difficulties.

The schools are producing students whose test scores in reading, science and mathematics rank far behind those of the world's leaders. America's universities are not graduating nearly enough scientists and engineers to meet the country's needs. At all levels, and notwithstanding enormously high fees at the best schools and universities, the overall system is underfunded. Across the country, and particularly within the Democratic Party, teachers' unions wield massive power and influence, and resist all change.

And then there is health care. While their reasons may be dramatically different, even diametrically opposed, there can hardly be a single American who believes the nation's health-care system is functioning properly. Now, concerns about health care arise, for varying reasons, in almost every country in the world. But the United States spends far more of its national income on health care than does any other country, yet it has nowhere close to the best health-care results. Obesity and its attendant health consequences, while a growing problem elsewhere, are an epidemic in America. (Lands' End, a Wisconsin-based online retailer, has men's sizes up to XXXXXL!) It is hard to imagine how the system can be restored to good health when every attempt to innovate leads to ideological warfare and court challenges. Obamacare will almost certainly be a major issue in this coming year's presidential campaign.

There are many other areas of dysfunction in America: the judicial systems, both criminal (ask Conrad Black) and civil; the question of immigration, where reasonable compromise seems impossible; the glaring absence of rational gun control; the complete failure of attempts to control drug use, and the export of its attendant violence to Mexico and Central America; and last but not least, the refusal to have a reasonable debate on the issues surrounding climate change.

Perhaps this is merely the rant of a curmudgeon. If it is, it is more in sorrow than in anger.
However, as we in Canada tend to be rather smug and complacent when we compare ourselves to our American neighbours, we should keep in mind that the rant began with the expression "to a greater or lesser extent" qualifying national dysfunctionality. With exceptions - some of them admittedly important - the only real difference between the two countries is the extent of the dysfunction. Throughout history, Canada has tended to arrive in the same place as the United States, only more slowly and less dramatically. We should remember that our house is made of glass.