awaken the elephants

This Week's Lesson:

 Miranda Rights

Police generally read these rights to individuals about to be questioned in custody. "You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you desire an attorney and cannot afford one, an attorney will be obtained for you before police questioning."

The Miranda rule was developed to protect the individual's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The Miranda warning ensures that people in custody realize they do not have to talk to the police and that they have the right to the presence of an attorney.
If the Miranda warning is not given before questioning, or if police continue to question a suspect after he or she indicates in any manner a desire to consult with an attorney before speaking, statements by the suspect generally are inadmissible at trial—they cannot be used against the suspect.
 

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Executive Orders

An executive order in the United States is an order issued by the President, the head of the executive branch of the federal government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees, or orders-in-council. Executive orders may also be issued at the state level by a state's Governor or at the local level by the city's Mayor. U.S. Presidents have issued Executive Orders since 1789, usually to help officers and agencies of the Executive branch manage the operations within the Federal Government itself.

 Although there is no Constitutional provision or statute that explicitly permits Executive Orders, there is a vague grant of "executive power" given in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution, and furthered by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 4. At the minimum, most Executive Orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the US Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the Federal Government - the consequence of failing to comply possibly being the removal from office.

Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952) that Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.
Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during Bill Clinton's second term in office. However, all such wars have had authorizing resolutions from Congress.

There are rumors on Capital Hill that Obama will try to use Executive Orders to try to push through legislation that he can't get passed through Congress.

Secretary of State Project

The Secretary of State Project was begun to get Democrats elected to the state-wide office of Secretary of State in the United States.
Politico.com noted in November 2008 that "Democrats have built an administrative firewall designed to protect their electoral interests in five of the most important battleground states. The bulwark consists of control of secretary of state offices in five key states - Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio - where the difference between victory and defeat in the 2004 presidential election was no more than 120,000 votes in any one of them. With a Democrat now in charge of the offices, which oversee and administer their state’s elections, the party is better positioned than in the previous elections to advance traditional Democratic interests - such as increasing voter registration and boosting turnout - rather than Republican priorities such as stamping out voter fraud. Perhaps more important, in those five states Democrats are now in a more advantageous position when it comes to the interpretation and administration of election law — a development that could benefit Barack Obama if any of those states are closely contested on Election Day." 

This project was funded by George Soros and Moveon.org.

Reconciliation

 In the halls of Congress reconciliation means bringing federal policy in line (reconciling it) with the budget. In practical terms, it enables parties to ram legislation through the Senate with a simple majority, 51 votes, rather than the 60 votes usually needed to pass controversial bills.

Opinions on the subject depend on whether one is in the party that is doing the reconciling, in which case the tactic is often seen as a legitimate and necessary means of lawmaking, or in the party that is being steamrolled, in which case it's an outrage against democracy. 

This is the tactic being talked about by the democrats to ram the health care bill down the throats of the republicans. They would try to get the Senate bill passed in the House by "retooling" it and then passing the remodeled legislation by reconciliation.

Holodomor

Translation: Murder by Hunger

 The Holodomor was a famine in the Ukrainian SSR from 1932–1933, during which millions of people starved to death as a result of the economic and trade policies instituted by the government of Joseph Stalin. The famine was a part of wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933. There were no natural causes for starvation and in fact, Ukraine—unlike other Soviet Republics—enjoyed a bumper wheat crop in 1932. Millions of inhabitants died of starvation in an unprecedented peacetime catastrophe in the history of Ukraine. Estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range mostly from 2.6 million to 10 million.

How Lower Tax Rates Actually HELP the Lower Class

There is a distinct pattern throughout American history: When tax rates are reduced, the economy’s growth rate improves and living standards increase. Good tax policy has a number of interesting side effects. For instance, history tells us that tax revenues grow and “rich” taxpayers pay more tax when marginal tax rates are slashed. This means lower income citizens bear a lower share of the tax burden – a consequence that should lead class-warfare politicians to support lower tax rates.

Conversely, periods of higher tax rates are associated with sub par economic performance and stagnant tax revenues. In other words, when politicians attempt to “soak the rich,” the rest of us take a bath. 

How Our Universities Became Infiltrated With Marxism

In 1923, A group of German, Marxist radicals were promoting the benefits of communism at the Institute of social Research @ Frankfurt University, calling it "cultural Marxism."  This was the precursor to what we now know to be "political correctness."  

When Hitler rose to power in 1933, many of these radicals fled Germany and migrated to the United States, landing in major universities throughout the states, including Columbia, Berkley, and other presitigous universities who now spout Marxist ideology.

From these German radicals, a new culture of thought emerged.  They were able to recruit more and more professors to their line of thinking.  Now these schools are about 90% liberal thought- meaning that most of our children are not getting a balanced view of the world; they are being indoctrinated in Marxist thought.

As the University Provosts became a part of this Marxist culture, they hired more and more like-thinking professors.  It is difficult to get a job in the university without this leftist thought.

 One of the original German students who migrated here, Herbert Marcuse, coined the phrase, "Make Love, Not War."  This shows what an influence they've had on our current culture.

The Speech and Debate Clause

The Speech and Debate Clause provides that members of Congress:  Shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same, and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

The Speech and Debate Clause was written so an overly aggressive executive would not suppress and intimidate critical legislators. The Founders, however, did not envision a Congress as gluttonous and corrupt as the one we have today.

The Speech and Debate Clause has been construed by the courts more broadly than its text to include legislative acts and congressional staff within its protections. Given how too many members of Congress have demonstrated contempt for the first principles embodied in our Constitution, and how they’ve exhibited disdain towards limits on power, perhaps the Speech and Debate Clause needs to be reformed by way of amendment.

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The Commerce Clause

In the Constitution of the United States (Article I, section 8), the clause that authorizes Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with Indian Tribes." It is the legal foundation of much of the U.S. government's regulatory authority.

Unfortunately, the commerce clause, through a series of court cases, has gained power and Congress has used it to regulate anything that has even the POSSIBILITY of traveling interstate.

They are currently stating that the commerce clause allows them to demand Americans buy health insurance.

In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed a law forbidding possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of any school. The Gun-Free School Zones Act was touted as a blow on behalf of education and against violence among children. Two years later, Alfonso Lopez Jr., a 12th-grader at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas, carried a concealed .38-caliber pistol to school. First he was charged under Texas law, which forbids possession of guns on school grounds. But the next day, federal agents charged Lopez under the Gun-Free School Zones Act, and the state charges were dismissed.

Thus began one of the most important cases — and one of the most important decisions — for the U.S. Supreme Court in the last 60 years. It would turn out to be significant because the case bore directly on a clause in the U.S. Constitution that almost from the beginning, and particularly since the New Deal, has been used to justify a radical expansion of the power of the central government in the United States: the clause that delegates to Congress the power to "regulate . . . commerce among the several states." The sensible person will ask, "What does the commerce clause have to do with students bringing guns to school?" The Court's majority said "nothing." It has been a long time since the Supreme Court last refused to let the central government use the commerce clause to expand its power. That is why Lopez is such an important case.

What is refreshing about the recent Lopez case is that five justices were able to say that something could exceed the scope of the commerce clause. Despite the government's strained argument that guns in schools degrade education and hence economic performance and interstate commerce, the majority said a federal prohibition on such possession is beyond Congress's enumerated powers.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas struck at the very foundation of the modern interpretation of the commerce clause and hinted that future cases could bring big changes.

That's fine as far as it goes. But as Jefferson warned, the natural tendency is for government to grow. Like a poisonous vine, it sprouts through any gap. What is really needed is a repeal of the commerce clause and an amendment to the Bill of Rights that says: "Congress and the states shall make no law interfering with production and commerce, foreign or domestic."

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Sovereignty

 We've heard a lot about individual states declaring "sovereignty."  I thought it might be interesting to look at a legal definition of this word....

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.

Sovereignty is the power of a state to do everything necessary to govern itself, such as making, executing, and applying laws; imposing and collecting taxes; making war and peace; and forming treaties or engaging in commerce with foreign nations.

The individual states of the United States do not possess the powers of external sovereignty, such as the right to deport undesirable persons, but each does have certain attributes of internal sovereignty, such as the power to regulate the acquisition and transfer of property within its borders. The sovereignty of a state is determined with reference to the U.S. Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.

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Climategate

Climategate is a term coined in the last week to describe the recent series of events which could seriously dispute evidence of man-made global warming.  

Hackers broke into the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) in England and found documents and emails in which the authors, who are also leading scientists, specifically indicate that they skewed data to make the climate appear to be warming.  

These scientists aren't just your run-of-the-mill scientists.  They are the premiere scientists who's data is used by the UN to write global warming policy.

The e-mails revealed evidence that scientists with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been manipulating data to prove their theories of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW).

On the House side, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the Climategate documents with particular attention to those involving White House Science Adviser John Holdren, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Holdren participated in some of the e-mails and has based many of his policy-making decisions on research published by his fellow IPCC scientists implicated in the scandal.

Skeptics are not the only Climategate critics. George Monbiot, a leading AGW proponent, is calling for the resignation of one of the scientists at the center of the controversial e-mails, Phil Jones. Jones’ research has greatly influenced recent IPCC reports upon which much climate change legislation is based, including the cap-and-trade bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June and another measure now before the Senate. Writing for The Guardian, Monbiot calls Climategate a "major blow" and admits the situation could "scarcely be more damaging" to environmentalists' agenda. Monbiot also points out, despite the major media's downplaying the situation, "pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away."

 

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Kyoto Protocol

An international agreement that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the presence of greenhouse gases. Countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol are assigned maximum carbon emission levels and can participate in carbon credit trading. Emitting more than the assigned limit will cause the violating country to be penalized by lowering its emission limitation in the following period.

Investopedia Says:
The Kyoto Protocol separates countries into two groups. Annex I includes developed nations, while Non-Annex I refers to developing countries. Emission limitations are only placed on Annex I countries. Non-Annex I nations participate by investing in projects that lower emissions in their own countries. For these projects, they earn carbon credits. These credits can be traded or sold to Annex I countries, which allow them a higher level of maximum carbon emissions for that period.

Nations that didn't sign to the Kyoto Protocol were:
USA
China
India

Perestroika

 Perestroika is the Russian term (now used in English) for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet economy.

Perestroika is often argued to be one reason for the fall of communist political forces in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and for the end of the Cold War.

From modest beginnings at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986, perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev's program of economic, political, and social restructuring, became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three-quarters of a century to erect: the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist totalitarian state.

The world watched in disbelief but with growing admiration as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, democratic governments overturned Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, Germany was reunited, the Warsaw Pact withered away, and the Cold War came to an abrupt end.

In the Soviet Union itself, however, reactions to the new policies were mixed. Reform policies rocked the foundation of entrenched traditional power bases in the party, economy, and society but did not replace them entirely. Newfound freedoms of assembly, speech, and religion, the right to strike, and multicandidate elections undermined not only the Soviet Union's authoritarian structures, but also the familiar sense of order and predictability. Long-suppressed, bitter inter-ethnic, economic, and social grievances led to clashes, strikes, and growing crime rates.

 

Enumerated Powers Act

Nearly all of the specific, "enumerated" Legislative Powers of Congress are spelled out in Article of I Section 8 the Constitution. By our count, there are twenty listed in Article I, Section 8, and plus two others found in other parts of the Constitution.

 Because these powers are delegated from the people, they are the only Legislative Powers Congress has. But our Founding Fathers went further -- trying hard to make enumerated powers so obvious that even a politician couldn't miss the point. They passed the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to shut the door to claims of additional power . . .

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

And it is the tradition of Congress, for each member, upon the start of their terms of office, to take an oath, promising to protect and uphold the Constitution. Yet virtually every day that Congress is in session these same oath-takers become law-breakers -- passing laws and expending funds on items that are not Constitutionally permissible.

Over the years they've used the Necessary & Proper Clause, the Commerce Clause, and Supreme Court penumbras to give themselves powers the Constitution doesn't permit. IN FACT, MOST OF WHAT THEY DO THESE DAYS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. If they had been abiding by their enumerated powers, the federal government would be much, much, much, much, much, much smaller, and far more decentralized than it is today.

Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) has re-introduced The Enumerated Powers Act (EPA) - HR 450.  EPA would require Congress to reference the specific clause(s) of the U.S. Constitution that grant them the power to enact laws and take other congressional actions.

This measure has been defeated in every Congress since 1984.  It has yet to be introduced this year.

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The Weimer Republic

The Weimar Republic is a term used to describe the German republic that lasted from 1919 until 1933, when Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler suspended the constitution and assumed power. The republic was established after workers and troops in the German empire revolted in early 1918 against the government's refusal to end World War I (1914-1918).

World War I had left Germany with many economic, social, and political problems. In addition to enduring high inflation and a large national debt, Germans were deeply embittered by the harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty, signed in June 1919, which formally ended the war. Among other things, the treaty called for German disarmament and huge reparation payments to the Allies. Unable to meet the payments, Germany's currency collapsed and the German people suffered large financial losses.

The reason for the collapse of the currency was that the Republic was printing money to pay the debts.  As a result, there was hyper- inflation that made the currency worthless.  Many economists warn the U.S. that printing too much money to pay off our enormous debt and also to pay for the current government spending spree will cause "another Weimer Republic." 

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Sirhan Sirhan

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (born March 19, 1944) is the convicted assassin of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He is serving a life sentence at the California State Prison, Corcoran.

On June 5, 1968, Sirhan fired a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver at Senator Robert Kennedy and the crowd surrounding him in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after Kennedy had finished addressing supporters in the hotel's main ballroom. Kennedy was shot three times, with a fourth bullet passing through his jacket, and died nearly 26 hours later. Five other people at the party were also shot, but all five recovered:

Despite Sirhan's admission of guilt, recorded in a confession made while in police custody on June 6, a lengthy trial followed. The court judge did not accept his confession and denied his request to withdraw his not guilty plea so that he could plead guilty. Sirhan later recanted his confession.

On February 10, 1969, a motion by Sirhan's lawyers to enter a plea of guilty to first degree murder in exchange for life imprisonment (rather than the death penalty) was made in chambers. Sirhan announced to the court judge, Herbert V. Walker, that he wanted to withdraw his original plea of not guilty in order to plead of guilty as charged on all counts. He also asked that his counsel "...disassociate themselves from this case completely."

When the judge asked him what he wanted to do about sentencing, Sirhan replied, "I will ask to be executed." Judge Walker denied the motion and stated, "This court will not accept the plea..." The judge also denied Sirhan's request for his counsel to withdraw; when his counsel entered another motion to withdraw from the case of their own volition, Walker denied this motion as well. Judge Walker subsequently ordered that the record pertaining to the motion be sealed.

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SDS- Students for a Democratic Society

SDS was the largest and most influential radical student organization of the 1960s. At its inception in 1960, there were just a few dozen members, inspired by the civil rights movement and initially concerned with equality, economic justice, peace, and participatory democracy. With the escalation of the Vietnam War, SDS grew rapidly as young people protested the destruction wrought by the US government and military. Polite protest turned into stronger and more determined resistance as rage and frustration increased all across the country.

It still exists today.

Members included: Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, Wade Rathke, Tom Hayden, Diana Oughton (Ayers girlfriend- killed making a bomb), and thousands of others communist sympathizers.

An example of their radical behavior:

From April 23-27, 1968, Columbia University is practically shut down as Columbia SDS launches an unprecedented antiwar demonstration.
After the initial invasion of a university building where three school officials are taken hostage for 24 hours, on April 24, additional buildings are occupied by a growing mass of rebellious students, estimated to be 700 to 1,000 strong and extending beyond the original core of SDS (whose Columbia chapter consist of about 150 members) and the Students Afro-American Society. Student protesters ransack the university president’s office and go on to occupy a total of five buildings. On the sixth day of the disorders, more that 1,000 policemen enter the campus and clear the buildings in a violent and chaotic student-police encounter. Classes at Columbia come to a virtual standstill for the rest of the academic year.

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The Dream Act

In 2007, Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) announced on the Senate floor his intention to offer the Development, Relief, and Edu­cation for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. It was introduced to the House in March, 2009.

The DREAM Act (S. 774) is a nightmare. It is a massive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16. The illegal alien who applies for this amnesty is immediately rewarded with "conditional" lawful per manent resident (green card) status, which can be converted to a non-conditional green card in short order. The alien can then use his newly acquired status to seek green cards for the parents who brought him in illegally in the first place. In this way, it is also a back door amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who brought their children with them to the United States.

What is less well known about the DREAM Act is that it also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students. It repeals a 1996 federal law that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.

 It has yet to pass Congress.

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Fascism

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of  private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically.

 It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.

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Marxism, Leninism, Marxism-Leninism

What's the difference?

Marxism is the collectivist political philosophy developed by Karl Marx in the mid 19th century. Basically it states that class struggle is the motive power of social change and that the working class is destined to overthrow capitalism and establish a classless, communal society-communism.

Leninism — developed obviously by Lenin, father of the 1917 Russian revolution — is simply a philosophy and series of interlinked tactical strategies for achieving power for one group at the expense of all others.

Marxism-Leninism is the use by Marxists, of Leninist strategies to achieve power.

Most modern communists pay lip service only to Marxism, which has been well and truly discredited. Leninism on the other hand has proven highly successful and has been used to take power in dozens of countries.

Most communists today are Leninists in practice, Marxists in name only.

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 The History of Labor Day

Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution, workers were expected to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week (yes, including kids). Already sounds awful, right? It gets worse. In Pullman, Illinois, a company town that employed and housed workers to build posh railway cars, times had gotten tough. In response, George Pullman cut jobs and wages. It was 1893. Thousands of workers walked off their jobs in protest, demanding higher salaries and lower rents. Other unions joined, refusing to work the Pullman cars, turning the small-town fracas into a national fury.

With mail cars backing up, and riots worrying train execs, President Grover Cleveland stepped in. He declared the strike illegal and sent 12,000 troops to break the strike. Cue brutal protests and bloodshed. The strike was broken, but so was the spirit of the workers. To reach out to the labor movement, Congress rushed the national holiday into law. The bad will resulted in Cleveland losing re-election. But the day off for hot dogs endures.

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.  You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.  You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.  You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.  You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.  You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.  You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

                                                -Abraham Lincoln-