Can the gov’t force you to eat broccoli?
Andrew Napolitano: Exploitation of Commerce Clause led to defense of Obamacare supreme_court hat tip: World Net Daily by Andrew Napolitano This week, the Supreme Court measured Obamacare to see whether it fits within the confines of the Constitution. The big picture is whether the Constitution limits the behavior of the federal government to the plain [...]
IRS starts mopping up Congress’s tax-reporting mess
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With a new mandate looming that will require business owners to file millions more tax forms, the Internal Revenue Service has begun the daunting process of figuring out how to turn the law’s sweeping demands into actual rules for taxpayers.
The new regulations, which kick in at the start of 2012, require any taxpayer with business income to issue 1099 forms to all vendors from whom they purchased more than $600 of goods and services that year. That promises to launch a fusillade of new paperwork: An estimated 40 million taxpayers will be subject to the requirement, including 26 million who run sole proprietorships, according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson.
Sexually Dangerous Can Be Imprisoned Indefinitely
By Kevin Gosztola
Opednews.com
Flickr Photo by bobster855
A Supreme Court decision on Monday stated that federal official could hold people who are considered “sexually dangerous” indefinitely even if their prison terms have been served completely.
The idea of keeping sexually dangerous people off the streets is not a bad one until you think of the enforcement mechanisms. Who gets to decide who is sexually dangerous and who is it? Aren’t these the same people who go to work with politicians who themselves have committed sex crimes?
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion:
“The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned by who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others.”
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented (not because he found indefinite detention to be a violation of one’s civil liberties but because he found it to be a violation of state’s rights):
Stock Market Collapse: More Goldman Market Rigging?
by Ellen Brown
Author, “Web of Debt”
hat tip: opednews.com
May 7, 2010
Last week, Goldman Sachs was on the congressional hot seat, grilled for fraud in its sale of complicated financial products called “synthetic CDOs.” This week the heat was off, as all eyes turned to the attack of the shorts on Greek sovereign debt and the dire threat of a sovereign Greek default. By Thursday, Goldman’s fraud had slipped from the headlines and Congress had been cowed into throwing in the towel on its campaign to break up the too-big-to-fail banks. On Friday, Goldman was in settlement talks with the SEC.
Goldman and Wall Street reign. Congress appears helpless to discipline the big banks, just as the European Central Bank appears helpless to prevent the collapse of the European Union. . . . Or are they?
Suspicious Market Maneuverings
The shorts circled like sharks in the Greek bond market, following a highly suspicious downgrade of Greek debt by Moody’s on Monday. Ratings by private ratings agencies, long suspected of being in the pocket of Wall Street, often seem to be timed to cause stocks or bonds to jump or tumble, causing extreme reactions in the market. The Greek downgrade was unexpected because the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund had just pledged 120 billion Euros to avoid a debt default in Greece. Strategically-timed ratings downgrades of this sort are so suspicious that Indian market regulator SEBI recently created a stir by asking the rating agencies operating in India for periodic reporting concerning their fees and rating norms.
The Pentagon Church Militant and Us
The Top Five Questions We Should Ask the Pentagon
by William J. Astore
hat tip: Tom Dispatch
When it comes to our nation’s military affairs, ignorance is not bliss. What’s remarkable then, given the permanent state of war in which we find ourselves, is how many Americans seem content not to know.
There are many reasons for this state of affairs. Our civilian leaders encourage us to be deferential toward our latest commander/savior, whether Tommy Franks in 2003, David Petraeus in 2007, or Stanley McChrystal in 2010. Our media employs retired officers, most of them multi-starred generals, in a search for expertise that ends in an unconditional surrender to military agendas. A cloud of secrecy and “black budgets” combine to obscure military matters, ranging from global strategy to war goals to weapons procurement. The taxpayer, forced to pony up about one trillion dollars yearly to fund our military, national security infrastructure, and wars, is sent a simple message: stay clear and leave it to the experts in uniform.
The powerlessness of ordinary Americans in military matters is no accident. Recall the one-word reply — “So?” — Dick Cheney offered in March 2008, when asked to comment on popular opposition to the war in Iraq. The former vice president was certainly far blunter than Washington usually is, and for that we may owe him a measure of thanks. By highlighting the arrogant dismissiveness of Washington’s warrior-elite when it comes to American public opinion, he revealed more than he intended.
Ron Paul: Healthcare will drive US to bankruptcy
Ron Paul : you have right to your life and your liberty you do not have right to stuff. The government should not distribute wealth or services.
President Obama has won the healthcare argument in Congress but the nationwide debate still rages. RT talks now to one of the opponents, Congressman Ron Paul. He says the plan provides a right that should not be offered by government.
“My fellow Americans, tonight I’m going to talk frankly about a pesky little nation called Israel … “
Hat tip: CounterPunch Diary
March 19 – 21, 2010
By Alexander Cockburn
Don’t get excited. It’ll never happen. Is there really a crisis in US-Israeli relations? Yes and No. Yes, because the world’s premier power doesn’t care to have its vice president publicly humiliated by a midget of a nation whose entire population is smaller than that of Los Angeles county. No, because the elected politicians nominally running the government of the world’s premier power live in mortal fear of the Israel lobby in the United States. This time, as always, No will carry the day. (You can find a detailed narrative by Jeffrey Blankfort on this site today, from which much of this Diary is drawn.)
Consider Biden’s reaction the day after Interior Minister Eli Yishai, probably with Netanyahu’s foreknowledge, announced the scheduled building of 1600 apartments – Jews only – in East Jerusalem, right at the moment Biden was trying to breathe life into the “peace process”
So here’s the vice president of the United States of America,standing with all the injured dignity of a man who has just had a bucket of sewage dumped over his head and who amid his discomfiture, actually did use the word “condemn” and “Israel” in the same paragraph. The next day Biden heads for Tel Aviv university and confides to the audience that he is a Zionist and that, “throughout my career, Israel has not only remained close to my heart but it has been the center of my work as a United States Senator and now as Vice President of the United States.” Get that: “the center of my work.” This mission statement is not quoted in the U.S. press.
Remember the Father of the Constitution
Hat tip: Mises Daily
by Gary Galles
March 16, 2010
March 16 marks James Madison’s birthday. He was “the father of the Constitution”; no one had a greater hand in constructing and interpreting the highest law of our land. His understanding is especially important today, given how far we have moved away from the very limited government the Constitution authorized and toward one that continually expands its power at the expense of Americans.
We could all profit by remembering Madison’s understanding of the federal government authorized under the Constitution, a sharp contrast to what we see everywhere around us.
Hitherto charters have been written grants of privileges by Governments to the people. Here they are written grants of power by the people to their Governments.
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate … protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for … the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Laws are unconstitutional which infringe the rights of the community … government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.
The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.
There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied … than … that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong … nothing can be more false … it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals … reestablishing … force as the measure of right.
The Patriot’s Pledge
Hat tip: The Patriot’s Pledge
I, a patriotic American, do hereby declare this to be my official request if I am killed in a ‘terrorist attack’.
Article I: War Powers
Congress must no longer abdicate its constitutional responsibility by granting open-ended war powers to the President through vague “resolutions” or “authorizations”. If a military response is warranted against another country, then Congress must formally declare war as stipulated in the Constitution. Or, if a military response is warranted against a terrorist group or organization, then Congress must formally grant Letters of Marque & Reprisal as stipulated in the Constitution.
Article II: Civil Liberties
We must not allow our constitutional rights to be undermined in the name of national security. Fear of terrorist acts is not sufficient cause to relinquish our civil liberties. Liberties such as, but not limited to, the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the internet, Habeas corpus, and freedom from government spying on private citizens must be strictly upheld in the event of an attack.
