(from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/referee-says-he-told-rep-jim-jordan-ohio-state-doctor-n1078476)
". . . (Jim) Jordan, a powerful Republican congressman and a top defender of President Donald Trump in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, has repeatedly denied knowing anything about what (Dr. Richard) Strauss did to the (Ohio State University) wrestlers he helped coach from 1986 to 1994. He has said the allegations against him were politically motivated. . ."
. . . this cop-out is getting very old and tired. How about responding to the specifics for a change?
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(from Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham)
". . . If we can keep the vessel of state as steadily in her course for another four years, my earthly purposes will be accomplished.
-Thomas Jefferson
I think you ought to get a damn kicking, you red-headed son of a bitch. You are a pretty fellow to be President of the United States of America, you dirty scoundrel.
-Anonymous. . . "
". . . Trump, in Nixon-esque fashion, attacked the ongoing investigations he faces during his State of the Union address. . ."If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation," he said. "It just doesn't work that way!" In his last State of the Union address, in 1974, President Richard Nixon called for an end to the Watergate probe. He would resign as a result of it later that year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters after a Democratic Caucus meeting on Wednesday that Trump's comment "was a threat." "The president should not bring threats to the floor of the House," she said, adding, "He said he wasn’t going to cooperate unless we didn’t exercise our constitutional responsibility to oversight." "The bottom line is that we are as a country, we've always had Congress do oversight over the executive branch," (Chuck) Schumer said. "That's how the Founding Fathers set it up.". . . "And the president says if you investigate me I'm not going to make progress," he said. "That's already doing what he did with the shutdown. Holding the American people hostage. He's got something to hide. Because if he had nothing to hide, he'd just shrug his shoulders and let these investigations go forward. He's afraid of them.". . . "
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(from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conway%E2%80%99s-husband-blasts-trump-tweet-calling-special-counsel-%E2%80%98unconstitutional%E2%80%99/ar-AAydy3E)
". . . Trump's . . . (asserted last week). . . that the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the Russia probe "is totally unconstitutional.". . . "
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_prosecutor#Constitutionality)
". . . The appointment of a special prosecutor raises inherent separation of powers questions under the U.S. Constitution. Since the special prosecutor is a member of the executive branch, it has been argued that the special prosecutor is ultimately answerable to the president, and can therefore be fired by them. Richard Nixon, for example, argued that he could not be compelled by a subpoena issued by his own subordinate. . . The constitutionality of the independent counsel law was affirmed by a 7–1 decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Morrison v. Olson (1988). . ."
Trump gets black unemployment rate right, but claims undue credit . . . unemployment overall is at a 45-year low and black unemployment did reach a new low this year — but (he took) credit for an awful lot of gains that occurred before his administration. . . Under Trump’s administration thus far, the black unemployment rate has fallen just one point, from 7.8 percent to 6.8 percent. . .
Has the U.S. released terrorists only to meet them later on the battlefield? . . . Trump is correct, though the trend fell dramatically under former President Barack Obama. However, his claim that the U.S. released the man who would become the leader of ISIS is somewhat misleading. The man known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released into Iraqi custody in 2004 — not set free by the U.S. . .
Trump's right, ISIS did lose almost all its territory in Iraq and Syria . . . This is true. By early December, the Pentagon said 97 percent of ISIS-held territory in Iraq and Syria had been liberated. Now, analysts tell NBC News, the threat the U.S. must fight is dangerous lone wolf attacks and resurgences of the extremist group if forces do not continue to stamp it out. . .
Trump's description of the visa lottery program, which came as the president was describing his framework for immigration reform, is false. The diversity visa program grants 50,000 visas a year to individuals who have graduated high school or "two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform," according to the State Department. . . . Visa applicants are selected through a random, computer-generated lottery. If an applicant is selected, they face all of the same background checks and screening processes as any other immigrant visa applicant to be granted admission, including document presentation, background checks, in person interviews and medical exams.
Did a terrorist enter on the diversity visa? . . . This is half true. Trump is correct that two suspects of recent terror attacks entered thanks to a family connection and the diversity visa lottery program, but both appear to have been radicalized well after they entered the United States, making them homegrown threats.
Can immigrants bring in 'unlimited' and 'distant' relatives? . . . This is false. Legal immigrants can sponsor their spouses, children, parents, and siblings — but distant relatives, like cousins, cannot be sponsored for residency. The family reunification visa process takes years or even more than a decade, preventing "chains" from forming the way Trump suggests, as Politico reported in detail.
. . What's more, there are only so many family visas that can be granted. The numbers are capped by the U.S. government.
Trump claims credit for 2.4 million new jobs, rising wages . . . This is half true. The job numbers are technically correct, but Trump is overstating wage growth and taking credit for jobs added under his predecessor. . . Trump’s first year in office was marked by 2.1 million jobs being added to the economy — the slowest year of job growth in six years — while the other job gains came under President Barack Obama. Wages are indeed rising, but they were not exactly stagnate. They’ve been rising steadily for years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Have 3 million workers received bonuses? . . . This appears to be true. Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group that fights all tax hikes, posted a list on Tuesday of 286 companies giving bonuses or pay raises because of the tax reform bill. . . "At least 3 million Americans are receiving special tax reform bonuses," the group writes — likely where Trump is getting his figure. . . While NBC News has not independently verified the group's count, the figure tracks with USA Today’s reporting that more than 2.5 million workers have received bonuses thus far.
Trump overstates tax relief for middle class . . . This claim is misleading — or, at least, depends on your definition of "tremendous." The middle class does get a tax cut under the new law, but unlike the relief for corporations, those cuts are not permanent. Ultimately, taxes for middle income families will rise. . . "The tax cuts that Trump is bragging about? Those are the provisions that are slated to go away," said Kyle Pomerleau, the director of federal projects at The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank. Most of the tax cuts affecting individuals expire in 2026. By 2027, 47.5 percent of all households will pay more in taxes than under the previous law, including 62.2 percent of taxpayers in the middle 20 percent of earners. . . . "The current law is an across the board tax cut," Pomerleau said, but, "the expiration of that is going to be an across the board tax increase."
Trump touts GOP tax cuts as "biggest" in U.S. history . . . This claim is false. The GOP tax bill, passed in December, does not amount to the "biggest" in U.S. history, according to the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. According to their estimates, Trump's tax cut is the eighth biggest in history. . . . As for the reform aspect: "It’s hard to mathematically measure how reform-y your tax plan is," said Kyle Pomerleau, the director of federal projects at The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank. Still, Ronald Reagan's 1986 reform simplified the tax code in a big way and was probably more "reformish," Pomerleau told NBC News. . ."
(from John Adams by David McCullough)
". . . Of the potentially divisive threats to "the more perfect union," non surpassed slavery. The slave population, too, had burgeoned to nearly 700,000 men, women, and children who had no freedom whatever. There were slaves still in every state but one-only Massachusetts had eliminated slavery thus far-but with the overwhelming majority of slaves, full 500,000 centered in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, the difference between North and South was if anything greater than ever. . . "
(from http://www.politicususa.com/2017/01/19/jeff-sessions-believes-amendment-separation-clause-unconstitutional.html)
". . . Jeff Sessions, sincerely believes, and had no qualms saying out loud that the “Establishment Clause” in the U.S. Constitution is “unconstitutional.” Sessions, an evangelical extremist, also said that the separation of church and state is “an extra-constitutional doctrine” and a “recent thing that is unhistorical and unconstitutional.” . . . However, the real historical figure, Founding Father and third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson plainly explained in writing that: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”. . . "
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
mi·li·tia
məˈliSHə/Submit
noun
1. a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
2. a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities, typically in opposition to a regular army.
3. all able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service.
se·cu·ri·ty
səˈkyo͝orÉ™dÄ“/
noun
1. the state of being free from danger or threat.
"the system is designed to provide maximum security against toxic spills"
2. a private police force that guards a building, campus, park, etc.
Free State
noun
1. a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.
"she had every right to be angry"synonyms:entitlement, prerogative, privilege, advantage, due, birthright, liberty, authority, power, license, permission, dispensation, leave, sanction, freedom
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from http://wonkette.com/584211/hero-gov-greg-abbott-will-stop-obama-from-doing-martial-law-and-isis-to-poor-texans)
". . . Terrible demonic false flag Indo-Kenyan “President” Barack Obama is preparing AT THIS VERY MOMENT to impose martial law on Texas, which will probably be enforced by ISIS, who is currently hiding behind some brush just over yonder, on the Mexican banks of the Rio Grande. Shit yer pants and oil yer guns, y’all, it’s time for a revolution! If you are not one of the people we were just addressing above, here is a thing that is happening! Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas State Guard — NOT the National Guard, the State Guard, which is different — to keep an eye out on a planned U.S. military training exercise called Operation Jade Helm 15, because SOME PEOPLE are very worried, for completely serious reasons we are sure, that maybe Barack Obama is going to use this two month-long exercise to declare martial law and send ISIS to take over Texas, in order to accomplish … something! According to the military, the exercise is intended to work like this:
The mission is vast both geographically and strategically: Elite service members from four branches of the U.S. military will launch an operation this summer in which they will operate covertly among the U.S. public and travel from state to state in military aircraft. Texas, Utah and a section of southern California are labeled as hostile territory, and New Mexico isn’t much friendlier. . . Oh, we almost forgot the ISIS part! You see, a Texas Ranger, who is anonymous, BUT DEFINITELY EXISTS, has written a letter to a conspiracy loon, stating that “we expecting [sic] an attack on more than one Texas city or town by ISIS and/or any of their partners,” and that this could happen any day now. Because duh, ISIS is totally in Mexico right now, just a few miles from El Paso, and they are working with the drug cartels, to attack America! Are the Jade Helm people coming into KILL the ISIS, or are they coming in because Barack Obama instructed them to work alongside ISIS in order to take Texans to FEMA camps??? No way to tell! . . ."
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from wikipedia.com)
"Machiavellianism", is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described in The Prince. The book itself gained enormous notoriety and wide readership because the author seemed to be endorsing behavior often deemed as evil and immoral.
(from The Hidden History of 9-11, Edited by Paul Zarembka)
". . . It is vital in a democracy to question the state's own account of itself - to engage in what I call, oppositional theorizing. Rather than accepting the official story of 9-11, which contains so many unsatisfactory elements, the left ought to theorize the attacks on New York and Washington from an oppositional standpoint. "Citizens are free . . . so long as nothing is hidden from them. Thus, they must watch, surveil, expose and reveal" (Dean, 2000, p. 16). Sadly, the established left has done the opposite. Respected left commentators have embraced a radicalized version of the White House 9-11 account of September 11. (sic) Claiming the attacks are payback for globalization exposes the left to charges of supporting terrorism. Even while denying stereotyped views of Islam, the left hardly doubts bin Laden's "cartoonish parody ... [of] Muslims as angry and violent" (Gusterson, 2004, p. 144).
The left embraces a distorted notion of political violence that sees it as an understandable response of the weak to provocations of the powerful. Yet, what I have called Machiavellian state terrorism is a common feature in history. Acts of terror are vulnerable to manipulation, and far more likely to be a weapon of state rulers and their agents, than the oppressed masses. As a legitimized protection racket, the state may be tempted to inflict harm secretly on its own citizens in order to achieve unpublicized but highly desired goals. Rival power holders may find it inconvenient to confront lies which help maintain the current regime. This is likely the case with September 11, which provided American power a convenient excuse to conduct ware on Afghanistan and Iraq that had been planned well before. The left abjures conspiracy theory (while enabling the official bin Laden story) but oppositional theorizing - questioning government and looking for connections between events, perceiving the world "to be organized beneath the surface" (Sturken, 1997, p. 77) - is a critical feature of what it means to be vitally active in the political universe. . . "
Rules were made to be broken. Constitutions were written at specific points in historical time when specific circumstances existed. Many circumstances that existed at that time have CHANGED. That's why females can now vote. That's why slavery no longer exists.
(from Thom Hartmann, Truthout | News Analysis)
". . . The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."
It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains.
Sally E. Haden, in her book Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, "Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller." There were exemptions so "men in critical professions" like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work. Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45 - including physicians and ministers - had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.
And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy.
By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings. As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.
If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband - or even move out of the state - those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.
These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves).
Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia, could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free the slaves.
This was not an imagined threat. Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces. "Liberty to Slaves" was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps. During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779. And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington's army. . . "
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