Charlie Rose

vongleichent  02/16/2013 09:48 AM Report

Leadership is a combination of experience, and right knowledge.

psa  02/15/2013 11:10 AM Report

Why were only Republican politicians parenthetically identified by party?

charliesheep  02/13/2013 12:51 PM Report

RALPH NADER; COULDN'T SELL ICE TO ESKIMOE'S- BUT, THE REALITY IS; HEDGE FUNDS WILL BET ON LOSERS IST, LAST, ALWAYS! SO - PUT YOUR MONEY ON THE LOSERS[RAVENS] AND VIOLA; THEIR WINNERS; WHO KNEW?

Max83  02/12/2013 09:16 PM Report

Will the patriotic billionaires step up to the plate?

Ralph Nader on Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us [FULL]

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq9HblxDyTE

'' Uploaded on Dec 4, 2009

Consumer activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader talks about American politics and his surprising new work of speculation "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us." ''

Max83  02/12/2013 08:38 PM Report

Chris Hedges on the rise of the corporate class. f.s.

'' Uploaded on Jan 7, 2011

Social critic and author Chris Hedges talks about his latest book "Death of the Liberal Class", in which he argues that democracy is on life support in the U.S. He blames the liberal elites in media, labour, religious groups and academia, for allowing the unfettered rise of the corporate class.''

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnx-MiRtngA

Max83  02/12/2013 06:55 PM Report

End Offshore Tax Havens

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7qGdA0WwY

and

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFy1on5Y3ow

Support Senator Bernie Sanders' Corporate Tax Fairness Act

Max83  02/12/2013 05:11 PM Report

The ''Overdraft'' documentary is Billionaire propaganda.

No Billionaires!

www.nobillionaires.com

REMant  02/12/2013 12:25 PM Report

Of course, democracy and government really have nothing to do with the economy except in a negative sense.

All the political clashes and problems of the last thousand years or more are the result of corruption caused by the waning power of warring kings and governments, in the process of being transferred to burgeoning commerce, where it will eventually have to be dispersed and dissipated by Say's law.

However, we have today not just a military-merchant, or military-industrial complex, but a military-banking complex, attempting no less than the Tudors and Stuarts to hold on to this power, now like Lincoln, by manipulating money. Small wonder they have to resort to women, homosexuals, minorities, immigrants and the destitute to fill their ranks.

As Milton Friedman argued in one of his saner moments, we should treat welfare as welfare, and end the fiction that underlies the Social Security Ponzi scheme (not my term, Paul Samuelson's), which can be extended, whether he would have liked it or not, to the entire Federal Reserve Ponzi scheme. which is nothing more than a gigantic welfare system. Many, and I would suppose Friedman to have been among them, (along clearly with Posen in the following half hour), believe that govt should be granted such wide-ranging power in the belief, however, that it would be virtuously used, and they go around as our president does, arguing how that must be done. But the framers of our govt'l charter evinced no such belief.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are unconstitutional, even if it is supposed they are merely insurance programs, because such are clearly not among the enumerated powers. There is no "general welfare clause," because, first of all, the first enumerated Congressional power is frequently run into the introductory phrase when it was clearly separated with a dash, and the rest of the statements are separated with a semi-colon, viz.: The Congress shall have Power-- [1.] To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [2.] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; etc, and secondly, because as Madison wrote in 1828, the intent was only to specify what the taxes were to be laid for and the terminology unthinkingly taken from the Confederation: "A history of that clause, as traced in the printed journal of the Federal Convention, will throw light on the subject. It appears that the clause, as it originally stood, simply expressed 'a power to lay taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,' without pointing out the objects; and, of course, leaving them applicable in carrying into effect the other specified powers. It appears, farther, that a solicitude to prevent any constructive danger to the validity of public debts contracted under the superseded form of government, led to the addition of the words 'to pay the debts.' This phraseology having the appearance of an appropriation limited to the payment of debts, an express appropriation was added 'for the expenses of the Government,' &c. But even this was considered as short of the objects for which taxes, duties, imposts, and excises might be required; and the more comprehensive provision was made by substituting "for expenses of Government" the terms of the old Confederation, viz.: and provide for the common defence and general welfare, making duties and imposts, as well as taxes and excises, applicable not only to payment of debts, but to the common defence and general welfare."

This is enlarged upon in a letter of 1830 citing his notes of the debates (see http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_1s27.html) where he adds: "That the terms in question were not suspected in the Convention which formed the Constitution of any such meaning as has been constructively applied to them, may be pronounced with entire confidence; for it exceeds the possibility of belief, that the known advocates in the Convention for a jealous grant and cautious definition of Federal powers should have silently permitted the introduction of words or phrases in a sense rendering fruitless the restrictions and definitions elaborated by them. Consider for a moment the immeasurable difference between the Constitution limited in its powers to the enumerated objects, and expounded as it would be by the import claimed for the phraseology in question. The difference is equivalent to two Constitutions, of characters essentially contrasted with each other--the one possessing powers confined to certain specified cases, the other extended to all cases whatsoever; for what is the case that would not be embraced by a general power to raise money, a power to provide for the general welfare, and a power to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry these powers into execution; all such provisions and laws superseding, at the same time, all local laws and constitutions at variance with them? Can less be said, with the evidence before us furnished by the journal of the Convention itself, than that it is impossible that such a Constitution as the latter would have been recommended to the States by all the members of that body whose names were subscribed to the instrument?"

The document should perhaps have read to pay past and future debts, but the point is that "common defense" as well as "general welfare" are listed and defense is clearly among the subsequently enumerated powers, so why repeat it? Other items of "general Welfare" are also enumerated. These powers were not enumerated nor haggled over to no purpose. It is either bad draftsmanship, or duplicity, tho doubtfully the latter. In 1814 Timothy Pickering asked Gouverneur Morris, no doubt in this connection: "some gentlemen who, I was told, passed their evenings in transcribing speeches from short-hand minutes of the day; they can speak positively in matters of which I have little recollection," who replied "what can a history of the Constitution avail towards interpreting its provisions? This must be done by comparing the plain import of the words with the general tenor and object of the instrument. That instrument was written by the fingers which write this letter. Having rejected redundant and equivocal terms, I believed it to be as clear as our language would permit;" But in 1811 Morris had written: "In what has already been said you may find some answer to your question, 'How far have the Amendments to the Constitution altered its spirit?' These amendments are, generally speaking, mere verbiage. It has been said that our Constitution is remarkable for the perspicuity of its language, and, if so, there was some hazard in attempting to clothe any of its provisions by the (so-called) amendment in different terms. It would be a tedious work of supererogation to show that the original Constitution contained those guards which form the apparent object of the amendments." If Morris could suppose that a power, say, to establish a religion was not there, then he, too, must have believed as Madison and the rest of the Federalists argued, that the powers of Congress were only those enumerated.

That someone may believe these programs are a part of the fabric of American life or not is irrelevant, as well, because we do not have a constitution based on precedent. The plain fact is that all three branches of this govt have ignored the founding document and no longer deserve the confidence of the American people.