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See article 1, section, clause 5 of the US Constitution - "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Thus there are zero export taxes in the US. It's not like it's hard to find the export tax rates for countries. And it's not hard to learn about foreign free trade zones in the US. But hey, I know it's just facts and reality - don't let that stop you from your little, delusional rant! Education is a terrible thing when you have an agenda to push...

Well said and extrapolated! Particularly your quip "Education is a terrible thing when you have an agenda to push" If you do not mind I will use it elsewhere. It cuts to the core of why we need to continue the fight against all political entities that are based upon male domination like the Talaban that exist only by violent brutal intolerance for the benefit of the so called "leaders". The same is true with the petrochemical industrial complex which is controlling far to great a portion of the world's economy. They need to be exposed for what they, are a conglomerate group who really could care less about human life as long as they control the planet.

Who are the they? I can look in the mirror and at times see one myself as I drive my car willy-nilly everywhere. I keenly remember seeing a hippy Volkswagen van once in about 96' with a tattered bumper sticker long after the defeat of Bush after the first and the pseudo religious oil conflict with Sadam over Kuwait (first gulf war). The bumper sticker boldly stated: (NO BLOOD FOR OIL!). The funny part was that it was sitting there running and dripping oil from the engine all over the pavement where it was parked. The oil was going directly down into a storm sewer catchment that lead directly to a fish bearing creek. At the time I was doing environmental stream survey work for logging cut blocks. To cut a long story short I went home and looked in the mirror and realized that poor ol' Al Gore who was recently berated in the press for his anti pollution stance was on to something and there was no chance in hell of him every gaining power. We are all subject to the whim of our ignorance and education can help heal this inner wound. But the greatest failing of the student is always an inability to listen, thus we ignore Rachel Carson and other luminaries like Al Gore at our own intellectual peril!

See article 1, section, clause 5 of the US Constitution - "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Thus there are zero export taxes in the US. It's not like it's hard to find the export tax rates for countries. And it's not hard to learn about foreign free trade zones in the US. But hey, I know it's just facts and reality - don't let that stop you from your little, delusional rant! Education is a terrible thing when you have an agenda to push...

The problem is under this logic, Shakespeare would still be under copyright. Copyright is intended for a LIMITED time with its express purpose to advance the arts and sciences, NOT to enrich creators, thats a side effect.. I think the 14years +14 year extension laid out in the Constitution is more than fair, especially in an Information Age

Actually, The Constitution does not define the length of the terms for copyrights. It only grants Congress the ability to pass laws To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; (Section 8 of the Constitution).

Jefferson didn't make ends meet. He died some $2 million in debt in today's money.

Anyway there were lots of Americans at the time that were opposed to slavery. Quakers existed, abolitionists existed. It was obvious then as it is now that slavery was wrong. Jefferson and other slaver founding fathers lived in denial.

Franklin for example became an abolitionist. Jefferson could have, should have, too.

http://www.archives.gov/about/...

Next?

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

As Secretary of State, she would be considered an Original Classification Authority. This means that she would be trained in recognizing what should be classified information, and what should be protected.

http://www.politico.com/story/...

According to that article, the number of classified emails is in the range of 400. Some of those messages should have been obvious that they were classified, especially for someone who is supposed to be the one determining the classification of information (an Original Classification Authority's job).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...
http://www.archives.gov/about/...

Saying that she didn't send or receive any emails marked as classified is a lie of omission. She should have known that certain things should have been classified, so even without the markings (which is likely to land someone in Federal prison), she should be able to identify classified information and handle it properly, including reporting the release of classified information onto her home email server.

The Constitution is quite clear on the matter. It outlines what the U.S. government is permitted to do. Anything not permitted in the Constitution is forbidden to the government. There is no clause that says outside of the U.S. anything goes.

No one said there was a clause saying outside the US anything goes, so that is a strawman. What the Constitution does say in Article I, Section 8, is "The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States", so it seems the Constitution does grant the government the power to make laws to protect the general welfare of the US, like searches at the borders to stop things harmful to the country from entering. It is quite clear. Also, it is considered "reasonable" to conduct such searches, so the Fourth Amendment isn't being violated.

Any weak excuses to the contrary are further damaged when the action is taken against a U.S. citizen.

And as a final death blow, are they trying to claim that if a wanted criminal was spotted in the international concourse of an airport, they would just watch as he boards a plane bound for Argentina because there was no jurisdiction there to arrest him? Or would the U.S. government suddenly assert territorial rights?

No, the US has jurisdiction inside its airports (though there are international treaties regarding international travel that limit it a little), so they would have the right to arrest him. But again this is a strawman since that isn't a person trying to enter the US, it is a person trying to leave. Until his plane is out of US airspace, they have jurisdiction over him (assuming he isn't on a diplomatically protected plane). For a person trying to enter, namely what this discussion is about, please see above.

Copyright was originally meant to encourage more art to be created, not this.

In the US, patents and copyright are expressly forbidden to Congress unless they are for the purpose of promoting the to progress of science and the useful arts. This is a consequence of them not being given the power to grant exclusive rights, and the 12th Amendment.

The Congress shall have Power ...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Note that they don't have the power to secure exclusive rights to authors and inventors, they have the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, and are merely allowed to grant monopoly rights as a way of doing so. If you doubt this, feel free to read the rest of Article I, Section 8 -- there is no meaningless feel-good gibberish, just powers granted and their qualifiers.

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

Article the twelfth... 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.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so I am able to read plain English.

Bull shit.

The laws have been on the books for a very long time, and continuing to parrot that line to make her look better is disingenuous.

http://www.archives.gov/record...
http://www.archives.gov/about/...

You can read up on the records laws, they date back quite far. Here is a link to the 1994 version:

http://law.justia.com/codes/us...

Bull shit.

The laws have been on the books for a very long time, and continuing to parrot that line to make her look better is disingenuous.

http://www.archives.gov/record...
http://www.archives.gov/about/...

You can read up on the records laws, they date back quite far. Here is a link to the 1994 version:

http://law.justia.com/codes/us...

These records management REQUIREMENTS are outlined in NARA (National Archive and Records Administration: http://www.archives.gov/about/...). Every federal employee is subject to these statutes. The only ambiguity could possibly be the interpretation of an official about what constitutes a federal record, and whether they can lawfully destroy the record. But I dont think any rational human being would consider a 2 month gap in the records of the for a Secretary of State, preceding an attack on an Embassy and assassination of an Ambassador, for instance, to be a coincidence. It is utter lunacy to argue that no important communication or decisions occurred by the Secretary in that period. Which means that (proven by the following LAWS) that the Secretary and the State Dept FAILED to properly retain official government records, punishable (as outlined and proven in the provided statutes) by law.

Records Management by Federal Agencies
44 U.S.C. Chapter 31
3101. Records management by agency heads; general duties
The head of each Federal agency shall make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency and designed to furnish the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the Government and of persons directly affected by the agency’s activities.

(My Notes: Please note the unambiguous "SHALL". It is not optional. It is not open to interpretation.This section alone is meant to ensure by law that no information that is/was integral to the course of government activity be destroyed. Period. End of story.)

3103. Transfer of records to records centers
When the head of a Federal agency determines that such action may affect substantial economies or increased operating efficiency, the head of such agency shall provide for the transfer of records to a records center maintained and operated by the Archivist, or, when approved by the Archivist, to a center maintained and operated by the head of the Federal agency.

(My notes: Not only may an agency not destroy the data, the agency MUST ensure that the records are provided to the National Archives for possible PERMANENT retention.)

3105. Safeguards
The head of each Federal agency shall establish safeguards against the removal or loss of records the head of such agency determines to be necessary and required by regulations of the Archivist. Safeguards shall include making it known to officials and employees of the agency--
(1) that records in the custody of the agency are not to be alienated or destroyed except in accordance with sections 3301-3314 of this title, and
(2) the penalties provided by law for the unlawful removal or destruction of records. 3106. Unlawful removal, destruction of records
(a) FEDERAL AGENCY NOTIFICATION.—The head of each Federal agency shall notify the Archivist of any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in the custody of the agency, and with the assistance of the Archivist shall initiate action through the Attorney General for the recovery of records the head of the Federal agency knows or has reason to believe have been unlawfully removed from that agency, or from another Federal agency whose records have been transferred to the legal custody of that Federal agency.
(b) ARCHIVIST NOTIFICATION.—In any case in which the head of the Federal agency does not initiate an action for such recovery or other redress within a reasonable period of time after being notified of any such unlawful action described in subsection (a), or is participating in, or believed to be participating in any such unlawful action, the Archivist shall request the Attorney General to initiate such an action, and shall notify th

http://www.archives.gov/about/...

If you say so. I believe they are very specific on what needs to be kept and what not. How much do you have to deal with official records?

Yes, Eisenhower warned about a "military-industrial complex" and left-wingers have cited this like a new gospel ever since, but they ALWAYS fail to quote the entire thing - which is VERY IMPORTANT and changes a lot of the context (not to the political liking of the left, which is why they never fully quote it). Eisenhower was NOT the general-turned-anti-military (the preferred narrative of some on the left) but rather the even more revolutionary politician-turned-anti-corruption (probably because he never really was a professional politician)

Eisenhower warned of two tightly-related things, both caused by the rise of modern science and tech:

1. That war was now so complex, lethal, and tech-dependent that the nation would no longer be able to operate as in the past (mostly unarmed during peacetime and then with a massive arms build-up when war became imminent). The result is that you cannot, for example, enter a war relatively disarmed and then wait 6 years to build an aircraft carrier. The natural consequence of this, which was what Eisenhower warned about, is that some big corporations would transition to only building military systems, then become fully dependent upon military contracts, and then start driving dangerous national policies because they need the contracts. This not a warning against defending the nation, buying the best weapons, militarism, or conspiracy theories as much as it is a severe warning about crony capitalism, particularly in the sphere of war.

2. That a society so dependent upon science and technology could easily fall into the trap of surrendering to the policy choices of people operating under the banner of "science" and that those scientists (just like the defense contractors) would depend on government funding and then start influencing government policy choices (the exact co-dependent crony action as the defense contractors). This was a warning that while science is charged with discovering things, it is NOT in the position of prescribing public policy in a free republic. The representatives of the people are still the ones charged with making the decisions that balance man, nature, the rights of the individual, the public good, etc.

We have indeed plunged into the hazards of warning #1, not by accident but by deliberate political choice - at every turn along the way since the Cold War both Republican and Democrat administrations have approved all the defense contractor mergers so that we now have a very small pool of massive defense contractors who are entirely too dependent on DoD contracts, and are now "too big to fail". If Boeing, Lockheed, or Northrop were now to go belly-up the Pentagon would go into full panic mode as it would face a supplier pool unable to meet its needs. This was no accident - the defense contractors lobbied for all those merger approvals and the politicians got their campaign contributions.

What many of the left refuse to acknowledge however is that the modern Democrat party is pushing hard to also implement #2. We have huge struggles today with government-funded researchers trying to drive their policy prescriptions exactly as Eisenhower predicted (see: all global warming stuff, nearly everything the EPA is doing, etc)

As always, it's always best to read the actual source materials: like in this case script he read on the air as opposed to a hacked-up edited YouTube video or somebody's edited partial quote.

I'm sorry...I just have to disagree with you there. I assume you are referring to Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech. I don't think he ever alludes to any of these messages in his speech: Assimilate to the dominant culture. Denying the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history. Denying the individual as a racial/cultural being. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. He isn't being colorblind. He is saying to me that "I accept your racial/ethnic history---I just want to sit down at your table too." Perhaps you are thinking of this one: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. He isn't being blind to color, he just doesn't want judgement because of color. Or maybe it is this one: I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. Again, he isn't being blind to color. He sees that there are white and black girls, it's just that they can join together as equals. But hey, don't take my word for it. It's all right here: http://www.archives.gov/press/...

You know that the North owned slaves throughout the war, right? The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the South. There were a lot of reasons the Civil War happened, but "it was all about slavery!" isn't true.

Actually you got the Emancipation Proclamation wrong. As I mentioned in several posts its only freed slaves in rebel held territory. It did not apply to regions of the South under Union control.

In any case your logic is terribly terribly flawed. The North did not initiate the war. The South decided to secede and to start the war (firing on Fort Sumter) and the Southern leadership that made these decisions was absolutely motivated by the defense and preservation and expansion of the institution of slavery.

There were violent debates in Congress prior to the war regarding the expansion of slavery into the territories. The North wanting to confine slavery to existing slave states, the South wanting to expand slavery into the territories and even require that half of new states admitted to the Union be slave states. The South's primary state's rights argument was that the North was not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. At least one, maybe more, of the secession declarations cited the election of Lincoln and his secret "abolitionist leanings", as if US Presidents were required to be pro-slavery. Numerous secession declaration explicitly and unambiguously lists the defense and preservation of slavery as a main cause.

The South decided upon secession and war and that decision was based on protecting their wealth and power and economy that was based upon the institution of slavery.

You know that the North owned slaves throughout the war, right? The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the South. There were a lot of reasons the Civil War happened, but "it was all about slavery!" isn't true.

Where in the hell in the US Constitution is there a "right" to "dignity"?

The answer to your question is in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Consitiution:

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.

You may want to read the Constitution again. Here's a link:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

The fix is for people to deal with it, like grown-ups. Office romances happen across the entire working population. If people are idiots there's fallout. So far the world has survived, and nothing needs to be done to fix this.

Significant enough numbers of grown-ups are sufficiently unable to act like grownups that yeah, the rest of us really do need to fix it.

More importantly, this is not new. Interpersonal struggles and conflict are as old as humanity itself, and we've discovered, as a species, that we really do benefit from having rules, laws, guidelines, and social norms to help us navigate these choppy waters.

"Just deal with it like grownups" is a cop-out philosophy of managers not wanting to do their jobs and employees not wanting to grow beyond what they already are. "Just deal with it like grownups" means nothing more than "I don't like dealing with the strife and drama that is the human condition, therefore I'll pretend that MY employees/co-workers are somehow magically above all that."

Lastly, if you think that the world has survived without people having done anything to fix this, well, you haven't been paying any attention at all.

Congress can tax and spend for the general welfare.

Congress can do anything for the "general welfare" — if that's how we interpret the two words.

NSA eavesdropping, banning or establishing religions, and confiscating guns are neither taxing nor spending

Huh? It is not done for free — it certainly is taxing and spending!

If you've noticed, Congress often tries to establish policy by giving out money with strings attached

Yes, I have noticed — and I hate it, because it means, like I said, that they can do anything and the only limit is the political will (as in UK, for example), but not the Constitution.

which in many of these cases Congress can't do.

Well, you meant to say "should not be able to do", because they clearly can — and have — done it in this round-about way.

Can Congress vote to put a person to death — for the "general welfare" (better known among the openly Socialist as The Greater Good[TM])? They sure can — according to your interpretation — by spending money on the execution.

But let's get back to the topic of coerced "benevolence".

Your interpretation of the clause is wrong if only for the above reason — that it removes any Constitutional limit on government's power.

But that's not the only reason. Your earlier statement, that laws must be interpreted as software, is not quite correct. While I agree, that laws aren't unlike programs, humans — being semantic rather than merely syntactic devices — aren't like computers. While the machines can not (yet?) know the programmer's desires beyond what he actually writes, we can — and do — consider the legislative intent.

While such intent is not always known, in this case it is perfectly clear. Not only did James Madison (known as Father of the Constitution, BTW) state it, we also know, that not one of the other Constitution-framers still alive at the time (1794), rose up to remind him about the "general welfare" clause. The refugees from Haiti did not receive tax-paid help from America..

The Gibson guitar factory got raided by the FBI for having rare woods... finger boards... and they said something about how that was a violation of some law from the 1920s that makes no sense.

Uh, what? The Gibson guitar factory got raided for violating a law proposed by George W. Bush in 2003. And eventually signed into law by George W. Bush when Congress agreed with his initiative and passed the law. It worked, too. Illegal logging is down around the world. Boohoo, contributing to the party that made your actions illegal doesn't get you a "get out of jail free" card. How sad for you.

The Justice Department may or may not be engaged in politically motivated prosecution, but your choice of examples is feeble.

Another rub on the Patriot Act, or rather the Patriot Act extension, is that it was not signed by the President. The extension bill was the first bill ever signed into law by the "autopen".

Article I, Section 7 - Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. [...]
http://www.archives.gov/exhibi...

So it says "he shall sign it", not a robot. Is it law?

No, you're wrong. Discussing classified information via unclassified sources has been illegal for some time.

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 12065

Executive Order 12356

EXECUTIVE ORDER 12958 (notice the signatory)

So, please express how the government can address this without a complete record of the Secretary's e-mails? That's assuming you wish to trust the person receiving legal bribes from foreign governments $200K to $500K at a time through speaking fees for her or her husband.

Very astute. However, None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. Ok, it's time to change that.

The Bill of Rights is actually fairly clear that the only legal powers of the Federal Government are those explicitly granted (I.e. Enumerated Powers) to it by the Constitution, and that anything not otherwise prohibited is reserved for individual States to excercise.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibi...
"Amendment X

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."

The issue with Obama as it has been stated is that his mother was 18 at his birth and had not lived for five years in the US after she turned 18. So If your mother was under 19 you can't be president. For me, that fucking bogus. An obvious bug, written into the US constitution.

No, that is not an issue at all. While you have to be 35 years old to be president of the US, the age of your mother when you were born is irrelevant. The text of the US constitution is readily available online for you to see for yourself: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

You seem to be vaguely referencing the requirements for citizenship at birth for someone who was born outside the US, but that's not an issue with Obama because he was born in the US, and is therefore a natural born US citizen.

The Dixiecrats, who favored segregation, largely became Republicans in the 70's.

Really?

http://www.archives.gov/federa...

What actually happened to the Dixiecrats is they essentially retired, and in their place were younger politicians which weren't pro-segregation, who joined the GOP.

And if you want a source, here it is:

http://freeplanetickettonorthk...

Note this bite in particular:

There weren’t many Republicans in the South prior to 1964, but that doesn’t mean the birth of the souther GOP was tied to “white racism.” That said, I am sure there were and are white racist southern GOP. No one would deny that. But it was the southern Democrats who were the party of slavery and, later, segregation. It was George Wallace, not John Tower, who stood in the southern schoolhouse door to block desegregation! The vast majority of Congressional GOP voted FOR the Civil Rights of 1964-65. The vast majority of those opposed to those acts were southern Democrats. Southern Democrats led to infamous filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Anyways don't let me get in the way of your quest to rewrite history. Remember to just keep repeating your lie enough, and it will become the truth.

From the one who aren't interested, of course.

If you were forced by law to rub shit all over yourself once every four years - how many times would you have done it before looking into differences between types of shit you can rub into your skin?
Or would you just go "Aaaah... it's all the same shit."
But is it?
Dog shit, elephant shit, shit harvested from hospitals, shit from prisons, baby shit, your own shit, your girlfriend's/wife's shit, shit of some Playboy bunny...

Claiming that mandatory voting will get money out of politics is one of the stupidest things anyone has said.

From the summary:

It would be transformative if everybody voted - that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.

He didn't say "get money out". He's not stupid. He said "counteract money".
Reduce influence of money by making it more expensive to control a significant number of votes by money and harder to achieve results against the simple will of the people.

In any case, mandatory voting is a bad idea no matter how many other countries do it. It is someone's right not to vote just as much as it is to vote, and encouraging people who otherwise have no interest in the process to vote is a mistake. Voting for voting's sake is a travesty of the process.

In other words - exercising one's freedom to take part in the process of maintaining or divesting of ALL freedoms is a travesty - because people should not be forced to use their freedom OR to be free.
Because it is no longer freedom to choose if you are forced to choose.

Which is BULLSHIT.
Along the lines that mandatory elementary education deprives people of their freedom to be uneducated or educated - as they choose fit.

You know what's the most hilarious part?
They KNEW there'd be people like you out there. Back in 1776.
But please... do keep the system you yourself know to be broken, for the reason of "it's a travesty" fallacy and cooky conspiracy theories about "the reason [which] can't be openly stated".
Obama is after your precious bodily fluids, that's it. Has to be. Or he would state (openly) that he wasn't.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibi...

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

See the Wikipedia article on the Speech and Debate Clause or read it for yourself in the Constitution. So he can talk all about the program during a speech on the floor of the Senate, and nothing can be done to him.

Here are the laws on this subject. Please read. They date back to the 50s and have been updated numerous times:

http://www.archives.gov/record...

http://www.archives.gov/record...

There's the laws, they date back to the 50s. It is clearly illegal.

http://www.archives.gov/record...

The official records retention laws are from the 50s. Don't let them lie to you, this has been illegal for a very long time.

If you look up the line of this very thread, you will find me linking to the federal records retention laws.

http://www.archives.gov/about/...

The federal archives are the ones who store these records, even classified ones. They are also the ones who release records when the classification is no longer valid, for instance the records of the Roswell crash that were recently released.

I have no idea however what the penalty is for breaking 44 U.S.C. Chapter 31. My opinion would be a ban from elected service, but that is me.

Yeah, um, no.

The federal records management laws have been in place for much longer than Obama has been in office. Just because he updated them somewhat, just a bit, doesn't mean they didn't exist before then.

http://www.archives.gov/about/...

But you are welcome to try to ignore all the laws on the books about how very illegal what Hillary did is.

For the inevitable, "but Palin did it!", Palin has not held federal office, therefore she did not fall under the federal records management laws. As I am unfamiliar with the Alaska laws that the Governor falls under, I cannot comment on if Palin broke the law.

You are making an argument against the First Amendment.

Yes, I am

Go ahead, then, you know the process.

He waved a reply to Mr. Vining's observations on the common law, (in which that gentleman had been lengthy and minute, in order to invalidate Mr. Madison's objection to the power proposed to be given to the Bank, to make rules and regulations, not contrary to law). Mr. Madison said the question would involve a very lengthy discussion - and other objects more intimately connected with the subject, remained to be considered.

The power of granting Charters, he observed, is a great and important power, and ought not to be exercised, without we find ourselves expressly authorised to grant them: Here he dilated on the great and extensive influence that incorporated societies had on public affairs in Europe: They are a powerful machine, which have always been found competent to effect objects on principles, in a great measure independent of the people.

He argued against the influence of the precedent to be established by the bill - for tho it has been said that the charter is to be granted only for a term of years, yet he contended, that granting the powers on any principle, is granting them in perpetuum - and assuming this right on the part of the government involves the assumption of every power whatever.

So there's an example of one of the most important of the founders eschewing the corporation of that time. While I imagine Madison would be dubious of today's legal fiction of "corporate personhood", he would have also resisted the formation of many of the US's current public institutions. And in the few cases where those institutions met his approval, he'd probably disapprove of their considerably enlarged scope.

And on other end of this spectrum was Alexander Hamilton who supported a strong central government and probably wouldn't have had a major problem with much of what has been done since.

Just like now, there was a mix of the many human opinions, vices, and virtues. To say that the founding fathers meant that or this, especially when what they supposedly meant is just a blatantly fantastical reinterpretation of their times through a modern ideological filter, is to lose understanding of them or of their times.

Finally, though I don't see the indication that the times of the late 18th century are sufficiently different from today that we can safely ignore the purpose of the Constitution or the various dangers it was designed to forestall or mitigate.

• 1. "Of course they were, most men were taking bullets on the various front for them"
• Is that really true? You might be the type of man(?) this was aimed at? Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942
• "It is always impolite to criticize your hosts; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies."
• "When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic - remember she didn't get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich"
• (For a semi-balanced opinion on this little "book", I suggest reading the review by Peasant, which explains that the original was actually seven pages of ratty typescript, that the brown cover is a modern fake, and then has thoughtful ideas on the reasons for its use in 1942.)

• USA census 1940 Continental USA population about 132 million, plus about 2 million for Alaska, Hawaii, etc.
• 26.4% aged 5-19, so about 7.0% 16-19; 38.9% 20-44, so about 23.3% 20-34; 19.8% 45-64;
• so about 30.3% aged 16-34; assuming 50% male, that's about 20 million males 16-34;
• so about 35.4% aged 35-64; assuming 50% male, that's about 23 million males 35-64.
• In splitting the 20-44 counts I'm assuming that year by year births for those ages were roughly equal; I'm also ignoring that older people have higher mortality rates than younger people, because that's not going to have a major effect on rough calculations for these ages.
• The total serving in US army, navy, marines, coast guard were 1.8 million in 1941 rising to 12.2 million in 1945, or a (possibly misleading) yearly average of about 7.7 million.
• You also need to understand that a large number of those serving would have been in logistics and other support, a necessary requirement of modern war which Churchill seemed not to understand fully - he periodically complained about how many serving personnel in British and Commonwealth and Empire forces in the Middle East were not actually fighting.
• So from those numbers I suggest that "most" USA men were never anywhere near a front In World War 2. I'm not casting aspersions on their courage - I'm merely pointing out that in World War 2 most USA adult males were, like almost all USA adult females, considered not suitable for fighting and/or more useful in manufacturing, etc.

• 2. "There wasn't much women on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day"
• True. However, about 15% to 20% of the French Resistance were woman, and resisting the Nazis wasn't exactly safe. I would be surprised if the percentages in, for example, Belgium and Holland, were not similar. And that's before we consider the Soviet women who fought as soldiers, partisans, in tanks, and in aircraft (bombers and fighters):
• Night_Witches
• Soviet_women_in_World_War_II
• Women_in_the_Russian_and_Soviet_military
• Manshuk_Mametova
• Nina_Lobkovskaya
• Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

• 3. And all that's before we even get into the subject of how many men in *any* army actually fight.
• Britains

Look man, even Bush said, "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.....Islam is peace." He was something of a warmonger, but even he realized that you shouldn't go to war against an entire religion. The enemies are easy to recognize, they're the ones who are trying to kill us, no matter what religion they profess.

Seriously, when you're more irrational than Bush, it's time to stop and think if you have a problem in your head.

There was no "unconstitutional domestic spying". It was simply records of which phone number called another phone number. If you think that is spying then your phone company has been spying on you for decades. Stop parroting what you hear on the news and actually do some research yourself.

Research? Ten seconds with a search engine shows you're wrong. So you're either trolling, stupid or a government shill.

Well, yes, they do that. But they are also doing this:

Real Time Access to Phone and Internet Traffic Second, the same telecommunications companies also allowed the NSA to install sophisticated communications surveillance equipment in secret rooms at key telecommunications facilities around the country. This equipment gave the NSA unfettered access to large streams of domestic and international communications in real time—what amounted to at least 1.7 billion emails a day, according to the Washington Post. The NSA could then data mine and analyze this traffic for suspicious key words, patterns and connections. Again, all of this was done without a warrant in violation of federal law and the Constitution.

The relevant Executive Order (12333) details the scope of domestic surveillance for US Intelligence agencies (Section 2.3b) and states:

Information constituting foreign intelligence or counterintelligence, including such information concerning corporations or other commercial organizations. Collection within the United States of foreign intelligence not otherwise obtainable shall be undertaken by the FBI or, when significant foreign intelligence is sought, by other authorized agencies of the Intelligence Community, provided that no foreign intelligence collection by such agencies may be undertaken for the purpose of acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons; [emphasis added]

The "progressive" tax was not part of US tax law until more recent times. Read tax laws from 1890-1970, it should take all of an hour to read them all, probably twice.

I did a hefty amount of writing on the subject many years ago, and I'll give you a hint. Historical Tax law and rate schedules are freely available from a .gov site and anything ending in .com should be scrutinized heavily (including Wiki). If I had the material handy I would be happy to provide the links, but alas you can find them easy enough by adding ".gov" to your search. Like this one.

This is the original text of the United States Revenue Act of 1913, which was the first income tax passed after the ratification of the 16th amendment:
http://legisworks.org/sal/38/s...

The section on income tax starts on Pg. 53 (of the PDF) and explicitly includes marginal tax brackets. Back then it was an additional 1% of your income in each successive bracket.

Marginal tax brackets have been a part of American income tax since it first became constitutional.

The "progressive" tax was not part of US tax law until more recent times. Read tax laws from 1890-1970, it should take all of an hour to read them all, probably twice.

I did a hefty amount of writing on the subject many years ago, and I'll give you a hint. Historical Tax law and rate schedules are freely available from a .gov site and anything ending in .com should be scrutinized heavily (including Wiki). If I had the material handy I would be happy to provide the links, but alas you can find them easy enough by adding ".gov" to your search. Like this one.

Eisenhower (5 star) is an interesting President. Unfortunately, we don't have many Presidents to compare him against with there only being 44 individuals. Of those 44 only two others would have had anywhere close to a similar experience as Eisenhower. The first would be the George Washington (7-star) and the second would be Ulysses S. Grant (4 star, O-10). While there are other Presidents who have been generals, none have had such a large command over so many people and dictated the course of action like those three. Now if you want to count any president with an officer rank that's been involved in a conflict since the beginning of the 20th century you can add Harry Truman (O-6), Lyndon Johnson (O-5), Richard Nixon (O-5), Gerald Ford (O-4), John Kennedy (O-3), Jimmy Carter (O-3), Ronald Reagan (O-3), George Bush (O-2), George W. Bush (O-2).

It is a common trait among the greats that they do not like sending boys into combat. Some of the generals known to be bloody thirsty, such as Patton or Lemay, were also among those most concerned for the lives and safety for the men under their command and were strict about training their men to help them come home alive. Eisenhower was no different. Having read the speech I believe therein lies the reason for his statements and no particular conspiracy of note. Remember, he was fighting in a war that the US was brought into due to aggression and expansion by the Japanese empire that was driven by militarist and business factions. He witnessed in Europe what it can lead it and the numbers of men that had to die needlessly for it. The stress and anxiety he must have felt giving the order to launch Operation Overlord must have been intense knowing that even in retreat and withdrawal there would have been untold lives lost. He did, after all, draft a letter that he shoved in his pocket for incase the invasion had failed.

It takes more than 50% to amend the Constitution...

Here's an interesting read.
http://www.archives.gov/federa...

Index
http://www.archives.gov/federa...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Reagan and Bush #1, the asshole brigade of America's attempt at royalty.

Here's an interesting read.
http://www.archives.gov/federa...

Index
http://www.archives.gov/federa...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Reagan and Bush #1, the asshole brigade of America's attempt at royalty.

Let's look it up....http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

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

Since there is no "Right to Travel" listed earlier in the Constitution, it is not explicitly denied here.

Unlike most codes of law in the United States, the Constitution does not generally apply to individual citizens. Rather, the Constitution defines and codifies the Federal government, and is generally accepted to be the limit of Federal and State powers and responsibilities.

Finally, I remember that when I was younger (mind you, this was back in the 1970's), having to provide identification and being subjected to searches before being able to travel was the scope of godless Communists and tinpot dictators.

That we have come to this point is a sad commentary on the United States. That many others not only accept this but actively defend it is even more disappointing.

Let's look it up....http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

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

Since there is no "Right to Privacy" listed earlier in the Constitution, it is not explicitly denied here.

"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."

Since, to my knowledge, no State has prohibited privacy, nor has there been a Constitutional Amendment denying a citizen's right to privacy, the right to privacy most certainly exists.

Unlike most codes of law in the United States, the Constitution does not generally apply to individual citizens. Rather, the Constitution defines and codifies the Federal government, and is generally accepted to be the limit of Federal and State powers and responsibilities.

Why do you believe it is a precondition of a constitutional-amendment path?

By the numbers:

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention.

A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States* (38 of 50 States).

The Constitutional Amendment Process

If you can't get an ordinary bill through the House and Senate, you haven't a prayer of getting the super-majorities needed for a constitutional amendement.

[*note:

State ratifying conventions are one of the two methods established by Article V of the United States Constitution for ratifying proposed constitutional amendments. Ratifying conventions have only been used on one occasion, that being for the ratification of the Constitution's 21st Amendment in the year 1933. {Repeal of Prohibition] All other proposed constitutional amendments have been offered to the state legislatures for ratification.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a popular referendum is not a substitute for either the legislature or a ratifying convention --- nor can a referendum approve of, or disapprove of a state legislature's, or a convention's, decision on an amendment. (Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221, [1920]).

State ratifying conventions

Again, you fail to answer the question: Where does it say that email is to be saved more than six months? All you have is that a government agency must retain records. However if you actually read the statutes it clearly says in 3105 (1):

that records in the custody of the agency are not to be alienated or destroyed except in accordance with sections 3301-3314 of this title, and

If you follow then to Chapter 33.

3308. Disposal of similar records where prior disposal was authorized
When it appears to the Archivist that an agency has in its custody, or is accumulating, records of the same form or character as those of the same agency previously authorized to be disposed of, he may empower the head of the agency to dispose of the records, after they have been in existence a specified period of time, in accordance with regulations promulgated under section 3302 of this title and without listing or scheduling them.

If the IRS has a 6 month retention policy, then it clearly falls under the guidelines set by Chapters 31 and 33 that after a certain time period that they can be disposed.

Federal Records Act, 44 U.S.C et seq.

http://www.archives.gov/about/...

email meets the statutory definition of a record. Failure to keep them is a violation of the law.

General Correspondence Files - Correspondence ( not covered elsewhere in the Schedule) with the National Office, regional offices, district offices, or subordinate offices concerning program activities involving policy, procedures, decisions, etc, not made a part of a specific case

This only applies to general policies not individual cases.