It shows the first quintile in income receiving $6.82 in benefits and services received per one dollar in taxes paid and $0.31 for those in the top quintile.
The conclusion of the study states, "Economic redistribution can occur as a result of the direct transfer of benefits as well as the provision of services funded by other taxpayers. The present analysis suggests that one trillion dollars in resources is transferred from the two highest income household quintiles to the rest of the population. Roughly speaking, this sum would represent about 15 percent of income the higher income households. Further, public good expenditures 9such as national defense and scientific research) and interest payments on the debt are financed solely by the two highest income quintiles."
It would be hard to argue that the poor do not gain more value from the US taxes than the rich given this study.
The site claims that the average American shower uses 65.1 liters, lasts for 8.2 minutes with an average flow rate of 7.9 liters per minute. There is currently a standards mandate that shower heads manufactured in the U.S. have a maximum flow rate of 9.5 liters per minute, but there are some shower heads available with a flow rate as low as 2.8 liters per minute.
Here's the proposed law as voted on by California voters in 1994. You can go to page 64 to read it yourself.
From the law, "...if a defendant has been convicted of a felony and it has been pled and proved that the defendant has one or more prior felony convictions, as defined in subdivision(b), the court shall adhere to each of the following:..."
To be pled and proved means the district attorney has to present evidence to the jury that the defendant has committed the prior felonies that would impose the harsher sentences and the jury would have to agree; the jury would have to convict the defendant of violation of the three strikes law.
My "opinion" is based on the text of the law and having first-hand knowledge of the jury instructions that go with a three-strikes trial.
If those references aren't good enough for you then you can look at the following link to California Penal Code 1025(b) which reads:
...the question of whether or not the defendant has suffered the prior conviction shall be tried by the jury that tries the issue upon the plea of not guilty...
I'll take the actual text of the law over your vaunted article in Rolling Stone. Didn't you notice a slightly biased position in the article you read?
Bullshit - he was sentenced to life for being a 3 strike criminal under the California penal code.
Regardless of whether you like the general concept or not, no one was sentenced to life for a "minor" crime. The juries in all these cases had to decide additional questions beyond the initial crime for which he was arrested and charged.
After voting for a conviction for the crime that caused an arrest the jury then had to come to another independent and unanimous decision on a second conviction for the crime of being a habitual criminal subject to life in prison.
It was the jury's choice, given the information they were provided, to convict this person as a habitual criminal and that was what resulted in a 25-to-life sentence. The jury could have just as easily decided to acquit on that second charge.
If you consider 12% to be major then, yes, a major source of Mexican cartel's weapons come from the U.S.
"...out of approximately 30,000 weapons seized in drug cases in Mexico in 2004-2008. 7,200 appeared to be of U.S. origin, approximately 4,000 were found in ATF manufacturer and importer records, and 87 percent of those - 3,480 - originated in the United States." 3,480 of 30,000 is 11.6%.
Of course, another major source of guns used in Mexican crimes came directly from the ATF. The Mexican government states that as of September 2011, ATF supplied guns have been found at about 170 crime scenes.
How is an unimplemented suggestion confirmation of anything?.
The fact that someone in the government would think it's OK to even suggest such an outlandish infringement of individual liberty is pretty scary.
Yes, it would be scarier if they had actually carried out the suggestion but it's disconcerting enough that people who suggest operations such as these are employed in positions where they can wield authority.
Though I agree with your sentiment there was an additional patch in the group (KB2553154) that was a security update that conveniently broke ActiveX controls and macros in Excel 2013. It wasn't just one incredibly bad patch.
I pity the poor vendors and their even poorer customers whose spreadsheets suddenly stopped working on December 10th.
Reagan's speech was part of a much larger program to pressure the Soviets. Reagan believed, fundamentally, that communism was evil and spent a lot of energy fighting it.
Now, you may rightly argue that Reagan didn't personally tear down the wall. You may reasonably argue that Reagan wasn't the only influence in getting the wall torn down.
Reducing Reagan's and Thatcher's programs against communism and all that represented it down to a single speech is unfair. Your concentration on the timing of the speech in relation to when the wall came down certainly seems to discount any other actions the US and other countries took.
Your concern that there were other speeches that aren't as well publicized as Reagan's is fine. How about highlighting a single line or a few lines from those speeches that brought as much focus as Reagan's imperative to Mr. Gorbachev? In fact, most people are probably unaware of what Reagan said in that speech other than his rallying cry and creating such a slogan is often a powerful mover.
Do you measure representation based on the numbers of that minority in the community? If so, which community: city, county, state, nation, world? Or, do you measure representation based on the number of individuals that have entered the field?
What measures do they take? If someone whose skin is black or brown is under-represented do you pay those candidates more because of the color of their skin? If Asians are over-represented do you pay them less to discourage their entry in the industry and get their numbers "back in line?"
What makes race? If someone is born of multi-racial parents which race counts?
The problem with demands such as these is they don't seek to solve any supposed problem other than enriching their own pockets through consultation fees. If you are measuring workplace diversity based on the skin color you observe when you look at your fellow work mates then you are, ultimately, practicing a form of racism yourself.
Every proposed solution to this manufactured problem is in and of itself racist.
Rainbow PUSH doesn't want to believe in, and it's in their best interest to discourage, individual accomplishment and responsibility. If they fail to divide along skin color then they fail to enrich themselves through extortion. If we allow their division to continue then we continue to promote the very mechanisms that create inequality.
Your proposed definition puts your hypothetical family, currently earning the current federal minimum wage and after median federal income tax rates are applied for that income level, at 138% of the poverty line.
The poverty line is, generally, defined to be the minimum income required to acquire the necessities of life.
It would appear that the current federal minimum wage provides for more than a living wage.
A "living wage" is complete bullshit. Can you even begin to give a definition to which even one, single large group can agree? I don't mean one of these feel good ethereal definitions - I mean one that actually has meaning.
Should it include the ability to work in whatever geographic area the person desires? Should the person's commute be less than a certain amount of time? What luxuries should the person be allowed to have? A cell phone? A smart phone? Internet service? Cable TV service? Should a person be able to make a "living wage" by working no more than 40 hours a week? How about 32 hours a week? Should a person be able to make a "living wage" by having only one employer? Should a "living wage" support a family with only one worker? How large a family? Should government assistance count towards the person's living wage or should that be a bonus?
"Living wage" is a nice phrase to throw around and it might make some people feel good about their politics but it provides no basis upon which to build economic planning; even if you believe it's the job of the government to perform either economic planning or to provide guarantees that everyone lives happily ever after.
"Many of the states that have seen job growth despite raising the minimum wage are states with higher livings costs where fewer people actually work for minimum wage. Seattle is a great example of this, if extreme. Famous for enacting an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour next year and ultimately to $15 an hour by January 2017, Seattle has a very high cost of living and a skilled population earning higher than average wages. Educational attainment is high: 56 percent of people in Seattle have a bachelor’s degree compared with a 28.5 percent national average for individuals aged 25 and older. Raising the minimum wage in Seattle is therefore far less intrusive than it would be in say, Omaha, Nebraska. According to CNN Money, someone who makes $45,000 a year in Omaha would have to make $61,353 in Seattle (36 percent more) just to have the same purchasing power."
If it is in the best interest of the shareholders to piss off the customers then that's what they should do.
It is more likely that it's in the best interest of the shareholders to do as you suggest, have happy employees, happy customers and a product/service with which they can be proud.
As an investor I will put my money in those companies that give me the greatest return. Just because a company's sole focus is profit doesn't mean they shouldn't be a "good" company. The bigger question is not for the shareholders but for the customers. Why would customers continue to generate profits for the shareholders if it doesn't provide them with something they value or see as a fair trade for their dollars?
It covers the four contraceptives to which Hobby Lobby objected. Those four contraceptives may have the ability to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus and, thus, Hobby Lobby's objection. Hobby Lobby had no objection to the other 16 contraceptives in the mandate and, in fact, had a long-standing practice of providing those contraceptives.
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise... the words "persons" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;...
This case rested on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, an Act of Congress. Congress chose not to redefine persons to exclude corporations.
So, your belief is that the Bill of Rights is a list of rights granted to the people by the government? What does the preamble say to you?
The reason I left the "right to bear arms" in there is because of the structure of the sentence that says, "the right of the people...". I could have also listed just the, "shall not be infringed" part and retained the meaning.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain how the U.S. Constitution is constructed from your perspective and how the language used in the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, the 9th and 10th amendments and the other articles of the Constitution reconcile with its purpose.
There's no doubt the U.S. Constitution has been hijacked by the national government. This was enabled by a re-definition of "commerce" in the 1930s. A really good example of how the Constitution was viewed before this re-definition is the language used in the 18th amendment creating prohibition.
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Notice that the people, through the states, are granting a brand new power to the national government. The states were very careful in how they granted this new power to the government.
Now compare that amendment to the proposed equal rights amendment:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification
This amendment is restricting the power of the national government and the states. Those restrictions already existed. The language, on the other hand, shows the, in my opinion, disastrous evolution of thought from limited government with power coming from the people to one where the national government is strong and grants or denies rights to the people.
Because the Bill of Rights, as written, is not a list of rights granted but, rather, a list of prohibitions on the new government.
There was a huge debate about listing any rights because it was thought that no list could be complete. The preamble to the Bill of Rights identifies why it exists:
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Notice the important statement, "...further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added..."
"Congress shall make no law..." "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." "No soldier shall..." "...shall not be violated..."
These are all prohibitions on the newly formed government. A compromise was reached that required the inclusion of the 9th amendment, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This compromise is why all "retained" rights aren't listed and what allowed any rights to be listed; many who were negotiating the Bill of Rights were rightly fearful that the list would be seen as a "full" list of rights of the people.
The U.S. Constitution, as designed, granted powers from the people to the government. The compromise found within the Bill of Rights essentially listed a number of prohibitions so the new government absolutely knew that they could in no way interfere with this core set of rights.
Unfortunately, we've reached a point where many people believe that the U.S. Constitution confers rights from the government to the citizens rather than it's original purpose of conferring powers to the government from the people.
Yes, the cop can arrest you for anything he wants. That doesn't make it a lawful arrest.
The cop can ask you to leave but that doesn't make it a lawful order.
Sitting in a legally parked car would make it very difficult, under otherwise normal circumstances, for a police officer to issue a lawful order to leave.
See: Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham. This was a 1965 case that found, generally, that a police officer's order to "move on" had to be related to another function and made legal as it related to that other function; i.e., the officer is directing traffic and you're interfering with that traffic or, as an example, you are blocking pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk.
Otherwise, as the Supreme Court said, "...the literal terms of this ordinance are so broad as to evoke constitutional doubts of the utmost gravity." When addressing an ordinance that stated that it is "unlawful for any person to stand or loiter upon any street or sidewalk...after having been requested by any police officer to move on," the Supreme Court said, "The constitutional vice of so broad a provision needs no demonstration. It 'does not provide for government by clearly defined laws, but rather for government by the moment-to-moment opinions of a policeman on his beat."
Voluntarily giving personal rights over to police powers aids the continual erosion of those rights.
Well, my answer to the question would be, "None of your business," or, "I don't want to answer your questions," or, "Please leave me alone."
It's a crime to lie to a federal agent. It is rare that it's a crime to lie to a non-federal law enforcement officer. It's no crime to remain silent or refuse to answer questions.
I agree that San Francisco will do whatever they can to shut down any market with which they disapprove.
Loitering is rarely illegal and anti-loitering statutes have been ruled unconstitutional.
Unless you are loitering with the clear intent to commit a crime you are pretty much free to hang out on any street, as Souter said, "...just to watch cars go by."
You keep twisting the documentation by ignoring words that don't agree with your position. You also leave out certain words which changes the context.
Demonstrate or provide your own citation.
At worst, the IRS has a crappy retention system. Having worked in government and companies with small IT budgets, they are not the only ones. You keep making it out to be a bigger thing than this.
Stop trying to project your corporate IT mentality onto systems managed by federal agencies. Watergate and 18 missing minutes helped shape the requirements found in the federal records act for good reason.
Contrary to your paranoia, not everything is attributed to malice. Incompetence is more likely.
According to you, everything is an official record because it is missing. That's hardly logical.
I never cited malice and I don't care what reason the emails are missing. An email is more likely than not an official record. You certainly can't prove what you're attempting to state; how do you know official records aren't amongst the missing emails?
The IRS is required by law to preserve their official records. The law doesn't say, "Well, only if you're competent, or it's convenient, or you have the budget for it."
The IRS has certified that they retain their official records.
Unless you can demonstrate that there are no official records in the missing emails then, yes, the IRS has failed to preserve their records as required by law.
You may want to argue that it was incompetence that caused them to violate the law. Others may want to argue that it was malice. What is not arguable is that the IRS and its employee, Lois Lerner, failed to adhere to the requirements of the Federal Records Act.
Poor Ms. Woods tried to argue that it was an "accident" that 18 minutes of tapes were erased. This is the reason the Federal Records Act and its associated certifications exist.
Perhaps you would like to argue that it's mere coincidence combined with incompetence that caused similar disk crashes and email destruction to occur to six other employees closely associated with this issue.
At some point one has to look at the bigger picture. Through negligence, malfeasance, incompetence or evil conspiracy, important evidence related to an abuse by the IRS against citizens of the United States is missing. The more evidence that goes missing and the more sources of evidence that disappear the more like a conspiracy it looks than mere incompetence.
You are free to draw your own conclusion related to the facts but this particular thread started because you seemed to be find it incredulous that the IRS had a policy of printing their emails for preservation. Now that that belief has been shattered you still cling to some hope that even though official records were destroyed, by whatever means, continued investigation is just a GOP stunt.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a pretty comprehensive study from 2008 that shows the benefits and services received per one dollar in taxes paid (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/how-wealth-is-spread-distribution-of-government-benefits-services-taxes-by-income-quintile-in-us).
It shows the first quintile in income receiving $6.82 in benefits and services received per one dollar in taxes paid and $0.31 for those in the top quintile.
The conclusion of the study states, "Economic redistribution can occur as a result of the direct transfer of benefits as well as the provision of services funded by other taxpayers. The present analysis suggests that one trillion dollars in resources is transferred from the two highest income household quintiles to the rest of the population. Roughly speaking, this sum would represent about 15 percent of income the higher income households. Further, public good expenditures 9such as national defense and scientific research) and interest payments on the debt are financed solely by the two highest income quintiles."
It would be hard to argue that the poor do not gain more value from the US taxes than the rich given this study.
According to this site (http://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/showers), you use less water per day than the average American uses while taking a shower.
The site claims that the average American shower uses 65.1 liters, lasts for 8.2 minutes with an average flow rate of 7.9 liters per minute. There is currently a standards mandate that shower heads manufactured in the U.S. have a maximum flow rate of 9.5 liters per minute, but there are some shower heads available with a flow rate as low as 2.8 liters per minute.
Have to start somewhere:DC Considers Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote
Here's the proposed law as voted on by California voters in 1994. You can go to page 64 to read it yourself.
From the law, "...if a defendant has been convicted of a felony and it has been pled and proved that the defendant has one or more prior felony convictions, as defined in subdivision(b), the court shall adhere to each of the following:..."
To be pled and proved means the district attorney has to present evidence to the jury that the defendant has committed the prior felonies that would impose the harsher sentences and the jury would have to agree; the jury would have to convict the defendant of violation of the three strikes law.
My "opinion" is based on the text of the law and having first-hand knowledge of the jury instructions that go with a three-strikes trial.
If those references aren't good enough for you then you can look at the following link to California Penal Code 1025(b) which reads:
...the question of whether or not the defendant has suffered the prior conviction shall be tried by the jury that tries the issue upon the plea of not guilty...
I'll take the actual text of the law over your vaunted article in Rolling Stone. Didn't you notice a slightly biased position in the article you read?
Bullshit - he was sentenced to life for being a 3 strike criminal under the California penal code.
Regardless of whether you like the general concept or not, no one was sentenced to life for a "minor" crime. The juries in all these cases had to decide additional questions beyond the initial crime for which he was arrested and charged.
After voting for a conviction for the crime that caused an arrest the jury then had to come to another independent and unanimous decision on a second conviction for the crime of being a habitual criminal subject to life in prison.
It was the jury's choice, given the information they were provided, to convict this person as a habitual criminal and that was what resulted in a 25-to-life sentence. The jury could have just as easily decided to acquit on that second charge.
If you consider 12% to be major then, yes, a major source of Mexican cartel's weapons come from the U.S.
"...out of approximately 30,000 weapons seized in drug cases in Mexico in 2004-2008. 7,200 appeared to be of U.S. origin, approximately 4,000 were found in ATF manufacturer and importer records, and 87 percent of those - 3,480 - originated in the United States." 3,480 of 30,000 is 11.6%.
Source
Of course, another major source of guns used in Mexican crimes came directly from the ATF. The Mexican government states that as of September 2011, ATF supplied guns have been found at about 170 crime scenes.
Source
How is an unimplemented suggestion confirmation of anything? .
The fact that someone in the government would think it's OK to even suggest such an outlandish infringement of individual liberty is pretty scary.
Yes, it would be scarier if they had actually carried out the suggestion but it's disconcerting enough that people who suggest operations such as these are employed in positions where they can wield authority.
Why do you conflate federal taxes with local services?
Many of these local services are paid for by taxes collected locally or via service fees.
Though I agree with your sentiment there was an additional patch in the group (KB2553154) that was a security update that conveniently broke ActiveX controls and macros in Excel 2013. It wasn't just one incredibly bad patch.
I pity the poor vendors and their even poorer customers whose spreadsheets suddenly stopped working on December 10th.
It's not about a single speech and its timing.
Reagan's speech was part of a much larger program to pressure the Soviets. Reagan believed, fundamentally, that communism was evil and spent a lot of energy fighting it.
Now, you may rightly argue that Reagan didn't personally tear down the wall. You may reasonably argue that Reagan wasn't the only influence in getting the wall torn down.
Reducing Reagan's and Thatcher's programs against communism and all that represented it down to a single speech is unfair. Your concentration on the timing of the speech in relation to when the wall came down certainly seems to discount any other actions the US and other countries took.
Your concern that there were other speeches that aren't as well publicized as Reagan's is fine. How about highlighting a single line or a few lines from those speeches that brought as much focus as Reagan's imperative to Mr. Gorbachev? In fact, most people are probably unaware of what Reagan said in that speech other than his rallying cry and creating such a slogan is often a powerful mover.
Required by whom? Under-represented how?
Do you measure representation based on the numbers of that minority in the community? If so, which community: city, county, state, nation, world? Or, do you measure representation based on the number of individuals that have entered the field?
What measures do they take? If someone whose skin is black or brown is under-represented do you pay those candidates more because of the color of their skin? If Asians are over-represented do you pay them less to discourage their entry in the industry and get their numbers "back in line?"
What makes race? If someone is born of multi-racial parents which race counts?
The problem with demands such as these is they don't seek to solve any supposed problem other than enriching their own pockets through consultation fees. If you are measuring workplace diversity based on the skin color you observe when you look at your fellow work mates then you are, ultimately, practicing a form of racism yourself.
Every proposed solution to this manufactured problem is in and of itself racist.
Rainbow PUSH doesn't want to believe in, and it's in their best interest to discourage, individual accomplishment and responsibility. If they fail to divide along skin color then they fail to enrich themselves through extortion. If we allow their division to continue then we continue to promote the very mechanisms that create inequality.
Your proposed definition puts your hypothetical family, currently earning the current federal minimum wage and after median federal income tax rates are applied for that income level, at 138% of the poverty line.
The poverty line is, generally, defined to be the minimum income required to acquire the necessities of life.
It would appear that the current federal minimum wage provides for more than a living wage.
A "living wage" is complete bullshit. Can you even begin to give a definition to which even one, single large group can agree? I don't mean one of these feel good ethereal definitions - I mean one that actually has meaning.
Should it include the ability to work in whatever geographic area the person desires?
Should the person's commute be less than a certain amount of time?
What luxuries should the person be allowed to have? A cell phone? A smart phone? Internet service? Cable TV service?
Should a person be able to make a "living wage" by working no more than 40 hours a week? How about 32 hours a week?
Should a person be able to make a "living wage" by having only one employer?
Should a "living wage" support a family with only one worker? How large a family?
Should government assistance count towards the person's living wage or should that be a bonus?
"Living wage" is a nice phrase to throw around and it might make some people feel good about their politics but it provides no basis upon which to build economic planning; even if you believe it's the job of the government to perform either economic planning or to provide guarantees that everyone lives happily ever after.
On the other hand...
"Many of the states that have seen job growth despite raising the minimum wage are states with higher livings costs where fewer people actually work for minimum wage. Seattle is a great example of this, if extreme. Famous for enacting an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour next year and ultimately to $15 an hour by January 2017, Seattle has a very high cost of living and a skilled population earning higher than average wages. Educational attainment is high: 56 percent of people in Seattle have a bachelor’s degree compared with a 28.5 percent national average for individuals aged 25 and older. Raising the minimum wage in Seattle is therefore far less intrusive than it would be in say, Omaha, Nebraska. According to CNN Money, someone who makes $45,000 a year in Omaha would have to make $61,353 in Seattle (36 percent more) just to have the same purchasing power."
You seem to think these items are disconnected.
The company is responsible to its owners only.
If it is in the best interest of the shareholders to piss off the customers then that's what they should do.
It is more likely that it's in the best interest of the shareholders to do as you suggest, have happy employees, happy customers and a product/service with which they can be proud.
As an investor I will put my money in those companies that give me the greatest return. Just because a company's sole focus is profit doesn't mean they shouldn't be a "good" company. The bigger question is not for the shareholders but for the customers. Why would customers continue to generate profits for the shareholders if it doesn't provide them with something they value or see as a fair trade for their dollars?
It covers the four contraceptives to which Hobby Lobby objected. Those four contraceptives may have the ability to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus and, thus, Hobby Lobby's objection. Hobby Lobby had no objection to the other 16 contraceptives in the mandate and, in fact, had a long-standing practice of providing those contraceptives.
It is so unnecessary to drag out Citizen's United corporations are people too argument.
TItle 1 of the U.S. Code states:
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise ... ...
the words "persons" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
This case rested on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, an Act of Congress. Congress chose not to redefine persons to exclude corporations.
So, your belief is that the Bill of Rights is a list of rights granted to the people by the government? What does the preamble say to you?
The reason I left the "right to bear arms" in there is because of the structure of the sentence that says, "the right of the people...". I could have also listed just the, "shall not be infringed" part and retained the meaning.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain how the U.S. Constitution is constructed from your perspective and how the language used in the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, the 9th and 10th amendments and the other articles of the Constitution reconcile with its purpose.
There's no doubt the U.S. Constitution has been hijacked by the national government. This was enabled by a re-definition of "commerce" in the 1930s. A really good example of how the Constitution was viewed before this re-definition is the language used in the 18th amendment creating prohibition.
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Notice that the people, through the states, are granting a brand new power to the national government. The states were very careful in how they granted this new power to the government.
Now compare that amendment to the proposed equal rights amendment:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification
This amendment is restricting the power of the national government and the states. Those restrictions already existed. The language, on the other hand, shows the, in my opinion, disastrous evolution of thought from limited government with power coming from the people to one where the national government is strong and grants or denies rights to the people.
Because the Bill of Rights, as written, is not a list of rights granted but, rather, a list of prohibitions on the new government.
There was a huge debate about listing any rights because it was thought that no list could be complete. The preamble to the Bill of Rights identifies why it exists:
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Notice the important statement, "...further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added..."
"Congress shall make no law..."
"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"No soldier shall..."
"...shall not be violated..."
These are all prohibitions on the newly formed government. A compromise was reached that required the inclusion of the 9th amendment, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This compromise is why all "retained" rights aren't listed and what allowed any rights to be listed; many who were negotiating the Bill of Rights were rightly fearful that the list would be seen as a "full" list of rights of the people.
The U.S. Constitution, as designed, granted powers from the people to the government. The compromise found within the Bill of Rights essentially listed a number of prohibitions so the new government absolutely knew that they could in no way interfere with this core set of rights.
Unfortunately, we've reached a point where many people believe that the U.S. Constitution confers rights from the government to the citizens rather than it's original purpose of conferring powers to the government from the people.
Yes, the cop can arrest you for anything he wants. That doesn't make it a lawful arrest.
The cop can ask you to leave but that doesn't make it a lawful order.
Sitting in a legally parked car would make it very difficult, under otherwise normal circumstances, for a police officer to issue a lawful order to leave.
See: Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham. This was a 1965 case that found, generally, that a police officer's order to "move on" had to be related to another function and made legal as it related to that other function; i.e., the officer is directing traffic and you're interfering with that traffic or, as an example, you are blocking pedestrian traffic on a sidewalk.
Otherwise, as the Supreme Court said, "...the literal terms of this ordinance are so broad as to evoke constitutional doubts of the utmost gravity." When addressing an ordinance that stated that it is "unlawful for any person to stand or loiter upon any street or sidewalk...after having been requested by any police officer to move on," the Supreme Court said, "The constitutional vice of so broad a provision needs no demonstration. It 'does not provide for government by clearly defined laws, but rather for government by the moment-to-moment opinions of a policeman on his beat."
Voluntarily giving personal rights over to police powers aids the continual erosion of those rights.
Well, my answer to the question would be, "None of your business," or, "I don't want to answer your questions," or, "Please leave me alone."
It's a crime to lie to a federal agent. It is rare that it's a crime to lie to a non-federal law enforcement officer. It's no crime to remain silent or refuse to answer questions.
I agree that San Francisco will do whatever they can to shut down any market with which they disapprove.
Freedom can often be abused. That's why it's, well, 'Merica.
Loitering is rarely illegal and anti-loitering statutes have been ruled unconstitutional.
Unless you are loitering with the clear intent to commit a crime you are pretty much free to hang out on any street, as Souter said, "...just to watch cars go by."
The Archivist of the United States testified yesterday that the IRS did not follow the law as it relates to the Federal Records Act.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/us-archivist-tells-oversight-committee-the-irs-did-not-follo
Is not following the law the same as breaking it?
Everyone else appears ready to accept that those emails were official records requiring preservation.
You keep twisting the documentation by ignoring words that don't agree with your position. You also leave out certain words which changes the context.
Demonstrate or provide your own citation.
At worst, the IRS has a crappy retention system. Having worked in government and companies with small IT budgets, they are not the only ones. You keep making it out to be a bigger thing than this.
Stop trying to project your corporate IT mentality onto systems managed by federal agencies. Watergate and 18 missing minutes helped shape the requirements found in the federal records act for good reason.
Contrary to your paranoia, not everything is attributed to malice. Incompetence is more likely.
According to you, everything is an official record because it is missing. That's hardly logical.
I never cited malice and I don't care what reason the emails are missing. An email is more likely than not an official record. You certainly can't prove what you're attempting to state; how do you know official records aren't amongst the missing emails?
The IRS is required by law to preserve their official records. The law doesn't say, "Well, only if you're competent, or it's convenient, or you have the budget for it."
The IRS has certified that they retain their official records.
Unless you can demonstrate that there are no official records in the missing emails then, yes, the IRS has failed to preserve their records as required by law.
You may want to argue that it was incompetence that caused them to violate the law. Others may want to argue that it was malice. What is not arguable is that the IRS and its employee, Lois Lerner, failed to adhere to the requirements of the Federal Records Act.
Poor Ms. Woods tried to argue that it was an "accident" that 18 minutes of tapes were erased. This is the reason the Federal Records Act and its associated certifications exist.
Perhaps you would like to argue that it's mere coincidence combined with incompetence that caused similar disk crashes and email destruction to occur to six other employees closely associated with this issue.
At some point one has to look at the bigger picture. Through negligence, malfeasance, incompetence or evil conspiracy, important evidence related to an abuse by the IRS against citizens of the United States is missing. The more evidence that goes missing and the more sources of evidence that disappear the more like a conspiracy it looks than mere incompetence.
You are free to draw your own conclusion related to the facts but this particular thread started because you seemed to be find it incredulous that the IRS had a policy of printing their emails for preservation. Now that that belief has been shattered you still cling to some hope that even though official records were destroyed, by whatever means, continued investigation is just a GOP stunt.