"Obama Has Authority to Spend without Congressional Approval" - "A lawsuit against the President would drag on, but the courts would not interfere with the power of the president to pay the national debt," Law Professor and Expert on 14th amendment says"

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"Under a long-standing doctrine called justiciability, such suits would be dismissed. As for impeachment, even if a majority of the House were willing to set such a precedent, the Senate would never accept it."

YubaNet.com
Obama Has Authority to Spend without Congressional Approval, Expert Says
Real Problem Is Tea Party Followers, Whose Ideas Threaten U.S. Credit
By: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
July 28, 2011

Professor Steve Sheppard has written an article on the purposes of Congress in the 14th Amendment, as well as I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials (Cambridge University Press). His newest book, The Bouvier Law Dictionary, will be published in August.

Obama Has Authority to Spend without Congressional Approval, Expert Says

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. July 28, 2011 - Constitutional law expert Steve Sheppard is available to discuss whether President Barack Obama has the constitutional authority to avoid default by paying government bonds unilaterally and spending money without Congressional approval.

The answer can be found in the case law and Constitutional history, says Sheppard, who is the Enfield Professor Law at the University of Arkansas. The 14th Amendment allows the president to pay bonds already authorized, he says, even if Congress gives no further authorization.

Sheppard says Obama may even be able to allow the Treasury to issue as many new bonds as it buys back. The president cannot, however, order the sale of more bonds than already allowed, which would reduce revenue from debt until the ceiling is reached but avoid default on any bonds that mature.

"There are plenty of people who would disagree with this," Sheppard says, "but I think it best explains the history during Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution, in the light of Chief Justice Hughes' opinion in 1935."

Sheppard recognizes that any unilateral action by the president to spend money without congressional authority would almost certainly lead to a federal court case, and House Republicans might attempt to impeach him.

"A lawsuit would drag on, but the courts would not interfere with the power of the president to pay the national debt," he says. "Under a long-standing doctrine called justiciability, such suits would be dismissed. As for impeachment, even if a majority of the House were willing to set such a precedent, the Senate would never accept it."

Rather than a threat to the Constitution, the greater danger to the United States is a loss of reputation internationally, Sheppard says. And that reputation is worth a lot of money.

"The real problem is the Tea Party," he says. "There is no evidence that members of Congress who follow it understand how the U.S. economy works. If the world's investors think the federal budget and the U.S. dollar are hostage to those who subscribe to the ideas of Grover Norquist, that will really hurt our credit, and if the credit rating of the United States takes a hit because investors stop accepting the full faith and credit of the United States, we will have to raise trillions more in taxes. And if these investors believe we'd rather have the lowest taxes in the Western world than to feed widows and orphans or build roads or fund tomorrow's patent research, we could go down the credit-rating tubes fast."

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ABC News : Several Prominent Senators are asking President Obama to raise the Debt Ceiling on his own - Using the Constitutional Authority that the 14th amendment clearly gives to the President. A Bold Obama will be a winner against the Republican Bullies

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ABC News - The Note
Washington's Original and Most Influential Tipsheet
14th Amendment Back-Up Plan Resurfaces In Senate Debt Ceiling Debate
Amy Bingham reports:
July 30, 2011


14th Amendment Back-Up Plan Resurfaces In Senate Debt Ceiling Debate


Some excerpts :

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, made a plea on the Senate floor Saturday evening for President Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling if Congress fails to strike a deal before the Aug. 2 default deadline.

“If the Congress through inaction, through inaction or action, tries to destroy or alter those obligations I believe it is incumbent on the chief executive to exercise his authority to make sure the full faith and credit of the United States is not jeopardized. The president should use his authority to do so," Harkin said.

Harkin joins a growing number of Democrats who have called on the president to broadly interpret a section of the 14th Amendment which says “the validity of the public debt… shall not be questioned” as justification for him to authorize continued borrowing if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

Harkin noted that other presidents have acted when “the vital security of the United States was at stake.” He cited Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Program to help Britain fight off the Nazis in World War II.

“I believe this is just like those times,” Harkin said. “The security, the future improvement of the United States and future generations depend upon the president taking this action, boldly and forthrightly, to preserve the integrity and to make sure that the obligations and the full faith and credit of the United States is not questioned.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., echoed Sanders, saying "if we fail this" she hoped the President would raise the debt ceiling anyway.

"If we can't get together the President will have to take that responsibility, but I hope we can and show the world that we can still work together," Sanders said.

Earlier this month, former President Clinton said if he was in President Obama’s shoes, he would invoke the Constitution and raise the debt ceiling “without hesitation.”

“I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy,” Clinton told The National Memo.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said during Saturday night’s floor debate that he agreed with President Clinton and urged President Obama to use the 14th Amendment as a last-ditch option.

“He must use his Constitutional authority under the 14th Amendment to pay our debts,” Sanders said. “I think that’s just what he should do if he’s left with no other way to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

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Colorado : prime example of a swing state. Young voters, women and Latinos are going to make the decision in 2012 the same way they did in 2010. They elected Gov. Hickenlooper and Sen. (Michael) Bennet, and it’s the same formula that’s going to deliver Colorado for President Obama in 2012

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The Colorado Statesman -
Obama's campaign organizes in Colorado -
By Ernest Luning -
July 29, 2011 -


Obama's campaign organizes in Colorado


Some excerpts :

Even though the 2012 election is 15 months away, President Barack Obama’s campaign is already off to a fast start in Colorado, seen as a key battleground state in what is shaping up to be a tight presidential contest. Earlier this month, hundreds of Obama volunteers and summer interns fanned out up and down the Front Range as part of a national “Day of Action” meant to register voters and kick-start a massive organization that plans to keep going until next November.

Organizing for America volunteers take stock during a lull in activity registering voters outside Jefferson County’s Belmar Library in Lakewood on July 16, when dozens of voter registration drives and door-to-door canvas operations were mounted by the Obama campaign across the state.

“It’s exciting to see people’s enthusiasm,” said Jen Cheyne, state director of Organizing for America, the Obama campaign’s grassroots organizing operation. “The word on the ground is, people are getting excited about the 2012 election, there’s a sense of engagement.”

Cheyne, who stopped in at a number of the more than two dozen Colorado voter-registration drives that took place from dawn to dusk on July 16, said she was heartened by the turnout and pleased with what the campaign workers accomplished.

“Talking to people about the ways they can own a piece of this campaign is exciting,” she said.

The campaign is getting an early start — with offices already open and staffed in Denver and Fort Collins — since Obama is running unopposed rather than having to make it through a primary that left Democrats divided until months before the 2008 election. State organizers said they weren’t sure whether the Obama campaign will duplicate its 2008 campaign with offices throughout the state — on what seemed like nearly every corner, including in traditionally Republican counties — but suggested the more mature organization might not need as many storefronts.

“One thing that’s great about being part of this team is, we organize every way possible,” Cheyne said, adding that organizers are as likely to meet up in coffee shops, libraries or people’s homes as they are in official campaign offices.

Kenneth Power and Jennifer Allen fill out voter registration forms at a table set up outside a Lakewood library by Organizing for America volunteers, the grassroots arm of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, which sponsored events around the state on July 16.

Photo by Ernest Luning/The Colorado Statesman

Campaign officials declined to release the number of voters registered, but outside a library in Lakewood, volunteers were filling out forms — including change of address and requests to appear on Colorado’s permanent mail-ballot list — at a swift clip, with more than a dozen voters signing up in the space of an hour.

“The turnout was good,” said Emily Dulcan, state press secretary. “We had a lot of new people involved, some volunteering for first time or who haven’t been engaged since 2008.”

At this stage, she said, new volunteers include “people who are most excited about the president, whose lives have been changed by policies he’s implemented. There are a lot of those people out there.” She said federal health care reform legislation and extended unemployment benefits were among policies making life easier for Coloradans.

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Though Obama took Colorado easily three years ago, beating McCain by 8 points statewide and scoring wins in counties that usually lean Republican, his campaign has its work cut out for it this time, a seemingly common-sense observation that made headlines last week when Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper acknowledged as much to the website Politico.

Still, the state’s recently elected Democratic Party chairman, Rick Palacio, said this week that he fully expects Obama to defeat whoever the Republicans nominate, in part because the make-up of the state’s electorate is changing.

“Colorado is definitely a state that is a swing state, probably a prime example of the definition of the swing state,” said Palacio. “Young voters, women and Latinos are going to make the decision in 2012 the same way they did in 2010. That was the formula that delivered Gov. Hickenlooper and Sen. (Michael) Bennet, and it’s the same formula that’s going to deliver Colorado for President Obama in 2012,” he said, citing two statewide wins by Democrats during a year that otherwise favored Republicans.

...................

The Obama campaign counts roughly 1,500 full- and part-time summer interns nationwide, including several dozen in Colorado, and is recruiting a batch of fall interns this month. Next on the campaign’s calendar: dozens of house parties celebrating Obama’s 50th birthday on Aug.

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President Obama will have the inescapable duty to invoke the 14th Amendment and continue to pay U.S. debts. He may not like that option. He may be opposed to it in principle. But he will be compelled to take it - Businessmen and the American People will understand and approve this action

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Briar Patch is a thicket formed by many thorny plants - Br'er Rabbit's patch for hiding as told in the Uncle Remus stories -

Huffington Post -
The 14th Amendment Is Obama's Briar Patch -
By Ken Allen -
July 30, 2011 -


The 14th Amendment Is Obama's Briar Patch


Some excerpts :

Silliness about the debt ceiling has risen to the absurd. Anyone who steps back from the swirl of current arguments will immediately see that there is an easy, almost unavoidable exit from our current paralysis, and President Obama controls it. If Congress cannot reach agreement on terms for raising the debt ceiling, President Obama will have the inescapable duty to invoke the 14th Amendment and continue to pay U.S. debts. He may not like that option. He may be opposed to it in principle. But he will be compelled to take it unless he is seriously deluded about the state of the world.

Legal scholars may quibble about whether the 14th amendment allows or compels the president to blow past Congress' debt ceiling, but as a practical matter there is no question that if the president invokes it to avoid a looming economic disaster plain enough for all the world to see, there will be no legal recourse. Because the president has the power to ignore the debt limit, even if he doubts he has the authority to do so, he will be compelled to do so. If Congress is unable to act, he will have, whether he wants it or not, the last clear chance to avoid disaster. Whether he is a naïve ninny, innocent as a baby, and pure as the driven snow or a cynical Machiavellian manipulator without a principle to his name, he has to understand this: if he has the last clear chance to avoid the abyss and does not take it he will not be forgiven by his own supporters, by the American people, or by history itself. However, if he does save the system, he will be a hero to all but the most obtuse economic know-nothings and cynical demagogues. Even Corporate America will have to doubt that it can entrust all branches of government to the Republicans and consequently entrust the economy to the economic nincompoops who have shown themselves willing to destroy it for principles and theories they do not understand. No matter whether the decision terrifies him or disgusts him, President Obama will be compelled to act.

From a progressive, fiscally responsible, and security-conscious point of view, the consequences of presidential action would almost all be positive. Once the president ignores the debt ceiling there will be no going back. The world will understand that any future president, faced with the same situation, will have to take the same action. The full faith and credit of the United States will remain inviolate. Congress might as well stop enacting a debt limit. Not only will it not be enforceable, it will be universally perceived as meaningless.

The wisdom of markets deserves scant faith, but if they "understand" what I have just outlined, that may explain why U.S. and world markets have proceeded to date with seeming confidence that no default is likely.

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The New York Review of Books : Ronald Dworkin, extremely important philosopher and professor of law in most important universities : Yes, Obama can extend the Debt Ceiling on his own - It is constitutional and the American People will approve

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The New York Review of Books
Can Obama Extend the Debt Ceiling on His Own?
July 29, 2011


By Ronald Dworkin - From Wikipedia :

Ronald Myles Dworkin, QC, FBA (born 1931) is an American philosopher and scholar of constitutional law. He is Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. An influential contributor to both philosophy of law and political philosophy, Dworkin received the 2007 Holberg International Memorial Prize in the Humanities for "his pioneering scholarly work" of "worldwide impact." According to a survey in The Journal of Legal Studies, Dworkin was the second most-cited American legal scholar of the twentieth century.

His theory of law as integrity, in which judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal moral principles, especially justice and fairness, is amongst the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law. He advocates a "moral reading" of the United States Constitution,[3] and an interpretivist approach to law and morality. He is a frequent commentator on contemporary political and legal issues, particularly those concerning the Supreme Court of the United States, often in the pages of The New York Review of Books.

Ronald Dworkin was born in 1931 in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. He studied at Harvard University and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a student of Sir Rupert Cross. After completing his final year's exams at Oxford, the examiners were so impressed with his script that the Chair of Jurisprudence (then H.L.A Hart) was summoned to read it. Dworkin then attended Harvard Law School and subsequently clerked for Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Hand would later call Dworkin the finest clerk he ever employed, and Dworkin would recall Judge Hand as an enormously influential mentor. After working at Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent law firm in New York City, Dworkin became a Professor of Law at Yale University, where he became the holder of the Wesley N. Hohfeld Chair of Jurisprudence.

In 1969, Dworkin was appointed to the Chair of Jurisprudence at Oxford, a position in which he succeeded H. L. A. Hart, and elected Fellow of University College, Oxford. After retiring from Oxford, Dworkin became the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, where he subsequently became the Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence—a position he does not hold anymore (he gave his valedictory lecture at UCL in March 2008). He is also currently Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and professor of Philosophy at New York University (NYU),[4] where he has taught since the late 1970s. He currently co-teaches a colloquium in legal, political, and social philosophy with Thomas Nagel. Dworkin has regularly contributed, for several decades, to The New York Review of Books. He delivered the Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecture at Harvard, the Storrs Lectures at Yale, the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Stanford, and the Scribner Lectures at Princeton. In June 2011 it was announced that he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London.

Can Obama Extend the Debt Ceiling on His Own?



Some excerpts :

The “debt shall not be questioned” clause was added to the Fourteenth Amendment for a specific and immediate purpose: to prevent the new Southern members of Congress, should they gain a majority, from cancelling the debt the Union had incurred in the war. But constitutional interpretation is not a catalogue of historical anecdotes; it is a matter of principle and we are therefore required to identify the principle on which the authors of the clause had to rely. As Chief Justice Hughes said of the clause in 1935, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, “While this provision was undoubtedly inspired by the desire to put beyond question the obligations of the government issued during the Civil War, its language indicates a broader connotation. We regard it as confirmatory of a fundamental principle … ”

The general contours of that fundamental principle seem clear enough. Congress does not have authority, even by a substantial majority, to dishonor the nation by repudiating outstanding debts it has authorized the nation to incur. The fiscal integrity of the United States is sacred and requires constitutional protection. Does that principle apply to the debt ceiling crisis?

Of course the principle does not prevent Congress from refusing to authorize new obligations. Obviously, Congress may modify or even extinguish the Social Security or Medicare programs prospectively. But the Republican majority in the House now refuses to permit the country to meet debts duly authorized in the past that remain duly authorized now, unless the Democrats and the President agree to a radical reduction in essential public services that they would never otherwise accept. That is playing blackmail with the nation’s honor. It threatens exactly the kind of forced default that the principle behind the debt clause declares it has no authority to inflict. I believe the best, principled, interpretation of the clause gives the president authority to ignore that blackmail and to borrow enough to meet the nation’s standing legal obligations.

Many academic and other constitutional lawyers agree, and even Senator Chuck Grassley, a conservative Republican, says that this constitutional argument cannot be dismissed. However, Professor Lawrence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, a very distinguished constitutional lawyer, disagrees. He writes that the argument I have just endorsed proves too much. “It would mean that any budget deficit, tax cut or spending increase could be attacked on constitutional grounds, because each of those actions slightly increases the probability of default.” But I believe Professor Tribe has confused the principle I describe with a different one: that Congress lacks authority to make any decision that might decrease the nation’s treasury and so make national default “slightly” – even if only theoretically – more likely. This would indeed be absurd. But the Republicans now threaten action that they know would make default inevitable: indeed that inevitability is essential to their blackmail strategy. That violates the very different principle I described and that Chief Justice Hughes had in mind: it claims Congressional authority knowingly to make it legally impossible for the nation to act honestly.

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One enormous consequence of the shaming national disgrace we are now enduring will not be known until November of 2012. But I doubt very many now uncommitted voters would disapprove of a president who acted under a reasonable interpretation of the law to allow the government payments on which they rely to continue, and to prevent damage to our international credit that would inevitably increase their taxes and might well eventually savage their standard of living.

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Two VIDEOs : Bill O'Reilly Lashes Out At 'Hateful' Republicans - Bill and Laura Ingraham are extremely worried that the Image of President Obama is going to "be saved" by the extremism, craziness, bigotry and stupidity of House Republicans

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First Video : as always Bill and sidekick Laura promote hate against Latinos and "La Raza", and against the left for talking about the tragedy in Norway. They try to absolve, acquit and exculpate Fox News for the constant promotion of Hatred. The Holocaust monument Terrorist, The shooter of Gabrielle Giffords that killed six people and many other Right Wing Terrorists that constantly become motivated with and by Fox News.

Second Video ( inside HuffPost ) Bill says : "The Republican Party is extremely divided" - "The Republican crazies are going to save the Image of Obama" - "The Image of America is diminished Worldwide" - "The craziness of the Right is going to save Obama".

Two top Right Wing Narcissists and Haters from Fox News are extremely worried and long faced because the Tea Party is saving "The Image of Obama" .... "The Republican Party is already hurt by the internal divisiveness".

Bill is a great terrorist promoting violence against abortion doctors. Always diminishing and debasing Latinos and other Minorities. And Laura is his sidekick or stooge always admiring Bill as a demi-god.

First Video :


Uploaded by cheldemedo on Jul 28, 2011

O'Reilly Again Using Norway Tragedy To Fan Flames Of Divisiveness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UJJJAdo8eM



Second Video ( inside HuffPost page ) :



Huffington Post
Bill O'Reilly Lashes Out At 'Hateful' Republicans (VIDEO)
July 29, 2011


Bill O'Reilly Lashes Out At 'Hateful' Republicans (VIDEO)


Some excerpts :

Bill O'Reilly took some Republicans to task on his Thursday show, saying that they needed to stop their "craziness," tone down their "hateful rhetoric" and pass a debt ceiling increase.

Speaking to guest host Laura Ingraham from Los Angeles, O'Reilly said he had taken a "moderate" stance on the debt crisis, and he warned Republicans who have so far been unwilling to pass a debt ceiling increase would only be helping President Obama, who he said had taken an "enormous hit" from the debate.

"The only thing that can save Barack Obama at this point is craziness on the right," he said. "...It's not only going to hurt the Republican party, which has already been hurt, but it's going to save President Obama who they hate."

"Exactly," Ingraham said.

"The irony is, the people who dislike President Obama the most...are helping him the most," O'Reilly said. "You've got to stop this hateful rhetoric. Some of the rhetoric is so hateful...it'd spin your head around. You have to say, listen, we're at a point in the history when we have to save the country."

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The Week : "Osama bin Laden, if he were still alive, could not have come up with a more clever strategy for strangling our nation than the Boehner plan" - "the Boehner plan is a referendum on his speakership and it may be doomed"

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"The same Tea Partiers who crowned Boehner speaker are now kneecapping him".

The Week -
The List -
John Boehner’s debt-vote delay: 5 lessons -
Unable to convince rogue conservatives to support his debt-ceiling bill, Boehner postpones the vote rather than be humiliated on the House floor
July 29, 2011


John Boehner’s debt-vote delay: 5 lessons


Some excerpts :

House Speaker John Boehner did not secure enough votes Thursday night to pass his debt plan, and what happens next is anyone's guess.

John Boehner couldn't get it done. With an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit looming, the House speaker failed to secure enough Republican votes to pass his much criticized two-step plan. The vote — on which Boehner has all but staked his speakership — was delayed for hours on Thursday night as GOP leaders pulled Tea Party-backed congressman behind closed doors for arm-twisting and pizza. All to no avail

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The Tea Party unwillingess to accept that victory [ The Boehner Plan ] threatens the U.S. "Osama bin Laden, if he were still alive, could not have come up with a more clever strategy for strangling our nation," says Joe Klein at TIME. This "is a self-inflicted wound of monumental stupidity." Republicans, who are "willing to concede nothing," are glibly playing poker with the global economy.

3. Which means a bipartisan plan is the only way out

It's "time for the remaining grown-ups in Washington...," says The Washington Post, "to figure out how to help the country slip off the noose." The country simply must lift the debt ceiling, or face economic catastrophe. With Republicans stonewalling Boehner, he'll need the votes of at least some Democrats — and that means Congress needs an alternative to his current plan, time-crunch be damned. "The only path forward in the House is one that brings together the relative moderates in both parties to what passes for a middle ground."

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5. Boehner's speakership may be doomed

"It's all about John Boehner now — nothing else," says Erick Erickson at RedState. He has convinced his GOP caucus that this fight is no longer about opposing Obama or cutting the debt — it's a referendum on his speakership. And he's in jeopardy, says Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo. Thursday night's failure was a "stunning rebuke of House Republican leaders" and simply "devastating for Boehner." It's a bit ironic, too, says James Rowley at Bloomberg, that the same Tea Partiers who crowned Boehner speaker are now kneecapping him.

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Economist Richard Koo argues that it was massive fiscal stimulus (borrowing and spending by the government) that offset this decline and enabled Japan to maintain its level of GDP. In his view, this avoided a U.S. type Great Depression, in which U.S. GDP fell by 46%.

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Paul Krugman and Richard Koo on the Japanese "Lost Decade" :

On February 9, 2009, in warning of the dire consequences facing the United States economy after its housing bubble, U.S. President Barack Obama cited the "lost decade" as a prospect the American economy faced.

The low economic growth rate of Japan has a lot to do with the scarcity of Young Japanese. Lacking Youngsters has a negative impact on the Economy. New Labor and Ideas are very necessary for Economic Dynamism. This is hard to understand by Racists and the Anti-Immigration Bigots in Europe and the USA.

The Lost Decade of Japan in Wikipedia


Some excerpts :

American economist Paul Krugman has described Japan's lost decade as a liquidity trap, in which consumers and firms saved too much overall, causing the economy to slow. He explained how truly massive the asset bubble was in Japan by 1990, with a tripling of land and stock market prices during the prosperous 1980s. Japan's high personal savings rates, driven in part by the demographics of an aging population, enabled Japanese firms to rely heavily on traditional bank loans from supporting banking networks, as opposed to issuing stock or bonds via the capital markets to acquire funds. The cozy relationship of corporations to banks and the implicit guarantee of a taxpayer bailout of bank deposits created a significant moral hazard problem, leading to an atmosphere of crony capitalism and reduced lending standards. He wrote: "Japan's banks lent more, with less regard for quality of the borrower, than anyone else's. In so doing they helped inflate the bubble economy to grotesque proportions." The Bank of Japan began increasing interest rates in 1990 due in part to concerns over the bubble and in 1991 land and stock prices began a steep decline, within a few years reaching 60% below their peak.[7]

In response, Japanese policymakers tried a series of government economic stimulus programs and bank bailouts. A 2.4% budget surplus in 1991 turned to a deficit of 4.3% by 1996 and 10% by 1998, with the national debt to GDP ratio reaching 100%. In 1998, a $500 billion bank rescue plan was implemented to encourage bank lending and borrowing. The central bank also attempted to increase inflation (which devalues savings over time), to encourage consumer spending. Krugman wrote that by 2003, the Japanese economy began to recover, helped by imports from the U.S. and China that helped Japan achieve a real growth rate of 2%. He wrote the recovery was "provisional" and there was significant risk of a return to a liquidity trap.[7]

Economist Richard Koo wrote that Japan's "Great Recession" that began in 1990 was a "balance sheet recession." It was triggered by a collapse in land and stock prices, which caused Japanese firms to become insolvent, meaning their assets were worth less than their liabilities. Despite zero interest rates and expansion of the money supply to encourage borrowing, Japanese corporations in aggregate opted to pay down their debts from their own business earnings rather than borrow to invest as firms typically do. Corporate investment, a key demand component of GDP, fell enormously (22% of GDP) between 1990 and its peak decline in 2003. Japanese firms overall became net savers after 1998, as opposed to borrowers. Koo argues that it was massive fiscal stimulus (borrowing and spending by the government) that offset this decline and enabled Japan to maintain its level of GDP. In his view, this avoided a U.S. type Great Depression, in which U.S. GDP fell by 46%. He argued that monetary policy was ineffective because there was limited demand for funds while firms paid down their liabilities. In a balance sheet recession, GDP declines by the amount of debt repayment and un-borrowed individual savings, leaving government stimulus spending as the primary remedy.[8][9]

Economist Scott Sumner criticizes Japan's very tight monetary policy during the Lost Decade.

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HuffPost : The democracy of care, shared responsibility, and trust is the democracy of the American Dream. The "democracy" of no care, no shared responsibility, and no trust has produced the American Nightmare that so many of our citizens are living through.

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Huffington Post -
Why Democracy Is Public: The American Dream Beats the Nightmare -
George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith -
July 28, 2011 -


Why Democracy Is Public: The American Dream Beats the Nightmare


Some excerpts :

Democracy, in the American tradition, has been defined by a simple morality: We Americans care about our fellow citizens, we act on that care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families, and our friends and neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never seen and never will see.

American Democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy.

Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have given to each other.

Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The American Dream is built upon mutual care and trust.

Our tradition has not just been to share the tasks, but to share the tools as well. We come together to provide a quality education for our children. We come together to protect each other's health and safety. We come together to build a strong, open and honest financial system. We come together to protect the institutions of democracy to guarantee that all who share in these responsibilities have an equal voice in deciding how they will be met.

What this means is that there is no such thing as a "self-made" man or woman or business. No one makes it on their own. No matter how much wealth you amass, you depend on all the things the public has provided -- roads, water, law enforcement, fire and disease protection, food safety, government research, and all the rest. The only question is whether you have paid your fair share for we all have given you.

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VIDEO, U. S. Senator John McCain ( Republican Arizona ) to Bigot Republicans : Pushing Balanced Budget Amendment is "Bizarro" - McCain scolds the super fanatics of the Tea Party in House of Representatives as "Foolish" and "Bizarro".

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Some transcripts of what John McCain said :

“What is really amazing about this is that some, some members are believing that we can pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in this body with its present representation — and that is foolish,” McCain said. “That is worse than foolish — that is deceiving many of our constituents, by telling them that just because the Majority Leader ‘tabled’ the balanced budget amendment legislation, that somehow through ‘amending and debate,’ we could somehow convince the majority on the other side of the aisle to go along with a balanced budget amendment of the constitution.

“That is not fair. That is not fair to the American people, to hold out and say, ‘We won’t agree to raising the debt limit until we pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.’ It’s unfair; it’s bizarro. And maybe some people who’ve only been in this body for six or seven months or so really believe that. Others know better.”

Uploaded by SenateDemocrats on Jul 27, 2011

Senator John McCain warned his Senate colleagues on Wednesday, "To hold out and say we won't agree to raising the debt limit to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, it's unfair, it's bizarro."

McCain to Republicans: Pushing Balanced Budget Amendment is "Bizarro"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_LQtXytLTQ

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Politicus USA : Linking Norway's Terrrorist to "Christian Patriots" and Christian Nationalists in USA - Extreme Right Wing Christians - KKK always boasted of "Christianism" - The Link to Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and other Super-Christian Republicans

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Bill O'Reilly is very angry that the Norway Terrorist is called "Christian" because he boasts of being a Christian, and certainly Bill is a great racist and ethnocentrist agitator against Islam, Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, Minorities, etc...

That is funny, Fox News wants us to believe that the guilty guys of what happened in Norway are the Muslims and people with brown skin. If no Muslims or Brownies go to Norway then this attack would have never happened. It is amazing how Fox News wants to mislead fools about the Norway Tragedy.

If Native American Indians were never present in America, if brown people speaking another language different from English never came to America, then the USA would be a happy paradise. Therefore all brownies are guilty and are enemies of happiness, bliss, glory and perfection, and speaking another non-English language is a crime punished by ..... ??

Politicus USA
Dominionist Ties to Norway Terrorist Clear and Convincing
By Leah L Burton
July 24, 2011


Dominionist Ties to Norway Terrorist Clear and Convincing


Some excerpts :

c) One thing that stands out in the killer’s videos and writings is a certain obsession with the Knights Templar, the Third Crusade, and the idea of setting up what amount to European “Christian Patriot militias” (often using the very same terminology, of note, as “Christian patriot” groups associated with dominionism and the racist right use in the US) to foment a revolution in the same way as planned by “Christian Patriot militias” here in the US.

................

e) There is a known NAR movement in Norway, which is similar in extremism to the US and which has known linkage to NAR extremists in the US, particularly in C. Peter Wagner’s network (in particular, Jan Torp who has known linkage to Sarah Palin via the Wagner NAR network among others); Norway, a relatively religiously conservative country, has been aggressively targeted by the NAR in an effort to establish a bench-head in Scandinavia. (Of note–Wagner’s lineage of NARasites is the most closely connected to the “racist right” along with Christian Reconstructionists; there is clear evidence that Christian Identity groups and NAR groups have traded theological terminology related to domestic terrorism as recently as the late 1980s and early 1990s.) I wrote about Torp’s connection to Sarah Palin at God’s Own Party? in November 2008.

It is important to recognize that C. Peter Wagner who we are speaking of is one of the main endorsers of Governor Rick Perry’s “The Response” event in Houston.

...................

We understand why those who, even unwittingly, have joined forces with Dominionists (i.e. those who still think that being a conservative is about fiscal policies). They are as clueless about the Dominionist Movement as the rest of us. Random events – such as the upcoming Rick Perry Dominionist gathering in Houston, Texas on August 6th are seen as individual occurrences. A ‘Sarah Palin’ is seen as a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic anomaly. But, one of the most harmful time-consumers of getting this message out is to have to respond to and convince those who are seeking the same end that we are in this effort – the separation of church and state. There is no time for hair-splitting. While we argue semantics we lose precious time to educate

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HuffPost : Wealth Gap Between Whites, Minorities Widens To Greatest Level In A Quarter Century - Disparity between predominantly younger minorities whose main asset is their home and older whites who are more likely to have 401(k) retirement accounts or other stock holdings

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American Society is becoming more Racially Divided in Economic Matters. - The Devastation of the Big Recession on Minorities is many times greater than the harm on White Americans.

Huffington Post -
Wealth Gap Between Whites, Minorities Widens To Greatest Level In A Quarter Century -
By HOPE YEN -
July 26, 2011 -


Wealth Gap Between Whites, Minorities Widens To Greatest Level In A Quarter Century


Some excerpts :

WASHINGTON -- The wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century. The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of new Census data.

The analysis shows the racial and ethnic impact of the economic meltdown, which ravaged housing values and sent unemployment soaring. It offers the most direct government evidence yet of the disparity between predominantly younger minorities whose main asset is their home and older whites who are more likely to have 401(k) retirement accounts or other stock holdings.

"What's pushing the wealth of whites is the rebound in the stock market and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans who bought homes in the last decade – because that was the American dream – are seeing big declines," said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in income inequality.

The median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149, compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks, according to the analysis released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Those ratios, roughly 20 to 1 for blacks and 18 to 1 for Hispanics, far exceed the low mark of 7 to 1 for both groups reached in 1995, when the nation's economic expansion lifted many low-income groups to the middle class.

The white-black wealth gap is also the widest since the census began tracking such data in 1984, when the ratio was roughly 12 to 1.

In contrast, the median household wealth of whites dipped a modest 16 percent from $134,992 to $113,149, cushioned in part by a stock market recovery that began in mid-2009.

..........

_About 35 percent of black households and 31 percent of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15 percent of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares were 29 percent for blacks, 23 percent for Hispanics and 11 percent for whites.

_Asians lost their top ranking to whites in median household wealth, dropping from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009. Like Hispanics, many Asians were concentrated in states like California hit hard by the housing downturn. More recent arrivals of new Asian immigrants, who tend to be poor, also pushed down their median wealth.

_Across all race and ethnic groups, the wealth gap between rich and poor widened. The share of wealth held by the top 10 percent of U.S. households increased from 49 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2009. The threshold for entry into the wealthiest top 10 percent, however, dipped lower: from $646,327 in 2005 to $598,435.

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Tablet Mag ( Jewish ) : Jews won't abandon the Democratic Party - Jews recoil from the GOP’s overt Christianity - Jews feel horror of a Republican Party dominated by Christian Right, Ignorance, Bigotry, Ethnicism, Racism, Intolerance

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Jewish Horror of Palin, Bachmann, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty and the Christian Bigoted Right. More important than GOP's Hypocrite False Lies about supporting Israel in any purpose or action.

Tablet Mag ( Jewish website )
Christian Wrong

Republicans are once again arguing that American Jews will abandon the Democratic Party. But it won’t happen, because Jews recoil from the GOP’s overt Christianity, even when it comes with staunch pro-Israel views.

July 25, 2011

By Michelle Goldberg

Michelle Goldberg is a senior writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast and the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World.

Christian Wrong


Some excerpts :

The notion that Jews are on the verge of deserting the Democratic Party is one of the perennial canards of American political commentary.

....................

That fact is, many American Jews might consider voting for “someone else,” but only a fraction would consider voting for the type of person that the GOP is likely to nominate. American Jews have shown, again and again, that they care more about social justice and a defense of American pluralism than a zealous defense of Israeli maximalism. They might get anxious about liberal criticism of Israel, but this anxiety tends to pale beside their abhorrence of the Christian right.

..............

Jewish aversion to Palin has been clear to observers across the political spectrum. Rubin, author of the Jerusalem Post piece predicting a Jewish defection from the Democrats, acknowledged it in a Commentary article titled “Why Jews Hate Palin.” The piece would have read as vaguely anti-Semitic if a gentile had written it—among other things, she suggested that Jewish women were turned off by Palin’s decision to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome because they “couldn’t imagine making a similar choice.” But Rubin had a point when she wrote, “If one were to invent a political leader designed to drive liberal, largely secular, urban, highly educated Jews to distraction, one would be hard pressed to come up with a more effective figure than Palin.”

At least, she had a point at the time, because since then, just such a leader has emerged—Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is even more rooted in the evangelical right than Palin is. Indeed, while at Oral Roberts University, she was the research assistant on a book by John Eidsmoe titled Christianity and the Constitution, which argued that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and that it should become one again. “The church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God,” Eidsmoe wrote. “In that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy.”

Bachmann, like many evangelicals, believes in the scriptural imperative to restore the entire biblical land of Israel to Jewish control. She first went to Israel after high school, on a trip sponsored by the evangelical group Young Life, and she talks about Israel in the language of premillenial dispensationalism, the influential theology that holds that the second coming of Christ depends on the return of the Jews to their homeland. “If we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play,” she told the Republican Jewish Coalition last year. “And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis, we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel.”

This sort of thing has endeared her to some Jewish conservatives, but if history is any guide, it will not sway the community at large. (Her mispronunciation of “chutzpah” won’t help.) American Jews are savvy enough to realize that evangelical support for Israel does not necessarily imply concern with Jewish safety. After all, the dispensationalist scenario culminates in a third world war in the Middle East and the consignment of unconverted Jews to hell before the messiah returns. For those who truly see Israeli politics in terms of evangelical prophesy, an apocalyptic battle on Israeli soil is not something to be avoided at all costs. Instead, it’s the portal to paradise.

Yet this chiliastic theology is only a small part of the reason that Jews will likely remain wary of the Christian right. In the end, American Jews care most about America. They are unwilling to assume a role in their own country that’s in any way analogous to that of Arab citizens of Israel—a people with legal equality who are nonetheless excluded from their nation’s raison d’être. Jews know they can never be full citizens of a Christian nation.

And Republican politics have never been so fully Christianized. The Tea Party was initially mischaracterized as a libertarian movement, but it is deeply imbued with religious fundamentalism, and polls show that a majority of its members believe that the United States is a Christian nation. It’s no accident that, upon taking over statehouses nationwide, Republicans elected with Tea Party support enacted a record number of abortion restrictions—80 in the first six months of 2011, compared to 23 for all of 2010.

Of the serious Republican presidential candidates, the only one who is not entirely aligned with the Christian right is Mitt Romney. Indeed, his campaign has gone out of its way to point out how, as a fellow member of a religious minority, he understands Jewish concerns. Yet he is running for the nomination of a party dominated by religious literalists; the majority of Republicans, for example, don’t believe in evolution, and more than half of them believe that humans were created in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. In his desire to appeal to the GOP base, he has already forsworn his earlier pro-choice position and now opposes not just legal abortion but also stem-cell research. Should he win the nomination, he will almost certainly do what McCain did and choose a running mate meant to energize the Republican base. Some consultants are already speculating about a Romney-Bachmann ticket.

Whoever is ultimately the nominee, we can be sure that he or she will reiterate Romney’s accusation that Obama has “thrown Israel under a bus.” We can be sure that he or she will support the religious right’s agenda in domestic politics. And we can be relatively certain of what will matter most to Jewish voters.

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VIDEO Red Hot Discussion : Tamar Jacoby and Julian Castro against Tom Tancredo and Kris Kobach - Angels against Devils ( Pick your angels ) - Who are Tamar Jacoby and Julian Castro ?? - Biographies of these Warriors

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Julian Castro is the Mayor of San Antonio Texas, born 1974. He is a Great Close Friend and supporter of President Obama, his twin brother Joaquin is a State Senator for Texas and candidate to the U. S. House of Representatives for the Democratic Party, of course ! ), their grandmother was a Mexican Maid and they do not know if she was legal or illegal.

From Wikipedia

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas ( after Dallas ), San Antonio has a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011, it was estimated to be the 24th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. with a population of 2.2 million according to U.S. Census Bureau figures tabulated by Business First. San Antonio has characteristics of other western urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city. It was the fourth-fastest growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006[3] and the fifth-fastest-growing from 2007 to 2008.[4] The San Antonio–New Braunfels metropolitan area has a population of over 2.14 million based on the 2010 U.S. Census, making it the 25th-largest metropolitan area in the United States and third-largest in Texas.

From Wikipedia

Tamar Jacoby (born 1954) is known primarily for her writing on immigration-related issues. She is also president and CEO of ImmigrationWorks USA, an organization self-described as "a national federation of small business owners working to advance better immigration law."[1]

A native of New York City, Ms. Jacoby graduated from Yale University in 1976, after which she became a staffer on the New York Review of Books. From 1981 to 1987 she served as a deputy editor of the op-ed page of The New York Times, and from 1987 to 1989 as a senior writer and justice editor at Newsweek. She has also been assistant to the editor at the New York Review of Books.

Her writing with regard to race relations and immigration has been published in numerous publications, including Commentary, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times Book Review, among other journals of political thought and newspapers of national or regional scope.

Her 1998 book, Someone Else’s House: America’s Unfinished Struggle for Integration (Basic Books), tells the story of race relations in three American cities—New York, Detroit and Atlanta.

More recently, Jacoby's career has been marked by an outspoken advocacy for policies that would liberalize America's immigration laws-which she believes is an essential policy shift in order to maintain the economic growth of the United States while preventing a brain drain to other nations-specifically, the passage of a broad guest-worker program, which some critics have described as an amnesty proposal.

To this end, she has repeatedly praised President Bush's guest-worker legalization plan and engaged in numerous debates with critics of legalization such as Mark Krikorian[2] and John O' Sullivan.

In 2004, Basic Books published an anthology edited by Jacoby, Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants and What It Means To Be American, which expands upon these views, and gathers a diverse array of writers who advocate some form of absorption and assimilation of recent immigrants. The same year, she was confirmed by the United States Senate to a seat on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In addition to her written work and studies, Jacoby has also taught at various educational institutions, including Cooper Union, The New School For Social Research, New York University and Yale University.

Jacoby is a recipient of the 2010/2011 Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin. Jacoby also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1974 to research and write about "What happened to racial integration in the United States."[3]

In May, 2011, Jacoby and Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio debated, as the "against" team, the motion "Don't give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," with former Colorado Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo and Kansas Secretary of State and primary author of the Arizona immigration law (2010) Kris Kobach as the "for" team. The debate was broadcast by NPR and hosted by Intelligence Squared US with John Donvan as moderator. Tancredo and Kobach were declared the victors in the debate based on before and after polling of the live in-attendance audience, mostly because most of the self-identified undecided audience members decided in favor of the motion at the end. A slight majority of the audience opposed the motion, 54% before and 52% after. The debate motion was a play on the most famous lines (without the "don't" and with "me," not "us") of Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus" which is on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty.

Uploaded by IntelligenceSquared on Jul 20, 2011

May 3, 2011

America, built up by the hard work of its immigrants, now finds itself home to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. The federal government, even under the reform-friendly tenure of President George W. Bush, has been unable to find the consensus to overhaul our country's immigration laws. Both the Dream Act and an Arizona statute requiring police officers to detain anyone they suspect to be illegal, has brought the debate back to the forefront of national politics. Are immigrants taking American jobs, or, does immigration help our economy? And is there any difference between low-skilled and highly-skilled immigrants and is it time to honor this distinction?

Debate: Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PettvYLrLLM

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Robert Kuttner : Most of the budget shortfall going into the financial crisis was the result of the Bush tax cuts and wars -- and most of the rest of it since 2008 was the consequence of lost revenues from the recession itself. It had very little to do with public spending

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From Huffington Post :

"It would be perverse of President Obama to reward Republican intransigence by agreeing to an 11th hour deal that, by definition, would have to be on almost entirely Republican terms to be approved by the Tea-Party besotted House of Representatives".

"Better to show some leadership in an emergency, invoke the 14th Amendment, calm money markets, and leave the Republicans sputtering mad. Obama might even come to enjoy exercising leadership"

Huffington Post
Obama Holds the Cards -- If He Will Play Them Well
By Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His most recent book is A Presidency in Peril.
July 24, 2011


Obama Holds the Cards -- If He Will Play Them Well


Some excerpts :

My guess is that the Republicans are so intoxicated with their own negativity that they will not be able to get to yes, even though Obama keeps trying to give away the store. The House Republican Caucus, in thrall to the Tea Party, is just too locked in to the premise of no new revenues under any circumstances

So then we are left with the president's powers under the 14th Amendment, an approach that Obama seemed to rule out last week, but may need to come back to.

The fact is, the ritual of Congress periodically voting to approve an increase in the national debt only dates to the World War I era. Before that, government incurred debt and rolled it over as necessary. Congress, of course, approved legislation to levy and collect taxes, but management of the public debt was the business of the executive branch.

And playing cute with the debt ceiling only dates to New Gingrich in the 1990s. Before that, increases in the debt ceiling, as necessary, were entirely pro forma votes.

The 14th Amendment, in Section 4 provides that "The validity of the public debt of the United States.... shall not be questioned." Although the 14th Amendment was part of a package of Amendments intended to resolve issues left over from the Civil War, the Supreme Court has interpreted the public debt provision as giving the president very broad authority.

The government can go on selling bonds to cover its costs as long as money markets accept them. Lately, the Federal Reserve has been helping that process along. Whether Congress has voted to increase the permissible amount of total debt is a technicality. It's not as if the government runs out of money next week.

If President Obama were to invoke that emergency authority to prevent the economy from collapsing as money markets began shunning U.S. government bonds, it is hard to imagine Republican leaders suing the president... to demand what? That he let the economy go off a cliff? And it is even harder to imagine the Supreme Court, even a Court as partisan and corrupted as the Roberts Court, voting to tie Obama's hands in an economic emergency that -- keep in mind -- is entirely contrived.

...........

Grandmother from Texas : "I think it is Hilarious that Racist Republicans are attemping to rewrite History. WE WERE THERE! WE REMEMBER! It was JFK and Johnson and the DEMOCRATIC PARTY that marched side by side with Martin Luther King and PASSED the legislation"

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"The Racist Republicans were Opposed to it! They still are!"

"They also hate Social Security and Medicare. They are Hatefilled and Hateful!"

"God Bless America!"

"God Bless our President, Barack Obama!"

This Grandmother picked fruits in the Fields of Texas, and met Cesar Chavez ( Latino Laborers Union ) and the Black Leaders of Civil Rights.

This is here from Dee a Grandmother from Texas. She is angry with the many Hate Messages and emails that she receives. I like decent and honest people in a rage, because they tell the truth to scoundrels :

Immigration Talk with a Mexican American
Over the Last Century, These are the REMARKABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE DEMOCRATS!
By Dee, a grandmother from Texas
Saturday, July 23, 2011


Over the Last Century, These are the REMARKABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE DEMOCRATS!

I was reading an article today. It was written by a Republican opining the fact that Democrats were to blame for all the ills of America. They created Social Security and Medicare because they wanted Americans dependent on the Federal Government. Blah blah blah. I decided to do a bit of research and put together a timeline about the accomplishments of the Democrats. This timeline is amazing. (Click on the picture to enlarge)

This timeline clearly illustrates the many important and remarkable accomplishments enacted under the Democratic Watch. Can you IMAGINE what our country would be like without these accomplishments?

Without Democrats - WOMEN COULD NOT VOTE! Neither could Blacks, nor ALL Minorities. We would have No Civil Rights, we would still have Jim Crow laws prohibiting minorities from voting. We'd still have separate water fountains and we'd still be at the back of the bus.

We would have NO Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid. Old Folks would still be sent to the Poor House. No medicine, sent to Die!

We would have No Overtime pay, No Minimum Wage, No Child Labor Laws, No Unemployment Compensation.

We would have NO Man on the Moon and Osama Bin Laden would NOT have been captured.

In the Republican Article, the writer lamented the fact that the Democratic Programs were Ever Created! They want a country with NONE of these programs and if they get voted back into office, their leaders will make sure their Republican Elected Officials will continue to Do Their Bidding and End these Humanitarian Programs that the Democrats, with the Full Support of the American People, worked so hard to enact.

Look at the Timeline! We The People CANNOT Allow Republicans to ever, EVER get back into Power.

I ask everyone to be sure to Register to Vote and VOTE in the 2012 Elections

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Spanish Language Ads for Obama 2012 in Swing States : Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia. To counter a series of Spanish-language ads that Republican-affiliated Crossroads GPS began airing in many of the same markets this Monday

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The Hill -
DNC chief promises push for Hispanic votes in conference call -
By Cameron Joseph -
July 22, 2011 -


DNC chief promises push for Hispanic votes in conference call


Some excerpts :

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) promised in a Friday conference call that the Obama campaign would focus on Latinos, a rapidly growing population, in its reelection campaign.

The call was to promote the DNC's first ad of the election cycle, a Spanish-language television ad running in media markets that reach the swing states of Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia.

"This ad buy and the fact that it’s the first one of the campaign season ... sends a very strong signal of just how high a priority this community is to this administration and this president," said Wasserman Schultz. "We know that the Hispanic community has grown across this country and our commitment is to reach voters in every nook and cranny in this country. "

The ad comes on the heels of a series of Spanish-language ads Republican-affiliated Crossroads GPS began airing in many of the same markets this Monday. It touts Obama's economic priorities and attacks Republicans for wanting to "end the Medicare guarantee," a reference to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)'s plan to change Medicare's payment system.

...............

The Hispanic population of the U.S. has doubled in the past 20 years, and some of its fastest growth took place in swing states Florida and Virginia. Hispanics broke 2-to-1 for Obama in 2008, but their population has been hit harder than many others by the economic recession, and Republicans hope to make inroads with them this election.

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VIDEO : Not True : that the guy that shot against Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is just a Deranged Madman, sick brain : cables and switches inside brain in short circuit. Same for Anders Behring Breivik - Fox News blaming Islamists

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Fox News : Only Muslims can be Terrorists ( That is the suggestion ! ) - This Fox News interviewed scoundrel says that Scandinavian Countries are Primary Targets for Muslim Terrorists !. - They take advantage of the Norway Tragedy to advance Islamophobia.

The Scoundrels of Fox News ( Employees and sycophants of Rupert Murdoch ) are using the Norwegian Tragedy to persuade us that 99.99% of Terrorism is Islamic. I present a VIDEO here where Fox blames Muslims for all Terrorism since Tim McVeigh in Oklahoma City. And they use the Norway Tragedy to push Islamophobia.

These madmen are motivated by TV Networks ( like Fox News ), by Groups of Crackpots, Newspapers publishing imbecilities from "Pundits" and "Gurus" that know everything and are infallible, but that always fail in their predictions of easy Victories in Muslim Countries.

Tim McVeigh,  Anders Behring Breivik, and many other "Madmen" every year, are motivated by many social forces outside their brains. They are not just brains with wrong chemistries. They are also pushed by the many Other Madmen in TV stations and Newspapers. Or by crazy groups like the Tea Party. All of them ( including Fox News ) pushing agendas of Hatred, Racism, Debasing and Humiliating Other Races, Ethnics or Nationalities.

Uploaded by ThinkProgress6 on Jul 23, 2011

Fox News guest: Norway first non-Islamic terror since 1995

Criminal Profiler Forensic Psychologist : The Norway mass murderer is a classsic loner, 'mummy's boy', "very egocentric, narcissistic and disciplined man" likely to believe that he is always right - He does not discuss ideas with others because of Isolation, envies Children and Adolescents

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The Brutal Norwegian Racist and Nazi, also Christian Fundamentalist and Right Wing Crackpot. -


British Telegraph -
Norway attacks: inside the mind of a killer -
The killer's profile suggests a calm loner who used a "slow burning anger" to plan a meticulous attack according to a leading crime psychologist. -
By Laura Donnelly -
July 23, 2011 -


Norway attacks: inside the mind of a killer


Some excerpts :

"This appears meticulously planned, and he sticks around afterwards; it's as if he takes satisfaction from seeing the results, and might take pleasure from being interviewed by police, and getting to explain his beliefs."

The psychologist said the details known about Anders Behring Breivik - his background as a Christian fundamentalist, Freemason, activities in right-wing politics, combined with an interest in body-building, suggested a "very egocentric, narcissistic and disciplined man" likely to believe that he was always right.

So far details have not emerged of close friends or relationships, with Breivik reportedly living with his mother at the age of 32.

Dr Stephen said: "There is a sense of a kind of 'mummy's boy' - someone who perhaps couldn't form relationships, and felt set apart from the rest of the world.

"It is very striking that he chose a children's camp to attack - it may be that he despised or envied the children playing, and felt like an outsider, who did not have that aspect to his life."

The psychologist described the killer as a "classic loner" who, while keen to promulgate his political and religious beliefs was unlikely to have shared his darkest thoughts with anyone.

"The impression given of a man who put himself on a pedestal; a cold, detached and extremely focused. He seems very self-contained; both in the way he carried out the attacks, but also in what we know of his life," he said.

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VIDEO : President Obama speaks about House Speaker John Boehner walking away from the Debt Ceiling Negotiations. He tells us about many concessions to the Stubborn Relentlessly Partisan Republicans. Republican Bigotry and Fanaticism

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The guy Boehner does not return the calls of the President. He is treating Obama as an insurance salesman that calls repeatedly to force a sale. Sheer rudeness and disrespect for the President.


Is it possible to offer more concessions to Republicans ?? - What these "Tea Party" guys want ?? - Do they want the president baying, howling and barking as a beaten dog ??

What these Republicans are defending is discredited and failed policies of "Trickle Down Economics". Those are the policies that have pushed to an almost Big Depression ( avoided by Mr Obama ) and that still harm the American Economy. It is the Republicans  that for many years have worked to cause this big Unemployment that we see now.




Uploaded by whitehouse on Jul 22, 2011


President Obama speaks to the press about negotiations on cutting the deficit and raising the debt ceiling and reminds the Congress that the time has come when a deal must be reached. July 22, 2011.



President Obama speaks to the press about negotiations on cutting the deficit and raising the debt ceiling and reminds the Congress that the time has come when a deal must be reached. July 22, 2011.

President Obama Speaks on Deficit Negotiations

Apocalypse Now : Brahmans, Brahmins, Castes, Pariahs, Outcasts, Untouchables, Semi-Slaves in USA ?? - Just kidding because Obama is hard working to finish wars and recover the Economy

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I have just read some apocalyptic pages. The Worst possible scenarios for the USA.

I am an optimist : I believe that President Obama can stop these three tragic wars in Muslim Countries, and can reach an agreement with the House Republicans on the Debt Ceiling, Budget Cuts and New Taxes.

These are the best possibilities to sustain and support the United States of America as a Dynamic and Leading Nation.

I don't know an example of an economy that generates jobs by cutting budgest and firing teachers, policemen, firefighters, nurses, social workers, and "community organizers" like Mr Obama.

Those that want to fire Mr Obama from his job are asking for a pink slip for themselves. Do you want to receive a discharge notice in your employer's pay envelope to notify your termination of employment or layoff ??.

Rational America, Intelligent America has to defeat in the voting booth all that Irrationality, Bigotry, Racism, Intolerance, Hate for the Poor and Minorities.

And I just said "Hate for the Poor and Minorities" ( With "Poor" before "Minorities" ) because there are many White People falling into poverty, and there is a good share of hate for those Whites from others that are on top of the Economic Ladder.

Who wants a United States divided in castes with brahmins that know all and pariahs that live in constant fear of starvation ??

There are pundits and gurus that constantly call themselves "Great Patriots" and that are "The Real Welfare Queens" abusing the ownership of the Electromagnetic Spectrum by their owners or patrons ( The Rupert Murdochs ) or the Big Newspapers.

And these pundits paid by the few Richest Guys herd a big army of millions of fools to vote for their own disgrace and catastrophe. They vote to be pushed down the economic stairs.

Vicente Duque

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Georgia's Rotting Crops : "You can make more money than you would at McDonald's. But McDonald's is air conditioned, and you can get a cool drink when you want one" "We don't have a workforce. Where are we supposed to get it?" said Bryan Tolar, the president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council.

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The Georgia Agribusiness Council, a group that represents about 700 farmers and agricultural businesses in that state. "Where are we supposed to get the farm workers ??"


Palm Beach Post
Cerabino: Crops rot as Georgia feels effects of immigration law
By Frank Cerabino, Staff Writer
July 13, 2011


Cerabino: Crops rot as Georgia feels effects of immigration law


Some excerpts :

In Georgia, crops are rotting in the fields because migrant workers aren't there to pick them.

................

Wait a second. Isn't unemployment in Georgia as high as 14 percent in some farming communities?

"I think there are people here who can do it," Tolar said. "But we can't find people who will do it."

...............

Lucky for us, it was all just useful nonsense. Gov. Rick Scott, who campaigned on a pledge to bring a let's-see-yer-papers-amigo law to Florida, didn't push very hard for it once he got across the finish line. And elements of the tea-addled Florida Legislature ran into the state's agriculture lobby, which put an end to this political puffery with some last-minute adult supervision.

Migrant labor migrated

The Florida Senate's Budget Committee Chairman, J.D. Alexander, a term-limited Republican citrus farmer, was an important roadblock to Florida getting into the immigration enforcement business. Alexander told his colleagues that he resented being asked to "choose between hard-working people and somebody's uninformed knowledge."

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"They started seeing a lot more roadblocks with police doing license checks on country roads," Tolar said. "It didn't used to be that way."

Jobs are posted, but no one's applying

So now, as Georgia's onions, cucumbers, squash, blackberries, blueberries and watermelons need to be picked, the migrant workers are gone, working in Florida, North Carolina and elsewhere.

"About 75 percent of our farms either don't have enough workers now, or anticipate not having enough workers when their crops are ready," Tolar said.

There are about 11,000 unfilled fieldworker jobs, Tolar said, and despite posting the job openings at the state's labor offices, they remain unfilled. The pay range is about $8 to $12 an hour.

"You can make more money than you would at McDonald's," Tolar said. "But McDonald's is air conditioned, and you can get a cool drink when you want one."

And you don't have to pick crops for 12 to 14 hours a day in the summer heat.

"Watermelons are real work," said the 42-year-old Tolar. "I tried picking blackberries for a day. I couldn't keep up. The farmer told me it'd be good if I tried another farm down the road."

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