Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (621458)	7/26/2011 10:49:00 AM
From: Sdgla	3 Recommendations Respond to of 1579259

You have swallowed the O doctrine ted... those with are evil those without are good. Do you even know what Freud accomplished during his life ? You show yourself to be an illiterate fool with each post. ‘We Need Tectonic Changes’ July 26, 2011 8:05 A.M. By Mario Loyola In recent days, both Rich and Ramesh have come out against the idea of a balanced-budget amendment with spending limitations (Rich here, Ramesh here). In particular, they both dislike the idea of requiring Congress to move on the proposed resolution (S. J. Res. 10, which would then go to the states for ratification) as a condition of raising the debt limit — an idea that has already been endorsed by dozens of Republican members of Congress. The most basic reason why we have a debt-limit crisis now is that we have allowed the federal government to grow so far beyond its enumerated powers that we are up against artificial debt limits as virtually a last defense against its relentless growth. This is not a fiscal crisis — it is an attempt to halt the very accumulation of federal power that the Federalists promised us would never happen. It’s a constitutional crisis, and it cannot be fixed merely by holding the line on taxes and securing deep spending cuts in the short term. What has long been clear to many constitutional scholars is now intuitively obvious to Americans of all stripes: The relentless expansion of federal power is destroying self-government at every level of society besides the national one — and with it, the self-reliance and independence that made this country great. It is difficult any longer to see what stands between us and a statist tyranny of the majority. Supporters of the balanced-budget amendment are trying to erect a shield against unrestrained federal power. Conservative skeptics should to do more than say, “Well, that won’t work.” As Arthur Brooks writes in an instant classic on what’s really at stake in the debt-ceiling talks, “We need tectonic changes, not minor fiddling.” If not a constitutional amendment, then what? Arthur Brooks’s column is a call to action — “hard work for at least a decade.” But what exactly is our objective, if not to revive constitutional protections against the vast accumulation of central government power that the Framers equated with tyranny, and which Brooks terms “statism” and “the welfare state”? Brooks supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan — but it would require supreme political will to carry that plan through, and as soon as we let our guard down, we’d be right back where we are now. That’s because tectonic changes over the past 70 years have taken us away from a Constitution of limited powers and toward a dynamic of unlimited federal expansion. Both Rich and Ramesh point out that state governments rely so much on federal funds that they would never vote to limit federal spending. But here’s the thing: Those federal funds are conditional, and the conditions are paralyzing state governments’ ability to respond to their citizens’ desires and ideas. They face immediate political danger because they are increasingly unable to provide real representation for those they represent. Conditional federal funds have become a hated fixture of state-budget battles. Indeed, even liberal justices of the Supreme Court have seen conditional federal grants as perhaps the greatest threat to federalism. Washington gets all its money from the states, and then returns it to them only on condition that they adopt federal preferences on a whole range of state policy issues. From the point of view of state legislators, this is not a source of support, it’s a straight-jacket. It’s their money to start with, and most of them would far rather spend it themselves on home-grown ideas. Even among those states that shamefully use the federal machinery to go rent-seeking among their more productive sisters, many state governments would vote to be rid of federal grants altogether if they could keep the tax revenue that finances them. Rich argues that we shouldn’t adopt amendments that are bound to be suspended by one exception after another, because ignoring the Constitution inevitably weakens it. I completely agree, but we are way past that point already. Federal power has exploded far beyond any concept of limited government that you can find in the text of the Constitution. We’re talking about restoring some semblance of a federal Constitution of limited powers, not preserving an interpretation of it that allows temporary majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court to wreak whatever havoc they please in every corner of our society. Conservatives need to achieve a consensus on a way to revive constitutional limitations and protect against the manipulation of the federal machinery by those bent on confiscations of property as the means to achieve “social justice.” If you don’t like the constitutional amendment proposed by 47 Republican senators and all the conservatives in the House of Representatives, then let’s please move right along to the consideration of an alternative. — Mario Loyola is director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation nationalreview.com

To: tejek who wrote (621458)	7/26/2011 11:05:49 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1579259

Ted your new country will be filled with people like this. Black Tea Party Protesters Called ‘Sell-Out Negroes’ at NAACP Convention“These “sell-out negroes” wish they were white… They have no business speaking for and joining with racists who want to kick them back into slavery.” breitbart.tv

To: tejek who wrote (621458)	7/26/2011 11:23:01 AM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579259

Issa: Obama admin intimidating witnesses in ATF gun probe The Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying to Congress on Tuesday about whether ATF knowingly allowed weapons, including assault rifles, to be “walked” into Mexico, the chairman of a House committee investigating the program said in an interview Monday. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, said at least two scheduled witnesses expected to be asked about a controversial weapons investigation known as “Fast and Furious”received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony. Mr. Issa's committee is set to hear testimony from six current or former ATF employees, including agents and attaches assigned to the bureau’s offices in Mexico, about the operation — in which, federal agents say, they were told to stand down and watch as guns flowed from U.S. dealers in Arizona to violent criminals and drug cartels in Mexico. The six-term lawmaker aired his concerns about the program in a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors at The Washington Times on Monday. Among other questions, the agents are likely to be asked about a large volume of guns showing up in Mexico that were traced back to the Fast and Furious program; whether ATF officials in that country expressed concerns about the weapons to agency officials in the U.S., only to be brushed aside; and whether ATF officials in Arizona denied ATF personnel in Mexico access to information about the operation. Nearly 50 weapons linked to the Fast and Furious program have been recovered to date in Mexico. Committee investigators said Mexican authorities also were denied information about the operation.