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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/20/2011 5:45:32 PM
From: locogringo5 Recommendations  Respond to of 224749
 
loco, you have made an argument for the Court to uphold the validity of the entire Act. The Court is already convinced that the remainder of the Act is constitutional. The Act needs the mandate to work. The court knows the act needs the mandate to work.

Of course I have, kenny, but it's going to depend not on logic or what makes it work, but on the constitution. You are a lawyer..........I am not....so you know the difference. That rag still means a lot to many people. Progressives don't like it, but then, most people don't like Progressives.

It's a battle of States rights over a Federal monopoly or oligopoly, and I chose those words purposely.

One more court decision, then the Supreme Court, with one or two justices bowing out.

Are you a betting man? :--)




To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/20/2011 6:40:15 PM
From: Paul V.  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 224749
 
Kenneth, how many members of the Supreme Court are strict constructionist? Therefore, how would they come down on the ruling. There are four judges on the progressive side of the Court, and possibly Kennedy may be the deciding swing vote. How do you seeing the members of the Court breaking down philosophically? If you were arguing the case for the US how would you argue the case - that is without spelling out the hold strategy. <gg>



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/20/2011 8:34:32 PM
From: lorne2 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 224749
 
kenny...here is your new talking point about global warming/climate change so get the word out there. :-)

Aliens vs. humans: Eco-friendly ETs could wipe out polluted planet Earth to protect their civilisations, warns Nasa
Earth's greenhouse gases could be viewed as a serious threat made by a people that are out of control
Scientists draw up a list of hypothetical alien invasion scenarios that could benefit, not matter or harm man

By Richard Hartley-parkinson
19th August 2011
dailymail.co.uk

Anyone hoping that the first spaceman to land on Earth is as friendly as ET could be in for a shock.
In the latest bid to get us to cut greenhouse gases, scientists have decided that eco-conscious aliens disgusted by mankind's emissions could destroy our planet in disgust.

When observed from afar, the changes in Earth's atmosphere could label us as a civilisation that has grown out of control.

Aliens reaching that conclusion may then launch a pre-emptive attack to protect this perceived threat to their own way of life.
But that is only one possibility. Scientists are also considering other unwelcome - and far-fetched - outcomes, such as aggressive extra-terrestrials who eat or enslave us, or perhaps they are industrial types who want to improve their own technological infrastructure and so pillage ours.


Lead researcher Shawn Domagal-Goldman and his team compiled a list of hypothetical situations to help us should we come into contact with other life forms.
The report, a joint effort between Nasa and Pennsylvania State University, answered the question 'Would Contact With Extraterrestrials Benefit Or Harm Humanity?'
Providing beneficial, neutral and harmful outcomes, the report is designed to prepare mankind for the possibility of an alien encounter on Earth.

In the best case scenarios put forward, the scientists claim that mankind could swap information to overcome hunger, poverty and disease.
An alternative scenario could see man triumph over an alien force and learn from their technology.

The report says: 'In these scenarios, humanity benefits not only from the major moral victory of having defeated a daunting rival, but also from the opportunity to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial intelligent (ETI) technology.'
In the neutral category, it suggests man could feel indifferent towards any alien invaders because useful communication is not possible.
There is even the possibility that aliens are too bureaucratic and tedious for us to join the 'Galactic Club'.
Echoing the situation in the film District 9, in which aliens are put into a refugee camp in South Africa, they could even become a nuisance to Earthlings.
The most harmful outcomes are also suggestions that would fit well in an apocalyptic Hollywood film script, with Independence Day-style attacks, accidental destruction of our planet or diseases wiping out the entire population.
Their suggestions to help with our survival against such events include the issuing of warnings against broadcasts that might help aliens from learning about our biological make-up.
The first part of our contact, they add, should be limited to maths 'until we have a better idea of the type of ETI we are dealing with'.
The report adds: 'A pre-emptive strike (by aliens) would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand.

Likely scenario? One of the 'neutral' situations of an alien encounter could involve a situation like that depicted in the film District 9 (pictured), in which aliens are kept in a compound in South Africa
'Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions...
'These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems.
'It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets.




To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/20/2011 8:38:25 PM
From: lorne3 Recommendations  Respond to of 224749
 
ken....This sounds somewhat like todays progressives in government...don't ya think so?

Nazis were not evil, they were 'social climbers', claims leading German historian
Historian claims citizens also had deep-seated fear of true freedom
By Allan Hall In Berlin

19th August 2011
dailymail.co.uk

A peculiar German inferiority complex allied to a lust to 'get on' led to the country’s collective moral collapse which allowed the Holocaust of six million Jews to happen, a new book in Germany claims.

Götz Aly, an esteemed historian and social commentator, says their berserk social climbing led the ordinary people, far removed from the extermination camp system, to partake in the plunder of the Jews without troubling their consciences.
His book Why The Germans? Why The Jews? comes at a time when Germany is once more in the crosshairs of critics across the continent as the euro crisis lurches from bad to worse.

Social climbers: Adolf Hitler salutes a soldier from his car in Nuremberg in 1934. According to a new book by a leading German historian the Nazis were wracked with an inferiority complex
It is portrayed as bullying, domineering and inflexible as it tries to impose rigid, German-style rules on nations which do not share its social, political and economic ethics.

More...Shaming of France: For decades, the country has been in denial over its own role in the Holocaust. A new film reveals the monstrous truth
Capitalism in crisis, a warning from history: Eighty years ago, a banking collapse devastated Europe, triggering war. Today, faith in the free markets is faltering again

Most important Aly gets away from the 'evil Nazi' comfort zone that so many postwar Germans have wallowed in.

Pompous: The Nazis were obsessed with uniforms and symbolism
The central thesis of his book is that the Holocaust happened “because people like you and me allowed it to.” And he says it can happen again.
It was the middle class fear of coming down in the world following defeat in WWI, the hyper-inflation and joblessness of the Weimar years, that allowed people to blind themselves to the excesses of the Nazis as they pledged to restore Germany to greatness.

Those who would pay the most for that greatness were the Jews; the culprits, said Hitler, behind the war.
Social climbing became an almost impossible thing during the jobless, moneyless days of the Weimar Republic: the Nazis brought it back into vogue with uniforms, work and, ultimately, plunder.
Massive auctions were staged every week throughout the lifespan of the Third Reich in Hamburg and several other cities of stolen Jewish goods.
Massive ships docked regularly at the city’s port bringing furniture, silver, furs, tapestries, rugs and glassware that had been taken from Jews in the occupied countries.
'The Social Democrats and the trades unions wanted property too,' said Aly.

'The ‘bad one’ was the Jew in all this.'

Therefore, the common man reasoned, it was no bad thing for his or herself to advance themselves at the cost of this societal bogeyman.


Jewish families are expelled from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. The Nazis ignored the fact that Jews excelled in schools and universities and merely played up the fact that they took all the jobs
The Nazis ignored the fact that Jews - making up less than one per cent of the population of Germany - had since around 1900 excelled in schools and universities, graduating at a rate eight times that of Christians.

They merely played up the fact that they took all the jobs, thus provoking yet more envy as they secured positions in high paying professions such as medicine and law.
He offers up the example of his own grandfather, Friedrich Schneider, one of the five million unemployed in 1926 who joined Hitler’s fledgling Nazi party because he believed, like so many others, that he would once more be able to “get on” if it was in power.
'He was one small part,' he said, 'of that whole of Germany that went on the way to violence and destructive rule.'
Controversial views: Götz Aly, an esteemed historian and social commentator, has written the book
Aly also says coupled with the German envy complex was a deep-seated fear of true freedom; it had not existed under the Kaiser and democracy under the Weimar Republic had brought the country to its knees.
The Nazis, he said, were a catchment basin for socially envious people and people with inferiority complexes.
He went on: 'I see in the Germans a substantial self conditioning for the murder of the Jews that developed from these feelings of national inferiority.

'The Holocaust can repeat itself. One should not believe that the anti-Semites of yesterday are completely different human beings to the ones of today.'



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/20/2011 9:06:40 PM
From: lorne3 Recommendations  Respond to of 224749
 
ken...This should be interesting...hugo,fidel, alinsky..I know I know he is dead but hey dead people vote for obama why not also visit the White House?

Judge says rule of law applies to White House, too
Orders Secret Service to disclose 8 months of records
: August 19, 2011
By Drew Zahn
wnd.com


A federal judge has ordered the Secret Service to release eight months of White House visitor logs it had previously kept hidden, an estimated "tens of thousands" of records from Obama's first year in office.

U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell – an Obama appointee – earlier this week ruled in favor of the government watchdog organization Judicial Watch, which had argued the Jan. 20-Sept. 15, 2009, visitor logs were agency records subject to public inspection through the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.

While the Secret Service had argued that being compelled to release visitor logs under FOIA might compromise "national security interests," Judge Howell ruled that the White House already has authority to exempt certain records that might prove sensitive – so long as it provides legal explanation for the exemption – so the adminstration has no excuse for refusing Judicial Watch's FOIA request.

Read the details about Washington, in "Gangster Government: Barack Obama and the New Washington Thugocracy"

"This is a major victory for open government and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama administration," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in a statement responding to the ruling. "This administration will now have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under law. It is refreshing to see the court remind this administration that the rule of law applies to it."

In July of 2009, the White House announced a new policy touting its own "transparency" for voluntarily releasing the records from Sept. 15 onward. The first eight months of 2009's logs, however, would only be available to "narrow and specific" requests.

But, Judicial Watch argued, there's a difference between "voluntarily" releasing records and actually being accountable to the people.

"The White House insisted that it could release visitor information at its own discretion, the timing and specifics of which [were] not subject to court review," Fitton wrote in an update on the case. "And despite White House misinformation to the contrary, tens of thousands of visitor logs are being withheld from disclosure by the Obama administration.

"These records," Fitton continued, "are now subject to disclosure under FOIA."

According to court documents from the case, the White House argued that the court's oversight of its record releasing policy could breach the constitutional separation of powers and would pose "a substantial intrusion on the confidentiality necessary for the president and vice president to discharge their constitutional duties."

Furthermore, the administration argued, it would be "virtually impossible" for the Secret Service to process the plaintiff's FOIA request with respect to records created between Jan. 20, 2009, and Sept. 15, 2009, without potentially compromising national security interests.

Howell, however, dismissed the separation-of-powers argument and stated, "To the extent that a visitor record might, if publicly released, disclose confidential presidential communications, the Secret Service has a ready recourse in Exemption 5 [of FOIA]," which exempts privileged documents from disclosure.

"Therefore," Howell continued, "the proper course of action by the Secret Service is duly to process [Judicial Watchs's] FOIA request, disclose all segregable, nonexempt records, and then assert specific FOIA exemptions for all records it seeks to withhold."

The ruling gives the Secret Service 20 days to meet with Judicial Watch to settle upon a plan for releasing the records.





To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (111066)8/21/2011 6:13:22 AM
From: jlallen5 Recommendations  Respond to of 224749