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On Monday, I learned of a very interesting court case called Kerr v. Hickenlooper.
What's been going on here in Colorado for 22 years is that a constitutional provision called the TABOR Amendment (short for "tax payers' bill of rights") has been strangling the state and local governments' ability to raise taxes and keep the money if the revenue passes a certain threshold. It is possible to increase the revenue cap, but only through a ballot initiative; TABOR eliminated the legislature's power to determine tax law. All the legislature can do is determine how to give the extra money back when that occurs, since it wasn't specified in TABOR.
There lawsuit, put forth by Democrats, alleges that the aforementioned limitation of the legislature's power violates the "guarantee clause" of Art. IV, Sec. 4 of the U.S. Constitution: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."
I had never interpreted that clause as meaning anything other than keeping the states from creating inherited government offices, but this suit is attempting to use it to ensure that the legislature has sufficient power to run the state properly.
It's a great use of the conservative argument I've encountered on the Internet a lot, where people say, "I'm glad this is a republic and not a 'mob rules' democracy." (Of course, this argument has been promulgated in order to plant the seed in people's minds that democracy and the Democratic Party are un-American, and that people shouldn't want the right to vote.)
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has made some sort of a decision already, and the U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to decide soon whether to take the case.
The problem is NOT that there is some flag flying that needs to be taken down....it's that the flying flag indicates that racism is undeniably institutionalized. Recall the recent Voting Rights Act decision by SCOTUS....who just decided the South was cured...when we ALL know the decision's purpose was to really further suppress the vote in the South. This terrorist act makes that SCOTUS decision look blatantly self-serving (to Republican campaign contributors). So it was decided to throw the flag under the bus in order to cut-off the debate moving to the SCOTUS decision. The "slippery slope"....is precisely this.
TM (collegeville PA)
The US uses the term to mean "someone who does not cooperate with our policy". A more thoughtful definition might mean an entity that sails a battleship up and down a coastline blowing up everything within sight, or covers children with flaming jellied petroleum, or covers the land with cluster bombs, or fills the skies with drones to slaughter at will, or eavesdrops on everyone's private conversations.
Since the Red Army crushed the Third Reich, there has been only one terrorist in the world: the evil empire, the USA.
Roland
Thom is completely wrong about the Civil War. When it broke out the US was pro slavery. Prior to 1863 slavery was not an issue. And after the war was over slave auctions persisted in Baltimore and NYC. Robert E. Lee freed more slaves than Lincoln. Prior to the war free black men could vote in the South, but not the North.
The war was fought to extend the banker control of the North into the South. The good guys lost this war, but not for lack of valor; the North had a torrent of immigrants to pour into the meat grinder. From Lighthorse Harry to Robert, the Lees were a family of heroes deserving veneration, not vilification.
Roland
Two items:
1) Days after being arrested for his UN protest, the PCJF won an historic settlement which specifically mentioned the DC police and requires (?) review of police practices regarding (legal) protests. Can you speculate if this might change DC police practices, and if so, when?
2) Speaking of Fox "news", have you seen that wonderful blast by Jon Stewart?
http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2015/06/jon-stewart-slams-fox-hypocrisy
OldSchool -- Free markets always fail. The freer the market the faster they fail. They've been tried many times. You should read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein.
You also should listen to Thom Hartmann more.
OldSchool -- You need an older school. The New Deal had a 91% top tax rate and an ever increasing number of regulations. The New Deal built the greatest economy the world has ever known. JFK lowered the top tax rate and the economy slowed. Raygun lowered the top tax rate a lot and set the stage for the destruction of the US economy.
vince1s1 -- I need to remind you that Bernie cannot be a dictator. Of course, Bernie repeats that thought over and over.
If the dems had a super-majority in both houses of congress, I think you would vote for a 3rd term for Obama. Card check alone would have stopped the TPP and prevented the other 90% of the dubya tax cuts from becoming permanent. Obama did prevent at least 10% of them from becoming permanent. Obama also has stopped a tax holiday.
I think voting for dems is our only hope.
bnappi -- It seems to me those who control it understand it too well. For example, Murdock uses it to have the people he wants elected.
I have tried calling but number is "not accepting mssgs at this time". I disagree with your gun statistics Thom. It seems the data is engineered to fit this political agenda. To be completely unbiased, how many of these gun deaths are from unregistered illegal firearms? Most of these accidental shootings are a result of incompetent Parents that should be held responsible!
Finally, our Constitution is very clear about Second Amendment rights. This whole incident in S.C. was a perfect opportunity for Obama to put on his (very bad) attempt at acting. As he tried to act emotional. (But couldn't hide his underlying grin) as he said. "The American People need to wake up, but something will be done either way". Its no secret his aims at taking away our rights to bear arms. The many secretive executive orders that he ran past congress and the people. Do u think its a smart idea to disarm a population, when we have a Rogue Government in power?
You yourself have said the Corporations and the Fed. have bribed their way into our government. I think banning guns will have little effect on gun violence. And if that does happen. This country will fall into a total dictatorship.
Also, capitalism in the northern European nations seems to be working in a tolerable fashion. Capitalism was also quite tolerable from 1933 to 1981 in the USA.
It's hard to come up with a replacement, probably because capitalism is less a thing, and more a lack of a thing (namely, regulation).
AIW -- We are looking for replacements. Do you have any?
Thom, it needs to go further than that: capitalism itself needs to go extinct. We've seen it time and again: politicians cannot be trusted to maintain those regulations on capitalism. Therefore it is capitalism that needs to go.
But Dr. E, these mass shooters invading schools, churches and movie theaters are all young white guys. Try explaining that.
Adam’s Greedy Seed
{a Limerick}
. . . . . . .
We of Adam’s seed
persist in atrocious greed
which makes our Earth bleed: -
- we take more than we need.
Our Creator must off be peed.
, , , ,
We’re supposed to serve as Earth’s stewards,
but we are instead Earth’s {screwers} screwards.
================
Ending exploitation of people for profit in my opinion would speed the transition away from exploiting the planet for profit. Offer the guy working on the oil rig a government run green energy job with decent pay, hours, health insurance, and a pension plan, and watch him tell Exxon where to go. There are countless military/spy government jobs with geat benefits, it's time we wage war on the real enemy, Global Warming...hire the troops now!
It is unrealistic to believe that competing nations will agree to adopt the same regulations that we apply domestically. Trade agreements could achieve this in theory, but oversight and enforcement is nearly impossible. Safety regulations make sense on the surface, but they most often go too far and drives jobs overseas, or kill new emerging markets that could innovate with safer methods. A free market system has a built-in set of checks and balances to create demand for tighter safety controls, and reward innovation to reduce safety risks from the process. Central government planning usually reacts slowly. When central planners finally take action, they most often apply regs that can cripple business and limit growth.
Thank you.
Kelly, I'd add restoring the right to vote to those who lost it when convicted of a crime. Once someone's out of prison, they must be allowed to be a full member of society again.
Yes, 'free trade' carries well within the conservative community BUT pair it with 'free lunch' and a few sensibilities would be boogled. Try "free trade is like a free lunch; there's no such thing! Don't fall for ObamaTrade."
Thom this is in the order of importance:
1. remove labels:
White means light, pure, innocent, etc.
Black means dark, danger, bad, dirty, tainted, etc.
2. Let out fathers and son's who have low level offenses (anything related to murder, sexual offense, domestic and child related crimes can stay).
3. erase all crimal backgrounds.
4. Every company that has benefited from slavery in any shape form or fashion should be required to bring jobs to the inner cities with factories (bring them back from China) if whites wants to work they should be required to come to our communities to work. We don't bite.
5.Require that no one can use the Nword in music over the public air waves and anything that the Jewish community won't let fly can't fly with the us.
Disrespect to women is off limits.
6. Open these selective enrollment schools up. Whatever you teach kids will learn and actually have text books this time. I am tired of my kids coming home with work that was printed off a website vs a book.
7. Give us loans to open stores in our neighborhoods. No more Koreans or Arabs owning stores in our communities. Just like any other community (Mexican's own Mexican business in their communities, etc.
8. Make it illegal to deny employment because of crimal background no matter what as long as it doesn't involve children (they can't work around kids anyway).
Kelly in Chicago
Wait, since when is Thom a fan of Alexander Hamilton? Usually he argues that Thomas Jefferson was great and Hamilton was horrible.
As the conquerer of the Confederacy, the United States should include all Confederate flags in the national rules of flag display, and say when it's appropriate to fly them--namely, never.
It might be appropriate for that war memorial next to the South Carolina capitol to have on it engravings of the flags that were actually flown by the people it's supposed to honor.
Old School said "If regulations create jobs, why not generate a continuous supply of erroneous regulations and stimulate the economy? "
that is why I disagreed with Thom's heading. However, in his actual post, he confined himself to the result of a study that said the particular regulation he was looking at increased jobs, and in fact said that 'good regulations create jobs'.
And of course, he is right. Good regulations are done to save lives, make us healthier, and in the long run create a more efficient economy.
But as to regulations - yes, you require domestic products to have certain limitations, then you should require foreign competitors the same. Otherwise, it is unfair. But that is an argument for more regulation, not less.