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Dred Scot had been taken to both the State of Illinois (free by its own constitution) and the Territory of Wisconsin (free by federal regulation of the territory).
I find it interesting that the Dred Scott ruling essentially said that what's not contraband in one state is not contraband in any state. Perhaps Colorado's marijuana legalization can piggyback on that to make it legal across the nation.
Saints' feast days are, I believe, usually the day they were martyred. If they weren't martyred, the church still goes with the day they died, since birhdays were often not known in olden times.
Cotton was probably trying to say that the leadership of Iran shouldn't even have control of Iran, because the country should have a better government, but given that, they should be happy to stop there. He probably would have punctuated his quote differently, but when people talk, they often screw up where to pause and which word to emphasize.
I like giving people the benefit of the doubt. I keeps me from having to clean foam off my mouth very often.
If the government required airliners to release chemicals into the air, it should certainly pay the airline companies enough to keep them from going into bankruptcy all the time, and nickel-and-diming their customers to death. I mean, where's government waste when you need it?
An excellent question! Distrust of the Federal government's motives and ability to get things right is ingrained into the minds of many right-wingers now. It's my understanding that it wasn't always this way. That people used to trust the government much more. Things changed in the 60s and 70s. Whatever the reason, we are three or four generations into this distrust now, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
So, programs that require some level of willful participation, or at least people not actively working against the program (Obamacare), don't work well at the Federal level. People who want it to fail, because it's Federal, will find ways to make it fail, either by not participating, trying to defund/repeal it, getting public opinion against it, etc...
Stupid, intelligent, I don't get it--nothing has been signed yet, so what's the big deal. For the time being there is nothing to approve or disapprove. Everybody is posturing and it's mostly blah blah. Frankly, I have this feeling that the Military Industrial Complex has it's hand in all of this, but it's using the pols so keep the public from knowing what is really happening.
As the they said in Irma La Douce, "It's grand how the money passes hands!"
I doubt Fox News will call out Tom Cotton on his stupidity in refering that Iran being in control of their own capitol, Theran, is a bad thing. Maybe he meant some other city that is in Iraq or Serria but he said Tehran and that makes you go ???????? and wonder, where does he think Tehran is? And this idiot is trying to interfere with our President's peace negotiations? The people who voted him into the senate must be as stupid as he is. The smart people of Arkansas need to get out and vote in some smart people to represent them. Stupid people voting in stupid people to represent them is no way to run a government. Tom Cotton and his co-conspirators remind me of the movie "Idiocracy". If more people like Tom Cotton were running this country we would no longer have a democratic republic, we would have a true "Idiocracy". With all of the right wing nut-jobs in office all across the country, it's already starting to look that way
DAnneMarc-
I'll sign you up for FOX's debate panel, but I doubt they'll here one word you'll say.
Walcol ~ According to the Constitution...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause
These 47 Senators, in one letter, attempted to make it clear to a foreign entity BEFORE a treaty has been written, agreed upon, and signed, that the Senate would not support it. In effect, they nullified Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the constitution. Congress may only change the Constitution by the Amendment process and not at the whim of 47 rouge members. Exactly, how is that action Constitutional? Now, if they just waited until the negotiation was over--and a treaty signed--they can do and say anything they want.
Of course, even then, 47 Senators out of 100, hardly constitute a majority; let alone, a supermajority. It could easily be perceived that these individuals are trying to nip in the bud anything the President might accomplish diplomatically before it happens; and, that, is outrageous! In the field of vital foreign relations, it is treasonous.
Cotton's "Open Letter" was in fact signed by all of the 47 Republican Congressmen and was addressed to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The fact it was published online rather than mailed to Iran I find irrelevant and an argument that that fact renders it somehow less objectionable and traitorous also find disingenuous. Retired Presidents are not exactly junior senators with 60 odd days on the job and comparing the two is ludicrous. Carter has engaged in peace diplomacy on behalf of the planet and this country for forty years. He did not go behind Bush One's back to sabotage foreign diplomacy being negotiated by a sitting president. The only basis for the idea that Carter somehow undermined GB the First's runup to his Gulf War are the opinion of right wing screeds. Needless to say the Ayatollah Khomeini is hardly the UN Security Council. The purported facts put forth by Walcol exist only in RRW medialand.
1786 was also a year of class warfare....the real kind! It was the one percent, "wealthy merchants and bankers vs ordinary citizens with debt, farmers etc., and the debtors held majorities in most state legislatures at the time.
The Rev War had left the country in an economic depression with little gold and silver coinage in circulation, which would have been mostly Spanish minted in Mexico anyway.... we didn't have a mint yet. This lead to paper money being issued which the one percent refused to accept. It finally turned into a convenient excuse for the banksters to start foreclosures on everyone including Rev War vets. One by the name of Daniel Shays organized farmers into a debtors army.....thus Shay's Rebellion. It didn't take long for the movement to be put down just like "Occupy." Big money won out as usual.
Silver lining: The uprising did show that the Articles of Confederation had become obsolete and that a "stonger central government was needed, and as Thom pointed out, "one with clear guidelines as to who had what kind of power." The uprising lead directly to the Constitutional Convention of 1787... and eventually things like a government mint... all good.
I'm willing to bet Mr. Cotton has never heard of Shay's Rebellion either, nor does he probably care. WTH, Arkansas voters????
Stecoop01 - This guys eyes are too close together and his head looks like it comes to a point which most likely indicates the lack of a brain.
Walcol - I am sick of these damn republican talking points. The fact is that Saint Raygun committed treason by conspiring with Iran to hold the hostages until after the election of 1980. In turn Saint Raygun sent them weapons parts for the American weapons they were given by the U.S. during the Tricky Dicky misadministration. Quit trying to make excuses (lies) for these traitors. Saint Raygun and King George Bush the First should have been sent to the Hague, tried for treason and hanged. I would even throw in King Bush the Second and Dicless cheney for good measure for their two illegal wars and the busting of our national budget.
Furthermore, all the Repukes in the Congress should be sent to prison (Guantanimo) and then turn it over to Cuba with the promise that they keep their asses in prison for life. They are all a bunch of ignorant, dimwitted dweebs.
I have heard Tom weigh in on the chemtrail conspiracy before and it would seem he is a denier. Like so many others he simply thinks these persistant sun blocking grids are contrails and who am I to say they are not. What I have seen is this; everytime a high pressure system is about to break in my location the medium to high altitude air traffic increases twenty fold; most of the planes appear to be military. The planes create "condensation trails" that persist for hours from horizon to horizon. The " condensation trails" merge until they block sunlight. Blocking sunlight for hours at a time modifies the weather!
So for me I just cant say for sure the government or anyone else is changing the weather with chemtrail. I can say that it appears some very strange "contrails" are purposely or accidentally changing the weather just the same.
I'm trying to understand the outrage over the open letter Iranian leaders, published at Senator Cotton's senate website and never actually delivered to anyone in Iran.
I would think Ted Kennedy's outreach to Yuri Andropov to help defeat Reagan in 1984 is a more egregious act than an open letter on a website. Or, Jimmy Carter secretly writing to other world leaders of the UN Security Council to undermine George Bush's case to oust Iraq from Kuwait.
The Republicans want a government whereby the Constitution is once again the law of the land. I say that with a bit of a smirk since we are, afterall, now an oligarcy and no longer the democratic republic are Founding Fathers created (sorry Ben, we were unable to keep the republic you all bequeathed to us. We were to busy playing video games, wathcing sports and "reality" television to notice what was going on)
Secondly, neither the GOP nor the Democrats seriously want the kind of government established like the likes of Jefferson and Adams even if they could restore it; If they did, both groups would be out of business and besides none of the Founding Fathers wanted political parties. I think too that our urbanization, technology, and population growth would make it untendable. We have move far from a "nation of shopkeepers and farmers"
The Republicans use the Constitution as a rallying cry for their conservative minions and to gain the support of the Tea Party. The Democrats too like to cherry pick what parts of the Constitution supports their positions and discretely obsecure the rest. What we must do is somehow wrestle control of the government from the oligarchs--the one percent--who control it and return it to the People.
Again, I would vote "no" but that's not an option here. The reason is simple. They acted out of arrogance and stupidity. Their intent was to make Obama look bad (which he does without any help) and because of the distrust of Iran.
I can't blame for the distrust of the Iranians. They've shown that they will do as they when they please regardless of any outside pressure or threats of further sanctions. Iran will acquire the capability to build a bomb, even a "dirty" bomb and use it as blackmail against Israel or simply use it period. That puts Israel in a situation where they cannot count of the US and would, therefore, take whatever steps they have to, including the use of its own nukes (assuming they have them---wink wink),
As for making Obama look weak, the Iranians, and indeed the world, already sees Obama as weak, not to mention a lame duck. His foreign policy has sadly lacking in anything that remotely looks adaquate. Both Hilliary and Kerry are seen as failures while Hillary acting "imperalistic" and Kerry as just plain childish compared to the European, Russian, and Asian professional dipomatic corps.
Obama's presidentcy is viewed by many, both at home and aboard, as one lacking in direction. Yes, the Republicans could be blamed for some of that, but so could the Democrats and Obama himself. In the end, the Iranians will get a good chuckle out of it (even if only behind doors) while the Germans, French, English, Russians, and Chinese, will roll their eyes and shake their heads. At this point, any deals or agreements of note will fall to Obama's successor just as it did when Jimmy Carter tried to work with the Iranians (to which Ronald Reagan was given the credit rightly or wrongly), not that the Iranians will uphold their end in long run of course.
Cotton is an arrogant upstart with delusions of dictatorhood...he needs to slapped down hard. He has the IQ of a marble, and I'm probably insulting the marble.
How the hell did he get elected to the Senate???
Hephaestus -- In 1932 we had even worse despotic rule than now, which we overcame without the means of a violent revolution.
grandpa_Dave -- Do not forget that the democrats in the House received 5 million more votes than the repugs in the last election (2014). Also, the senate democrats received 20 million more votes over the last 3 election cycles. -- great-grandpa_Chuck
Thom is right -- many of the congressional Republicans have obstructed and undermined legislature ever since Obama took office, apparently with the primary goal of making his leadership ineffectual and creating intergovernmental crises where none existed. Given that this has been going on 6 years now, the puzzling thing to me is why the American voting public has favored the Republican party in the last two elections. I search for explanations but can't decide if it is due to voter stupidity, right-wing baloney "news" media, lack of voter turnout in the Democratic party, or a genuine desire for the "conservatives" to return America to the good ole days.
Democracy... really?
We the people are all getting screwed by whatever process or system because the establishment remain in control
The buggers are still there and certain of their control
The only way you get rid of despotic rule is by means of revolution
Bottom up!!!
The Chinese approach appears to be attractive now
At least they don't hide behind the pretence of "democracy"
It looks like they will eventually pee upon the west whilst watching our combined western water going down the drain
You must be referring to Tom "The Bird Head Of Arkansas" Cotton. Of course he doesn't care about the Constitution of the U.S. In fact, Republicans hate the United States. It's the mythical "America", i.e. the Confederacy that they love.
You see, Republicans are afflicted with Arrested Development, which causes them to never mature past adolescence. They, in fact, have the minds of teenagers, hence, the lying, arrogance, never being able to admit that they could ever be wrong and thinking that they know everything.
It's time for voters to grow up and quit putting these clowns in office.
Aliceinwonderland.....there are no words to improve upon your description of the situation. As the United States of Billionaires descends into fascism we can only blame those who don't vote or write their representatives. For those of us who do......at least we're not disappointed. We've seen it coming for decades.
When people don't vote (whether from anti-voting policies or just plain laziness), this is what we get: a bunch of empty suits in Congress. I'm not surprised by any of this; it's exactly what I expected, given the outcome of the last election. Oh well... on the bright side, at least I haven't been disappointed!