Obama Wins! - So What's Next?

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But don't you see chandos, this wasn't caused by the free market but by unscrupulous people doing what should be criminal acts.

They intentionally marketed unstable mortgages as stable securities & the investors greed did the rest.

 

I completely agree! They must be wearing their snowcoats in Hell.

 

The governments motto

 

I thought we were agreed that the govenment did not create this problem, but unscrupulous investors?

Really, before I was blaming Bush, but blaming the government is almost like blaming the victim for the crime, at least in this case.

 

No i just meant in general, not particularly this situation.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/SZeuBHe9VcI/AAAAAAAAaDw/qwd70NrOFXY/s1600-h/stimulus+bill.JPG
Nice breakdown of the spendulus(ERR, i meant stimulus) package

**EDIT**
Oh this was cute.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-fundraiser-as-his-ambassador-to-Britain.html

The man gave obama $300,000 & obama gives him an appointment, that pretty much sounds like "pay to play" to me.

***EDIT***
Way back in post#406 of this thread i mentiened how close the country was to a civil war/secession & was mainly laughed at. Well here are the first shots.

Spoiler

Oklahoma 10th Amendment Resolution passes in House 83 to 13 on Constitutional Emergency

WHEREAS, many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and

WHEREAS, Article IV, Section 4 says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”, and the Ninth Amendment states that ”The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”; and

WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.

THAT this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

THAT all compulsory federal legislation which directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.

THAT a copy of this resolution be distributed to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state’s legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation.

COMMITTEE REPORT BY: COMMITTEE ON RULES, dated 02-12-09 - DO PASS

And here

Spoiler

HCR 6 – AS INTRODUCED

2009 SESSION

09-0274

09/01

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 6

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5; Rep. Comerford, Rock 9; Sen. Denley, Dist 3

COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs

ANALYSIS

This house concurrent resolution affirms States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

09-0274

09/01

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled; and

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1 declares that the people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body-politic, or State, by the name of The State of New Hampshire; and

Whereas the State of New Hampshire when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, “First That it be Explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly & particularly Delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several States to be, by them Exercised;” and

Whereas the other States that included recommendations, to wit Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia, included an identical or similar recommended change; and

Whereas these recommended changes were incorporated as the ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the tenth amendment, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, to the Constitution for the United States of America; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress; and

That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, slavery, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory; and

That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed. And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same. And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press:” thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals. That, therefore, all acts of Congress of the United States which do abridge the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, are not law, but are altogether void, and of no force; and

That the construction applied by the General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,” goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their power by the Constitution: that words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings of the General Government under color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject of revisal and correction; and

That a committee of conference and correspondence be appointed, which shall have as its charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the Legislatures of the several States; to assure them that this State continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly to those specified in their federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this State is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non foederis), to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless, this State, from motives of regard and respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject as to its assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by whom, and for whose use itself and its powers were all created and modified: that if the acts before specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this State does therefore call on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on acts not authorized by the federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, whether general or particular. And that the rights and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with their own. That they will concur with this State in considering acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States, of all powers whatsoever: that they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the States, not merely as the cases made federal, (casus foederis,) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent: that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories; and

That the said committee be authorized to communicate by writing or personal conferences, at any times or places whatever, with any person or person who may be appointed by any one or more co-States to correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their proceedings before the next session of the General Court; and

That any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.

V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.

VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition; and

That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually. Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government; and

That copies of this resolution be transmitted by the house clerk to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature.

7 other states have similar bills pending & 27 others are expected to draft simialr bills in the next few months.
Now the quote is from what a lot would label a right-wing blog but it is on target.
Doesn't seem so silly now does it?

 

These have been tried before, and it's nothing new. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens when these bills are tested n the courts as "violations of the Constitution." They will probably turn out, as they have in the past, to be a waste of time. I find it odd that all of sudden these yahoos decide that they want to bring this matter up in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Depression.

Treason against one's country is never a laughing matter. It is a dishonorable disgrace that anyone would turn on his country. It's anything but funny.

 

Chandos, when the government of your country turns on it's citizens what choice do they have but to resist?
Notice every time obama talks about nationalizing the banks the stock market drops. It will probably be below 7,000 by the end of the week.

You seem to like Thomas jefferson, read what he wrote about oppresive government & what to do about it.

 

I'm no expert on the American Constitution but it seems reasonable to me that if a state feels the Constutition is being violated by the federal government they have every right to expect that government to cease and desist such action.

 

My government did that to me, and many others, over the last 8 years. I hated having GWB as president with every fiber of my being. The guy was a national disgrace. But I still did not become a traitor over it. Even though, IMO, GWB stole the election and was not an elected president in 2000. Nevetheless, the Rule of Law, flawed though it was, is what we agree upon as citizens of the same country. Without the Rule of Law then this country is nothing more than a feudal state.

As far as Jefferson is concerned, which book would you like me to reference, since I have bookself full of books on Jefferson? My suggestion, is that we start with his First Inaugural Adress of 1801:

http://www.freedomshrine.com/documents/jefferson.html

 

my favorites from him would be

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That should give you a bit of insight as to my mindset.

 

Martaug - If you wish to discuss Jefferson in a meaningful manner, then you must look at his extended writings and his record during his two terms as President, Vice President, delegate to the Continetal Congress, Washington's Secertary of State, Governor of Virgina and author of the DoI. Also, his work as cofounder of the Democratic Party is an important step in how he broke with some of his important compatriots of the Revolutionary generation, including President Washingtion, which did damage to Jefferson's reputation during his own lifetime, and has earned him a lot of criticism from Revolutionary historians.

Jefferson's biography written by R.B. Bernstein is probably the most sympathic historical work on Jefferson that I have encountered. In it Bernstein explains most of the criticism directed at TJ by modern historians, including his unfortunate break with Washington, Hamilton and his good friend, John Adams.

He is the author of the Kentucky Resolutions, which you quoted in an earlier link. Jefferson wrote these in secret and Madison drafted a similar document for Virginia. This is a pretty fair and balanced comment on the resolutions:

That's a good point, considering that the same argument of nullification was placed upon Jefferson himself during his second term by several states in New England, suffering as a result of his embargo.

It's fun to take Jefferson's quotes and just cut and paste them, but they have an historical context as well. That context is important to do Jefferson the justice he deserves.

Here are some quotes on government:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions

This quote by TJ sustained me during the horrible years of GWB and the Republican Congress, especially during the Iraq War and the absolute waste of taxpayer money squandered by the Bush regime. It also shows his lack of williness to destroy the nation over the Alien and Sedition Laws, for which the resolutions you cited were crafted:

 

I think i agreed with just about everything you said in that last post chandos.
Personally, i wished that the schools would make the study of Thomas jefferson a semester long part of us history.
If you noticed i had him listed as #2 on my list of presidents & was sorely tempted to switch him & Washington for #1 & #2.
Another wonderful quote from him.

We need a time machine so that we could ask him his thoughts on our present government.

 

This is hilarious, you cheered on when the rights of US citizens were under assault, when the rule of law was suspended and your leaders lied to you to start a war that killed over a thousand Americans and countless foreigners. That is ok, that is something you cheer and support and now you talk of civil war because someone might be pondering about removing the only thing that makes you feel like a man or to actually spend money on trying to improve the general situation inside the US instead of building more bombs to drop on people oversees. I do not think I will ever understand people like you Marty.

 

Except that nationalizing the banks is being viewed by everyone - including Wall Street - as a near certainty for the past couple of weeks. The stock market has been in the tank for several months now. I don't think Obama saying what almost everyone realizes is going to happen is causing it to drop further. (I should also point out that I do not think temporarily nationalizing banks is necessarily a bad idea. I'm still not altogether convinced that we need to fix the housing market to fix the economy, and perhaps the government nationalizing the banks - and thereby taking on some of the debt - may be potential solution.)

Rather, I think the continued cratering of the stock market has much more to do with insolvent banks, people losing their jobs, companies going out of business, and the overall contracting economy. The truth is, the stock market has not made any significant, sustained gains since 2007. The stock market was falling throughout the entirity of 2008. (Note - I'm not saying it fell every single day, I'm saying there were many more down days than up days, and 2008 taken as a whole showed a month over month decline.)

 

Yep aldeth a whole 9% of the country thinks nationalizing the banks is a good idea, 75% say no way.http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...siness/75_oppose_nationalization_of_u_s_banks
88% of republicans, 78% of independents & 62% of democrats oppose it

More than half favor NO bailouts aldeth, let the chips fall & we can rebuild from there. spending more money on a failed business that you have already wasted $120 Billion is ludicrious. Cut your losses & let the market self-correct, just as it did in the problems of 1920-1921. The government stayed out that time & it fixed itself in a year.

 

I don't know, Martaug. Typically I would agree with you. I don't like being held hostage by the banks or Wall Street. But we did nationalize the SnLs in the 1980s and then sold them back, and that did work. Also, during the Depression they just let all the banks fail and those results speak for themselves. So I'm not sure I'm in favor of just leting the banks go away. Besides, the govenment would still have to make good on all those lost deposits.

 

Spoiler

The Great Depression of 1920
Never heard of it? That's not surprising - it didn't last long. The 20's were roaring, not greatly depressing. Yet virtually none of the American population knows that the nation's economy actually took a worse hit in 1920 than it did at any point during the Great Depression. Consider these wiki-nuggets of wiki-knowledge:

The recession in the United States was brief relative to the Great Depression later that decade, but it included a very sharp price deflation. The decline in the GNP price deflator from 1920 to 1921 is the largest one-year percentage decline in the series in the more than 120 years covered....

Various estimates show that one-year deflation figures were 18 percent, 13.0 percent, and 14.8 percent, respectively. The closest comparator is the 11.5 percent deflation recorded for 1931-32, the third year of the Great Depression. Wholesale prices declined by 36.8 percent for 1920-21, the largest one-year decline on record, going back at least to the American Revolutionary War period. The 1921 deflation contains another striking feature. Not only was it sharp, it was large relative to the accompanying decline in real product. The ratio of the percentage decline in the GNP deflator for 1920-21 to the percentage decline in real GNP is 2.6 using the Department of Commerce figures. By contrast, during 1929-30, the first year of the Great Depression, the GNP deflator declined by 2.7 percent and real GNP by 9.4 percent, for a ratio of 0.3. The ratios of the percentage decline in GNP prices to the percentage decline in real GNP for 1930-31, 1931-32, 1932-33, and 1937-38, the other Great Depression years in which real GNP declined, were 1.0, 0.9, 1.2, and 0.3, respectively, all well below the 1920-21 figures.

In other words, if Jim Cramer were alive in 1920, he would have actually committed suicide on air. So why did Al Capone spend the next decade walking around in pinstripe suits instead of rags stolen from orphans and the recently deceased? Because rather than the massive government intervention that took place in the 30's, in 1920 and 1921, the feds hardly did anything at all:

Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922. Federal taxes fell from $6.6 billion in 1920 to $5.5 billion in 1921 and $4 billion in 1922. Harding's policies started a trend. The low point for federal taxes was reached in 1924; for federal spending, in1925. The federal government paid off debt, which had been $24.2 billion in 1920, and it continued to decline until 1930.

With Harding's tax and spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, GNP rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million— a reported 6.7 percent of the labor force— in 1922. So, just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring Twenties were underway. The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching an extraordinary low of 1.8 percent in 1926. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime.

The worst economic crash since we started keeping most relevant records didn't happen during the Great Depression. It happened in 1920. Yet America was back on its feet in less than two years, while the next crunch was dragged out for a decade. The free markets have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they grow faster than planned economies - why on earth wouldn't they fix themselves faster, too?

I included a piece on the '20-'21 crisis but it is a little long so i put in a spoiler, just look at what harding & the government did then & imagine if we could get a government to actually cut spending today.


This piece says it much better than i did.
http://thelibertysphere.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-should-i-want-to-bail-out.html

Spoiler

This may not be the most popular thing to say at this point in time in America, but why on earth should I want to bail out homeowners with my tax dollars?

For eons of time homeowners who could no longer afford their mortgages did one of two things--sell or go into foreclosure. If selling wasn't an option, foreclosure was the only thing left, provided they had exhausted all other financing possibilities.

And yes, it has happened to me.

It has happened to millions of Americans through the years. Yet nobody came around with the 'government tit' (Jimmy Stewart's comment about it in the movie Shenandoah) to offer financial help, 'free government money' that is not really free, or a plan to 'buy down the mortgage.'

We succeeded or failed all on our own, sometimes due to circumstances beyond our control, such as a catastrophic illness or loss of income. But we somehow managed to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps and start over.

And this is my message to those homeowners who somehow think that because they may lose a house, it is therefore the government's responsibility to come in and save it for them. Listen, it is NOT my responsibility as a taxpayer to make sure YOU don't lose your house. That is YOUR responsibility. And if you lose, you suck it up and start over, just like the millions before you have done.

This goes for businesses as well. I have also lost a business. Yet the government tit didn't show itself for me at that point, either.

Thus, I am totally 100% against government bailouts for homeowners and corporations. Do what all others have done in the past who have lost out...suck it up, learn your lessons, and move on. But DON'T expect taxpayers to pick up the pieces for you.

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't give two ****s what the public thinks. The public doesn't know the first thing about how our economy works and, sadly, our politicians don't appear to eager to educate them. I'm hoping to see take 2 of the Fireside Chats, myself. What the people need is education and honesty, not political grandstanding.

 

And you are expecting that from obama?!? Good luck.
He has shown that he is good at grandstanding but as to education & honesty, pfffft! he has blown that one big time.

 

Watching the (kind of) State of the Union now. He's hitting all the right notes, I think. There's plenty here that even hardcore conservatives would like if they'd stop chanting "porkulus" long enough to give it a chance.

The contrast between this President and the last one is really quite something. His policies may work, they may not, we'll see...but for the first time in 8 years I have no doubt the man at that podium does his homework. His own homework. It's refreshing. And, since I know the rest of the world is watching this too, the SotU is no longer embarrassing.