As expected, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prevailed in retaining the top leadership position — a surprise move after many, if not most, pundits expected she would resign after the devastating loss of at least 61 seats and record low popularity ratings for both herself and Congress.
Six out of ten Americans polled have unfavorable views of Pelosi, who will now continue to be the face of the Democratic minority.
The vote is a triumph of the leadership, but it is a curious message for some voters who expected the Democrats to take a new course. The retention of Pelosi is consistent with the public line that the election was all about the economy and not a rejection of Democratic policies or measures like the national health care plan. Given the extremely low popularity both Pelosi and Congress, it is a risky move. What do you think?
Source: CNN
I’m with you Tootie. The command economy should remain in the hands of the private plutocracy.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-speaker_17tex.ART.State.Edition1.b180a7.html Texas tea party conservative christian republicans attempt to oust Speaker Joe Strauss because he is Jewish.
The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but “the people” then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves.
– Lysander Spooner
http://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm
Tootie,
You said, “Or the size of the federal budget which congress has no authority to tax us for.”
You’ll have to forgive me for assuming that you thought congress had no authority to tax us when you say just that.
I’m not going to argue about the morality of government programs with you. We’ve been through this conversation, and I doubt either of us has anything new to say.
It’s not just suspected terrorists who were deprived of their rights by the U.S. government. I am a suspected vexatious litigant and I was deprived of all my rights — my property, my liberty, my speech. I was emotionally tortured and my life was risked,– to a much lesser degree than the suspected terrorists but still not fun.
hell, she was complicit in the torture. she should be right along side Bush, Chaney, et. al.
She knew about it and did nothing.
Elaine,
It’s not so much the power in feminine hands so much as it is the specific woman in question. “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.” By not defending the Constitution from the assaults of the neocon GOP, she failed her oath of office. I don’t care why because where she failed was a matter of holding traitors responsible and her failure to her oath for expedience/capitulation/whatever is simply not acceptable performance from any member of Congress let alone one in a leadership position.
Gyges, Theyre at the top but its by no means a short list.
James M.
Well, let’s do one prosecution at a time. Bush/Cheney are next in line but the stuff is going to hit the fan whoever is targeted and whenever the prosecutions start – that’s the nature of the beast.
I’ve no doubt that tying the Clinton presidency up for 5 years caused a lack of due diligence in national security areas – and that effects all of us.
It’s all up to AG Holder right now, and the investigations he’s started are still continuing. We’ll see what happens in the next two years, but I expect a backlash (investigations of the current administration) when/if any indictments of the previous administration are in the offing. Like I say – not enough adults are in congress to hold anyone accountable.
I think that until things are really fixed the natural tendency is not to re elect any incumbents and that her association could hurt others.
Buckeye,
I’m worried about what will happen if the Republicans go on a witch hunt against Obama like they did with Clinton. Using investigations and impeachment as a political weapon again, so soon after Clinton’s impeachment is going to start a pattern and the Democrats will definitely retaliate, the next time a Republican is in office.
The investigations and impeachment proceedings of President Clinton ran from August 1994 through February 1999 and quite a lot happened including putting the next to last nail in the coffin of Americans’ expectation of their governmental representatives.
The next investigation with an expectation of impeachment of a sitting President will probably start in January 2011. And some more things will happen.
To say that nothing will happen when/if Bush/Cheney or Obama are prosecuted is beyond my optimistic capabilites.
oops … multiple personalities are taking over the ward … somebody call the nurse!
Tootie:
“I’m hoping for real change instead of the old, retrograde, un-progressive, backwards thinking, mobster, barbaric and primitive Marxist thug-tate of the Democratic Party which pretends that robbery is charity and sexual assault is security.”
Come on, you give mobsters and barbarians a bad name.
Tootie:
Correct me if I am wrong but for over a hundred years after the Constitution was ratified there were no personal income taxes on labor, except during the civil war if I remember correctly.
I believe the Founders were against a tax on peoples labor. Which would be consistent with John Locke whom the Founders relied on.
Tootie:
you go person. Freddy B is a good one. Have you read anything by Jean Baptiste Say?
Blouise
LOL. Only with hope.
Tootie,
Your satchel is quite full today …
Gyges:
I’m not talking about whether or not taxation is lawful. It is. I am talking about the unlawful uses for which we are taxed.
If I take money from you because you owed it to me and you handed it to me or were forced to give it to me it is a lawful act by us both. If I take money from you and you didn’t owe it to me, it is an unlawful act on my part even if the law permitted it.
If rape were legalized it would still be unlawful (in the broadest sense). Inherent in the meaning of law is that it must be lawful. Just like inherent in the meaning of truth is that it must be true.
And that is what I am discussing.
I don’t lawfully owe the government money for that which it does unlawfully. Furthermore, the Constitution guarantees me a protection of my property, which it violates when it takes my money for unlawful purposes like Obamacare.
I don’t’ press the point with them too much because our government is a fascist totalitarian police-state which seeks to destroy me if I stand up for the Constitution. And I prefer to enjoy what limited freedom I have left while I work to change things.
I’m hoping for real change instead of the old, retrograde, un-progressive, backwards thinking, mobster, barbaric and primitive Marxist thug-tate of the Democratic Party which pretends that robbery is charity and sexual assault is security.
That change can only come if the fascist totalitarian Marxists like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and Jay Rockefeller can be made to keep their greedy filthy hands off the alternative media: cable, talk radio, and internet.
They do not tolerate it that those they wish to subjugate ever get the chance to speak critically about them in a forum they have controlled for over half a century: the American press and media.
Freedom is messy. That is why Democrats feel the need to make order of it.
That is how you kill it.
Tootie,
So, even though taxation is authorized by the Constitution it’s unauthorized?
You’ll have to explain that to me.