When I think of economic fundamentals here are some things that come to mind:

-How much disposable income do consumers have? It's still extremely high in this country. However, energy prices are making a dent.

-How difficult is it to start up a business? Relatively easy (extremely easy for service based businesses).

-How prevalent are the five factors of production (Natural Resources, Human Resources, Capital, Entrepreneurs, Knowledge)? Those factors are not declining.

-How much economic freedom do we enjoy? Less all the time but we are still very free in almost all respects.

-Is there still plenty of competition in all aspects of the economy? For the most part.

-Monetary policy? Don't get me started on the Federal Reserve Board.

-Fiscal Policy? We need to focus on that, both on the Federal and Local levels.

There are other influences on the economy that are not as good as they have been in the past (for example getting credit is increasingly difficult), but all in all I agree with McCain. The fundamentals are strong. But what's the point of saying that over and over? I don't know.

He didn't say that the financial markets are performing well, or that the housing market is on the up and up. He's being so vague that he's reminding me of Obama

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Unitedstates
"The economy of the United States is 80.6 percent free, according to our 2008 assessment, which makes it the world's 5th freest economy. Its overall score is 0.3 percentage point lower than last year, reflecting minor declines in four of the 10 economic freedoms. The United States is ranked 1st out of 29 countries in the Americas, and its overall score is much higher than the regional average.

The United States scores higher than the world average in eight areas and 30–40 percentage points higher in five: business freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, and freedom from corruption. Foreign investment is subject to the same rules as domestic capital. Financial markets are open to foreign competition and are the world's most dynamic and modern. The judiciary is independent and of high quality.

America could do better in its scores for fiscal freedom and government size, which are 7 and 8 points below average, respectively. Total government spending equals more than a third of GDP. Corporate and personal taxes are moderately high and are getting relatively higher as other advanced economies reform with lower tax rates.

Background:
The United States is the world's dominant economy. With over two centuries of a fundamentally free, constitutionally protected economy, America benefits from its massive scale and intrastate competition. Trade barriers among the 50 states are unconstitutional, for example, allowing for the free movement of goods and labor. However, there have been troubling developments in recent years. Property rights have been threatened by the Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London. Congress has been active in raising the minimum wage, which has harmed labor freedom, but inactive in lowering corporate tax rates, unlike most other advanced economies. Most alarming, America's major political parties have been unwilling to curb growing government expenditures, particularly public entitlements.

I'm going to cut this off when the World Socialist website goes heavy into the socialism:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/impe-j12.shtml

"House Democrats kill resolution to impeach Bush
By Patrick Martin
12 June 2008

In a display of parliamentary maneuvering that combined cynicism and cowardice, Democratic members of the US House of Representatives voted unanimously to kill an impeachment resolution against President Bush introduced by Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

Kucinich himself participated fully in the farce. He introduced the resolution Monday and read out the 35 articles of impeachment for crimes ranging from the lying pretexts given to the American people for the war in Iraq to torture at the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and illegal domestic spying. Then he moved to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman John Conyers has long rejected any effort to hold Bush constitutionally accountable.

The 251-166 margin of the vote, held on a roll call Wednesday, saw all 227 Democrats—including Kucinich and his lone co-sponsor, Robert Wexler of Florida—joined by 24 Republicans move to dispose of the resolution. Voting against were 166 Republicans, who sought to force a debate on impeachment for the purpose of embarrassing the Democratic Party leadership.

After Kucinich introduced the measure Monday and spent more than four hours reading the entire text into the Congressional Record, House Republicans utilized a parliamentary provision to force the clerk of the House to read the text out loud all over again on Tuesday, consuming another four hours and keeping the House in session until after midnight. The purpose was to rub the Democrats’ noses in their own refusal to take action to back up their occasional bursts of anti-Bush demagogy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ruled out any impeachment of Bush as soon as the Democrats won control of Congress in November 2006. Impeachment resolutions against Cheney were introduced in May and November of 2007 and killed each time by the Democrats, in the same fashion as the Bush impeachment resolution Wednesday.

There is no question that, unlike Bill Clinton, who was impeached for lying about a private sexual encounter, George W. Bush is guilty of offenses that meet the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard set by the US Constitution.

The adamant opposition to impeachment proceedings on the part of Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and the rest of the Democratic leadership does not stem from a belief that such proceedings would be unpopular. According to public opinion polls, a majority of the American people and an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters favor Bush’s impeachment and removal from office.

A public vote in the House of Representatives would, however, find a clear majority of the Democrats in Congress siding with Bush against the sentiments of their own constituents. The Democratic leadership seeks to block any vote to conceal as much as possible their role as the last line of defense for the Bush administration.

The Democratic leadership opposes impeachment not on legal, but on political and class grounds. They are well aware that the adoption of an impeachment resolution against Bush and Cheney, regardless of the outcome of a Senate trial, would deal a major blow against the White House as an institution and undermine the legitimacy of all Bush’s actions as “commander-in-chief,” especially in the war in Iraq.

It would also inevitably raise the question of who in Congress was complicit with Bush’s criminal conduct over the past seven years—tarring Democrats as well as Republicans, since a majority of Senate Democrats and a large number of House Democrats voted for the Iraq war resolution in 2002. Many other actions listed in Kucinich’s articles of impeachment were given near-unanimous support by the Democrats.

More fundamentally, the Democratic Party is a bourgeois party and it seeks to uphold the authority of the bourgeois state..."

bourgeois, stop.

Still some valid points though - rare you'll see me agreeing with that site, but there you go.

>> ^MINK:
but... it's good that he didn't STAY quiet, right?


Yes, they're just still going to be damned by historians for CYA handwringing after the fact.

Now, if he gives sworn testimony before Congress, and his testimony leads to the eventual arrest of the top officials responsible, maaaybe I'll cut him some slack.

He's gonna be getting an invitation to come before the House judiciary committee soon, so he's got an opportunity at that.

http://www.slate.com/id/2191500

This article sums up the problems with the "direct democracy" theory (or the idea that the will of the people is paramount) is a very funny way, particularly the first paragraph.

And California still has the option of amending its own Constitution to prohibit the reading offered by the majority in this case. And re-amending it when another majority takes hold, and re-amending . . .

In my view, the California Supremes both made the right call and fulfilled the role of a judiciary which is not merely to read the polls on a social issue, determine the majority view, and protect the majority. The facts of this case are no different than the facts of earlier miscegenation cases. The Mildred Loving case did not lead to polygamy and dogs and cats marrying each other. Southern Virginians in wide majorities also believed that a black person marrying a white person would lead to Sodom, Gomorrah, and biracial people becoming President (even Southern Virginians are right some of the time).

I have never seen an argument that convinces me that a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman harms civil society. No advanced criminal statistics, no economic indicators of commodity prices plunging due to gay people forming families, no social indicators of degraded schools and poor music in church. There are no compelling rational arguments against permitting two homosexual people in love to be recognized as a family by the State.

I have seen plenty of irrational arguments -- ad hominems, mentions of Greece and Sparta, empty slippery slopes, hell . . . Choggie's whole thread here. But we should try the best we can to avoid organizing society on the basis of irrational arguments. If the Bush Administration has taught us nothing else, it has taught us this.

QM, WTF are you going on about this time? And WTF does the price of gas have to do with it?

Here's a few clues about what they are complaining about, not Dan himself but some of what I consider the more valid racial complaints based on what I've seen. You're more than welcome to try to "disprove" it but given that it comes from our own records that seems unlikely.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_comparative_intl.pdf

That's a bit out of date but is the record of our rate of prison growth from the mid 1920's to pretty recently. Prison population stayed fairly consistent in line with population growth for decades then explosive growth with the drug war which hasn't stopped yet.

And these are some of the results of that growth.

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

And in case you assume they really earned it, not really, or not as much as it seems. Some of the stats behind the stats then I'll try to explain how it happens.

http://www.idpi.us/resources/factsheets/mm_factsheet.htm

As that shows they are just 15% of the nations drug users which isn't far off from their portion of the population as a whole, about 14%, but they make up 37% of those arrested for drug violations, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense.

Ok, let's look at part of WHY that happens.

Take a neighborhood which didn't start off with people much different than in any other, but they lived in a crowded area. Pass safe school zones and such and the effect turned out to be that they can overlap in places... in the suburbs a kid spends little time in one so spends little time at risk unless they do something at school. In the city they might spend most of their life in one and not even know it much of the time. Where the kid in the suburbs has options such as treatment that mandatory took the options away in the city. The 100:1 disparity, yes 100:1, between the way we sentence crack and powder cocaine didn't help any either.

That type of thing starts us off, then come the politicians and such. Someone notices that we've got way too many felonies for a small area and orders a crackdown without considering what caused the spike in felonies so it's designated a high crime area. So now they are not only getting hit with the safe school zones but increased enforcement as well, everyone is a suspect and they start to get treated that way. Prison doesn't do good things for people so kids who went in with a bad habit come out criminals, often with gang ties since it's not easy to survive alone inside and not easy to leave them when you get out.

Now the neighborhood is being hit by two sides, the cops on one hand and the new prison gangs on the other, and eventually what used to be a decent area starts to look like too many of our streets do today.

If you want to get some details on it ask whatever you'd like, if you'd like to hear it from law enforcement themselves try LEAP and some other groups, they are well aware of the situation and trying to help fix it too.

One last thought here, this isn't specifically racial but goes to the conditions in our system in general due to overcrowding, under funding, and a number of other issues. It's a bit of reading but if you want an education that's a good start. http://www.prisoncommission.org/

Some prisons have become so overcrowded and so poor at care that we've had to have the feds take over aspects such as medical care, and NO it's not a partisan issue as some of the more simple minded would have us believe. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation, stated the following about this. “For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”

What we're doing doesn't work and intentionally or not, yes, it has had some sharp and specific racial impacts which I'd hope like hell weren't intended. These are some of the ones I'm aware of, others who are more familiar with other areas have valid complaints as well. Assuming they just happened because we weren't paying attention so some programs had some unexpected results, then yes, Dan Charnas has an excellent point in that it would really help if we listened for a change instead of insisting we didn't mean anything so everything just MUST be alright. It's not alright and many of the problems we're dealing with today we helped to create ourselves through flawed policy.

gwiz665-

Exactly. Keep the dream alive. There is the rub of Scalia's passive originalism, though, if the judiciary permits an unchecked executive or a Congress that does the unimaginable and kisses habeas corpus goodbye. So executive branch stress positions and waterboarding will only be subject to the Geneva Conventions now if the judiciary forces them to comply.

Netrunner:

I think that Scalia's argument is simply that "unlawful combatants" aren't protected by the Constitution. If a police officer tortures an American citizen arrestee or guards cut off a American prisoner's ams and legs for fun, then I hope that Scalia's tune would change. Like a clever bastard, he answered only what was asked by 60 Minutes. Although not comporting with standard English usage, his legal read of the "cruel and unusual" clause is correct here.

I'm a Scalia fan, though. I may disagree with his worldview, but he brings the argument.

check this out: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/criminal/charges/justif002.pdf

That video shows a clear individual who we can judge..it's good TV, not abstract. Katrina is visual and visceral..global warming and civil liberties are not: http://www.videosift.com/video/Frogs-in-Boiling-Water-the-Psychology-of-Global-Warming

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
People seemingly get more railed up about police abuses captured on video then the continuing judicial abuses committed by the Whitehouse. One affects a minority the other affects the majority. Kind of like whats going on right now in the Senate:

Senate Yesterday

After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.

People seemingly get more railed up about police abuses captured on video then the continuing judicial abuses committed by the Whitehouse. One affects a minority the other affects the majority. Kind of like whats going on right now in the Senate:

Senate Yesterday

After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.

N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell will travel to Washington on Wednesday to meet with Senator Arlen Specter for a discussion about the league’s investigation into the Patriots’ spying on other teams.

“I have a lot of questions,” Specter said. “I’m hoping to get some answers.”

Specter, of Pennsylvania, is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He first requested a meeting with Goodell in a letter in November. Specter wanted to know why the league had destroyed all evidence in the spying case and whether there was any indication that the Patriots had cheated when they played the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX."

'videosiftbannedme' is a rare bird, and I don't think you can quantify a new member's potential future involvement solely on their only having joined, sifted, and posted... it may be that a good many of these impetuous types find videosift for the first time, spend about ten minutes looking it over, think its cool, instantly have the thought that something of theirs is Siftworthy, sift it, vote for it, and then go off to do whatever else it is they do with their time. You can't know what kind of potential community member you are nipping in the bud by basing your judgment on their initial activities after they open an account. A good many of them are probably just like, "Wtf? Did I piss someone off already? Did I not know the secret handshake or something?" I mean, yes, they are big red letters, but if there is anything my experience in the world of retail has taught me is that people DO NOT READ SIGNS... it doesn't matter how big they are, how many there are, or even if the dumbass is standing right in front of it, they will probably still ask where the bathroom is.

Also, chances are, the banee, being such a N00b would have no idea who the admins are or how to contact them. I mean, shit, I was just a commenter for months before I ever sifted anything, and I always thought Dag was just some scruffy Aussie dude... no clue he had powers.

And lastly, its not like any offenders would be getting off the hook, or being allowed to self link, it would just be a more reasonable process... I mean, in the judiciary system, wouldn't a five minute trial where the accused is given no chance to defend his or herself and the verdict is reached by two people who happen to come along at the same time be considered highly illegal and inhumane? Railroading, I believe it is called... and I'd like to think we are at least above that.

It appears that this video takes place on or around December 13, 2004 before the US Judiciary Members in Ohio.

written by Krupo in that thread. (unless you've got it bookmarked you wouldn't know the thread was updated )

Good in '71 Bad in '72. It's a short track record. I'm not saying he was perfect, but have you considered that external governments could also try and screw with Chile and their currency? I haven't done extensive research into it, but it *is* a threat these days - IMF/WTO spook the global markets (because money is all about perception rather than reality), and the country in question is SCREWED.

And although the regime was accused of various things, those are accusations rather than convictions. I'm sure Chile has an impeachment process like any other country. Why should you get the military involved immediately, if at all? There's a reason you have elections - to foster an orderly handover of power. I'm sure millions of Americans would be pleased if some F-16's attacked Dubya, but that's not the way you do things.

In an effort to add a bit more depth, I poked around a bit more. Turns out you need a 2/3 majority for the resolution you refer to to have legal force. So using the word "passed" is a bit misleading - that's a 63.3% margin, close, but not legally binding (source is WikiTalk, but I'll buy it unless someone has evidence to the contrary).

Do check out that Wiki-talk page, looks like there's some lively to and forth on the topic.





In reply to this comment by reason:
Why not address these facts?

On August 22, 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies passed, by 81 to 47 votes, a resolution entitled "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy", which called upon the military to "put an immediate end" to what they described as "breach[es of] the Constitution… with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence among Chileans."

The resolution declared that the Allende government was seeking "...to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system," and claimed that it had made "violations of the Constitution" into "a permanent system of conduct." Many of the charges came down to disregarding the separation of powers and arrogating the prerogatives of both the legislature and judiciary within the executive.

Among other particulars, the regime was accused of:

* ruling by decree, thus thwarting the normal system of adopting legislation
* refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its own partisans and "not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives"
* ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office
* various offenses related to the media, including usurping control of the National Television Network and "applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government..."
* allowing its supporters to assemble even when armed, while preventing legal assembly by its opponents
* "...supporting more than 1,500 illegal 'takings' of farms..."
* illegal repression of the El Teniente strike
* illegally limiting emigration

The resolution finally condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups which... are headed towards a confrontation with the Armed Forces." Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and police, which he could not trust in their current forms, were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks."


And as for the economic boom?

In 1972, the monetary policies of an increase in the amount of currency, which had been adopted by the Minister of Economics, Pedro Vuskovic, led to a devaluation of the escudo and to renewed inflation, which reached 140% in 1972.

I appreciate these opinions about Chile in 1973, which helps to give more information on the issue.

While informative, the information you've provided is absolutely no reason or justification for our country (CIA) to use its resources to help overthrow another country.

With the specifics you've brought up, please take a look at your list and notice the similarities to what our own government has been doing.

In addition, I would suggest citing your information.

thx

In reply to this comment by reason:
Why not address these facts?

On August 22, 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies passed, by 81 to 47 votes, a resolution entitled "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy", which called upon the military to "put an immediate end" to what they described as "breach[es of] the Constitution… with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence among Chileans."

The resolution declared that the Allende government was seeking "...to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system," and claimed that it had made "violations of the Constitution" into "a permanent system of conduct." Many of the charges came down to disregarding the separation of powers and arrogating the prerogatives of both the legislature and judiciary within the executive.

Among other particulars, the regime was accused of:

* ruling by decree, thus thwarting the normal system of adopting legislation
* refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its own partisans and "not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives"
* ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office
* various offenses related to the media, including usurping control of the National Television Network and "applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government..."
* allowing its supporters to assemble even when armed, while preventing legal assembly by its opponents
* "...supporting more than 1,500 illegal 'takings' of farms..."
* illegal repression of the El Teniente strike
* illegally limiting emigration

The resolution finally condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups which... are headed towards a confrontation with the Armed Forces." Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and police, which he could not trust in their current forms, were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks."


And as for the economic boom?

In 1972, the monetary policies of an increase in the amount of currency, which had been adopted by the Minister of Economics, Pedro Vuskovic, led to a devaluation of the escudo and to renewed inflation, which reached 140% in 1972.

Why not address these facts?

On August 22, 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies passed, by 81 to 47 votes, a resolution entitled "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy", which called upon the military to "put an immediate end" to what they described as "breach[es of] the Constitution… with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence among Chileans."

The resolution declared that the Allende government was seeking "...to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system," and claimed that it had made "violations of the Constitution" into "a permanent system of conduct." Many of the charges came down to disregarding the separation of powers and arrogating the prerogatives of both the legislature and judiciary within the executive.

Among other particulars, the regime was accused of:

* ruling by decree, thus thwarting the normal system of adopting legislation
* refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its own partisans and "not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives"
* ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office
* various offenses related to the media, including usurping control of the National Television Network and "applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government..."
* allowing its supporters to assemble even when armed, while preventing legal assembly by its opponents
* "...supporting more than 1,500 illegal 'takings' of farms..."
* illegal repression of the El Teniente strike
* illegally limiting emigration

The resolution finally condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups which... are headed towards a confrontation with the Armed Forces." Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and police, which he could not trust in their current forms, were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks."


And as for the economic boom?

In 1972, the monetary policies of an increase in the amount of currency, which had been adopted by the Minister of Economics, Pedro Vuskovic, led to a devaluation of the escudo and to renewed inflation, which reached 140% in 1972.

The Liberty Amendment
On January 28, 2003 the Hon. Ron Paul of Texas introduced in The House of Representatives the House Joint Resolution 15:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to abolishing personal income, estate, and gift taxes and prohibiting the United States Government from engaging in business in competition with its citizens.


Latest Major Action: 3/6/2004 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution
HJR 15 has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.


HJR 16 has been referred to the House
An amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposing to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment . (Introduced in House for debate, 110th Congress 01/17/07)