Isaiah 28:14-18 (The Message)
14-15Now listen to God's Message, you scoffers, you who rule this people in Jerusalem. You say, "We've taken out good life insurance.
We've hedged all our bets, covered all our bases. No disaster can touch us. We've thought of everything. We're advised by the experts. We're set."
The Meaning of the Stone
16-17But the Master, God, has something to say to this: "Watch closely. I'm laying a foundation in Zion, a solid granite foundation, squared and true. And this is the meaning of the stone: a trusting life won't topple. I'll make justice the measuring stick and righteousness the plumb line for the building. A hailstorm will knock down the shantytown of lies, and a flash flood will wash out the rubble.
18-22"Then you'll see that your precious life insurance policy wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Your careful precautions against death were a pack of illusions and lies. When the disaster happens, you'll be crushed by it. Every time disaster comes, you'll be in on it—disaster in the morning, disaster at night." Every report of disaster will send you cowering in terror.
There will be no place where you can rest, nothing to hide under.
God will rise to full stature, raging as he did long ago on Mount Perazim; And in the valley of Gibeon against the Philistines.
But this time it's against you. Hard to believe, but true.
Not what you'd expect, but it's coming. Sober up, friends, and don't scoff. Scoffing will just make it worse. I've heard the orders issued for destruction, orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies—ending up in an international disaster.
CITIZEN UNITED AS THE FOUNDERS FIRST CHOICE
The issue of voting rights in the United States has been contentious throughout the country's history. Eligibility to vote in the U.S. is determined by both Federal and state law. Currently, only citizens can vote in US elections (although this has not always been the case). Who is (or who can become) a citizen is governed on a national basis by federal law. In the absence of a federal law or constitutional amendment, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own jurisdiction.
When the country was founded, in most states, only white men with property were permitted to vote (freed African Americans could vote in four states). White working men, almost all women, and all other people of color were denied the franchise. At the time of the American Civil War, most white men were allowed to vote, whether or not they owned property, but literacy tests, poll taxes, and even religious tests were used in various places, and most white women, people of color, and Native Americans still could not vote.
African Americans and poor whites
See also: Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Disfranchisement after the Civil WarAt the time of ratification of the Constitution, most states used property qualifications to restrict the franchise; the exact amount varied by state, but by some estimates, over half of white men were barred from voting. [17] In some states, free men of color (though the property requirement in New York was eventually dropped for whites but not for blacks) also possessed the vote, a fact that was emphasized in Justice Curtis's dissent in Dred Scott v. Sandford:
Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens. [18]
Constitution of the United States
The Constitution of the United States was drafted in 1787, and included several provisions regarding slavery. Section 9 of Article I allowed the continued "importation" of slaves. By prohibiting changes for two decades to regulation of the slave trade, Article V effectively protected the trade until 1808, giving the States then existing 20 years to resolve this issue. During that time, planters in states of the Lower South imported tens of thousands of slaves, more than during any previous two decades in colonial/US history.[29]
As further protection for slavery, the delegates approved Section 2 of Article IV, which prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaping slaves and required the return of chattel property to owners.
In a section negotiated by James Madison of Virginia, Section 2 of Article I designated "other persons" (slaves) to be added to the total of the state's free population, at the rate of three-fifths of their total number, to establish the state's official population for the purposes of apportionment of Congressional representation and federal taxation.[30]
Modern Interpretations
As stated above the Original Intent of the Founders is that only White Men of Property, i.e. money and power, were allowed to control the franchise. Blacks at the time enjoyed what is popularly known as Three-fifths of a Man Status for political purposes. Citizen United reinforces these pre-and early 20th Century Constitutional modalities. Not only this, Citizen United when it allows so much outside money into the electoral process disturbs the notion of a “more perfect union.” And it does not insure Justice or domestic Tranquility, and the people have no defense against moneyed interests. The general Welfare is destroyed as well as hard fought liberty for ourselves and our Posterity because one percent or less of the people can afford to participate in the process of selecting the leadership for our governments. These protections were supposed to be insured by the Constitution for the United States of America.
As 'Citizens United' Turns 2, SuperPACs Draw Protests
by Peter Overby
January 20, 2012
Saturday is South Carolina's Republican presidential primary. It's also the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's famous Citizens United decision. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145500168/superpacs-celebrate-anniversary-of-citizens-united-case
Will The Real Ronald Reagan Please Stand Up?
by NPR Staff
Listen to the Story
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/15/145271755/will-the-real-ronald-reagan-please-stand-up
As president, Ronald Reagan raised taxes and granted amnesty to illegal immigrants. Would today's Reagan conservatives vote for him — or run attack ads?
January 15, 2012
It's no secret who the most popular Republican is in this year's GOP presidential race. In just one single debate last year, GOP candidates mentioned the former President Ronald Reagan 24 times.
Right now, each candidate is vying for the mantle of Reagan conservatism. Yet some historians, and even some of the folks who worked for Ronald Reagan, are now wondering whether Reagan himself was enough of a Reagan conservative — at least the way it is defined today.
So what exactly is a Reagan conservative anyway? If he were alive, could Reagan get the GOP nod?
The Politician
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that it was against backdrop of the 1970s that Reagan first ran for president.
"You had rampant inflation [and] high interest rates; we were losing [the] Cold War," Shirley says. "Americans had become rampant cheap consumers of the '70s – disco music or pet rocks or leisure suits – all of those things that really summed up what was really a very bad time for the American people."
A young former Nixon aide named John Sears convinced Reagan he should run for president against the incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976. Against huge odds, Reagan actually came close to winning that year and would eventually go on to win in 1980.
Reagan had a cultural appeal with the New-Deal, blue-collar, urban-ethnic, lunch-bucket voters that other Republicans didn't, Shirley says.
"Nixon had a little bit, but not the way Reagan did. So this was the beginning of his reorganization of the two parties," he says.
The man who became the most important American conservative icon in the 20th century was, in many ways, a moderate, says Shirley.
In 1978, Reagan campaigned against a referendum in California called Proposition 6 that would have banned gays and lesbians, and possibly anyone who supported gay rights, from working in the state's public schools.
The bill was supported by the Christian right and sponsored by state legislator John Briggs. The measure failed, and Briggs later said it was solely because of Reagan. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/15/145271755/will-the-real-ronald-reagan-please-stand-up
At Debate, Gingrich Denies He Sought Open Marriage
by Mara Liasson
January 20, 2012
Newt Gingrich's swift rise has been fueled by one thing above all — his forceful performances in the debates. And Thursday night, Gingrich was dominant from the start when he got the first question. It was about an explosive television interview with his ex-wife Marianne. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145500164/gingrich-begins-debate-denying-he-sought-open-marriage
REPUBLICAN VALUES AND IDEOLOGY ~ A HISTORY LESSON
Notice how none of the Republican candidates for president mention the last Republican President and how he and his administration helped destroy the American economy.
Carl T. Bogus
Carl T. Bogus in his biography of William F. Buckley Jr., Buckley (2011) writes about how conservative ideology, radical religionist and neoconservative money brought America to it financial and moral knees. He writes that in nearly all circumstances, George W. Bush’s failures stem from his administration’s purist devotion to conservative ideology. His most consequential decision was to invade Iraq. Whether or not he did so because he genuinely believed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction we need not address here. What is important for our purposed is that his administration did so without adequately analyzing the ramifications of invasion.
Before the invasion, conservatives argued that Iraq was well suited for democracy because it had an educated population and a substantial middle class, and that it would serve an important geopolitical purpose to create a democratic Arab country in the heart of the Middle East. This goal was one of the reasons, if not the principal reason that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq. It was, moreover, a neoconservative goal. In 2000, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, two pillars of neo-conservatism, wrote that they believed “the idea of America using power to promote changes in nations ruled by dictators (was) entirely realistic.”
William F. Buckley Jr.
William F. Buckley Jr. originally supported Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, though not on the neoconservative grounds of bringing democracy to that nation. The issue, for Buckley, was whether the invasion was necessary for self-defense. Vice President Cheney had said that there was “no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction (and) that he is amassing them to use them against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”
When after the invasion, no WMDs were found, some called Bush and Cheney liars. Buckley called those charge “hysterical. As more information emerged, Buckley decided the culprit was George Tenet, who had been director of central intelligence during the invasion. By March 2006, Buckley had concluded there was “no doubt the American objective in Iraq has failed.
It will be many years before we find out whether Iraq is able to build a viable democracy, but regardless of the final outcome, the fact remains that the Bush administration’s expectation that American soldiers would be warmly welcomed and that democracy would spring up relatively easily was a pipe dream. So patently flawed was this neoconservative adventure that one of the most prominent neoconservative thinkers, Francis Fukuyama, declared that he no longer supported that ideology. Burkeans—who are astutely aware that people are the products of their different histories and cultures, who understand the importance of traditions and instructions, and who worry about unintended consequences—would not have made these choices.
Calamities and Chaos from Adherence to Christian Fundamentalism
Bogus writes that a series of calamities occurred in the governmental bureaucracies. The best know is the failure of the Federal Emergency Management Administration to deal capably with the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. FEMA’s ineptitude was caused, in part, by President Bush’s choice of director for the agency—a man named Michael D. Brown, whose last job before joining FEMA was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and who had no meaningful relevant experience. An ideology that has disdain for government cares little who head a federal agency such as FEMA.
Meanwhile, abuses were going on at the Department of Justice, where then-thirty-two-year-old Monica M. Goodling held the influential position of liaison to the White House. Goodling graduated from Regent University School of Law—an institution founded by evangelist Pat Robertson that boasts that it recognizes “the critical role the Christian faith should play in our legal system”—in a class in which only 40 percent passed the bar exam.
Goodling’s principal and perhaps only credential for the important position she held was her ideology. The Department of Justice had a long tradition of hiring the most talented law school graduates, but Goodling used her position to substitute ideology for professional competence. She considered a commitment to religious conservatism especially important and quizzed job applicants about their views about abortion and same-sex marriage.
When investigations about these practices were undertaken, Goodling refused to cooperate and invoked her Fifth Amendment rights before Congress. She was ultimately disbarred. There will from time to time be scandals about the improper politicization of governmental positions, but what was different in the Bush administration was both how sweeping those problems were and, in Goodling’s case, how what mattered was not political loyalty as much as ideological loyalty. She was doing what was politically expedient. She was, in her view, doing God’s work.
ABC Airs Interview With Gingrich's Ex-Wife Marianne
by Tamara Keith
January 20, 2012
Newt Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, sat down for an ABC News interview in which she described her messy marriage and divorce from the former House speaker. The interview aired Thursday night on Nightline, two days before South Carolina holds its primary. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145500166/abc-airs-interview-with-gingrichs-ex-wife-marianne
When it comes to governance, there is an inherent weakness in an ideology that has little regard for government, and even being disdainful of government. People steeped in such ideology can hardly care who heads FEMA or what lawyers work in the Department of Justice. The nation is best served by a government staffed by individuals who consider their positions important to the nation, and therefore a sacred public trust.
Of course Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush thought of the presidency in those terms, and presumably their cabinet secretaries had the same regard for their positions. But that is hardly enough. It is not reasonable to expect government to work well when it is staffed at lower levels by people with contempt for government. Why should they be expected to fill positions on the basis of competence and dedication to the mission of the department or agency that they serve? Why should we not expect them to instead only take into account considerations of politics and ideology?
The Greatest Calamity of All—The Economy
Bogus declares that the Bush administration ended with a calamity in the domestic economy. As Bush left off, America was plunging into the worst recession in its history and was on the verge of a full-scale economic depression. This was caused, in significant part, by the deregulation of investment banks and other financial institutions, which permitted subprime lending in the housing mortgage market.
The nation’s largest financial institutions held enormous quantities of bad debt, or toxic assets as they were called. As shocks cascaded throughout the financial system, the federal government had to take unprecedented actions—including bailing out some of the nation’s largest corporations and financial institutions—to prevent a collapse of the entire financial system. Not all of the deregulation occurred on George W. Bush’s watch.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was enacted in 1933 to prevent risky speculation by savings banks insured by the federal government, occurred during the closing days of the Clinton administration. Nevertheless, the deregulation was driven by libertarian philosophy, especially the ideas that regulation causes more problems than it solves and that the free market works best unimpeded by government rules and oversight. (345-8)
Republican SuperPAC Ads Target GOP Rivals
by Brian Naylor
January 20, 2012
GOP presidential campaigns and superPACs have been spending millions of dollars on TV and radio advertising ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary. While the negative superPAC ads air, the candidates are delivering a more positive message. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145500178/republican-superpac-ads-target-gop-rivals
THE BOOK
Scott Helman and Michael Kranish
A New Book Examines 'The Real Romney'
January 19, 2012
In a new biography, two longtime Boston Globe reporters write about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a complicated man who also "loves dichotomies ... strong versus weak, stagnation versus prosperity, leadership versus drift."
On their hunt for The Real Romney, Scott Helman and Michael Kranish traced Romney's life from his childhood in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., to his career at private equity firm Bain Capital, and then to his work in politics — first as the governor of Massachusetts and then as a presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/19/145449506/who-exactly-is-the-real-romney
THIRD WORLD POLITICS IN IOWA
We assume that the United States is part of the First World. But is this true of the State of Iowa. Can the Republicans run the nation when they cannot handle an election is one of the smallest states in the Republic?
8 Precinct Vote Totals Missing From Iowa Caucuses
by Kate Wells
January 20, 2012 from WOI
The Iowa Republican Party has certified the results of its caucuses earlier this month. Rick Santorum is 34 votes ahead, but the party will not declare a winner because there are missing results in eight precincts. Before the certification process, Mitt Romney had been declared the winner. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145500170/8-precinct-vote-totals-missing-from-iowa-caucuses
Radio IT~THE EXCHANGE
Breaking News: Certified Caucus Results & Dr. Jane Goodall
1/19/2012 filed by The Exchange
Certified results from the Iowa Caucus contest of January 3rd now show former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum leading former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by 34 votes. We get analysis of what this means from University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle and Iowa State University political science professor David Petersen. Later in the program, host Ben Kieffer talks with globe-trotting icon and U.N. Messenger of Peace Dr. Jane Goodall. Goodall brings her incredible story to Des Moines this week talking about her unique world of the Gombe chimpanzees- from her early observations to the latest news and stories from the field.
News Story
Chief Justice Mark Cady & Congressman Steve King
1/20/2012 filed by The Exchange
Last week, the Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court addressed the legislature. He cited budget constraints and requested $10 million in new funding. Join host Ben Kieffer as he talks with Chief Justice Mark Cady. Later in the hour, Ben talks with Iowa’s fifth district Congressman Steve King.
IS OBAMA A HERO AFTER ALL?
The Diane Rehm Show
White House decision on proposed Keystone XL Pipeline
- Listen http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-01-19/white-house-decision-proposed-keystone-xl-pipeline
Demonstrators march with a replica of a pipeline during a protest to demand a stop to the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline outside the White House on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, in Washington.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
The Obama administration rejects TransCanada’s application for a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline: Economic and political implications of the decision and prospects for an alternative route
Yesterday the Obama administration denied TransCanada’s application for the Keystone XL pipeline. The project was to carry oil from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf Coast. The proposed route would have been an economic boost but raised environmental concerns, especially in Nebraska’s Sandhills. The White House claims a deadline imposed by Republicans in Congress precluded adequate review, but the project may still go forward: TransCanada is likely to reapply with a revised proposed route. Please join us to discuss the Keystone XL pipeline, jobs and the environment
Guests
founder,350.org
scholar in residence,Middlebury College.
energy correspondent, the Washington Post
vice president, Oil Sands and Arctic Issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy
senior fellow, Energy and National Security Program,
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Laborers International Union of North America
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