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Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged
as those who are. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor
(1706-1790)
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Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on
divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be
justified and established. -Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)
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History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of
urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
-Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice (1908-1993)
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More than just another tax break, the federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of the wealthiest Americans.
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The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others.
The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days. Kevin Brown, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, confirmed the cuts after The New York Times was given internal documents by people inside the I.R.S. who oppose them.
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Terrorism funds were allocated to protect national monuments such as: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market, Nix’s Check Cashing, Tackle Shop. petting zoo?
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1997: Congressional income rose to $136,673 a year (plus benefits). The minimum wage rose to $5.15 an hour; on a 40 hour week, that is $10,300 a year (no benefits).
2006: Congress voted a $3,300 increase to their current $165,200 a year pay (plus benefits, but refused to raise the minimum wage, still $5.15 an hour.
Democrats in the House and Senate want the $5.15-per-hour federal minimum wage, in place since 1997, to rise in 70-cent increments to $7.25 by January 1, 2009.
In arguing for the minimum-wage increase, Democrats are emphasizing that salaries for members of Congress have risen $31,600 during the time the minimum wage has been frozen.
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Thirty-five years ago yesterday, (6/30/1971) in the Supreme Court ruling that stopped the government from suppressing the secret Vietnam War history called the Pentagon Papers, Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people."
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WASHINGTON, June 30, 1971 -- The Supreme Court freed The New York Times and The Washington Post today to resume immediate publication of articles based on the secret Pentagon papers on the origins of the Vietnam war.
By a vote of 6 to 3 the Court held that any attempt by the Government to block news articles prior to publication bears a heavy burden of presumption against its constitutionality."
In a historic test of that principle -- the first effort by the Government to enjoin publication on the ground of national security -- the Court declared that ""the Government has not met that burden."
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How much do little things count?
Rotting woolly mammoths melting out of the permafrost will add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere; low-belch designer cattle may reduce them. Will they balance?
No one knows yet how much methane, CO2 and other greenhouse gases will be released as melting permafrost reveals long dead animals, but it happens and it hasn't been figured into the climate change numbers yet.
In Australia, scientists have discovered a low-belch gene in cattle and are working to breed more of them. If every cow in the country were low-belch, it would stop 568,100 tonnes of methane from entering the atmosphere, the scientists say, equal to blocking 11.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
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Supreme Court: 5 Constitution: 0
A majority of the Supreme Court says that the 4th amendment no longer protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures;" illegally seized evidence may be used because the "social cost" of not doing so is too high.
The 5 to 4 decision broke with the court's modern tradition of enforcing constitutional limitations on police investigations by keeping improperly obtained evidence out of court. The "exclusionary rule" has been imposed to protect a series of rights, such as the right to remain silent in police custody and the right against warrantless searches.
The opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
At issue was the "knock and announce" rule, which has deep roots in Anglo American law. In 1995, the court made it part of what defines a "reasonable search" under the Fourth Amendment, without saying how it should be enforced.
Before yesterday's decision, police executing a search warrant in most jurisdictions had to worry that they might lose a case if they did not first knock on the door, announce themselves and wait a reasonable time for a response before forcing their way in.
"Today's opinion," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in dissent, "weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection...The majority's 'substantial social costs' argument is an argument against the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary principle itself, and it is an argument that this Court, until now, has consistently rejected."
Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Breyer
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The Supreme Court (6/29/06) ruled that the military tribunals the Bush admistration created to try terror suspects violate both American military law and the Geneva Convention.
Majority: Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, Bryer, Kennedy. Minority: Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas. Chief Justice Roberts did not vote because he had heard the case and ruled for the government when he was an appeals court judge.
In the majority opinion, Justice Stevens declared flatly that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedure violate" both the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the American military's legal system, and the Geneva Convention.
Justice Stevens rejected the administration's claims that the tribunals were justified both by President Bush's inherent powers as commander in chief and by the resolution passed by Congress authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11. There is nothing in the resolution's legislative history "even hinting" that such an expansion of the president's powers was considered, he wrote. ruling
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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Dwight David Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
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$648 million dropped from port security package in Congress to balance the budget.
$355 billion reduction in federal revenue over 10 years from eliminating the estate tax.
"Getting rid of the death tax is just too important an issue to give up so easily." Bill Frist.
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09/30/04 My administration has tripled the amount of money we're spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year.
06/01/06 Some 46 communities are sharing in $711 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative that were announced on Wednesday. The overall funding was reduced from $825 million awarded last year.
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Another tax cut, that on long distance telephone calls, will cost the Treasury $5 billion annually in lost revenues.
To misquote Everett Dirksen, "A billion here a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real" debt.
Senator Dirksen of Illinois supposedly said "million" and he was speaking of spending, not debt. In fact, according to Wikiquote, Senator Dirksen said he didn't say it -- he'd been mis-quoted but he liked the line so he kept using it.
Dirksen served in the House and Senate between 1932 and his death in 1969 -- years in which a million meant something.
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President Bush raised tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds from 5 percent to 15 percent. Interest that had been taxed at 10 percent will now be taxed at as much as 35 percent.
"If elected president, I will oppose...any increase in individual...income tax rates..." George Bush, June 1999.tax
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Bush said his tax cuts had helped the economy grow, "which means more tax revenue for the federal Treasury."...
Asked if the tax reductions paid for themselves, Treasury Secretary John Snow acknowledged that they don't. KR
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"Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?" Vice President Dick Cheney wrote the questions above his copy of Joseph Wilson's July 6, 2003 column, "What I Didn't Find in Africa."
"Those annotations support the proposition that publication of the Wilson Op-Ed acutely focused the attention of the vice president and the defendant — his chief of staff (Libby) — on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in his article, and on responding to those assertions," said legal papers filed by Fitzgerald Friday, May 12, 2006. 5/13/06 NYT
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President Bush said, "There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch. There's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." - Sept. 30, 2003.
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"I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English," said G.W. Bush, on May 5th, forgetting that, according to writer Kevin Phillips, he used to sing along in Spanish at his 1999 campaign stops in Hispanic communities. Patriotic songs were sung in both English and Spanish at the 2001 opening ceremony of Bush's inaugural. more
The Star-Spangled Banner was first translated into Spanish in 1919 at the request of U.S. Bureau of Education. It became the national anthem in 1931. story
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Aristotle said, "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
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Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
-Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)
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The third aspect of the global war on terror is to cut off their money. It turns out terrorists need money -- just like the federal government spends money. And it's a -- so we're -- our Secretary of Treasury, John Snow, and others are constantly working to make sure that hawalas, for example, which are kind of a money transmitting entity, doesn't -- includes terrorist financing. Or we worked with the Saudi government to make it clear that the financing of terrorist activities are not in our interest, obviously, or their interest. Bush; April 6, 2006; Charlotte NC
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060406-3.html
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http://zfacts.com/p/516.html | 01/18/12 07:19 GMT
Modified: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 03:39:19 GMT
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