No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
This law keeps Senators and Representatives from raising their own salary while in office.
Public divided on how to attack deficit
By: CNN Associate Producer Rebecca Stewart
(CNN) – Americans are at odds over how to tighten the country's fiscal belt and that's reflected in a similar conflict in leaders of government.
Ninety percent of the public can agree that the economy is the most important issue right now. But according to a new Associated Press-CNBC poll, the nation is divided over how to resolve the expanding deficit, which already exceeds one trillion dollars.
The poll reveals that 46 percent of the country would prefer increasing government spending on education, health care reform, and the development of alternative energy sources, even if it means that the deficit will grow. But, 47 percent say that reducing the deficit by cutting spending is the most important priority, even if it means the government could not implement new programs in the same areas. These findings echo the results from a CNN poll released two weeks ago; when asked if the government should spend more or less for domestic programs, half responded that it should spend more and half said it should spend less.
Despite the split, eight out of 10 believe that government services will have to be cut to balance the federal government, and almost two-thirds say some taxes will have to be increased. According to the AP-CNBC poll, the public agrees on what sacrifice will be needed. They also agree on cuts as six out of 10 say the government should reduce the number of federal workers and freeze their salaries and half of those surveyed say eliminating the tax deduction for mortgage interest is favorable if the overall income tax rate is lowered. Findings from the CNN poll are similar, as 68 percent of the public agreed that reducing the federal deficit is more important than preventing salary cuts for federal government workers.
Reducing education spending, the number of people in the military, and eliminating the child tax cut are, however, non-negotiable to over 60 percent of Americans, according to the survey. Just under half favor reducing Medicare and under half oppose reducing it. There is a similar divide among those in favor and those opposed to reducing Social Security benefits for seniors with higher incomes. The CNN poll underscores the finding that over half of the country said they were in favor of reducing Social Security for the wealthy to reduce the deficit.
Adding to the list of subjects over which the nation disagrees, Obama's approval rating similarly reflects a country divided; 48 percent both approve and disapprove of how he's handling his job. Though four in ten trust Democrats to handle the economy, the same amount trust the GOP to manage the deficit.
The mood of the nation continues to be solemn since 61 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction. When asked to look toward the future, almost half expect that life for the next generation of Americans to be worse and more than half fear the federal deficit will cause a major economic crisis for this country in the next ten years.
Actions to address the federal deficit are currently underway. The president announced a plan to freeze pay for federal workers on Monday, a move in line with the majority of public opinion. The bipartisan debt commission appointed by President Obama to recommend solutions for balancing the budget is also due to issue a report this week, and has discussed targeting Social Security and Medicare to increase savings.
The AP-CNBC survey was conducted by GfK Roper from November 18-22 among 1,000 adults on landline and cellular phones. It has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 4.3 percentage points.
This article discusses the national deficit and methods for decreasing it. One possible method is decreasing government officials salary. This decrease could not occur during the middle of a term.
This video includes a description of the typical Nigerian senators salary breakdown.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Amendment 26
1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment grants those, at lease 18 years of age, the right to vote.
State Welcomes Voting Rights for NRIs
CNN.com
Punjab Education Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Political Affairs Committee Member Sewa Singh Sekhwan today welcomed the Central notification granting voting rights to non-resident Indians (NRIs) and described it as a historic decision aimed at involving millions of NRIs in Indian politics.
Sekhwan said more than 11 million Indians were living outside the country for employment, education and other reasons without acquiring the citizenship of their adoptive countries.
With this new notification, he said, they would become eligible to register their names in the electoral rolls of their hometowns.
The minister said this decision would have a greater impact in Punjab, as a very large number of Punjabis have settled abroad. “The Punjab government had taken up this issue with the Union government several times,” he said in a statement issued here.
In Punjab voting rights are being granted to non resident Indians. This resembles absentee voting in the United States. People in the United States are not denied voting rights because they are absent from their registered resident.
In this speech Presdient Lyndon Johnson discusses the importance of every individual being given the right to vote.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment grants those, at lease 18 years of age, the right to vote.
State Welcomes Voting Rights for NRIs
CNN.com
Punjab Education Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Political Affairs Committee Member Sewa Singh Sekhwan today welcomed the Central notification granting voting rights to non-resident Indians (NRIs) and described it as a historic decision aimed at involving millions of NRIs in Indian politics.
Sekhwan said more than 11 million Indians were living outside the country for employment, education and other reasons without acquiring the citizenship of their adoptive countries.
With this new notification, he said, they would become eligible to register their names in the electoral rolls of their hometowns.
The minister said this decision would have a greater impact in Punjab, as a very large number of Punjabis have settled abroad. “The Punjab government had taken up this issue with the Union government several times,” he said in a statement issued here.
In Punjab voting rights are being granted to non resident Indians. This resembles absentee voting in the United States. People in the United States are not denied voting rights because they are absent from their registered resident.
In this speech Presdient Lyndon Johnson discusses the importance of every individual being given the right to vote.
Amendment 25
1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
This amendment discusses a sucession plan should the president be unable to perform his duties. It was a necessay amendment and written because of the assasinaition of JFK.
Pakistan minister survives attack
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The chief minister of the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan has survived an assassination attempt in Khuzdar, government officials told CNN.
Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaaf, a member of President Pervez Musharraf's ruling party, was not hurt in Monday's attack, the officials said.
A policeman was killed and two others were wounded, however.
On Sunday, gunmen opened fire on shoppers in a Khuzdar market, killing six people, five of them Pakistani soldiers.
Officials said they have not received a claim of responsibility for either attack.
A group calling itself the Islamabouli Brigades of al Qaeda claimed responsibility Saturday for a bomb attack on Shauket Aziz, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked choice for the next prime minister.
Aziz survived, but the suicide attack, in Fateh Jang about 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of Islamabad, killed nine people and wounded 25.
The group warned Pakistan to stop cooperating with the United States or face more attacks.
The claim of responsibility said: "One of our blessed battalions tried to hunt a head of one of the American infidels in Pakistan while he was returning from Fateh Jang, but God wanted him to live."
It said the attack "will be followed by a series of painful strikes if you don't stop complying to the wicked (President) Bush's orders.
"We will give you the chance to stop these actions. Otherwise, we will behave in a different way in Pakistan and turn it into a bloody war against you and whoever supports your policies.
"This is our last warning to you if you don't comply. We will have a different answer to you. Our brigades will talk to you in the language of blood in the coming days -- the language you understand very well."
-- CNN producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Islamabad contributed to this story
This article is about an assasination attempt on leader in Pakistan. If this happened in America we would have a plan to move a new leader into power.
This video is of President Reagan's assassination attempt. Had he been killed the vice president would have been made president.
2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
This amendment discusses a sucession plan should the president be unable to perform his duties. It was a necessay amendment and written because of the assasinaition of JFK.
Pakistan minister survives attack
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The chief minister of the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan has survived an assassination attempt in Khuzdar, government officials told CNN.
Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaaf, a member of President Pervez Musharraf's ruling party, was not hurt in Monday's attack, the officials said.
A policeman was killed and two others were wounded, however.
On Sunday, gunmen opened fire on shoppers in a Khuzdar market, killing six people, five of them Pakistani soldiers.
Officials said they have not received a claim of responsibility for either attack.
A group calling itself the Islamabouli Brigades of al Qaeda claimed responsibility Saturday for a bomb attack on Shauket Aziz, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked choice for the next prime minister.
Aziz survived, but the suicide attack, in Fateh Jang about 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of Islamabad, killed nine people and wounded 25.
The group warned Pakistan to stop cooperating with the United States or face more attacks.
The claim of responsibility said: "One of our blessed battalions tried to hunt a head of one of the American infidels in Pakistan while he was returning from Fateh Jang, but God wanted him to live."
It said the attack "will be followed by a series of painful strikes if you don't stop complying to the wicked (President) Bush's orders.
"We will give you the chance to stop these actions. Otherwise, we will behave in a different way in Pakistan and turn it into a bloody war against you and whoever supports your policies.
"This is our last warning to you if you don't comply. We will have a different answer to you. Our brigades will talk to you in the language of blood in the coming days -- the language you understand very well."
-- CNN producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Islamabad contributed to this story
This article is about an assasination attempt on leader in Pakistan. If this happened in America we would have a plan to move a new leader into power.
This video is of President Reagan's assassination attempt. Had he been killed the vice president would have been made president.
Amendment 24
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment essentially protects the poor right to vote. In the south poll taxes were still being placed on African Americans. This amendment finally protects them from the poll tax.
J. Whyatt Mondesire
Excerpted from: J. Whyatt Mondesire, Felon Disenfranchisement: the Modern Day Poll Tax, 10 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 435-441 (Spring 2001)(32 Footnotes)
Introduction
The generally accepted proposition that vote populi symbolizes democratic governments is more myth than reality. Historically speaking, democracies actually are quite stingy with whom they share the right to vote. Beginning with the ancient plutocratic Athenian democracy more than 5,000 years ago, citizens were paid to attend assembly meetings and vote. To be sure, knowing the paymaster (or his cousin) obviously was a plus.
Qualifications to vote in the period between the French Revolution and Napoleon often were so quixotic; most French citizens stayed off the streets either out for fear of the guillotine or of what the Emperor held in his famous blue waistcoat. Even the Vatican for a period placed itself in the midst of a crusade against universal suffrage when in pre-Facist Italy in the 1920s it banned all political activity by Catholics, a fact which has been seen by several historians as a contributing factor in the rise of Mussolini.
In this country, the history of the gradually widening of the franchise coincides directly with our internal (and sometimes violent) discourse on race. Loyal to their slave holding legacies, the Founding Fathers limited the franchise to property-owning white men when they met in Philadelphia to draft the original Constitution in 1787. And it would take almost two centuries, a civil war, a protracted women's Suffrage movement and several constitutional amendments to slowly extend the franchise to something approximating the universality that most of us have come to accept as today's embodiment of "We The People."
The evolution of the American democracy, though unlike Darwinian theory, has no natural protections against reversion, i.e., a constriction in the steady march toward true universal suffrage. Most emphatically, in the past dozen years just such a reversal has occurred with the rapid erosion of the franchise among the nearly four million Americans--more than all of our armed forces combined--who have been released recently from either state or federal prisons. Four million ex-offenders, many of whom work and pay taxes, have lost the right to vote, constituting for the first time since slavery, a voteless caste.
One California ex-inmate recently told a congressional hearing just how it felt to be forced to live under this 21st century version of the poll tax: "Without a vote, a voice, I am a ghost inhabiting a citizen's space." Continuing his testimony, Joe Loya, added, "I want to walk calmly into a polling place with other citizens to carry my placid ballot into the booth, check off my choices, then drop my conscience in the common box."
I. A Life Long Poll Tax
According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C. based organization that studies criminal justice policies, an estimated 3.9 million Americans, or one in fifty adults, have lost the right to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Thirty-two states ban parolees from voting. Two states ban former inmates from voting after the second felony. And fourteen states effectively strip ex-offenders of their franchise for life, unless reversed by a gubernatorial pardon.
Restoration of the franchise is so onerous in one state--Alabama--that applicants must submit to a DNA test at a state approved facility. Extra hardships are routinely encountered since there are only four approved testing labs in the whole state.
It cannot be over-emphasized that these figures do not reflect the disenfranchisement of men and women who are currently behind bars, these figures reflect the number of voteless people who cannot exercise their basic democratic rights after they've been released. A host of civil rights groups estimate that almost half of the voteless caste--about 1.4 million--are African American men. The impact Alabama's felon disenfranchisement laws had reached such massive proportions that legislators last year considered repealing their statutes when published reports showed that nearly one-third of that state's black male population was barred from voting essentially forever. Felon disenfranchisement is significant not only because of the number of citizens it affects, but also because of its disproportionate impact on the voting power of racial minorities. Nationwide, thirteen percent of black men suffer felon disenfranchisement.
Such egregious consequences of this "modern day poll tax" have persuaded the national NAACP office to support H.R. 906, introduced by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, to restore the voting rights of ex-offenders in federal elections. In his congressional testimony supporting H.R. 906, NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton pointed out that "African Americans and other Americans of color are being kept out of the electoral process at an unequal rate, even after they have paid their debt to society." Added Mr. Shelton:
America expects felons to come out of our penal system prepared to act as productive members of society. We believe ex-felons should support their families and their communities. This is not an unreasonable expectation, but we need in turn to support them in their efforts. Because voting is such an integral part of being a productive member of American society, we should be encouraging ex-felons to vote, not prohibiting them . . . . Felony restrictions are the last vestige of voting prohibitions in the United States.
II. Skyrocketing Imprisonment of Black Males
The rate of black imprisonment rose forty percent between 1980 and 1985. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, on a typical day in 1985, 310,000 (about three and a half percent) were in prison or jail. The figure out for incarcerated black men more than doubled by 1996 to 714,000, fully 6.6% of all black men.
The parallel figure that year--1996--for white men was 760,000 (0.9%) of all white men. Thus, even though black men are only about twelve percent of the male population, they accounted for roughly half of all incarcerated men. The proportion of black men incarcerated is about eight times greater than the proportion of white males incarcerated. For Hispanic males, the proportion incarcerated is about three and a half times the white male proportion.
The concurrent increase in the rate of imprisonment of black females-- currently growing faster than that of white men--means we face a national catastrophe whose negative impact will be felt for several generations. According to a Justice Department study released in late August, nearly one and a half million of our nation's children have a mother or father in federal or state prison. This is a sixty percent increase since 1991 of children under the age of eighteen who face these circumstances.
And if it is generally accepted that voting is a learned behavior most often taught by parents who either take their children into the voting booth or who talk to their offspring about why they are voting, thus it is not hard to foresee several generations of black and brown children growing up without ever seeing their parent(s) pull a lever in a voting machine. A majority of the children with imprisoned parents--fifty-eight percent--were under the age of ten, and the average age was eight years old. As of December 31, 1999, they represented 2.1 % of the nation's seventy-two million minor children.
III. Poll Tax--Then and Now
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is generally regarded by most analysts and historians as one of the most seminal accomplishments of the modern Civil Rights Movement, not only because it finally employed the full weight and power of the federal government to extend the franchise to a whole class of previously disenfranchised citizens of the South, but also because it became the springboard for the final legal assault on the Jim Crow laws which had deprived African Americans the vote since Reconstruction, a pivotal part of the foundation of their economic exploitation for more than a century.
To comprehend just how effectively 19th century poll taxes excluded Southern blacks from the franchise, consider the evidence of black voter registration rates in the states of the Old Confederacy at the beginning of the last century. In 1927, only 847 blacks were registered to vote in Mississippi out of a total population of 188,000. By 1940, registrations had inched up to five percent while in Alabama less than fifteen percent were listed on the rolls.
Meeting in a special convention in 1890, called specifically to address the "problem" of the "Negro vote" in Mississippi (where blacks made up the majority of the population), white delegates passed a suffrage resolution imposing a poll tax of two dollars, excluding voters convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, perjury, murder and bigamy, while also barring those who could not read any section of the state constitution, or understand it when read, or give a reasonable interpretation.
South Carolina followed in 1895 with a bill calling for a two-year residency requirement, a poll tax of one dollar, the ability to read and write the Constitution or to own property worth three hundred dollars and the disqualification of convicts. Florida had succumbed in 1889, setting up a device that required the voter to deposit separate ballots in each of the different boxes marked for different candidates, making it virtually impossible for the illiterate to navigate the balloting process.
This problem improved little for the first half of the next century. At the time of the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, fewer than three out of ten Southern blacks--1.4 million--were eligible to vote. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing poll taxes in national elections, was ratified in 1964. By the mid-term elections two years later, an additional 750,000 blacks were registered. Black registration soared even higher a year later when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by Lyndon Johnson's White House, voided the poll tax in all elections.
IV. Economic Dimension
Lurking behind all of this chicanery with ballot boxes and trumped up taxes was the not to subtle intent by southern whites to utilize disenfranchisement to create a class of peons who would supply the economic muscle for the region's agricultural infrastructure, but which would be unable to mount any serious challenge over the distribution of resources and wealth, even when these tenant farmers and sharecroppers were in the majority. "Disenfranchisement was part of the broader effort by the southern planter class to erect a system of political, economic and social coercion over blacks that would permit the re-establishment of a quasi-feudal labor system. Experience (during Reconstruction) showed that black suffrage interfered with this objective."
Today's modern multi-billion-dollar prison-industrial complex, which has inmates manufacturing every conceivable kind of product as well as doing business on the worldwide web, thus, must be examined in this broader context. By even the most basic standard it is obvious to predict that the long term effects of felon disenfranchisement will mean that this burgeoning voteless caste will continue to be at the mercy of exploitative economic interests for many generations yet unborn.
V. The Legal Counterattack
Igniting an effective counter strategy clearly is in the interest of the modern NAACP, the very same organization that was in the vanguard of the anti-poll tax movement in the early years of the last century. The first volley in the modern strategy was begun last December in Pennsylvania, which bans ex-felons from registering to vote for five years after release, when the Philadelphia NAACP Branch filed suit in state court to overturn that state's disenfranchisement statute, approved hastily in 1995.
Pennsylvania's notoriously corrupt and backward courts are even more glacial in their pace than are many other large states, a fact which prompted the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP to bring a separate action in the spring of this year in federal court. Both actions attack the Pennsylvania disenfranchisement law as a clear violation of both the state and federal constitutions guarantees of one man, one vote. "Undeniably felon disenfranchisement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is racially discriminatory," the Philadelphia Branch declared at a news conference announcing its two-pronged legal counter-strategy.
What's more, felon disenfranchisement is cruel and mean spirited, clearly designed to be hurtful even as these men and women are trying to work their way back into society's all too often less than welcoming arms . . . . Its long term effects are so overwhelming as to be beyond simple quantification. At a time when the fastest growing prison population are African American Women, most of whom have families, how is it possible that their offspring will ever vote since they probably will never see their mothers or fathers walk into a polling booth? By denying these ex-inmates the right to register to vote for five years after release, the state really is stealing rights from their offspring as well; stealing, most probably for a lifetime, one of our nation's most fundamental rights--the right of the governed to choose their leaders, even as it taxes them and continues to be able to call upon them to lay down their lives in a time of a national emergency or conflict.
VI. A History of Valor
Having watched his fellow Mississippians march off to join the "war to protect democracy," most probably was one of the issues which persuaded Harrisburg NAACP President Vernon Dahmer that something had to be done to address the poll tax that deprived so many of the returning black vets of their right to vote. The owner of a successful grocery store in his hometown, Dahmer decided in the 1950s to begin to pay the poll taxes of any black state resident with the courage to show up at the county registrar's office. Back then, taking up Vernon Dahmer's offer was no spur of the moment decision.
In 1966 the Klan ruled Mississippi. The federal government rarely challenged their autonomy. And local governments never did, since more often than not their membership lists were practically synonymous. One chilly January night thirty-four years ago, Vernon Dahmer's wife, Ellie and the family awoke to the sounds of motor engines and honking horns. Two carloads of Klansmen, some armed with shotguns, others carrying cans of gasoline, burst from their vehicles outside the Dahmer home at two o'clock in the morning. They dumped their gasoline on the wooden farmhouse, setting it ablaze in just a few moments. Vernon aided his family's escape from the smoke and flames by holding the Klansmen at bay with his own repeated shotgun blasts. His two young children and wife would testify decades later that they could smell their father's burning flesh as they ran to safety beneath his outstretched arms holding the burning door ajar. Twelve hours later Vernon died from the injuries to his seared lungs.
It would not be until August 1998 that the man who ordered Vernon Dahmer's murder--Sam Bowers--was finally convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Bowers, who at the time was the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan was also at the center of the conspiracy of the infamous Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama three years earlier which killed four pre-teen black girls as they attended Sunday school.
Today's struggle against felon disenfranchisement is born of the valiant and sometimes very costly struggle Vernon Dahmer and other NAACP members waged against the poll tax of an earlier generation. Like Vernon Dahmer, today's NAACP knows that voteless people not only lose political freedom, but are certain to be sentenced to a life of servitude as well.
[a1]. J. Whyatt Mondesire is President of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP, as well as editor and publisher of The Philadelphia Sunday Sun newspaper.
This article is discussing felonies and the removal of their right to vote. Convicted felons with money can hire attorneys to get their right back. Some consider this a modern day poll tax.
This is a video of a poll tax riot in London. It occured after a working class outrage at poll taxes specifically being targeted upon them.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment essentially protects the poor right to vote. In the south poll taxes were still being placed on African Americans. This amendment finally protects them from the poll tax.
J. Whyatt Mondesire
Excerpted from: J. Whyatt Mondesire, Felon Disenfranchisement: the Modern Day Poll Tax, 10 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 435-441 (Spring 2001)(32 Footnotes)
Introduction
The generally accepted proposition that vote populi symbolizes democratic governments is more myth than reality. Historically speaking, democracies actually are quite stingy with whom they share the right to vote. Beginning with the ancient plutocratic Athenian democracy more than 5,000 years ago, citizens were paid to attend assembly meetings and vote. To be sure, knowing the paymaster (or his cousin) obviously was a plus.
Qualifications to vote in the period between the French Revolution and Napoleon often were so quixotic; most French citizens stayed off the streets either out for fear of the guillotine or of what the Emperor held in his famous blue waistcoat. Even the Vatican for a period placed itself in the midst of a crusade against universal suffrage when in pre-Facist Italy in the 1920s it banned all political activity by Catholics, a fact which has been seen by several historians as a contributing factor in the rise of Mussolini.
In this country, the history of the gradually widening of the franchise coincides directly with our internal (and sometimes violent) discourse on race. Loyal to their slave holding legacies, the Founding Fathers limited the franchise to property-owning white men when they met in Philadelphia to draft the original Constitution in 1787. And it would take almost two centuries, a civil war, a protracted women's Suffrage movement and several constitutional amendments to slowly extend the franchise to something approximating the universality that most of us have come to accept as today's embodiment of "We The People."
The evolution of the American democracy, though unlike Darwinian theory, has no natural protections against reversion, i.e., a constriction in the steady march toward true universal suffrage. Most emphatically, in the past dozen years just such a reversal has occurred with the rapid erosion of the franchise among the nearly four million Americans--more than all of our armed forces combined--who have been released recently from either state or federal prisons. Four million ex-offenders, many of whom work and pay taxes, have lost the right to vote, constituting for the first time since slavery, a voteless caste.
One California ex-inmate recently told a congressional hearing just how it felt to be forced to live under this 21st century version of the poll tax: "Without a vote, a voice, I am a ghost inhabiting a citizen's space." Continuing his testimony, Joe Loya, added, "I want to walk calmly into a polling place with other citizens to carry my placid ballot into the booth, check off my choices, then drop my conscience in the common box."
I. A Life Long Poll Tax
According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C. based organization that studies criminal justice policies, an estimated 3.9 million Americans, or one in fifty adults, have lost the right to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Thirty-two states ban parolees from voting. Two states ban former inmates from voting after the second felony. And fourteen states effectively strip ex-offenders of their franchise for life, unless reversed by a gubernatorial pardon.
Restoration of the franchise is so onerous in one state--Alabama--that applicants must submit to a DNA test at a state approved facility. Extra hardships are routinely encountered since there are only four approved testing labs in the whole state.
It cannot be over-emphasized that these figures do not reflect the disenfranchisement of men and women who are currently behind bars, these figures reflect the number of voteless people who cannot exercise their basic democratic rights after they've been released. A host of civil rights groups estimate that almost half of the voteless caste--about 1.4 million--are African American men. The impact Alabama's felon disenfranchisement laws had reached such massive proportions that legislators last year considered repealing their statutes when published reports showed that nearly one-third of that state's black male population was barred from voting essentially forever. Felon disenfranchisement is significant not only because of the number of citizens it affects, but also because of its disproportionate impact on the voting power of racial minorities. Nationwide, thirteen percent of black men suffer felon disenfranchisement.
Such egregious consequences of this "modern day poll tax" have persuaded the national NAACP office to support H.R. 906, introduced by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, to restore the voting rights of ex-offenders in federal elections. In his congressional testimony supporting H.R. 906, NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton pointed out that "African Americans and other Americans of color are being kept out of the electoral process at an unequal rate, even after they have paid their debt to society." Added Mr. Shelton:
America expects felons to come out of our penal system prepared to act as productive members of society. We believe ex-felons should support their families and their communities. This is not an unreasonable expectation, but we need in turn to support them in their efforts. Because voting is such an integral part of being a productive member of American society, we should be encouraging ex-felons to vote, not prohibiting them . . . . Felony restrictions are the last vestige of voting prohibitions in the United States.
II. Skyrocketing Imprisonment of Black Males
The rate of black imprisonment rose forty percent between 1980 and 1985. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, on a typical day in 1985, 310,000 (about three and a half percent) were in prison or jail. The figure out for incarcerated black men more than doubled by 1996 to 714,000, fully 6.6% of all black men.
The parallel figure that year--1996--for white men was 760,000 (0.9%) of all white men. Thus, even though black men are only about twelve percent of the male population, they accounted for roughly half of all incarcerated men. The proportion of black men incarcerated is about eight times greater than the proportion of white males incarcerated. For Hispanic males, the proportion incarcerated is about three and a half times the white male proportion.
The concurrent increase in the rate of imprisonment of black females-- currently growing faster than that of white men--means we face a national catastrophe whose negative impact will be felt for several generations. According to a Justice Department study released in late August, nearly one and a half million of our nation's children have a mother or father in federal or state prison. This is a sixty percent increase since 1991 of children under the age of eighteen who face these circumstances.
And if it is generally accepted that voting is a learned behavior most often taught by parents who either take their children into the voting booth or who talk to their offspring about why they are voting, thus it is not hard to foresee several generations of black and brown children growing up without ever seeing their parent(s) pull a lever in a voting machine. A majority of the children with imprisoned parents--fifty-eight percent--were under the age of ten, and the average age was eight years old. As of December 31, 1999, they represented 2.1 % of the nation's seventy-two million minor children.
III. Poll Tax--Then and Now
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is generally regarded by most analysts and historians as one of the most seminal accomplishments of the modern Civil Rights Movement, not only because it finally employed the full weight and power of the federal government to extend the franchise to a whole class of previously disenfranchised citizens of the South, but also because it became the springboard for the final legal assault on the Jim Crow laws which had deprived African Americans the vote since Reconstruction, a pivotal part of the foundation of their economic exploitation for more than a century.
To comprehend just how effectively 19th century poll taxes excluded Southern blacks from the franchise, consider the evidence of black voter registration rates in the states of the Old Confederacy at the beginning of the last century. In 1927, only 847 blacks were registered to vote in Mississippi out of a total population of 188,000. By 1940, registrations had inched up to five percent while in Alabama less than fifteen percent were listed on the rolls.
Meeting in a special convention in 1890, called specifically to address the "problem" of the "Negro vote" in Mississippi (where blacks made up the majority of the population), white delegates passed a suffrage resolution imposing a poll tax of two dollars, excluding voters convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, perjury, murder and bigamy, while also barring those who could not read any section of the state constitution, or understand it when read, or give a reasonable interpretation.
South Carolina followed in 1895 with a bill calling for a two-year residency requirement, a poll tax of one dollar, the ability to read and write the Constitution or to own property worth three hundred dollars and the disqualification of convicts. Florida had succumbed in 1889, setting up a device that required the voter to deposit separate ballots in each of the different boxes marked for different candidates, making it virtually impossible for the illiterate to navigate the balloting process.
This problem improved little for the first half of the next century. At the time of the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, fewer than three out of ten Southern blacks--1.4 million--were eligible to vote. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing poll taxes in national elections, was ratified in 1964. By the mid-term elections two years later, an additional 750,000 blacks were registered. Black registration soared even higher a year later when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by Lyndon Johnson's White House, voided the poll tax in all elections.
IV. Economic Dimension
Lurking behind all of this chicanery with ballot boxes and trumped up taxes was the not to subtle intent by southern whites to utilize disenfranchisement to create a class of peons who would supply the economic muscle for the region's agricultural infrastructure, but which would be unable to mount any serious challenge over the distribution of resources and wealth, even when these tenant farmers and sharecroppers were in the majority. "Disenfranchisement was part of the broader effort by the southern planter class to erect a system of political, economic and social coercion over blacks that would permit the re-establishment of a quasi-feudal labor system. Experience (during Reconstruction) showed that black suffrage interfered with this objective."
Today's modern multi-billion-dollar prison-industrial complex, which has inmates manufacturing every conceivable kind of product as well as doing business on the worldwide web, thus, must be examined in this broader context. By even the most basic standard it is obvious to predict that the long term effects of felon disenfranchisement will mean that this burgeoning voteless caste will continue to be at the mercy of exploitative economic interests for many generations yet unborn.
V. The Legal Counterattack
Igniting an effective counter strategy clearly is in the interest of the modern NAACP, the very same organization that was in the vanguard of the anti-poll tax movement in the early years of the last century. The first volley in the modern strategy was begun last December in Pennsylvania, which bans ex-felons from registering to vote for five years after release, when the Philadelphia NAACP Branch filed suit in state court to overturn that state's disenfranchisement statute, approved hastily in 1995.
Pennsylvania's notoriously corrupt and backward courts are even more glacial in their pace than are many other large states, a fact which prompted the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP to bring a separate action in the spring of this year in federal court. Both actions attack the Pennsylvania disenfranchisement law as a clear violation of both the state and federal constitutions guarantees of one man, one vote. "Undeniably felon disenfranchisement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is racially discriminatory," the Philadelphia Branch declared at a news conference announcing its two-pronged legal counter-strategy.
What's more, felon disenfranchisement is cruel and mean spirited, clearly designed to be hurtful even as these men and women are trying to work their way back into society's all too often less than welcoming arms . . . . Its long term effects are so overwhelming as to be beyond simple quantification. At a time when the fastest growing prison population are African American Women, most of whom have families, how is it possible that their offspring will ever vote since they probably will never see their mothers or fathers walk into a polling booth? By denying these ex-inmates the right to register to vote for five years after release, the state really is stealing rights from their offspring as well; stealing, most probably for a lifetime, one of our nation's most fundamental rights--the right of the governed to choose their leaders, even as it taxes them and continues to be able to call upon them to lay down their lives in a time of a national emergency or conflict.
VI. A History of Valor
Having watched his fellow Mississippians march off to join the "war to protect democracy," most probably was one of the issues which persuaded Harrisburg NAACP President Vernon Dahmer that something had to be done to address the poll tax that deprived so many of the returning black vets of their right to vote. The owner of a successful grocery store in his hometown, Dahmer decided in the 1950s to begin to pay the poll taxes of any black state resident with the courage to show up at the county registrar's office. Back then, taking up Vernon Dahmer's offer was no spur of the moment decision.
In 1966 the Klan ruled Mississippi. The federal government rarely challenged their autonomy. And local governments never did, since more often than not their membership lists were practically synonymous. One chilly January night thirty-four years ago, Vernon Dahmer's wife, Ellie and the family awoke to the sounds of motor engines and honking horns. Two carloads of Klansmen, some armed with shotguns, others carrying cans of gasoline, burst from their vehicles outside the Dahmer home at two o'clock in the morning. They dumped their gasoline on the wooden farmhouse, setting it ablaze in just a few moments. Vernon aided his family's escape from the smoke and flames by holding the Klansmen at bay with his own repeated shotgun blasts. His two young children and wife would testify decades later that they could smell their father's burning flesh as they ran to safety beneath his outstretched arms holding the burning door ajar. Twelve hours later Vernon died from the injuries to his seared lungs.
It would not be until August 1998 that the man who ordered Vernon Dahmer's murder--Sam Bowers--was finally convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Bowers, who at the time was the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan was also at the center of the conspiracy of the infamous Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama three years earlier which killed four pre-teen black girls as they attended Sunday school.
Today's struggle against felon disenfranchisement is born of the valiant and sometimes very costly struggle Vernon Dahmer and other NAACP members waged against the poll tax of an earlier generation. Like Vernon Dahmer, today's NAACP knows that voteless people not only lose political freedom, but are certain to be sentenced to a life of servitude as well.
[a1]. J. Whyatt Mondesire is President of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP, as well as editor and publisher of The Philadelphia Sunday Sun newspaper.
This article is discussing felonies and the removal of their right to vote. Convicted felons with money can hire attorneys to get their right back. Some consider this a modern day poll tax.
This is a video of a poll tax riot in London. It occured after a working class outrage at poll taxes specifically being targeted upon them.
Amendment 23
1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment states that the District of Columbia will be given electoral votes. This amendment was very necessary because the District of Columbia is such a populated area. DC has 3 electoral votes, the same as the least populated state, Rhode Island.
2000
CNN.com
(Bush - Gore)
The 2000 Presidential Election was the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected. George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, ran on the Republican ticket against Democratic candidate, and the sitting Vice President, Al Gore.
Though Gore held a slim popular vote victory of 543,895 (0.5%), Bush won the Electoral College 271-266, with one Gore Elector abstaining.
The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant.
Florida became the key state as the election drew to a close. Consisting of nearly 6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes, after a process of recounting the votes and a Supreme Court ruling.
Voters complained about confusing ballots and many Florida voters believed that they accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a conservative running on the Reform ticket, when they meant to vote for Al Gore.
Another significant candidate in the 2000 election was Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. Nader attracted just under 3% of voters with a progressive platform focused on social and environmental issues.
Democratic supporters targeted Nader as being a “spoiler” for Al Gore. Since Nader was left-of-center, Democrats argued that most of his voters would have otherwise supported Gore. In such a close election, many believe that Gore would have won if Nader had dropped out of the race.
The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida's Electoral votes to George W. Bush.
In the end, Gore conceded the election publicly, though he did not hide his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s ruling.
This article discusses the 2000 in which the electoral votes determined a winner different than the popular vote. It is one example of why electoral votes are so important, giving more reasoning for why DC citizens are deserving of this right.
I watched this video in grade school when learning about the electoral college. It discusses electoral votes and why they have so much influence.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment states that the District of Columbia will be given electoral votes. This amendment was very necessary because the District of Columbia is such a populated area. DC has 3 electoral votes, the same as the least populated state, Rhode Island.
2000
CNN.com
(Bush - Gore)
The 2000 Presidential Election was the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected. George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, ran on the Republican ticket against Democratic candidate, and the sitting Vice President, Al Gore.
Though Gore held a slim popular vote victory of 543,895 (0.5%), Bush won the Electoral College 271-266, with one Gore Elector abstaining.
The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant.
Florida became the key state as the election drew to a close. Consisting of nearly 6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes, after a process of recounting the votes and a Supreme Court ruling.
Voters complained about confusing ballots and many Florida voters believed that they accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a conservative running on the Reform ticket, when they meant to vote for Al Gore.
Another significant candidate in the 2000 election was Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. Nader attracted just under 3% of voters with a progressive platform focused on social and environmental issues.
Democratic supporters targeted Nader as being a “spoiler” for Al Gore. Since Nader was left-of-center, Democrats argued that most of his voters would have otherwise supported Gore. In such a close election, many believe that Gore would have won if Nader had dropped out of the race.
The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida's Electoral votes to George W. Bush.
In the end, Gore conceded the election publicly, though he did not hide his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s ruling.
This article discusses the 2000 in which the electoral votes determined a winner different than the popular vote. It is one example of why electoral votes are so important, giving more reasoning for why DC citizens are deserving of this right.
I watched this video in grade school when learning about the electoral college. It discusses electoral votes and why they have so much influence.
Amendment 22
1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
The Amendment guarentees that a president cannot be elected to more than two terms. It guarentees that no president will become a monarch.
Obama’s coup d’etat is coming in the form of 22nd Amendment repeal.
CNN.com
The president takes a page from the Chavez playbook and makes an end-around for dictator-for-life.
by Michael Naragon
Economic expert Milton Friedman long believed that one of the weaknesses of the American system was that Congressmen were not limited in the number of terms they can serve. With the right constituency and/or control of redistricting, some politicians have managed to stay in office for decades, thereby becoming entrenched in the politics of corruption and quid pro quo that Washington has become. Now, the president may receive the Constitutional right to remain in office just as long.
On January 6, 2009, days before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, amid the pomp and circumstance of his coronation, a resolution was quietly advanced in the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution, HJ Res. 5, reads as follows:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
In essence, what the resolution and a subsequent 28th Amendment would do, if passed, is make it feasible for a president of the United States to remain in office as often as he can win elections.
George Washington set a precedent by remaining in office for two terms. Every president following our Founding Father replicated this tradition.
Only a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, in a time of national crisis, dared to presume the American people needed more than eight years of his guidance and rule. Using the crisis, he was elected four times, convincing Americans not to “change horses in the middle of a river.”
Now, the man who would be Roosevelt and Lincoln rolled into a smooth, apologetic package, can seek to use his own crisis, including the parts of his own making, to continue his tenure in the highest office in the land.
Some will say, “You’re nuts. He’ll lose in 2012, much less three terms from now.” To that belief, I counter with some other nuts–specifically, ACORN. Now it has, hopefully, become more clear to you why ACORN has received millions of taxpayer dollars for its operating costs in the stimulus plan advanced by Obama and passed by Congress. Remember, the stimulus bill granting them that money was passed in February, more than a month after HJ Res. 5 had been advanced.
It should also start becoming painfully obvious why ACORN will be involved with the Census in 2010. This “nonpartisan,” now-taxpayer-funded group could/will be key to keeping Democrats, including Obama, in office indefinitely.
The Democratic machine in Minnesota has already managed to reverse the Senate election there in favor of Al Franken. How difficult would it be to do so on a national level? Throw in the potentiality of legalizing millions of illegal immigrants in the next year, and we could all grow old with Barack Obama as our caretaker-president, unless something is done to stem the tide that is washing us onto the desolate beach of Marxist communism, Soviet style.
While this article is a piece of propoganda it is very relevant to the 22nd amendment. It discusses the possible repealment of the amendment and the reasons we have it.
This video is about Adolf Hiltler. Hilter came into power through a democratic government.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
The Amendment guarentees that a president cannot be elected to more than two terms. It guarentees that no president will become a monarch.
Obama’s coup d’etat is coming in the form of 22nd Amendment repeal.
CNN.com
The president takes a page from the Chavez playbook and makes an end-around for dictator-for-life.
by Michael Naragon
Economic expert Milton Friedman long believed that one of the weaknesses of the American system was that Congressmen were not limited in the number of terms they can serve. With the right constituency and/or control of redistricting, some politicians have managed to stay in office for decades, thereby becoming entrenched in the politics of corruption and quid pro quo that Washington has become. Now, the president may receive the Constitutional right to remain in office just as long.
On January 6, 2009, days before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, amid the pomp and circumstance of his coronation, a resolution was quietly advanced in the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution, HJ Res. 5, reads as follows:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
In essence, what the resolution and a subsequent 28th Amendment would do, if passed, is make it feasible for a president of the United States to remain in office as often as he can win elections.
George Washington set a precedent by remaining in office for two terms. Every president following our Founding Father replicated this tradition.
Only a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, in a time of national crisis, dared to presume the American people needed more than eight years of his guidance and rule. Using the crisis, he was elected four times, convincing Americans not to “change horses in the middle of a river.”
Now, the man who would be Roosevelt and Lincoln rolled into a smooth, apologetic package, can seek to use his own crisis, including the parts of his own making, to continue his tenure in the highest office in the land.
Some will say, “You’re nuts. He’ll lose in 2012, much less three terms from now.” To that belief, I counter with some other nuts–specifically, ACORN. Now it has, hopefully, become more clear to you why ACORN has received millions of taxpayer dollars for its operating costs in the stimulus plan advanced by Obama and passed by Congress. Remember, the stimulus bill granting them that money was passed in February, more than a month after HJ Res. 5 had been advanced.
It should also start becoming painfully obvious why ACORN will be involved with the Census in 2010. This “nonpartisan,” now-taxpayer-funded group could/will be key to keeping Democrats, including Obama, in office indefinitely.
The Democratic machine in Minnesota has already managed to reverse the Senate election there in favor of Al Franken. How difficult would it be to do so on a national level? Throw in the potentiality of legalizing millions of illegal immigrants in the next year, and we could all grow old with Barack Obama as our caretaker-president, unless something is done to stem the tide that is washing us onto the desolate beach of Marxist communism, Soviet style.
While this article is a piece of propoganda it is very relevant to the 22nd amendment. It discusses the possible repealment of the amendment and the reasons we have it.
This video is about Adolf Hiltler. Hilter came into power through a democratic government.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Amendment 21
1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress
This article repeals prohibition. Prohibition was not helping to lower the crime rate. In fact it was making crime more prevalent. By repealing the the 18th Amendment law makers were hoping to lower the rate again.
November 3, 2010
California Post
California Rejects Marijuana LegalizationBy MARC LACEY
OAKLAND — California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
“There will be a few tears shed,” said Gregory Lyons, 63, a pastry chef who worked the phones throughout the day on Tuesday to rally support for the measure. “Demonizing a plant doesn’t make sense.”
Added Jeremy Daw, 30, who was puffing on a lengthy spliff as the returns came in: “I feel deflated.”
Across the country, voters in dozens of states weighed in not just on candidates but on all matter of issues large and small, more than 150 of them in all. In Rhode Island, voters decided not to change the name of the state, which is officially “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Arizona put an end to affirmative action programs. Oklahoma made English its official language. There were municipal initiatives as well, including a zany one in Denver that called on the city to set up a “extraterrestrial affairs committee” to look into UFOs.
The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer.
“They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco,” said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. “Drug dealers don’t ask for ID.”
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. “When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?” asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
And even some marijuana smokers did not like the idea of cannabis, long a symbol of the counterculture, being regulated. “I don’t want Anheuser-Busch handling pot or to have to buy Marlboro marijuana,” said Shaun Ramos, 29, who spent Tuesday morning sticking “No on Prop 19” posters on light posts in downtown Oakland, only to see them quickly removed by supporters of legalization. “This is all about corporate control.”
Tuesday’s legalization effort was not the first attempt to decriminalize cannabis. California voters had rejected a similar legalization effort in 1972 and over the last decade voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota had all said no to marijuana.
Medical marijuana initiatives have fared better, with more than a dozen states allowing cannabis for those who get permission from their doctors. But voters in South Dakota rejected a measure allowing medical marijuana in that state, and Arizona appeared poised to do the same. Voters in Oregon, where about 40,000 people legally use medical marijuana, rejected a measure to set up state-regulated dispensaries.
The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
Also in California, voters rejected a measure to suspend the state’s curbs on greenhouse gas emissions while the economy was in the doldrums. Largely financed by out-of-state oil companies, the initiative sought to tap into voters’ economic woes to roll back landmark environmental legislation approved in 2006 that called for the state to curb emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
“This the first time ever that there’s been such a huge referendum on climate change and clean energy policy,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “This sends a clear message that people want a clean energy future.”
In Washington state, voters rejected an initiative creating the state’s first income tax, exclusively on individuals who earn more than $200,000. It was backed by Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft founder who is the country’s richest man. In Massachusetts, voters endorsed wiping out the sales tax for alcohol, but rejected rolling back the 6.25 percent sales tax to 3 percent.
Three ballot measures in Colorado that would have cut the state income tax and sharply restricted government borrowing and property taxes for schools were overwhelmingly defeated. Voters also rejected an antiabortion amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would have conferred rights “to every human being from the beginning of the biological development.”
In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved measures aimed at preventing President Obama’s health care legislation from going into effect. Colorado voters rejected a similar measure.
This article is about the legalization of marijuana. Individuals often compare marijuana illegalization to prohibition, saying that if marijuana was made legal crime would decrease. And that legalization of marijuana would have the same effect as Amendment 21.
This video discusses the failure of prohibition.
2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress
This article repeals prohibition. Prohibition was not helping to lower the crime rate. In fact it was making crime more prevalent. By repealing the the 18th Amendment law makers were hoping to lower the rate again.
November 3, 2010
California Post
California Rejects Marijuana LegalizationBy MARC LACEY
OAKLAND — California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
“There will be a few tears shed,” said Gregory Lyons, 63, a pastry chef who worked the phones throughout the day on Tuesday to rally support for the measure. “Demonizing a plant doesn’t make sense.”
Added Jeremy Daw, 30, who was puffing on a lengthy spliff as the returns came in: “I feel deflated.”
Across the country, voters in dozens of states weighed in not just on candidates but on all matter of issues large and small, more than 150 of them in all. In Rhode Island, voters decided not to change the name of the state, which is officially “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Arizona put an end to affirmative action programs. Oklahoma made English its official language. There were municipal initiatives as well, including a zany one in Denver that called on the city to set up a “extraterrestrial affairs committee” to look into UFOs.
The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer.
“They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco,” said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. “Drug dealers don’t ask for ID.”
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. “When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?” asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
And even some marijuana smokers did not like the idea of cannabis, long a symbol of the counterculture, being regulated. “I don’t want Anheuser-Busch handling pot or to have to buy Marlboro marijuana,” said Shaun Ramos, 29, who spent Tuesday morning sticking “No on Prop 19” posters on light posts in downtown Oakland, only to see them quickly removed by supporters of legalization. “This is all about corporate control.”
Tuesday’s legalization effort was not the first attempt to decriminalize cannabis. California voters had rejected a similar legalization effort in 1972 and over the last decade voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota had all said no to marijuana.
Medical marijuana initiatives have fared better, with more than a dozen states allowing cannabis for those who get permission from their doctors. But voters in South Dakota rejected a measure allowing medical marijuana in that state, and Arizona appeared poised to do the same. Voters in Oregon, where about 40,000 people legally use medical marijuana, rejected a measure to set up state-regulated dispensaries.
The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
Also in California, voters rejected a measure to suspend the state’s curbs on greenhouse gas emissions while the economy was in the doldrums. Largely financed by out-of-state oil companies, the initiative sought to tap into voters’ economic woes to roll back landmark environmental legislation approved in 2006 that called for the state to curb emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
“This the first time ever that there’s been such a huge referendum on climate change and clean energy policy,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “This sends a clear message that people want a clean energy future.”
In Washington state, voters rejected an initiative creating the state’s first income tax, exclusively on individuals who earn more than $200,000. It was backed by Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft founder who is the country’s richest man. In Massachusetts, voters endorsed wiping out the sales tax for alcohol, but rejected rolling back the 6.25 percent sales tax to 3 percent.
Three ballot measures in Colorado that would have cut the state income tax and sharply restricted government borrowing and property taxes for schools were overwhelmingly defeated. Voters also rejected an antiabortion amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would have conferred rights “to every human being from the beginning of the biological development.”
In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved measures aimed at preventing President Obama’s health care legislation from going into effect. Colorado voters rejected a similar measure.
This article is about the legalization of marijuana. Individuals often compare marijuana illegalization to prohibition, saying that if marijuana was made legal crime would decrease. And that legalization of marijuana would have the same effect as Amendment 21.
This video discusses the failure of prohibition.
Amendment 20
1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.
This amendment discusses when work will begin in the Senate and in the Executive Branch after elections. It also discusess procedure if a president should die or resign while in office.
Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech
CNN.com
OBAMA: My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This article consists of President Obama's Inauguaration speech. Given on the 3rd day of January as specified at his Inauguaration.
The video consists of a poem read a Bill Clinton's inaugaration speech.
2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.
This amendment discusses when work will begin in the Senate and in the Executive Branch after elections. It also discusess procedure if a president should die or resign while in office.
Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech
CNN.com
OBAMA: My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This article consists of President Obama's Inauguaration speech. Given on the 3rd day of January as specified at his Inauguaration.
The video consists of a poem read a Bill Clinton's inaugaration speech.
Amendment 19
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Finally women have been given the right to vote!
Women and the 2008 Election. A New Majority
CNN.com
Much was made before the 2008 Presidential election of the potential impact of the African American or youth vote on the election. Pundits claimed that both voting blocks would "carry" the election for Barack Obama. But what about women voters? The truth is that they came out in full force for Obama.
Women strongly preferred Obama to McCain 56-43% whereas men split their vote 49% for Obama and 48% for McCain. Women have voted in larger numbers than men since 1980. In the 2004 Presidential race, nine million more women than men voted and when final results are tallied it is expected that we will see even more women voting in this past election. In addition, a study by the Women's Campaign Forum showed that women tripled the amount of their donations compared to the 2000 Presidential election.
Still, with all the impact that women clearly had on the Presidential election, why is it that the United States still ranks 70th in terms of women in elected office? Even with the hard fought campaigns of Hillary Clinton in the primary and Sarah Palin, women have achieved a relatively dismal amount of seats. Women comprise 52% of the population in the United States yet women only hold a quarter of elected offices. While some celebrated the fact that New Hampshire just became the first state to have a majority of women legislators in one of their chambers (the state Senate), the question to really ask is why are they the only ones? Congress is comprised of just 17% women (many cheered that this number went up in this election cycle from 16%) but that meager rise is disconcerting at best.
Women gained suffrage in 1920 through the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Today, women's representation in state legislatures ranges from the low end of 10% (South Carolina) to a high of 37% (New Hampshire and Vermont.)
Some might say, well, why is this important? The answer is twofold. First, research on state legislatures nationwide by C.S. Rosenthal has shown that women legislators are 50% more likely than male legislators to "build issue coalitions," "pull people together" and "get people involved." The study notes that 59% of women legislative committee chairs earn above average ratings for inclusivity and power-sharing. Second, women tend to have unique perspectives on issues such as child care, elder care and health care as frequently these issues, in many families, are falling still disproportionately to women.
So what is holding women back? Part of the problem is we need to encourage more women to run. Studies have shown that some women do not run due to the time commitments of both a campaign and seemingly endless fundraising once in office. These demands can often be difficult to juggle for women with young children. When I first ran for a local position in Lower Manhattan, I heard a few comments from women that shouldn't I really be staying at home as I had just given birth to my twins. Sadly these comments are all too common. In addition, negative campaigning has acted as a deterrent for many women who fear the onslaught of personal attacks that seem to go hand in hand with campaigns. Lastly, many of the elected positions mean lengthy travel with months away from home to either the state capitol or Washington, something that can be anathema to mothers with children or elderly parents at home.
How do we combat this? The best way to fight these obstacles is to fight them head on by organizing women to band together to encourage and support other women to run for office. We saw to great effect Obama's use of grassroots organizing, the internet and micro targeting of voters. Women in communities that want to increase the number of women representing them need to form grassroots level groups to help support qualified women candidates through fundraising and get out the vote networks. By helping women fundraise, we can minimize some of the time constraints that can unduly burden a candidate or elected official. PTA's, mother's groups, soccer and baseball leagues can be powerful tools in a campaign to help spread the word. Many states have groups that help women candidates fundraise, seek endorsements and learn to run a campaign. Most importantly, women need to harness the incredible advantage they have in terms of overall women voting, and support qualified women that are running for office.
We can learn a lot from the Obama campaign about how a candidate can emerge victorious based on an incremental ground swell of grassroots support among communities across the country. The apparatus and model is in place. Now we women have to mobilize it.
This article discusses the significant impact female voters made to the 2008 election.
This video is an animation put together to teach school children about women's sufferage.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Finally women have been given the right to vote!
Women and the 2008 Election. A New Majority
CNN.com
Much was made before the 2008 Presidential election of the potential impact of the African American or youth vote on the election. Pundits claimed that both voting blocks would "carry" the election for Barack Obama. But what about women voters? The truth is that they came out in full force for Obama.
Women strongly preferred Obama to McCain 56-43% whereas men split their vote 49% for Obama and 48% for McCain. Women have voted in larger numbers than men since 1980. In the 2004 Presidential race, nine million more women than men voted and when final results are tallied it is expected that we will see even more women voting in this past election. In addition, a study by the Women's Campaign Forum showed that women tripled the amount of their donations compared to the 2000 Presidential election.
Still, with all the impact that women clearly had on the Presidential election, why is it that the United States still ranks 70th in terms of women in elected office? Even with the hard fought campaigns of Hillary Clinton in the primary and Sarah Palin, women have achieved a relatively dismal amount of seats. Women comprise 52% of the population in the United States yet women only hold a quarter of elected offices. While some celebrated the fact that New Hampshire just became the first state to have a majority of women legislators in one of their chambers (the state Senate), the question to really ask is why are they the only ones? Congress is comprised of just 17% women (many cheered that this number went up in this election cycle from 16%) but that meager rise is disconcerting at best.
Women gained suffrage in 1920 through the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Today, women's representation in state legislatures ranges from the low end of 10% (South Carolina) to a high of 37% (New Hampshire and Vermont.)
Some might say, well, why is this important? The answer is twofold. First, research on state legislatures nationwide by C.S. Rosenthal has shown that women legislators are 50% more likely than male legislators to "build issue coalitions," "pull people together" and "get people involved." The study notes that 59% of women legislative committee chairs earn above average ratings for inclusivity and power-sharing. Second, women tend to have unique perspectives on issues such as child care, elder care and health care as frequently these issues, in many families, are falling still disproportionately to women.
So what is holding women back? Part of the problem is we need to encourage more women to run. Studies have shown that some women do not run due to the time commitments of both a campaign and seemingly endless fundraising once in office. These demands can often be difficult to juggle for women with young children. When I first ran for a local position in Lower Manhattan, I heard a few comments from women that shouldn't I really be staying at home as I had just given birth to my twins. Sadly these comments are all too common. In addition, negative campaigning has acted as a deterrent for many women who fear the onslaught of personal attacks that seem to go hand in hand with campaigns. Lastly, many of the elected positions mean lengthy travel with months away from home to either the state capitol or Washington, something that can be anathema to mothers with children or elderly parents at home.
How do we combat this? The best way to fight these obstacles is to fight them head on by organizing women to band together to encourage and support other women to run for office. We saw to great effect Obama's use of grassroots organizing, the internet and micro targeting of voters. Women in communities that want to increase the number of women representing them need to form grassroots level groups to help support qualified women candidates through fundraising and get out the vote networks. By helping women fundraise, we can minimize some of the time constraints that can unduly burden a candidate or elected official. PTA's, mother's groups, soccer and baseball leagues can be powerful tools in a campaign to help spread the word. Many states have groups that help women candidates fundraise, seek endorsements and learn to run a campaign. Most importantly, women need to harness the incredible advantage they have in terms of overall women voting, and support qualified women that are running for office.
We can learn a lot from the Obama campaign about how a candidate can emerge victorious based on an incremental ground swell of grassroots support among communities across the country. The apparatus and model is in place. Now we women have to mobilize it.
This article discusses the significant impact female voters made to the 2008 election.
This video is an animation put together to teach school children about women's sufferage.
Amendment 18
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Alcohol was now illegal in the United States. Prohibition was the start of organized crime.
‘Four Loko’ to ban or not to ban?
UMKC E-NEWS
By Mark Linville (mlinville@unews.com), on November 29th, 2010
An FDA warning has put alcoholic beverage Four Loko in the spotlight of controversy. Pictured left is a can of Four Loko. On the right, for comparison purpose, is a 12 fl oz can of Coca-Cola.
In recent months, an energy drink containing 12 percent alcohol, began selling in the Kansas City Metro.
The drink, called Four Loko, has become very popular for young party goers nationwide.
Four Loko debuted in 2008 and is distributed by Phusion Projects, LLC.
The drink is a malt beverage that contains four active ingredients: Caffeine, alcohol, guanine, and taurine.
Each can of Four Loko contains 23.5 ounces of liquid, double the amount of a regular can of beer.
Regardless of how popular it is, Four Loko became the subject of controversy as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began reviewing the drink, along with several others.
On Nov. 17, the FDA released warning letters to four U.S. brewing companies whose drinks they found harmful.
The FDA warned Charge Beverage Corp, which makes Core High Gravity HG, New Century Brewing Company, LLC, makers of Moonshot, United Brands Company, which brews Joose and Max energy drinks and of course Phusion Projects.
The reason for the warning comes from scientific studies and observations conducted by toxicology, neuropharmacology, emergency medicine and epidemiology experts.
“There is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public health concern,” said Principal Deputy Commissioner Joshua M. Sharfstein in an official FDA news release.
The combination of alcohol, which acts as a depressant to the body, and caffeine, a body stimulate, creates an imbalance of body functions and can impair one’s judgment and sensory functions.
“The FDA said peer-reviewed studies suggest that the consumption of beverages containing added caffeine and alcohol is associated with risky behaviors that may lead to hazardous and life-threatening situations,” an FDA news release said.
The FDA also found the four brewing companies to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which restricts what companies can include in brewing recipes.
The warning letters were issued to the companies, who were given 15 days to reformulate their product or take measures to comply with of the FFDCA.
“If the FDA believes that the violation continues to exist, the agency may persue an enforcement action that could include seizure of the products or an injunction to prevent the firm from continuing to produce the product until the violation has be corrected,” an FDA news release said.
On Nov. 16, the FDA received an unofficial announcement that Phusion Products plans to reformulate their product by removing the caffeine content from Four Loko.
“The FDA views this announcement as a positive step,” FDA news release stated. “[The] FDA plans to work that Phusion Projects and other manufacturers to assure their products meet safe standards.”
An additional news release states since the FDA issued the warning letters, to the four companies including Phusion Projects, the agency confirmed all four companies have ceased production of the drinks in question.
The release said “Phusion Projects has advised the FDA that it has ceased producing caffeinated alcoholic beverages, is no longer shipping such products, and expects to have all of its caffeinated alcoholic beverages off retail store shelves by December 13. Phusion Projects is the maker of Four Loko.”
In wake of the FDA warnings, many state governments across the country began to ban Four Loko and other drinks believed to be harmful.
In the state of Kansas, officials have decided to remove the drink from store shelves and prevent any distribution in the state.
According to an article published by The Kansan, the Kansas Department of Revenue has deemed all flavors of Four Loko, Four Maxed, Joose, and Max energy drinks illegal for sale or distribution.
According to the article, Spokeswomen Freda Warfield of the Kansas Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) stated that once Phusion Projects reformulates their product, then the banning of Four Loko will be reviewed by the ABC.
Although there were no official reports of banning or actions found regarding Missouri; there have been mixed views of the drink’s future.
Spokesman for the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Mike O’Donnell said “Banning Four Loko would be difficult to do because it is not a controlled substance.” In an interview with “KOMU-TV8” in Columbia, Mo.
“We’re in a different situation than various other states in that they have a particular commission that can ban these substances,” O’Donnell said. “However, we could have to wait until there is action taken by the legislature.”
Several, stores in Kansas City sell Four Loko. It is unknown if they have been notified by Phusion Projects to stop selling the drink.
At UMKC, the drink has become popular among students.
Junior Danielle Young said she likes Four Loko.
“I thought it was tasty and fun,” Young said. “But I can tell it could probably get out of hand quickly if not handled responsibly.”
Senior Charlie Tidwell said he has never tried Four Loko
“I’ve had vodka red bull though, and those don’t do anything for me. I get no effect from the combination of alcohol and caffeine,” Tidwell said.
A UMKC fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), banned the drink. SAE decided to ban Four Loko due the reported effects of consuming the beverage.
“Our executive council saw this as an opportunity to be a leader on campus and within our community,” Chapter President Andrew Daniels said.
Twenty dollars per can is the penalty for possesion for those who violate the fraternal ban. “Personally, I am proud of the chapter for making this decision,” Daniels said.
Since this article was writted Four Loko has officially been banned in Missouri. Many question whether or not this action crosses the line into Prohibition.
This video is an excert from the movie Some Like It Hot. This film is about two gentlemen on the run after winessing a murder covering up prohibition crimes.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Alcohol was now illegal in the United States. Prohibition was the start of organized crime.
‘Four Loko’ to ban or not to ban?
UMKC E-NEWS
By Mark Linville (mlinville@unews.com), on November 29th, 2010
An FDA warning has put alcoholic beverage Four Loko in the spotlight of controversy. Pictured left is a can of Four Loko. On the right, for comparison purpose, is a 12 fl oz can of Coca-Cola.
In recent months, an energy drink containing 12 percent alcohol, began selling in the Kansas City Metro.
The drink, called Four Loko, has become very popular for young party goers nationwide.
Four Loko debuted in 2008 and is distributed by Phusion Projects, LLC.
The drink is a malt beverage that contains four active ingredients: Caffeine, alcohol, guanine, and taurine.
Each can of Four Loko contains 23.5 ounces of liquid, double the amount of a regular can of beer.
Regardless of how popular it is, Four Loko became the subject of controversy as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began reviewing the drink, along with several others.
On Nov. 17, the FDA released warning letters to four U.S. brewing companies whose drinks they found harmful.
The FDA warned Charge Beverage Corp, which makes Core High Gravity HG, New Century Brewing Company, LLC, makers of Moonshot, United Brands Company, which brews Joose and Max energy drinks and of course Phusion Projects.
The reason for the warning comes from scientific studies and observations conducted by toxicology, neuropharmacology, emergency medicine and epidemiology experts.
“There is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public health concern,” said Principal Deputy Commissioner Joshua M. Sharfstein in an official FDA news release.
The combination of alcohol, which acts as a depressant to the body, and caffeine, a body stimulate, creates an imbalance of body functions and can impair one’s judgment and sensory functions.
“The FDA said peer-reviewed studies suggest that the consumption of beverages containing added caffeine and alcohol is associated with risky behaviors that may lead to hazardous and life-threatening situations,” an FDA news release said.
The FDA also found the four brewing companies to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which restricts what companies can include in brewing recipes.
The warning letters were issued to the companies, who were given 15 days to reformulate their product or take measures to comply with of the FFDCA.
“If the FDA believes that the violation continues to exist, the agency may persue an enforcement action that could include seizure of the products or an injunction to prevent the firm from continuing to produce the product until the violation has be corrected,” an FDA news release said.
On Nov. 16, the FDA received an unofficial announcement that Phusion Products plans to reformulate their product by removing the caffeine content from Four Loko.
“The FDA views this announcement as a positive step,” FDA news release stated. “[The] FDA plans to work that Phusion Projects and other manufacturers to assure their products meet safe standards.”
An additional news release states since the FDA issued the warning letters, to the four companies including Phusion Projects, the agency confirmed all four companies have ceased production of the drinks in question.
The release said “Phusion Projects has advised the FDA that it has ceased producing caffeinated alcoholic beverages, is no longer shipping such products, and expects to have all of its caffeinated alcoholic beverages off retail store shelves by December 13. Phusion Projects is the maker of Four Loko.”
In wake of the FDA warnings, many state governments across the country began to ban Four Loko and other drinks believed to be harmful.
In the state of Kansas, officials have decided to remove the drink from store shelves and prevent any distribution in the state.
According to an article published by The Kansan, the Kansas Department of Revenue has deemed all flavors of Four Loko, Four Maxed, Joose, and Max energy drinks illegal for sale or distribution.
According to the article, Spokeswomen Freda Warfield of the Kansas Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) stated that once Phusion Projects reformulates their product, then the banning of Four Loko will be reviewed by the ABC.
Although there were no official reports of banning or actions found regarding Missouri; there have been mixed views of the drink’s future.
Spokesman for the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Mike O’Donnell said “Banning Four Loko would be difficult to do because it is not a controlled substance.” In an interview with “KOMU-TV8” in Columbia, Mo.
“We’re in a different situation than various other states in that they have a particular commission that can ban these substances,” O’Donnell said. “However, we could have to wait until there is action taken by the legislature.”
Several, stores in Kansas City sell Four Loko. It is unknown if they have been notified by Phusion Projects to stop selling the drink.
At UMKC, the drink has become popular among students.
Junior Danielle Young said she likes Four Loko.
“I thought it was tasty and fun,” Young said. “But I can tell it could probably get out of hand quickly if not handled responsibly.”
Senior Charlie Tidwell said he has never tried Four Loko
“I’ve had vodka red bull though, and those don’t do anything for me. I get no effect from the combination of alcohol and caffeine,” Tidwell said.
A UMKC fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), banned the drink. SAE decided to ban Four Loko due the reported effects of consuming the beverage.
“Our executive council saw this as an opportunity to be a leader on campus and within our community,” Chapter President Andrew Daniels said.
Twenty dollars per can is the penalty for possesion for those who violate the fraternal ban. “Personally, I am proud of the chapter for making this decision,” Daniels said.
Since this article was writted Four Loko has officially been banned in Missouri. Many question whether or not this action crosses the line into Prohibition.
This video is an excert from the movie Some Like It Hot. This film is about two gentlemen on the run after winessing a murder covering up prohibition crimes.
Amendment 17
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
This amendment discusses Senate election. Two Senators are elected in each state every six. If a vacancy shall occur the state shall deal with re-election procedure.
Possible primary battle in bid to take on McCaskill in '12
By: CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser
Washington (CNN) - The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it isn't taking sides in any battle down the road for the party's Senate nomination in Missouri.
The primary winner there will take on freshman Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who's up for reelection 2012.
A Republican party source confirms to CNN reports that Sen. John Cornyn, the NRSC chairman, spoke before Thanksgiving with former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman about a possible bid for the Senate nomination. The source tells CNN that Steelman called Cornyn, rather than the other way around, and that Cornyn suggested to Steelman that if she thought she could mount a good campaign, then she should run.
Also considering a run for the GOP nomination is former Sen. Jim Talent, who lost to McCaskill by three percentage points in 2006.
"From the NRSC's perspective there are several potential candidates, including Jim Talent and Sarah Steelman, who could mount a winning campaign against Claire McCaskill," says NRSC Communications Director Brian Walsh, who adds that McCaskill's "support for the Obama agenda, including the health care bill and stimulus, has left her vulnerable heading into 2012 and we wouldn't be surprised if several well-qualified candidates ultimately step forward to challenge her. But our nominee will be chosen by Republican voters in Missouri."
President Barack Obama narrowly lost the state to Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, but Republican Rep. Roy Blunt defeated Democratic nominee Robin Carnahan, Missouri's secretary of state, by 13 points earlier this month in the battle for the state's open Senate seat.
Steelman, a favorite with many Tea Party activists, considered a run against Blunt for this year's Senate nomination, but dropped out of the hunt early in this past cycle.
This article discusses the Senate primary election in Missouri.
This video is about a senator who was forced to concede in his senate race do to scandal.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
This amendment discusses Senate election. Two Senators are elected in each state every six. If a vacancy shall occur the state shall deal with re-election procedure.
Possible primary battle in bid to take on McCaskill in '12
By: CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser
Washington (CNN) - The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it isn't taking sides in any battle down the road for the party's Senate nomination in Missouri.
The primary winner there will take on freshman Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who's up for reelection 2012.
A Republican party source confirms to CNN reports that Sen. John Cornyn, the NRSC chairman, spoke before Thanksgiving with former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman about a possible bid for the Senate nomination. The source tells CNN that Steelman called Cornyn, rather than the other way around, and that Cornyn suggested to Steelman that if she thought she could mount a good campaign, then she should run.
Also considering a run for the GOP nomination is former Sen. Jim Talent, who lost to McCaskill by three percentage points in 2006.
"From the NRSC's perspective there are several potential candidates, including Jim Talent and Sarah Steelman, who could mount a winning campaign against Claire McCaskill," says NRSC Communications Director Brian Walsh, who adds that McCaskill's "support for the Obama agenda, including the health care bill and stimulus, has left her vulnerable heading into 2012 and we wouldn't be surprised if several well-qualified candidates ultimately step forward to challenge her. But our nominee will be chosen by Republican voters in Missouri."
President Barack Obama narrowly lost the state to Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, but Republican Rep. Roy Blunt defeated Democratic nominee Robin Carnahan, Missouri's secretary of state, by 13 points earlier this month in the battle for the state's open Senate seat.
Steelman, a favorite with many Tea Party activists, considered a run against Blunt for this year's Senate nomination, but dropped out of the hunt early in this past cycle.
This article discusses the Senate primary election in Missouri.
This video is about a senator who was forced to concede in his senate race do to scandal.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Amendment 16
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
This amendment states that the United States government has the power to collect income tax, no matter how an individual recieves their income.
CNN Poll: Only one-third favor tax cut extension for wealthy
By: CNN Political Unit
Washington (CNN) - Only a third of all Americans think Bush-era tax cuts should be extended for families regardless of how much money they make, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday also indicates a vast majority of the public is in favor of allowing openly gay people to serve in the U.S. military. Both issues are high on the agenda for federal lawmakers who have returned to the nation's capitol this week for the lame duck session of Congress.
Forty-nine percent of people questioned in the poll say the tax cuts should be extended for families making less than $250,000 a year, with another 15 percent saying the cuts should not be extended for anyone. That leaves 35 percent who favor an extension of the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of how much money they make.
The tax cuts were passed into law in first years of the presidency of George W. Bush. They are set to expire at the end of this year, unless a new bill is passed by Congress. The issue became a raging battle between Democrats and Republicans in the nation's capitol and on the campaign trail across the country the past three months. The White House and many, but not all, congressional Democrats want to keep such tax cuts in place for those in the middle class but roll them back for the wealthiest Americans. Republicans say the tax cuts should be kept in place for everyone.
"Among the general public, Republicans and Democrats agree that the tax cuts should be extended, but they differ on who should benefit," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Two-thirds of Democrats think that the tax cuts should be limited to families making less than $250,000. Fifty percent of Republicans think the tax cuts should be extended regardless of income."
The survey also indicates that 56 percent say that tax cuts and deficit reduction can be accomplished at the same time, with just over four in ten saying they disagree.
"Deficit reduction is important to many legislators, but most Americans probably think it should not stand in the way of lower taxes," adds Holland.
Another battle on Capitol Hill concerns the "don't ask, don't tell" law, which bans openly gay troops for serving in the military. A possible vote on repealing the measure is being debated by lawmakers.
According to the poll, more than seven in ten Americans think that people who are openly gay or lesbian should be allowed to serve in the military, with 23 percent opposed.
"On issues like this, there is usually a generation gap, with younger Americans much more supportive of gays and lesbians than older Americans," Holland said. "But on this question, roughly seven in ten in every age bracket favors openly gay and lesbian people being allowed to serve in the military."
Health care is unlikely to re-emerge while the Democrats control both sides of Capitol Hill, but it will probably do so next year, when the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and reduce the Democrats' majority in the Senate.
The poll indicates the public continues to be split right down the middle on whether the health care bill passed into law earlier this year should be repealed: Forty-nine percent say it should; 48 percent say no. Of that 48 percent, 24 percent think that Congress should make additional changes to increase the government's involvement in the nation's health care system; 24 percent just want to leave well enough alone.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted November 11-14, with 1,014 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
– CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report
This article discusses the income tax cuts granted for the wealthy by President Bush. Income tax takes a large portion of incomes, promised to reduce income tax can be smart politics.
This cartoon is propoganda about income tax formed during WWII.
This amendment states that the United States government has the power to collect income tax, no matter how an individual recieves their income.
CNN Poll: Only one-third favor tax cut extension for wealthy
By: CNN Political Unit
Washington (CNN) - Only a third of all Americans think Bush-era tax cuts should be extended for families regardless of how much money they make, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday also indicates a vast majority of the public is in favor of allowing openly gay people to serve in the U.S. military. Both issues are high on the agenda for federal lawmakers who have returned to the nation's capitol this week for the lame duck session of Congress.
Forty-nine percent of people questioned in the poll say the tax cuts should be extended for families making less than $250,000 a year, with another 15 percent saying the cuts should not be extended for anyone. That leaves 35 percent who favor an extension of the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of how much money they make.
The tax cuts were passed into law in first years of the presidency of George W. Bush. They are set to expire at the end of this year, unless a new bill is passed by Congress. The issue became a raging battle between Democrats and Republicans in the nation's capitol and on the campaign trail across the country the past three months. The White House and many, but not all, congressional Democrats want to keep such tax cuts in place for those in the middle class but roll them back for the wealthiest Americans. Republicans say the tax cuts should be kept in place for everyone.
"Among the general public, Republicans and Democrats agree that the tax cuts should be extended, but they differ on who should benefit," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Two-thirds of Democrats think that the tax cuts should be limited to families making less than $250,000. Fifty percent of Republicans think the tax cuts should be extended regardless of income."
The survey also indicates that 56 percent say that tax cuts and deficit reduction can be accomplished at the same time, with just over four in ten saying they disagree.
"Deficit reduction is important to many legislators, but most Americans probably think it should not stand in the way of lower taxes," adds Holland.
Another battle on Capitol Hill concerns the "don't ask, don't tell" law, which bans openly gay troops for serving in the military. A possible vote on repealing the measure is being debated by lawmakers.
According to the poll, more than seven in ten Americans think that people who are openly gay or lesbian should be allowed to serve in the military, with 23 percent opposed.
"On issues like this, there is usually a generation gap, with younger Americans much more supportive of gays and lesbians than older Americans," Holland said. "But on this question, roughly seven in ten in every age bracket favors openly gay and lesbian people being allowed to serve in the military."
Health care is unlikely to re-emerge while the Democrats control both sides of Capitol Hill, but it will probably do so next year, when the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and reduce the Democrats' majority in the Senate.
The poll indicates the public continues to be split right down the middle on whether the health care bill passed into law earlier this year should be repealed: Forty-nine percent say it should; 48 percent say no. Of that 48 percent, 24 percent think that Congress should make additional changes to increase the government's involvement in the nation's health care system; 24 percent just want to leave well enough alone.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted November 11-14, with 1,014 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
– CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report
This article discusses the income tax cuts granted for the wealthy by President Bush. Income tax takes a large portion of incomes, promised to reduce income tax can be smart politics.
This cartoon is propoganda about income tax formed during WWII.
Amendment 15
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
While this amendment made great strides in the progression of American history by allowing African Americans to vote to me it is most astounding because it does not give women the right to vote.
One Million Black Votes Didn't Count in the 2000 Presidential Election
CNN.com
It's not too hard to get your vote lost -- if some politicians want it to be lost
by Greg Palast
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.
This year, it could get worse.
These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.
How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.
While investigating the 2000 ballot count in Florida for BBC Television, I saw firsthand how the spoilage game was played -- with black voters the predetermined losers.
Florida's Gadsden County has the highest percentage of black voters in the state -- and the highest spoilage rate. One in 8 votes cast there in 2000 was never counted. Many voters wrote in "Al Gore." Optical reading machines rejected these because "Al" is a "stray mark."
By contrast, in neighboring Tallahassee, the capital, vote spoilage was nearly zip; every vote counted. The difference? In Tallahassee's white-majority county, voters placed their ballots directly into optical scanners. If they added a stray mark, they received another ballot with instructions to correct it.
In other words, in the white county, make a mistake and get another ballot; in the black county, make a mistake, your ballot is tossed.
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission looked into the smelly pile of spoiled ballots and concluded that, of the 179,855 ballots invalidated by Florida officials, 53 percent were cast by black voters. In Florida, a black citizen was 10 times as likely to have a vote rejected as a white voter.
But let's not get smug about Florida's Jim Crow spoilage rate. Civil Rights Commissioner Christopher Edley, recently appointed dean of Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, took the Florida study nationwide. His team discovered the uncomfortable fact that Florida is typical of the nation.
Philip Klinkner, the statistician working on the Edley investigations, concluded, "It appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the U.S.A. -- about 1 million votes -- were cast by nonwhite voters."
This "no count," as the Civil Rights Commission calls it, is no accident. In Florida, for example, I discovered that technicians had warned Gov. Jeb Bush's office well in advance of November 2000 of the racial bend in the vote- count procedures.
Herein lies the problem. An apartheid vote-counting system is far from politically neutral. Given that more than 90 percent of the black electorate votes Democratic, had all the "spoiled" votes been tallied, Gore would have taken Florida in a walk, not to mention fattening his popular vote total nationwide. It's not surprising that the First Brother's team, informed of impending rejection of black ballots, looked away and whistled.
The ballot-box blackout is not the monopoly of one party. Cook County, Ill., has one of the nation's worst spoilage rates. That's not surprising. Boss Daley's Democratic machine, now his son's, survives by systematic disenfranchisement of Chicago's black vote.
How can we fix it? First, let's shed the convenient excuses for vote spoilage, such as a lack of voter education. One television network stated as fact that Florida's black voters, newly registered and lacking education, had difficulty with their ballots. In other words, blacks are too dumb to vote.
This convenient racist excuse is dead wrong. After that disaster in Gadsden, Fla., public outcry forced the government to change that black county's procedures to match that of white counties. The result: near zero spoilage in the 2002 election. Ballot design, machines and procedure, says statistician Klinkner, control spoilage.
In other words, the vote counters, not the voters, are to blame. Politicians who choose the type of ballot and the method of counting have long fine-tuned the spoilage rate to their liking.
It is about to get worse. The ill-named "Help America Vote Act," signed by President Bush in 2002, is pushing computerization of the ballot box.
California decertified some of Diebold Corp.'s digital ballot boxes in response to fears that hackers could pick our next president. But the known danger of black-box voting is that computers, even with their software secure, are vulnerable to low-tech spoilage games: polls opening late, locked-in votes, votes lost in the ether.
And once again, the history of computer-voting glitches has a decidedly racial bias. Florida's Broward Couty grandly shifted to touch-screen voting in 2002. In white precincts, all seemed to go well. In black precincts, hundreds of African Americans showed up at polls with machines down and votes that simply disappeared. Going digital won't fix the problem. Canada and Sweden vote on paper ballots with little spoilage and without suspicious counts.
In America, a simple fix based on paper balloting is resisted because, unfortunately, too many politicians who understand the racial bias in the vote-spoilage game are its beneficiaries, with little incentive to find those missing 1 million black voters' ballots.
This article discusses how the votes of African Americans are still being neglected in modern times.
This song is about poll taxes. After the 15th amendment was passed white southerners were looking for other ways to keep African Americans from voting. One way in which they did this was by implementation of the poll tax.
While this amendment made great strides in the progression of American history by allowing African Americans to vote to me it is most astounding because it does not give women the right to vote.
One Million Black Votes Didn't Count in the 2000 Presidential Election
CNN.com
It's not too hard to get your vote lost -- if some politicians want it to be lost
by Greg Palast
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.
This year, it could get worse.
These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.
How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.
While investigating the 2000 ballot count in Florida for BBC Television, I saw firsthand how the spoilage game was played -- with black voters the predetermined losers.
Florida's Gadsden County has the highest percentage of black voters in the state -- and the highest spoilage rate. One in 8 votes cast there in 2000 was never counted. Many voters wrote in "Al Gore." Optical reading machines rejected these because "Al" is a "stray mark."
By contrast, in neighboring Tallahassee, the capital, vote spoilage was nearly zip; every vote counted. The difference? In Tallahassee's white-majority county, voters placed their ballots directly into optical scanners. If they added a stray mark, they received another ballot with instructions to correct it.
In other words, in the white county, make a mistake and get another ballot; in the black county, make a mistake, your ballot is tossed.
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission looked into the smelly pile of spoiled ballots and concluded that, of the 179,855 ballots invalidated by Florida officials, 53 percent were cast by black voters. In Florida, a black citizen was 10 times as likely to have a vote rejected as a white voter.
But let's not get smug about Florida's Jim Crow spoilage rate. Civil Rights Commissioner Christopher Edley, recently appointed dean of Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, took the Florida study nationwide. His team discovered the uncomfortable fact that Florida is typical of the nation.
Philip Klinkner, the statistician working on the Edley investigations, concluded, "It appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the U.S.A. -- about 1 million votes -- were cast by nonwhite voters."
This "no count," as the Civil Rights Commission calls it, is no accident. In Florida, for example, I discovered that technicians had warned Gov. Jeb Bush's office well in advance of November 2000 of the racial bend in the vote- count procedures.
Herein lies the problem. An apartheid vote-counting system is far from politically neutral. Given that more than 90 percent of the black electorate votes Democratic, had all the "spoiled" votes been tallied, Gore would have taken Florida in a walk, not to mention fattening his popular vote total nationwide. It's not surprising that the First Brother's team, informed of impending rejection of black ballots, looked away and whistled.
The ballot-box blackout is not the monopoly of one party. Cook County, Ill., has one of the nation's worst spoilage rates. That's not surprising. Boss Daley's Democratic machine, now his son's, survives by systematic disenfranchisement of Chicago's black vote.
How can we fix it? First, let's shed the convenient excuses for vote spoilage, such as a lack of voter education. One television network stated as fact that Florida's black voters, newly registered and lacking education, had difficulty with their ballots. In other words, blacks are too dumb to vote.
This convenient racist excuse is dead wrong. After that disaster in Gadsden, Fla., public outcry forced the government to change that black county's procedures to match that of white counties. The result: near zero spoilage in the 2002 election. Ballot design, machines and procedure, says statistician Klinkner, control spoilage.
In other words, the vote counters, not the voters, are to blame. Politicians who choose the type of ballot and the method of counting have long fine-tuned the spoilage rate to their liking.
It is about to get worse. The ill-named "Help America Vote Act," signed by President Bush in 2002, is pushing computerization of the ballot box.
California decertified some of Diebold Corp.'s digital ballot boxes in response to fears that hackers could pick our next president. But the known danger of black-box voting is that computers, even with their software secure, are vulnerable to low-tech spoilage games: polls opening late, locked-in votes, votes lost in the ether.
And once again, the history of computer-voting glitches has a decidedly racial bias. Florida's Broward Couty grandly shifted to touch-screen voting in 2002. In white precincts, all seemed to go well. In black precincts, hundreds of African Americans showed up at polls with machines down and votes that simply disappeared. Going digital won't fix the problem. Canada and Sweden vote on paper ballots with little spoilage and without suspicious counts.
In America, a simple fix based on paper balloting is resisted because, unfortunately, too many politicians who understand the racial bias in the vote-spoilage game are its beneficiaries, with little incentive to find those missing 1 million black voters' ballots.
This article discusses how the votes of African Americans are still being neglected in modern times.
This song is about poll taxes. After the 15th amendment was passed white southerners were looking for other ways to keep African Americans from voting. One way in which they did this was by implementation of the poll tax.
Amendment 14
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
The first amendment is very lengthy. The amendment gives newly freed African Americans citizenship. It also prohibits any individuals who served in the rebellion or provided aid to the rebellion from holding office in the US government or in the US military.
The Immigration Crisis: Rhetoric To Repeal Birthright Citizenship Intensifies
By Lee A. Daniels
Two prominent Senators in the last week have said they believe the Senate should consider revoking the automatic right of American citizenship granted all children born in the United States – including children of undocumented immigrants.
Senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Jon Kyl, of Arizona, both Republicans, said they support the Senate holding hearings on the matter because the right of automatic citizenship has been abused by undocumented immigrants and is a significant part of the problem of illegal immigration.
Revoking the birthright citizenship provision of the Constitution – which is lodged in the post-Civil War 14th Amendment to the Constitution – would require a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate, followed by approval of three-fourths, or 38, of the states.
If the idea ever moves beyond the talking stage in Congress, it would undoubtedly provoke debate the institution has seen since that over the enactment of the civil rights acts of the 1960s. And, if a proposed amendment passed there, it would embroil the country in controversy for years, as each state legislature considered the measure.
Few observers expect the idea to be seriously considered in either House of Congress.
But the Graham and Kyl statements are a sign the most bitter debate over illegal immigration is intensifying in the wake of a federal court ruling last Thursday [2] blocking the implementation of key provisions of controversial immigration enforcement law on the grounds that it interfered with the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement.
Arizona officials have already sought an expedited ruling on that decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals insane Francisco, and, whatever that higher court, rules, there’s no doubt the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter of the case.
Some advocates for tougher federal efforts contend that eliminating birthright citizenship is essential to curbing illegal immigration. They say that the 14th Amendment provision was actually meant to protect African Americans born into slavery in this country before the Civil War from being denied citizenship rights by the states of the Old Confederacy. They assert that now that provision motivates many undocumented immigrants to come to the U.S. to have children – because those children then automatically become U.S. citizens and, as such “anchor” their undocumented parents in the country as well.
But critics of the idea point out that the Supreme Court has continually ruled that the birthright-citizenship provision applies to all children born in the U.S.
Others, such as conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, President Bush’s former chief speechwriter, have gone further, declaring the idea a violation of American principles.
In a brief column last Friday, Gerson wrote “The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people ‘born or naturalized in the United States’ for a reason,” pointing out their intent to directly repudiate the Dred Scott decision.
Gerson continued, “They purposely chose a standard of citizenship – birth – that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don’t have to please a majority, you just have to be born here.”
This article discusses the 14th amendment and its effect on America today. Children born of illegal immigrants who are living in America are given American citizen ship. It is a sticky piece of today's immigration problems.
Queen Latifah is singing a song from the movie Hairspray. Hairspray is a story about rights being denied to African American citizens in the 1960s. It remeinds me of the 14th Amendment because even though the African Americans were given citizenship it was just the first step in a long battle.
The first amendment is very lengthy. The amendment gives newly freed African Americans citizenship. It also prohibits any individuals who served in the rebellion or provided aid to the rebellion from holding office in the US government or in the US military.
The Immigration Crisis: Rhetoric To Repeal Birthright Citizenship Intensifies
By Lee A. Daniels
Two prominent Senators in the last week have said they believe the Senate should consider revoking the automatic right of American citizenship granted all children born in the United States – including children of undocumented immigrants.
Senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Jon Kyl, of Arizona, both Republicans, said they support the Senate holding hearings on the matter because the right of automatic citizenship has been abused by undocumented immigrants and is a significant part of the problem of illegal immigration.
Revoking the birthright citizenship provision of the Constitution – which is lodged in the post-Civil War 14th Amendment to the Constitution – would require a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate, followed by approval of three-fourths, or 38, of the states.
If the idea ever moves beyond the talking stage in Congress, it would undoubtedly provoke debate the institution has seen since that over the enactment of the civil rights acts of the 1960s. And, if a proposed amendment passed there, it would embroil the country in controversy for years, as each state legislature considered the measure.
Few observers expect the idea to be seriously considered in either House of Congress.
But the Graham and Kyl statements are a sign the most bitter debate over illegal immigration is intensifying in the wake of a federal court ruling last Thursday [2] blocking the implementation of key provisions of controversial immigration enforcement law on the grounds that it interfered with the federal government’s authority over immigration enforcement.
Arizona officials have already sought an expedited ruling on that decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals insane Francisco, and, whatever that higher court, rules, there’s no doubt the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter of the case.
Some advocates for tougher federal efforts contend that eliminating birthright citizenship is essential to curbing illegal immigration. They say that the 14th Amendment provision was actually meant to protect African Americans born into slavery in this country before the Civil War from being denied citizenship rights by the states of the Old Confederacy. They assert that now that provision motivates many undocumented immigrants to come to the U.S. to have children – because those children then automatically become U.S. citizens and, as such “anchor” their undocumented parents in the country as well.
But critics of the idea point out that the Supreme Court has continually ruled that the birthright-citizenship provision applies to all children born in the U.S.
Others, such as conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, President Bush’s former chief speechwriter, have gone further, declaring the idea a violation of American principles.
In a brief column last Friday, Gerson wrote “The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people ‘born or naturalized in the United States’ for a reason,” pointing out their intent to directly repudiate the Dred Scott decision.
Gerson continued, “They purposely chose a standard of citizenship – birth – that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don’t have to please a majority, you just have to be born here.”
This article discusses the 14th amendment and its effect on America today. Children born of illegal immigrants who are living in America are given American citizen ship. It is a sticky piece of today's immigration problems.
Queen Latifah is singing a song from the movie Hairspray. Hairspray is a story about rights being denied to African American citizens in the 1960s. It remeinds me of the 14th Amendment because even though the African Americans were given citizenship it was just the first step in a long battle.
Amendment 13
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment declares the freedom of previously enslaved individuals.
Feds charge three Kansas City-area companies with labor trafficking
Kansas City Business Journal
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 1:22pm CDT - Last Modified: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 1:58pm CDT ...Three Kansas City-area companies and 12 individuals were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury for labor racketeering, forced labor trafficking, and immigration and other violations in 14 states, acting U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth said.
The indictments fall under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Whitworth, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a release.
The companies named in the indictment are Giant Labor Solutions LLC of Kansas City, Crystal Management Inc. of Mission and Five Star Cleaning LLC of Overland Park.
The 45-count indictment also names Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 30, who owns or controls the three companies, Nodir Yunusov, 22, and Rustamjon Shukurov, 21, all Uzbekistan citizens living in Mission; Ilkham Fazilov, 44, and Nodirbek Abdoollayev, 27, Uzbekistan citizens living in Kansas City; Viorel Simon, 27, and Alexandru Frumasache, 23, Moldova citizens living in Kansas City, Kan.; Kristin Dougherty, 49, of Ellisville, Mo.; Andrew Cole, 53, of St. Charles, Mo.; Abdukakhar Azizkhodjaev, 49, an Uzbekistan citizen living in Panama City, Fla.; and Sandjar Agzamov, 27, and Jakhongir Kakhkharov, 29, Uzbekistan citizens who recently left the United States and are living abroad.
“This RICO indictment alleges an extensive and profitable criminal enterprise in which hundreds of illegal aliens were employed at hotels and other businesses across the country,” Whitworth said in the release. “The defendants allegedly used false information to acquire fraudulent work visas for these foreign nationals. Many of their employees were allegedly victims of human trafficking who were coerced to work in violation of the terms of their visa without proper pay and under the threat of deportation. The defendants also required them to reside together in crowded, substandard and overpriced apartments.”
Many of the workers were employed at hotels in the Kansas City area and in Branson, Mo., Whitworth said.
The indictment alleges that since January 2001, Askarkhodjaev has been the leader of a criminal enterprise and directed the rest of the co-defendants in carrying out unlawful activities, including forced labor trafficking, identity theft, harboring illegal aliens, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, transporting illegal aliens, visa fraud, extortion, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, wire fraud and inducing the illegal entry of foreign nationals.
The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require the defendants to forfeit to the government all interest in any property involved in the alleged offenses and all property derived from the proceeds obtained from the alleged offenses, including a monetary judgment of at least $6 million, Whitworth said in the release.
Those found guilty of racketeering can be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison, fined as much as $250,000 or both. According to federal statutes, those found guilty of forced labor trafficking, mail fraud, money laundering, extortion and wire fraud also may be subject to a sentence of as much as 20 years in federal prison without parole.
This article discusses modern day slavery in Kansas City. Regardless of its ethical problems and its illegally individuals still use slavery as a source of cheap labor. Slaves are still be trafficed in from other countries just as they were trafficed in from Africa at our countries founding.
This video includes songs sung by African American slaves as a way of communication.
This amendment declares the freedom of previously enslaved individuals.
Feds charge three Kansas City-area companies with labor trafficking
Kansas City Business Journal
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 1:22pm CDT - Last Modified: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 1:58pm CDT ...Three Kansas City-area companies and 12 individuals were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury for labor racketeering, forced labor trafficking, and immigration and other violations in 14 states, acting U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth said.
The indictments fall under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Whitworth, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a release.
The companies named in the indictment are Giant Labor Solutions LLC of Kansas City, Crystal Management Inc. of Mission and Five Star Cleaning LLC of Overland Park.
The 45-count indictment also names Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 30, who owns or controls the three companies, Nodir Yunusov, 22, and Rustamjon Shukurov, 21, all Uzbekistan citizens living in Mission; Ilkham Fazilov, 44, and Nodirbek Abdoollayev, 27, Uzbekistan citizens living in Kansas City; Viorel Simon, 27, and Alexandru Frumasache, 23, Moldova citizens living in Kansas City, Kan.; Kristin Dougherty, 49, of Ellisville, Mo.; Andrew Cole, 53, of St. Charles, Mo.; Abdukakhar Azizkhodjaev, 49, an Uzbekistan citizen living in Panama City, Fla.; and Sandjar Agzamov, 27, and Jakhongir Kakhkharov, 29, Uzbekistan citizens who recently left the United States and are living abroad.
“This RICO indictment alleges an extensive and profitable criminal enterprise in which hundreds of illegal aliens were employed at hotels and other businesses across the country,” Whitworth said in the release. “The defendants allegedly used false information to acquire fraudulent work visas for these foreign nationals. Many of their employees were allegedly victims of human trafficking who were coerced to work in violation of the terms of their visa without proper pay and under the threat of deportation. The defendants also required them to reside together in crowded, substandard and overpriced apartments.”
Many of the workers were employed at hotels in the Kansas City area and in Branson, Mo., Whitworth said.
The indictment alleges that since January 2001, Askarkhodjaev has been the leader of a criminal enterprise and directed the rest of the co-defendants in carrying out unlawful activities, including forced labor trafficking, identity theft, harboring illegal aliens, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, transporting illegal aliens, visa fraud, extortion, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, wire fraud and inducing the illegal entry of foreign nationals.
The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require the defendants to forfeit to the government all interest in any property involved in the alleged offenses and all property derived from the proceeds obtained from the alleged offenses, including a monetary judgment of at least $6 million, Whitworth said in the release.
Those found guilty of racketeering can be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison, fined as much as $250,000 or both. According to federal statutes, those found guilty of forced labor trafficking, mail fraud, money laundering, extortion and wire fraud also may be subject to a sentence of as much as 20 years in federal prison without parole.
This article discusses modern day slavery in Kansas City. Regardless of its ethical problems and its illegally individuals still use slavery as a source of cheap labor. Slaves are still be trafficed in from other countries just as they were trafficed in from Africa at our countries founding.
This video includes songs sung by African American slaves as a way of communication.
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