Showing posts with label U.S. Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Constitution. Show all posts

Sunday, November 23, 2014

ES Twitter Flash

November 23, 2014 ES Twitter Flash , GOP 0 Comments


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Thursday, September 4, 2014

Yes on balanced budget, spending limits

September 04, 2014 Sen. Tom Coburn , Thehill.com 0 Comments
Coburn: Let’s Change The Constitution!

Sen. Tom Coburn
Credit:  Susan Walsh / AP
By Alexander Bolton, Sept. 3, 2014, Thehill.com

Sen. Tom Coburn is pushing for a national convention to amend the Constitution.

The Oklahoma Republican, who has grown disenchanted with gridlock in Washington, will officially launch his effort after he retires from the Senate in a few months.

Support for a convention of the states to overhaul the nation’s charter document has increased among conservatives, who are frustrated by Congress’s failure to reform entitlement programs.

“I think [George] Mason was prophetic that we would devolve to where the federal government became too powerful, too big and too unwieldy. That’s why he put Article V in,” Coburn told The Hill in an interview.

Article V of the Constitution stipulates that two-thirds of the states may call a convention to propose amendments to the nation’s founding document. It has never been successfully invoked.

All 17 times the nation has amended the Constitution since the adopting of the Bill of Rights in 1791, it has done so by proposing changes that won two-thirds support in the Senate and House and were then ratified by three-fourths of the states.

But with Congress these days hard-pressed to cobble together the consensus necessary to perform even the most basic functions of government — such as keeping it funded — a convention of the states is looking more attractive to Coburn.

“That’s one of the things I’m going to be working on,” Coburn said of his post-congressional plans.

“I think we ought to have a balanced budget amendment, I think we ought to have term limits. I think we ought to put a chokehold on regulation and re-establish the powers of the Congress,” he said.

Coburn, a physician who is battling cancer, believes a constitutional convention would allow the legislative branch to seize back powers that have drifted to the presidency over the years.

Read the full story:  www.thehill.com

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Thursday, June 5, 2014

Sen. Schumer Doesn’t Know Who Wrote Bill Of Rights, Falsely Credits Jefferson… --Quayle, W. unavailable for comment

June 05, 2014 Bill of Rights , Sen. Charles E. Schumer 0 Comments
Sen. Charles E. Schumer
By Stephen Dinan, Jun. 4, 2014, Washingtontimes.com

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, stumbled Tuesday over basic American history, crediting Thomas Jefferson for authorship of the Bill of Rights during a debate over the First Amendment and campaign finance.

“I think if Thomas Jefferson were looking down, the author of the Bill of Rights, on what’s being proposed here, he’d agree with it. He would agree that the First Amendment cannot be absolute,” Mr. Schumer said.

While Jefferson is deemed the principle author of the Declaration of Independence, he was not intimately involved in the writing of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is the first 10 amendments to that founding document.

Indeed, Jefferson was out of the country, serving as minister to France at the time of both the Constitution convention and the congressional debate over the Bill of Rights. His fellow
Virginians, James Madison and George Mason, are usually credited with being more influential in the process — Mason for being among the most forceful in demanding the protections of such a Bill of Rights, and Madison for being the political muscle that got them approved.

“Madison’s support of the bill of rights was of critical significance,” the National Archives writes on its web page. “One of the new representatives from Virginia to the First Federal Congress, as established by the new Constitution, he worked tirelessly to persuade the House to enact amendments.”

Read the full story:  www.washingtontimes.com

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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Muslims: Easter Egg Hunt Violates Constitution --Good, Lord! (That still ok?) Could win. Time to get gov't OUT of ed!

April 06, 2014 Academia , Easter 0 Comments


By Top Right News Staff, Apr. 5, 2014

Muslim moms and dads in Dearborn, Mich. are upset after students received flyers promoting an Easter Egg hunt at a local Presbyterian church.

The parents say the egg hunt “violates the U.S. Constitution”.

The Muslims told the Detroit Free-Press that they were concerned about the religious implications of Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church’s “Eggstravaganza!”

They were also “troubled” by images of a bunny rabbit.

“It really bothered my two kids,” parent Majed Moughni, told the newspaper. “My son was like, ‘Dad, I really don’t feel comfortable getting these flyers, telling me to go to church. I thought churches are not supposed to mix with schools.’ ”

The school district did not comment and the pastor of the church said there’s nothing remotely religious about the event.

“Part of our ministry in Dearborn is to invite the community to let them know we’re here,” Pastor Neeta Nichols told the newspaper. “We’re offering various kinds of programming, fun opportunities, so what we can be engaged with the community.”


Fear not, peeps. I not a theologian, but I’m fairly certain Peter Cottontail was not at The Last Supper.

 Read the full story:  www.toprightnews.com
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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Academia: "Minting Democrats: Leftist Professors Corrupt Higher Education"

March 16, 2014 Academia , Articles by Larry Elder 0 Comments
By Larry Elder, Apr. 12, 2013

"I don't know any polite way of putting this -- but he's lying," said professor John Ellis, president of the National Association of Scholars' California division. Ellis was reacting to a critic's characterization of the NAS's damning report, "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California."

California taxpayers spend $2.8 billion to educate the more than 230,000 students at the 10 campuses that comprise the UC system. But the report says the UC system does not help students learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think. And what they "learn" is that they are victims -- whether of racism, sexism, classism or discrimination because of sexual orientation. Liberal profs, says the report, turn the UC campuses into "a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas."

Nationwide, left-wing professors vastly outnumber conservative professors in the humanities. It isn't even close.

The report cites several studies, including political scientist Stanley Rothman's 1999 study: "Whether the question was posed in terms of liberals versus conservatives or Democrats versus Republicans, the margins favored the former by nearly 5-to-1 in each case, and in some departments the results were overwhelming. For example, in English departments the margin was 88-to-3, and in politics 81-to-2."

A different 2007 study, says the report, found the 5-to-1 margin between liberal versus conservative professors had become 8-to-1. Almost 20 percent of professors in social sciences and 25 percent of sociology professors self-identifies as "Marxist."

And things are getting worse. Younger professors tend to be even more liberal than older ones. Among UC Berkeley's associate and assistant professors, according to one study, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 49-to-1 inall departments -- including sciences. When Berkeley associates and assistants replace the older professors as they retire, the extreme 8-to-1 tilt in favor of liberal profession could reach 50-to-1.

UC Berkeley professor Robert Anderson, the critic whom Ellis accuses of "lying," called the report "short on facts, but long on innuendo and anecdotes." Is it? The 87-page report looked at course descriptions, books assigned, faculty's political party registration and self-identification of ideology, and student feedback.

Students are immersed in an education that emphasizes the wrongs done to minorities, women, gays and other groups. Gender, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation grievances are highlighted as representative of an imperial, racist, exploitative capitalist superpower that continues to engage in widespread racism, sexism, homophobia and worldwide domination.
"We wuz wronged" takes center stage over a basic understanding of economics, of the concept of federalism, and of the values that turned a struggling bunch of colonies into a political and economic superpower. Indeed, the very mission statements of many departments on UC campuses stress their commitment to activism for enacting social change, or to bring about social or racial or fill-in-the-blank justice.

Take the UC Berkeley history course that majors in that field must take, "The United States from Settlement to the Civil War." Its course description states its goals: "to understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition."

A conservative professor -- if there were any -- might offer an alternative version of American history: The British colonies defied the mightiest world power by demanding and then fighting for political and religious freedom. They conceived a radical document, the United States Constitution, born out of armed revolution, where for the first time in human history, the new, imperfect country said: "The people rule. Through our Constitution, which we have amended to ensure equal rights of blacks and women, we grant our government limited, non-intrusive powers. The rest is left to the people and to the states."

Why does this matter?

After all, students expect professors to give opinions. Surely students aren't potted plants, and can a) read about other points of view and b) freely disagree with professors without fear of classroom ridicule or lower exam grades.

But the report says many students complain that alternative viewpoints are discouraged, scorned or dismissed, sometimes derisively. Students' complaints to administrators are ignored.

What is the practical effect of this "corrupted" education?

Take today's debate over whom to "blame" for high gas prices. Without some understanding of supply and demand, voters buy into the patently ridiculous argument that the price of oil results from "manipulation" by oil executives or evil "oil speculators." Voters ignorant of Econ 101 support populist policies like the minimum wage, which actually hurts the job prospects of the poor -- the people minimum wage proponents purport to help.

NAS's Ellis says the answer is for the UC system to first acknowledge the problem. Then the UC system should stop ignoring its own regents' "Policy on Course Content." It states: "(Regents) are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination ... constitutes misuse of the University as an institution."

Class is now in session.

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