Piercing The Veil Of The Second Amendment

I’ve long struggled with the Second Amendment as my last two articles from 15 years ago proves. My new rule was any honest interpretation of the Second had to explain everything and be contradicted by nothing. So this is my latest attempt...

First an explanation on the difference between natural right and positive rights. A natural right is one that exists in a state of nature... no social structure, no government. The right to defend oneself and the right to own property would be considered natural rights. In his introduction to his draft Bill Of Rights Madison goes through the type of rights he seeks protection for. He describes a positive right here:

In some instances they assert those rights which are exercised by the people in forming and establishing a plan of Government. In other instances, they specify those rights which are retained when particular powers are given up to be exercised by the Legislature. In other instances, they specify positive rights, which may seem to result from the nature of the compact. Trial by jury cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from a social compact which regulates the action of the community, but is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature

Source: https://www.usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html

Militias don’t exist in nature. There’s no natural right to be in a government created militia nor own a gun for such duty. The Second is clear it deals solely with a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state.

Prior to the Constitution all the states had such militias and it was the duty of able bodied men to belong to their militia. But is the Framers hoped to avoid a standing army, those state militias had to be standardized hence this part of Article 1, sec 8:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts 
and Excises... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the 
Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the 
Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the 
Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia 
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

It was not long before several states realized this meant Congress could disarm or neglect their state militias.

At the Virginia Ratification Convention, Patrick Henry said:

Let me here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States — reserving to the states, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither — this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory.

The fear Congress could use Art 1 disarm or neglect Virginia’s militia, and the security it provided against both the federal government and slave revolts, led to the Virginia Ratification Convention suggesting this as an amendment to the Constitution.

 That each state respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. That the militia shall not be subject to martial law, except when in actual service in time of war, invasion or rebellion, and when not in the actual service of the United States, shall be subject only to such fines, penalties and punishments as shall be directed or inflicted by the laws of its own state.
https://www.usconstitution.net/rat_va.html

Madison signed on to this request and knew damn well what VA... and later NC, wanted when he drafted the BoRs. North Carolina used the same language for its request for an amendment.

The Second was never a natural right but a positive right, a limitation on the then new powers of Congress. If Madison solely meant a natural right he could easily have borrowed the language from the 1776 Pennsylvania constitution as the basis of the Second:

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state...” https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/pa08.asp

In keeping with its Art 1 powers Congress passes the Militia Acts of 1792 which mandates militia members acquire their own firearm.

That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.... That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.

Source: https://constitution.org/1-Activism/mil/mil_act_1792.htm

Again, what natural right could the Second protect when there was no choice but to acquire a firearm?

But by 1808 the militia was still poorly armed and Congress, using its Art 1 power to arm the militia passed the Militia Act of 1808 where it begins to arm the state militias.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Act_of_1808

In 1903 Congress again used its Art 1 powers to officially dissolve the idea of a “universal” militia and moved to select and a reserve militia. The select militia would be well trained and be called the National Guard and the reserved or unorganized militia had no purpose.

In the end we KNOW who the well-regulated militia of the Second is... it’s the only ones subject to Congress’s Art 1 powers and Art 2 presidential powers for militia call-up... and that is the state national guards which for over a century have been integrated into the Army and are equipped by Congress. 

Which then brings up Heller, a Supreme Court decision where Scalia magically finds an individual right to a firearm in the Second. By right any individual right to a firearm was simply unenumerated, covered by the Ninth. But Scalia spent his career on an anti-constitutional jihad against the Ninth claiming in From Troxel v Granville

"The Declaration of Independence, however, is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution's refusal to "deny or disparage" other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people."
Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/530/57.html

Here Scalia bastardizes the Ninth here as he did the Second in Heller. Scalia's wrong. It was never the job of the court to decide what unenumerated rights were. It was their job to find whether government was given any power to restrict the rights in question in the first place. 

Scalia, like Bork, was Reagan's second attempt to please the social conservatives and anti-abortionists that he invited into the GOP. If the Ninth could be stripped of all meaning, various liberation groups using the courts to challenge restrictions on rights would have one less constitutional argument.

 

ulTRAX

6-23-21

 

 

The 911 Comission's Classified 28 Pages: Protecting The Saudis? Or Bush's Lies For Iraq War?

The Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee launched its investigation into the 911 attacks in February 2002  http://fas.org/irp/crs/RL31650.pdf and the final report was release in Dec 2002... that is all but 28 pages classified by Bush Junta.

The thinking has long focused that this section of the report was classified to protect Saudi Arabia. But what if Bush had another motive? And what if Obama does as well for keeping this report classified?

Late 2002 was a critical time for Bush's campaign for his illegal war of aggression against Iraq. The propaganda campaign against the American public had been intensified since the spring. Bush managed to get through Congress approval for a war if certain conditions were met. One condition was to get the approval of the UN Security Consul.

In December 2002 the US was at the UN trying to manipulate the UN Security Consul into approving new WMD inspectors for Iraq. But behind the scene Powell was pushing for language that would allow the US to invade Iraq on its own should Iraq be found in material breach of previous UN resolutions on WMDs. That ploy failed. In January 03 Colin Powell went to the UN to make the case for war. He never had much of a case and his dishonestly haunts him to this day.

And yet domestically the Bush Junta's systematic campaign of lies had worked. Back in 2002-03 about 70% of the US public believed invading Iraq was in retaliation for 911 and about 85% of the
GIs going to fight in Iraq did as well.

Would releasing the FULL Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee's report on 911 in December 2002 have undermined the lies Bush was telling about Iraq? Surely it would have. We can understand Bush's motives. But why after nearly 8 years has Obama refuse to release these 28 pages?

We know that even before Obama took office he signaled he'd not investigate possible war crimes and illegal spying domestic activities by Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/us/politics/12inquire.html
https://jonathanturley.org/2010/12/02/wikileaks-obama-administration-secretly-worked-to-prevent-prosecution-of-war-crimes-by-the-bush-administration/

Is Obama protecting the Saudi's or his decision not to prosecute members of the Bush administration? Is he protecting the illusion that those 4000 and possibly a half million Iraqi civilians died for nothing?



Like with Obama's refusal to go after Wall Street thieves and sociopaths... we may never know.



ulTRAX

Class Warfare Was Built Into The Constitution

During the secret debates over the drafting of the Constitution Madison said the following...

MADISON: The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa, or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge of the wants or feelings of the day laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered.

source: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/const/yates.htm

Madison clearly anticipated class warfare and his solution was not to give both the wealthy and the commoners equal power in the Constitution, but to give the elites a veto over the commoners in the Senate. Clearly the Electoral College, which can override the popular vote for president, also serves this function.

But the powers of the Senate go further than just providing the elites a veto over legislation. The Senate has exclusive powers in the areas of treaties and nominations... as well as the final world on removing a president from office.

We can debate whether the Senate remains the bastion of wealthy elites, or was ever the body of the wise elders. That extreme demagogues like Ted Cruz can be elected to the Senate certainly undermines that notion. But Madison's institutional power arrangement survives regardless who is in the House or Senate. Now it's really a minority of states with 18% of the US population which has that veto over the House, and exclusive powers over treaties and nominations.

Yup... the Senate was meant to be our House Of Lords. Curiously... Tony Blair led an effort to reform the House of Lords. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_of_the_House_of_Lords Yet not even US liberal Dems seem capable of considering any similar reform efforts here in the US. Not even a Bernie Sanders ventures here. Dems seem too smitten by the fact a well placed Senator might sabotage any noxious right wing bill. Missing from their consideration is how the Senate gives a mere 18% of the US population a majority in the first place. If they cared in the least about the democracy they claim a monopoly on... they'd see the absurdity of their views.

Why are such issues never discussed? Why, despite its failings, do these structural defects in the Constitution escape scrutiny?

In Federalist 49 Madison argues against making the Constitution easier to reform because that might focus the People on its defects. He believes that the masses must VENERATE their government to insure stability:

In the next place, it may be considered as an objection inherent in the principle, that as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in a great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability.

Madison's hope obviously prevailed in this regard. The Constitution is virtually reformproof. NONE of the core antidemocratic features of the document has ever been reformed. Sadly, even liberals in this nation have opted for unquestioning veneration. Our antidemocratic and reformproof system have become principles unto themselves and liberals who should know better merely accept and work within that framework.



ulTRAX

Mimimum Wage Workers Subsidize Our Economy

This is not a perfect exercise.

The value of the federal minimum wage in 1968 was $1.60 according to

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

and using the inflation calculator at

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=1968&year2=2012

gives us a value of $10.50 in 2012 but the actual minimum wage is only $7.25. This is a loss of $3.25 per hour or $6,760 a year for a full time MW worker.

According to http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm some 3.55 million wage workers got this minimum wage or below in 2012

3,550,000 
6,760 ×
--------------------------
$23.998 BILLION = lost wages

This number only includes those at the minimum wage or below... NOT those between the minimum wage and the $10.50 per hour range.

So who's benefited from this $24 billion a year subsidy the economy got in 2012? And remember these are just rough numbers for one year.

This raises other issues of increased safety net expenditures AND lost tax revenue. But then we can always kick the can down the road by borrowing for those safety net programs so future taxpayers will be subsidizing our irresponsibility today.


ulTRAX

Do Those 27 Amendments "Prove" We Can Really Reform Constitution?

Whenever I bring up in political forums the anti-democratic and virtual reform-proof nature of the Constitution someone will invariably protest that we already have 27 Amendments... and this somehow "proves" the Constitution CAN be meaningfully reformed. 

With 27 amendments over 223 years that's about one every 8 years. It sounds like there's plenty of flexibility. Maybe they have a point... or not. To which I counter NONE of these amendments reforms dealt with any of the core defects of the Constitution centering on the anti-democratic principle of state suffrage... the bizarre notion that the 600k in Wyoming deserve the same political power as the 40 million in California. 

Our system is not just anti-democratic, the formula for amendments is now so insane that even Scalia, yes the far right hack Justice SCALIA admitted this was the case. He  that it might never truly be reformed. He says so at 1:06:30 into this CSpan video https://www.c-span.org/video/?318884-1/justices-scalia-ginsburg-amendment-freedom Scalia  says states with just 4% of the US population can block any needed reform, but it might just represent 2%, a bare majority in those states. What Scalia didn't mention is states with just 40% can ratify any horrible amendment... and using Scalia's logic, that can mean just 20%.

Here's a breakdown of amendments by category... feel free to break them down in other ways:

INDIVIDUAL & STATES RIGHTS: 1-10 plus 13th, 14th

FINE TUNING THE CONSTITUTION: 11th, 12th, 16th, 20th, 22ed, 25th, 27th

PROHIBITION & REPEAL: 18th, 21st

EXPANDING VOTING RIGHTS: 15th,  19th,  24th,  26th

MAKING THE CONSTITUTION LESS ANTI- DEMOCRATIC: 17th, 23ed

The first ten amendments, aka The Bill Of Rights, were suggested by the states as the price of ratification. That leaves 17 amendments over 223 years or one amendment every 13 years.

If we take away the 7 that I've put into the "FINE TUNING" category that leaves 10 amendments over 223 years or one, on average, every 22.3 years. These amendments cover things like presidential terms etc.

Take away Prohibition and its repeal... that leaves 8 amendments over 223 years giving us one amendment averaging about every 28 years.

That leaves 6 amendments that in some way make the Constitution less anti-democratic... that gives us one amendment every 36 years. These amendments fall into two categories.

The first category is expanding the vote to groups who arguably should NEVER have been denied the right: Slaves (15th), Women (19th), Those who can't afford a poll tax (24th) and 18 year olds (26th).

The second category deals with some aspect of the anti-democratic structure of the Constitution itself. Here we have but TWO amendments... giving us ONE reform amendment, on average, every 111 years. Those reforms were allowing direct popular vote for the Senate... and giving EC votes to those in Washington DC. All of these amendments are mere tweaks.

The sad reality is NONE of those 27 amendments to date have reformed ANY of the core anti-democratic features of the Constitution connected with the anti-democratic concept of state suffrage... the EC, the Senate, the exclusive powers of the Senate to ratify judicial nominees or treaties, the amendment process, etc.

That's ZERO serious reform amendments in 223 years!
 
Which brings us back to my original question... is our system so anti-democratic that it can never truly be reformed? And if so... what are we who value democratic principles to do as demographic trends make the Constitution even more anti-democratic and more reform-proof?


ulTRAX

How Would Romney's State-Based "FEMAs" Deal With Superstorm Sandy?

Romney is on record, transcript below, saying he'd like to turn FEMA over to the states... or even the private sector. He justifies this idea based on devolution of power from Washington and also claims it's essential for deficit reduction. So is Romney proposing NO federal disaster management funding go to the states? If not, where's the savings?

There are reasons to move away from state-based solutions. If left to themselves poorer states are incapable of funding anything from quality education, to health care, or their own highways.

By turning over these FEMA function to the states... these state-based "FEMAs", are not going to benefit from the deep pockets of the federal government. How will poorer states deal with disasters? How will tiny Rhode Island deal with a dead on hurricane strike? What if it's hit twice in a year? Who covers disasters that span state lines like superstorm Sandy? How would states coordinate such efforts? Without federal funds does Romney envision nationwide disaster bake-sales to raise the money?

If federal money does go to states... how will it be allocated? The East coast state has more hurricanes. Northern states might have more blizzards. The southeast more drought. So will money be weighted to states with more potential disasters or given out by population? The questions Romney's proposal raises are endless.

While Obama needs to be careful about playing politics with Sandy, it IS a legitimate for his campaign to ask what would Romney's disaster relief plan look like if he were president now having only the resources he's proposed.

This is an area that calls into question Romney's judgment and fitness for office. Here's Romney on June 13, 2011 during a primary debate speaking with CNN's  John King:

KING: What else, Governor Romney? You’ve been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Missouri. I’ve been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it’s the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut—we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…

KING: Including disaster relief, though?
ROMNEY: We cannot—we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

Source:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/29/1152002/-Romney-in-primary-Federal-disaster-relief-immoral



ulTRAX

Democrats MUST Target Norquist's No New Taxes Pledge

If a congressperson took a "No New Weapons System" pledge to a third party... would that interfere with their constitutional responsibility to defend the nation? I think we'd all agree it would.

So what if a congressperson took a "No New Taxes AND No New Borrowing" pledge... Would that not interfere with those constitutional duties that REQUIRE spending? Obviously. So what about a "No New taxes" Pledge?

Where is the red line where a third party pledge interferes with a congressperson's oath of office? Here's that that official Oath:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Even before the Norquist Pledge the GOP was pushing for irresponsible tax cuts hoping crushing deficits and debt would "starve the beast": put pressure on New Deal and Great Society programs... maybe even abolish them. To portray this fiscal irresponsibility as its opposite the GOP cultivated public support for these policies convincing many that tax cuts funded with borrowed money benefited us all. Heck, these tax cuts might even pay for themselves. It was the ultimate Free Lunch! Limbaugh once said if a tax cut... 


"...brings in, say, two dollars for every dollar of tax relief, we'll have more money in the treasury – and thus safeguard programs like Social Security! The idea behind tax cuts is to get the economy to grow. The economy is not static. The pie is not one size forever, with no new slices. The object is to grow so we have more people working and paying taxes. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan proved this with their tax cuts. The Democratic Congress spent every new dollar and more that Reagan brought in, but the fact is that the revenue coming into the treasury nearly doubled over his two terms."

Actually Reagan revenues in constant dollars only rose about 13.5% and that includes his tax HIKES. Individual income tax revenues only rose 8%. There simply was NO revenue boom the Democrats spent. No sensible person should expect the truth from Limbaugh.

To add to onslaught of propaganda coming from what I've dubbed the Orwellian Right, the No New Taxes Pledge added some unintended consequences. Stuck between the voters and Pledge enforcer Grover Norquist himself, GOP politicians found ways to provide goodies voters wanted but to do so in a way that didn't violate Norquist's Pledge. GOPers simply substituted borrowing for taxation dumping the cost onto future taxpayers. Running up massive debt seems to be acceptable to Norquist who, after all, had been quite open of his plan: to "Starve The Beast" until government is back where it was before the New Deal if not the late 19th Century.

This political dilemma forced the Orwellian Right to become more extreme in its propaganda. They were forced to take all fiscal common sense off the table. They convinced many voters in 2000 that even with nearly 6 trillion in debt, if there was a small budget surplus... it was "their" money and they deserved a refund. But if there had only been a 90 billion surplus to date, why would the GOP jump to $1.4 trillion tax cut?  More recently the Orwellian Right has convinced GOP voters that there's no revenue problem despite the fact that in constant dollars individual income tax revenues have yet to rise even back to Clinton's 2000 levels. They've convinced GOP voters that they're "overtaxed" when our generation has pissed away some 15 TRILLION on ourselves the past 30 years and REFUSED to pay for the bill.

The Orwellian Right and Norquist have given birth to what I call the Free Lunch Right... a generation of spoiled rotten GOPers who bitch and moan about Democratic social spending while utterly oblivious about THEIR freebies... including those tax cuts funded with BORROWED money stolen from our kids and grandkids.

If the Free Lunch Right thinks they are overtaxed even after refusing to pay the that 15 Trillion tax bill... imagine the shock there will be if we try to pay down debt with spending cuts alone!  To get to a surplus is, by definition, paying MORE in taxes than what we receive in government spending. We were there in 2000 and we know how irresponsibly the GOP dealt with the surplus then. We're to trust them should we ever get to a surplus again? 

If we ever get to a surplus how will the GOP then educate the voters they spent 30 years encouraging to be fiscally irresponsible? The debt numbers are staggering. Even if NO interest accruing, it would take 32  years to pay down the debt with a true $500 billion on-budget surplus. Problem is the Clinton on-budget Surplus only totaled about 90 billion over two years before the GOP sabotaged it. The idea that we can ever pay down the debt without huge spending cuts AND a large tax increase… and run that sort of surplus, is laughable.

The Democrats have had thirty years to come up with an effective political response to Starve The Beast… to the Orwellian Right lies about how tax cuts create revenue booms but tax hikes only hurt the economy. The political cowardice of the Democrats has made them complicit in the GOP's war against fiscal sanity.

I can only hope the Democrats target the Norquist anti-tax pledge this election cycle. There are some very real advantages to this strategy:

It goes after what enables the Right's Starve The Beast strategy.

It goes after the dysfunctional and dangerous ideological cohesion the Norquist Pledge brings to the GOP.

It exposes the grotesque fiscal irrationality the Pledge has brought to the GOP… they refuse to even recognize the simple reality that in constant dollars revenues have plummeted since Clinton's last year... and even with 16 trillion in debt they are proposing more irresponsible tax cuts.

It goes after Norquist, the chief enforcer of the Pledge and someone who's been immune to attack for too long.

It gives GOPers who want out of the pledge a good excuse to finally break ranks with Norquist.

It can be used against any GOPer who was foolish enough to sign the pledge. Let voters decide whether those who took the Pledge are undermining the Constitution itself and the fiscal health of government's ability to deal with emergencies.


 ulTRAX

revised: 10-14-12

Where Oh Where Is Bush's Revenue Boom?

The Orwellian Right loves to claim that income tax cuts, especially for the rich, make the rich pay more, and such cuts even bring in more revenue. It's a counter-intuitive claim but the Right makes it all the time. However, if you scratch your head wondering about such claims, then your intuition is right. The claim is untrue. It's the only way to sell irresponsible tax cuts which bring home the bacon to the rich, the only constituency the Right cares about, and secretly sabotaging the US Treasury. To convince the ever-gullible True Believers on the Right, the Orwellian Right disinformation industry has a history of grotesque dishonesty. The Orwellian Right so wants to convince us tax cuts create revenue booms, they routinely include revenue from other presidents, and even have included revenue from other tax hikes. The Right claims there was a revenue boom after the so-called JFK tax cuts LBJ pushed in 1964... thru 1969. They just don't mention the three tax HIKES during that period. In the Reagan years the Orwellian Right swept under the rug two massive tax hikes in 1982 and 1983 and counted that revenue as "proof" the 1981 tax cuts brought in massive amounts of revenue. Yes, that's what they want us to believe. And if there were deficits they lie and blame Democrats for spending the bounty. But there was no revenue boom. In constant, inflation-controlled dollars, even with these tax hikes, Reagan's revenue only increased about 13.5% over his eight years.


If we're to go on a Snipe Hunt looking for such revenue booms we need to look at the specific tax being cut and then look for growth in that area. Since most of the Right's favorite tax cuts are cuts in the federal income tax, it would be unfair to look for revenue in other areas like FICA or corporate taxes. We should at income tax revenues. But since we're looking at revenue effects over time, there are two variables at work here... inflation which is easy to correct for, and % of GDP, that is the size of the economy these revenues represent. That's a topic for another time.


Here's a look at Bush individual income tax revenues compared to Clinton's last year (FY00) correcting for inflation. Numbers are from Table 2.1—RECEIPTS BY SOURCE of the US Historical Budget Tables.

Since this source does NOT correct for inflation in this chart, I used the inflation calculator at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm to convert to constant 2005 dollars in billions. Using constant 2005 dollars means revenue from years before the target year will inflate in value, those after will deflate. Column one is the fiscal year. Column 2 is income tax revenue in CURRENT dollars collected that year. Column 3 is revenue in billions of 2005 CONSTANT dollars. It could be argued that FY01 is Clinton's last year since the fiscal year began when Clinton was still in office. But Bush's 2001 EGGTRA tax cut was retroactive to Jan 1, 2001.


2000   1004.462 = 1139.206 Clinton's last year.

2001    994.339 = 1096.524

2002    858.345 = 931.822

2003    793.699 = 842.442

2004     808.959 = 836.370

2005    927.222 = 927.222

2006   1043.908 = 1011.285

2007   1163.472 = 1095.899

2008   1145.747 = 1039.299

If my math is correct, what we see is that even after eight years, at the end of Bush's term income tax rates were cut so irresponsibly those income tax revenues NEVER AGAIN EXCEEDED CLINTON'S LAST YEAR. I'm sure some readers will see 8 years of declining income tax revenues as "proof" tax cuts create revenue booms.

But then some people will believe anything.


ulTRAX

revised 10-13-12

Time For A Budget SURPLUS Amendment

Forget the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). It's a cynical political ploy by the GOP. It leaves them free to pass all the irresponsible cut taxes they want while handcuffing the Democrats from restoring taxes to responsible levels or even raising them if needed.


The BBA is part of the GOP's larger strategy to sabotage the finances of government, to create massive deficits/debt hoping an eventual fiscal crisis will undermine signature Democratic safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As if that wasn't bad enough, it leaves the matter of the national debt unresolved… setting in cement the theft by our generation of some now $15 trillion from future tax payers… and by that I mean our kids and grand kids. The interest alone last FY was over $450 billion and $2.9 TRILLION was pissed away on interest during the Bush years alone.


We need to stop playing these budget games. Both Democrats and the GOP use the unified budget to conceal internal borrowing from the trust funds to make the real deficit look smaller. It's the on-budget deficit that gives us the true picture.


What is needed is a no games On-Budget SURPLUS Amendment to restrain both reckless spending AND reckless tax cuts by all sides and force them to finally pay down our enormous debt which now is about $16 trillion dollars.


The task ahead is daunting. Even if we ran an annual $500 billion surplus, something that didn't even happen in the best Clinton years, it would take us now some 32 years to pay down the debt. That neither political party sees the moral outrage in this situation is a damning indictment against our morally bankrupt and intellectually braindead political system.


ulTRAX

updated 9-17-12

So Where's That Conservative Nirvana?

These past 30 years the rich, corporations, and Wall Street have gotten just about EVERYTHING they wanted… tax cuts for the filthy rich and big reductions on capital gains taxes... the destruction of most unions... free trade deal to exploit cheap and slave labor overseas... corporate welfare... two wars fought on the credit card... the deregulation of banks, mass media, and commodities. They sabotaged government revenue with irresponsible tax cuts and Free Trade sabotaged the industrial base of America. Their privatization efforts in Iraq milked taxpayers for $100k+ a year private contractor jobs that our military should have been doing for a fifth that. They encouraged us to place our life savings in the hands of sociopathic predators on Wall Street whose greed and hubris was so great they didn't just bring down their own banks, they brought down our entire economy... almost the world's.


ALL THE EVIDENCE IS NOW IN, and it’s these conservative/neo-liberal policies have proven to be a DISASTER. At least some neo-libs like Clinton now have some regrets about free trade and deregulation. Clinton got us to a balanced budget only to have it quickly sabotaged by Bush to prevent debt paydown. Do you ever hear ANY regrets from the far Right or the crazed Tea Baggers for supporting policies that created more debt and brought the economy down?


Above was just the beginning of the Right's proposed insanity. The Tea Party sociopaths in Congress are now demanding policies even MORE insane than the above. Grover Norquist on 60 Minutes last Sunday again went on record his goal is to shrink the federal government down to about 8% of GDP. That means the elimination of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and just about all of the social safety net plus those regulatory agencies that protect us from the more malignant aspects of capitalism. Quite literally it's the rolling back of the 20th Century.


The Right has shown they are willing to become fiscal terrorists threatening to blow up the system if they are not allowed to inflict even MORE damage. They are blind to the fact that they have gotten most of what they wanted these past 30 years and there's still no Conservative Nirvana, that is except for the rich. They blame their failures on not being extreme enough. And these lunatics are saying they can be trusted to fix our system?


If anyone should be reforming our system, it's those whose instincts were sound in OPPOSING all of the above insanity… people on the LEFT.

updated 10-14-12

ulTRAX

It's Time For An ANTI-NORQUIST PATRIOT PLEDGE!!!

The Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge is the lynchpin that holds the GOP's fiscally irresponsible GOP policies together. It's time the Democrats target this pledge by demanding they sign a counter pledge similar to the below:


I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office of which I seek. While in office my primary obligation is to those I represent and to the People of the United States.


I further affirm that I will not let commitments, oaths, or pledges made to others restrict my ability to arrive at the best policy decisions or come before my sworn obligations stated above.


Signed___________________




revised 10-15-12


ulTRAX

A Proposal For An Occupy Wall Street Manifesto

The term traitor has both legal and moral definitions. In the moral sense, we hold the following to be TRAITORS to the United States and its People.

1: Politicians in BOTH parties who passed irresponsible tax cuts with the deliberate intent of creating massive debt as a backdoor way to undermine our social safety net. This has not just created massive interest payments... almost $3 trillion alone in the Bush years, stolen from trillions from our children, but also sabotaged government's ability to respond to emergencies.

2: Politicians in BOTH parties who put ideology over common sense and passed free trade which exported our jobs and undermined our economy and standard of living to benefit a few corporate investors. This has not only undermined our defense industry but is now crippling our economic recovery.

3: Politicians in BOTH parties who permitted advanced technology transfers to Red China and have allowed the US to become financially indebted to the Red Chinese who now have the power to destabilize the US. In a mere 15 years we have undermined our own economy and created a powerful economic and military rival.

4: Politicians in BOTH parties who deregulated the banks and commodity sectors letting the greedy predators run wild to prey on homeowners, small investors, and our retirement funds. They have robbed our youth of a future. They sabotaged the productive parts of our economy and allowed it to be replaced with irresponsible speculation and gambling. Like in 1929 this ultimately crashed the entire economy.

5: Politicians in BOTH parties who bailed out Wall Street predators and thieves without massively reforming our economic system so the Crash Of 2008 could never happen again.

6: Politicians in BOTH parties who refused to bring these predators and thieves to justice and allowed them to keep wealth they stole from the rest of us.

7: Politicians in BOTH parties who have refused to try to free us being held hostage to foreign oil from a hostile region of the world.

8: Politicians in BOTH parties who for political gain got the US bogged down in illegal wars of aggression... weakening our military and economy while undermining US credibility around the world, then passed the bill on to our children.

If our ENEMIES had done this to our nation, all real patriots would have declared war on these traitors long ago. Our goal is to REVERSE THE ABOVE and see that those who did this to our nations are either punished in elections or by the law!!

IS STARVE THE BEAST TREASON?

Just what is Grover Norquist's strategy of "Starve The Beast"? It was once a fringe far Right wing strategy to use fiscal irresponsibility as a political weapon. The GOP would rack up debt with irresponsible tax cuts and reckless spending to benefit their wealthy and corporate constituency. And and when the political pendulum shifted and the Democrats took power, that new debt would restrain them.

Eventually this fiscal irresponsibility would create a financial crisis where the GOP could go in for the kill and go after Democratic programs they knew could never get voters to weaken or kill through the ballot box.

Starve The Beast is now the mainstream in the GOP with the vast majority of GOP representatives and senators having signed Grover Norquist's pledge to pursue this strategy.

Given Starve The Beast calls for the willful sabotaging of government revenues and the creation of massive debt, it is a deliberate attack on the fiscal health of government and affects government's ability deal with emergencies.

At what point does this strategy cross the line into treason? Has it already?

Proof Reagan's Tax Cuts FAILED As A Stimulus?

Last week Limbaugh was again spouting the Right's nonsense that tax cuts are some magic bullet for the economy as if the evidence wasn't in from the Bush2 years. Tax cuts them failed to either stimulate the economy or inoculate the economy against recession. We might have avoided that mistake if we just went back and learned from an earlier example... the era of Voodoo Economics.

In February 1981 the Reagan admin wrote of their new economic plan

The program we have developed will break that cycle of negative expectations. It will revitalize economic growth, renew optimism and confidence, and rekindle the Nation's entrepreneurial instincts and creativity.

The benefits to the average American will be striking. Inflation—which is now at double digit rates—will be cut in half by 1986. The American economy will produce 13 MILLION NEW JOBS by 1986, nearly 3 million more than if the status quo in government policy were to prevail. The economy itself should break out of its anemic growth patterns to a much more robust growth trend of 4 to 5 percent a year. These positive results will be accomplished simultaneously with reducing tax burdens, increasing private saving, and raising the living standard of the American family.

Source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43427

In reality, just 5 months later, the economy sank into what was then the worst recession since the 30's. Unemployment hit a peak of 10.8% by December 1982... higher than it was under Obama. The unemployment rate remained over 8% for nearly 2 years, from March 82 through January 84.

Source... you'll have to construct your own tables here: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls

As for the actual job creation numbers under Reagan?

FOX says "Under Reagan, 9.5 million jobs were created from January 1981 to December 1986."

source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242424,00.html

That's it? Even when Fox gives Reagan an extra YEAR, Reagan could not meet his own job creation prediction of 13 million new jobs by 1986 (Jan 86) and was 3.5 MILLION jobs off.

I don't know where FOX got it's 9.5 million new jobs number but at the BLS site http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?bls you can also run the job numbers.

In February 1981 when that White House reported predicted 13 million new jobs by 1986... the total workforce was estimated to be 108,242,000. In January 1986 the number was 116,682,000.

Where Reagan predicted 13 million jobs... it looks like a mere 8.4 million were created. That's 4.6 MILLION off Reagan's prediction.

Reagonomics was a utter failure yet the Orwellian Right has erased this failure from the minds of GOPers just as they are busy erasing the Bush2 failures.

So why would someone want to deliberately the public believe in a FAILED policy?

Because the REAL intent of these irresponsible tax cuts was NEVER economic stimulus but a reason the far Right can never admit to... to sabotage government revenues and drive up debt hoping to eventually bring us to the point we are at now... where the Right hopes to drive a stake in the heart of all those New Deal and great Society programs they've always loathed. To preserve this strategy the Orwellian Right has rewritten history and turned irresponsible tax cuts not just into a shining success but into a religion. They know fully well facts really don't stand a chance when the Right wing faithful inoculate themselves against them.

ulTRAX

The Tax Code And The Citizens United Decision

I assume most of us are troubled by the USSC Citizens United decision. While I’m all in favor of an amendment to clarify that constitutionally a person can only be a NATURAL person not an artificial one, the bar to passing a constitutional amendment is ridiculously high and could take years to pass… if ever.

But are there are other possible avenues of attack to push corporations out of politics?

What about the IRS tax code?
Currently religious and non-profit entities receive tax-exempt status on the condition they NOT engage in political campaign activities. This is NOT considered a restraint on their First Amendment free speech laws. If these groups violate this agreement, they lose that perk.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=161131,00.html

Corporations receive numerous benefits such as limited liability protections and tax benefits such as the ability to write off expenses all designed to facilitate commerce.
Why can’t the tax code be changed to make these tax benefits conditional on corporations NOT engaging in political campaign activities?

Technically this would NOT be a restraint on corporate free speech any more than it is with those religious and non-profit organizations.

Corporations, likewise, would remain free to engage in political activities. Only they, too, would be faced with the choice that such involvement would end all of those special benefits in the tax code. Changing IRS code could possibly be done in time to prevent a massive avalanche of corporate money from affecting this year’s election.

Currently a proposal floated by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen does NOT include this approach. You can read their proposal here: http://vanhollen.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=169969

I urge you to contact Chuck Schumer at 202-224-6542 and Chris Van Hollen at (202) 225-5341.

Reforming The Anti-democratic US Senate

Contrary to what many believe, the US is not a democracy. And even with a representative government and a constitution, if democratic principles are at the heart of a republic, one could argue the US is not even a republic. Elections 2000 and 2016 again proved that a candidate REJECTED by the People can be imposed upon our nation. In the Senate, a mere 17% of the population gets 52% of the seats. A president and Senate representing a minority of the population can pack the federal judiciary changing US law forever and enter the US into unwise international treaties. This is insane. Our system violates our founding principle that government derives its JUST power from the CONSENT of the governed.

Our system is not just anti-democratic, it is so absurdly reform proof system that it has set in cement the politics of 1787. In all our history, not ONE of the 27 ratified amendments to the Constitution has in any way changed the anti-democratic nature of our Constitution. Aside from our antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system which I’d argue is incapable of measuring the proverbial Will Of The People, the political side of our government only further distorts the public will. I believe this distortion is so pervasive the Constitution and our electoral systems shape public opinion more than the other way around. With all the current dysfunctionality evident in government today, why do we still subscribe to the notion we mere mortals dare not touch what the Framers intended?

The core problem on the political side is the concept of state suffrage… the idea that entities called states deserve equal representation with the People... and those states, regardless of population, deserve an equal vote. At the Constitutional Convention, the small population and slave states insisted this anti-democratic concept be written into the fabric of the Constitution as a condition of ratification. On the legislative side, the larger states would receive more representation in the House but state suffrage was embodied in the Senate where each state, regardless of population, received two senators.

This arrangement made sense in 1787 because they looked at politics through a prism that only STATES mattered. After all, it was those fiercely independent states which were negotiating for that “more perfect union” with each other. However, when one looks at how any individual CITIZEN is represented in our Constitution, a more disturbing picture of our system emerges.

When the Constitution was written the ratio between the largest and smallest population states, Virginia and Delaware respectively, was about 12.6:1. That ratio now between California and Wyoming is about 69:1.


While there aer adjustments in the House with states losing or gaining seats, the Senate formula is absolutely frozen. Delaware in 1787, and Wyoming now, each get their two Senators. And since there are no protections in the Constitution against such demographic trends, each state will get their two senators regardless if the ratio becomes 100:1 or 1,000:1. Today the Senate has become perhaps the most anti-democratic and most dysfunctional legislative body on the planet.

Let’s be more precise: states are not represented by two senators, the PEOPLE of each state are represented by two Senators. This was made more evident with the enactment of the 17th Amendment in 1913. It permitted for the first time direct popular elections for each state’s senators. Any citizen who chooses to live in Wyoming now has nearly 70X the influence in the Senate than any citizen in California. What’s wrong with this picture? Such vote weighting/dilution schemes are ILLEGAL on all other levels of government.

We’ve been brought up to believe that this Senate/House arrangement is fair because any given citizen in, say, California, is somehow represented by ALL their state delegation. In reality, no citizen votes for ALL the representatives of their state as one does for a Senator. Citizens can vote for only ONE Representative and only ONE represents any given citizen… not their entire state delegation of 53 Representatives.

One might think that solving the problem of the anti-democratic Senate might require a constitutional amendment… a formula that itself is bizarre. It requires a high bar of ¾ of the states to ratify, but since 1820, the ¾ smallest states that could ratify any amendment have contained LESS than 50% of the population! In fact, the 12 smallest states that could thwart any amendment today represent a mere 4% of the population and it might be as low as 2%, a slim majority in those states. However, it’s not just a matter that the small states would object to any such amendment, it’s that the Constitution has an enormous poison pill which protects the Senate against all attempts to reform it short of a Constitutional Convention.

Article V includes this language "...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

This situation is so bizarre than one proposal to get around this insurmountable roadblock suggested the extraordinary measure to break up the larger states to create 75 states.

I believe that proposal is unlikely to gain any support. American identity is too tied to state residence. Short of a Constitutional Convention I don’t see ANY way to make the Senate more democratic… except possibly through the backdoor.

Under the Article 1, Section 5 each house is free to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings” as well as be the judge of the “qualifications” of their own members.

Section 5 - Membership, Rules, Journals, Adjournment
Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members…
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.

When in the Constitution the requirements for votes in either body are mentioned, say to override a presidential veto, we see language such as: If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

While implied, I can find no specific mention that the total vote MUST represent a single vote for each senator or representative… only some ratio is given. Is there an opening here?

But what about Article 5 which states “...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” Suffrage is merely the right to vote and this section seems to imply that all senate votes should weigh the same. But is there an opening here too?

Until some high profile voting rights cases in the 1960’s, the concept of popular suffrage in US history never guaranteed one person one vote. Sadly, those court cases which established this principle did NOT apply to the Constitution itself which remains the last bastion of vote weighting/dilution schemes in the US. That citizens in the large states quietly accept this situation is a tribute to our secular religion that teaches, ours is the best political system in the world. And despite the fact citizens have suffrage, given our federal structure the weight of representation behind each vote varies by state. A citizen in WY has about a 70x "bigger" vote in the Senate and amendment process.

Given this legal context where the representational "weight" of individual suffrage varies by state, why has the concept of state suffrage remained sacrosanct? Can the concept of state suffrage be modified in ways we’ve not yet thought of to CORRECT the undemocratic nature of the Senate? While it’s politically improbable, could the rules of the Senate be rewritten so the vote of each Senator is weighted to represent 1/2 of their state’s total population? The population numbers would come from US Census annual state population estimates. In this corrective vote weighting scheme each state would technically retain equal suffrage to vote. 

 

We now have FOUR Justices on the Supreme Court, three under Trump, ratified by Senators representing less than 50% of the US population. Weighting each Senators vote by population would ensure NO LAW or political nominee could pass the Senate without the approval of those who represent the MAJORITY of the US population. 



As I wrote years ago the currents of antidemocratic government are insidious.


ulTRAX

modified 2-28-21

Obama MUST Go For McCain Jugular

John McCain will, of course attack Senator Obama’s strengths. If the attack gets traction, what does Obama have left to sway the undecided?

To respond, Obama MUST attack what McCain is marketing as his unique strength… that he would be a uniquely strong leader who can keep America safe.

Yet it’s clear to all but the most radical of the flag-wavers who are pathologically incapable of critiquing ANY president regardless of their abuses or crimes, that by supporting the war against Iraq, a nation that posed no threat to the US, McCain has proven he does not just lack the judgment to be Commander-in-Chief, he is, in fact, DANGEROUS to the security of the nation.

Here are some simple truths that it would be refreshing for a US politician to speak...

The first is that if a war is unnecessary for our nation’s security, then ALL the blood, sweat, tears, and treasure, were pissed away in vain. Second: not the bravery of our troops, not the flag waving, nor any brilliant strategy to win such a pointless war can change that painful fact that it was all for nothing.

What kind of person would support such an unncessary war? It’s been said that if all a person has is a hammer, all the problems look like a nail. McCain’s fatal flaw is more concerned about demonstrating US power that national REAL security actually become a secondary consideration.

By his mindless support for the Iraq war which distracted from the war against Al Quida and placed the Afghanistan campaign at risk, McCain proved that he is easily distracted from the REAL security needs of the US.

Obama has to make sure the US public is not blinded by the flag-waving on the Right. He has to speak out for sanity... that in perilous times or not, the US can NEVER afford a president who will make the world more perilous. Bush proved it.


ulTRAX

8-27-08

Iraq: So They Will Not Die In Vain part 2

Part One of this series can be found here.

We can’t underestimate the sacrifices that those in the military are willing to make nor those sacrifices already made should be honored this Memorial Day.

Yet as citizens we also have a responsibility to insure we do NOT call on the military to make those sacrifices in vain. That SHOULD be uncontroversial. Sadly, in America it’s not.

There is a basic truth here that many deny or remain oblivious to. By definition an unnecessary war is one that’s not vital for our national security or survival. Even if we prevail in such an unnecessary war, then all the sacrifices of blood and treasure were for nothing since our national security or survival were not served. There is NO way around this incontrovertible fact.

I may be a Progressive but I’m not anti-military. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Gulf War… though I’ve later rethought that support. I opposed Vietnam, Panama, Granada, Libya, and Iraq.

The mantra “support the troops” has become as meaningless as “pro-life”. It is meaningless phrase because it has become a slogan that both sides wear on their sleeves. They seem to value the terms as self-descriptions to proclaim their moral superiority… and as shields against their critics. Yet I all too often see a pattern. Most, especially on the pro-war side, don’t feel any responsibility to actually flesh out what their precious slogan means. It’s become as meaningless as the term “pro-life” when someone also supports the death penalty or an economic system where exploitation of others is a central feature.

Similarly those who support unnecessary wars avoid the obvious contradiction in their position: how can one REALLY support the troops when they didn’t oppose an unnecessary war at the start and now wish the troops to remain longer in a brutal meat grinder? Knowing all those sacrifices the troops are willing to make for the nation, how can ANY patriot ask, if not demand, they make such sacrifices in vain?

The military may have to follow orders whether they like it or not. When civilians do the same or allow themselves to be manipulated by cynical and dishonest politicians, it destroys one of the checks and balances of our system that can keep us out of unnecessary or illegal wars.

It SHOULD be axiomatic that no one would want to see our military used to support some special interests as we did when we repeatedly sent in the military to protect the interests of United Fruit, the oil companies, and the like. It SHOULD also be axiomatic that no one would want to see our military used in unnecessary if not illegal wars begun cynical politicians who wrap themselves in the flag.

By denying these simple realities of US politics, the faux patriots betray their real agenda. They aren’t concerned about the military. They just claim to be. They’ll believe ANY noble-sounding pretense if it’s wrapped in God and Country.

The faux patriots have genuinely deluded themselves they have a monopoly on something called patriotism. Their pathological patriotism does not require them to shed all preconceptions and rethink what’s really best for this nation. Their patriotism doesn’t require them to question whether our military is being asked to sacrifice for some pointless cause or politician’s glory. To them patriotism is summed up in that old slogan: America right or wrong. This isn’t patriotism, it is a religious creed that requires nothing more than mindless loyalty and flag-waving. Even if the most cynical, perhaps criminal, president wraps themselves in the flag… some 20-25% of the population can be counted on for a mindless, Pavlovian, flag-waving response.

So it’s clear in my mind those PROTESTING the needless Iraq War and the Bush Junta’s criminal agenda are the REAL patriots compared to the intellectually and morally bankrupt faux patriots.

All the flag waving of these pathological patriots can’t conceal their intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

Shame!

Revised: 2-18-10

ulTRAX