Our Medicare seniors received their notice----COLA would rise 0.9% in 2017----that is basically nothing.  We all know the problems with American health care costs were:  health industry fraud and profiteering.  Stop that and health costs drop considerably.  What Affordable Care Act did was to deregulate and end our public health structure that would provide that oversight and accountability----outsourced Medicare to global private corporations ---consolidated all our health industry structures because as everyone knows MONOPOLIES always look out for the consumer.  State health exchanges are filled with growing monopolies---the mergers are including global health corporations pretending to be local-----and what was our Federal Medicare and Medicaid has been made into block granting ----this is a right-wing policy that opens Federal and state funding to misappropriation,fraud, and the corruption of pay-to-play.  So, Affordable Care Act made the problems of health industry fraud and profiteering SOAR.

This was the goal of breaking Glass Steagall and banking deregulation ---and we see where that led. So, a small percentage of health industry citizens will become extremely rich while all other employees become extremely poor and patients will be increasingly pushed out of a developed nation standard of care----and into a third world only the 1% and their 2% get ordinary health care format.

Now we are hearing from the CLINTON/OBAMA camp that at least health care costs are not rising AS FAST.  That is supposed to be a good thing.  Well, that is KARL MARX'S GRADUALISM. 

Your Health
Rates Up 22 Percent For Obamacare Plans, But Subsidies Rise, Too


October 24, 20165:01 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

You can check HealthCare.gov for health insurance options and prices.

Andrew Harnik/AP



The cost of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is expected to rise an average of 22 percent in 2017, according to information released by the Obama administration Monday afternoon.
Still, federal subsidies will also rise, meaning that few people are likely to have to pay the full cost after the rate increases to get insurance coverage.

"We think they will ultimately be surprised by the affordability of the premiums, because the tax credits track with the increases in premiums," said Kevin Griffis, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.


The 22 percent rise reflects the average for all insurance marketplaces, both federal and state-based exchanges for which data are available. For insurance purchased through the federal HealthCare.gov exchange the rise will average 25 percent.


During a media briefing Monday, Griffis said the 2017 rates are roughly at the level the Congressional Budget Office forecast when the law was proposed. "The initial marketplace rates came in below costs," he said. "Many companies set prices that turned out to be too low."
Enrollment opens Nov. 1. For coverage effective Jan. 1, people need to pick a plan by Dec. 15. With a few exceptions, the last day to sign up for Obamacare is Jan. 31, 2017. Plans are available on HealthCare.gov and state-run exchanges.
While the average premiums on the benchmark health plans are increasing, the government says more than 70 percent of people buying insurance on the marketplaces created by the law could get a health plan for less than $75 a month for 2017. To get the best deal, people would have to pick a low-cost plan with limited benefits and take advantage of all the subsidies available.


People who already have coverage through the exchanges can often save money by switching plans, the administration said. More than three-quarters of people could save money by switching to the lowest-cost plan within the level of coverage, such as bronze or silver, that they've previously selected.


The Obamacare insurance exchanges are under strain after three major insurers pulled back from offering coverage in markets across the U.S. The administration says about 1 in 5 people buying insurance through the marketplaces will have only one company offering coverage.
It's in places like that where consumers will feel the most pain. "Where it really matters is where a big insurance company has exited and where that's going to leave just one company remaining," said Cynthia Cox, associate director of health reform and private insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "For those people who live in that area, many people may have to switch plans. And they won't have much choice if they want to receive financial assistance and purchase through the exchanges."

_________________________________________

When Medicare was created the payroll taxes tied to Medicare was to augment later health care costs. We paid payroll taxes for 5 decades and baby boomers have mostly paid in full their health costs. We have citizens who are seniors that did not pay into Medicare because they did not earn enough---or were left long-term unemployed and they are falling into a Medicaid level of health care.
People think seniors today are not paying for that Federal insurance plan but they have been and are slowly paying quite a bit ----just as if Medicare was a private health plan and not the health savings account it was supposed to be. So seniors are not getting that health savings account---they are slowly paying what any private health care policy owner would pay. They privatized Medicare and are charging seniors as though they have a private health plan-----deductions from Social Security and those deductions are becoming larger and larger. Of course many Americans are only the lowest level of Social Security payments ---around $750 today ----so they cannot have but so much deducted and as such they are being pushed to a Medicaid status as seniors. Remember, a large percentage of Americans now impoverished paid plenty of payroll taxes for decades---they have simply fallen into poverty these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
'It isn’t just the fact that Social Security payments are reduced by Medicare premiums. It’s also because Medicare costs have increased at a faster rate than the Social Security inflation adjustment, as the Senior Citizens League attests in this recent MarketWatch column on beating inflation':
'However, because by law any higher costs to the Medicare system must be paid by beneficiaries, and since most beneficiaries will not pay higher rates because of their incomes in 2016 (held harmless), higher-income recipients, along with new enrollees during the year, will pay much higher monthly premiums in 2016 due to the lack of a COLA'.

They are making it sound like upper-middle class seniors are SUBSIDIZING the lower class when in fact everyone is getting fleeced with more affluent seniors getting fleeced even more. They are not subsidizing lower class----we have already paid for this. Remember, the goal of Medicare was to have all workers pay and that bolus of Medicare Trust was to care for all aging seniors.


Seniors are now paying $2,000 a year for a health policy that was pre-paid by decades of payroll taxes and this is basic access-----seniors are now having to buy that MEDICARE PLUS PLAN.



August 27, 2015


No Social Security COLA in 2016: Higher Medicare Premiums for Your Clients



Some retirees will bear the brunt of higher Medicare Part B premiums due to their higher income and no Social Security COLA, the Center for Retirement Research reports

Did you know? You can earn continuing education credits by answering questions about this article.



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Medicare premiums will take a bigger bite out of higher-income retirees' Social Security benefits.Your retired clients’ Medicare Part B premiums have remained at the same level in 2015 as they were in 2014, but absent some political moves in Washington, that will change in 2016.  


According to an August paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Part B premiums for higher-income Americans are scheduled to rise significantly in 2016. That’s because it appears there will be no cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients in 2016--for only the third time in the past 40 years.


Lower inflation and no 2016 COLA for Social Security recipients will cause a “flap in the Medicare program” next year, point out CRR authors Alicia Munnell and Anqi Chen, because by law, the cost of higher Medicare Part B premiums cannot be passed on to most beneficiaries — about 70%, they say, who are considered “held harmless” on premiums — when they do not get a raise in their overall Social Security benefits. 


To begin, why won’t there be a COLA for Social Security recipients next year? Any adjustment in Social Security benefits as of Jan. 1 of each year is based on comparing CPI-W in the third quarter of the preceding year (2015 in this case) with the CPI in the prior year’s (2014 in this case) third quarter. The CPI in 2015’s third quarter is, so far, below 2014’s third-quarter inflation, and thus no COLA.


One example: Only 9% of consumers say they’re ‘very knowledgeable’ about benefits, but 40% expect those benefits to account for...

(CPI-W, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, is used by the Social Security Administration to adjust benefits for both Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients.) 
Parts B of Medicare, funded by Social Security’s Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund, covers physician and outpatient hospital services (Part B) and Part D pays for prescription drugs (Part A is funded by a separate Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and pays for inpatient hospital services, home health and hospice care and “skilled nursing facilities,” i.e., nursing homes).


The paper points out that 75% of the costs of Parts B and D are paid from the government’s general revenues; the remaining 25% comes from monthly premiums paid by beneficiaries out of their Social Security benefits before those benefits are sent. 


Beginning in 2007, Part B premiums became based on the income of the beneficiary. Munnell and Chen write that under current law, Part B premiums for other beneficiaries “must be raised enough to offset premiums foregone due to the hold-harmless provi­sion.” The estimated monthly premium in 2016 for these other beneficiaries will be $159.30, up 52% from 2015’s $104.90 monthly premium. Higher income participants, they write, would then pay “mul­tiples of $159.30 depending on their income level."



Here’s what the premiums were in 2015 for higher-income Medicare enrollees:


Income-Related Part B Premiums for 2015


Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
However, because by law any higher costs to the Medicare system must be paid by beneficiaries, and since most beneficiaries will not pay higher rates because of their incomes in 2016 (held harmless), higher-income recipients, along with new enrollees during the year, will pay much higher monthly premiums in 2016 due to the lack of a COLA.

_____________________________________________

As more affluent seniors see themselves having to pay premiums over and beyond Medicare and see those premiums rise------citizens at the lower income scale are seeing their access to what seniors for decades have known to be ordinary access to all hospital treatments for disease vectors----disappear. The media leads the American people to believe these lower-income seniors are being subsidized and keeping that standard of care WHEN THEY ARE NOT. All of this is just beginning to show during these several years of OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL privatization of our Medicare and Medicaid with the Affordable Care Act----but it will become increasingly apparent as more families see loved ones die for lack of ordinary care. This coming economic crash will broaden and deepen poverty---so this will be coming to close to 90% of Americans---
AND WE PAID PAYROLL TAXES TRIPLED BY REAGAN TO ASSURE THAT ALL OF THIS WAS PRE-PAID.
So, Affordable Care Act ends Medicare-----and in transition will send most Americans to a MEDICAID FOR ALL status. Medicaid has been gutted of funding and no longer exists as an equal opportunity program so winners and losers pay-to-play to get health care----this is what happens when we allow FAR-RIGHT 1% WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS take our Democratic Party---
THESE 2016 DEMOCRATIC ELECTION FRAUDS MATTER!
'That’s why Medicare was first enacted. People over 65 were unable to buy commercial insurance because they use three times more medical services than working people; it was unaffordable or insurers simply refused to provide it' 'It pools the resources of the entire nation to protect older and disabled Americans from the risk of an unforeseeable financial disaster in the event of an acute illness, an injury, or an expensive chronic condition. All American workers finance the program and all are covered by it once eligible: no one is excluded because of their age, health status, or their income'.

Don't be played by class -----1% Wall Street is fleecing everyone as usual.

Medicare And Commercial Health Insurance: The Fundamental Difference


Diane Archer and Theodore Marmor
February 15, 2012


As the debate over Medicare continues in connection to America’s fiscal problems, it is critical to understand how Medicare differs from commercial health insurance for working people.  There is a fundamental difference between these two types of health insurance plans, one social and one commercial.
The basic difference between Medicare and commercial insurance is that Medicare is designed to absorb risk,  serving individuals who have or may have costly and complex medical needs as well as the relatively healthy, whereas commercial insurance is required to protect its business interests by avoiding those most likely to use medical care.  That’s why Medicare was first enacted.

People over 65 were unable to buy commercial insurance because they use three times more medical services than working people; it was unaffordable or insurers simply refused to provide it. And now it’s simply unrealistic to imagine that commercial insurance companies will change their fundamental business model and work to protect the health and financial security of most Americans.


Medicare’s mandate:

Medicare is a federally administered insurance program that Americans pay into throughout our working lives and enroll in after they retire or in case of a serious disability. It pools the resources of the entire nation to protect older and disabled Americans from the risk of an unforeseeable financial disaster in the event of an acute illness, an injury, or an expensive chronic condition. All American workers finance the program and all are covered by it once eligible: no one is excluded because of their age, health status, or their income. Meanwhile the program is obligated to pay for all necessary care for the eligible population, wherever they live in the country and whatever else may be true about their history, prospects, and preferences. Medicare only denies claims for medically unnecessary care.


Commercial insurance’s mandate:

Commercial health insurance, even with regulations, has an entirely different mandate.  Its fundamental purpose is commercial.  Insurance corporations receive premiums that must fund the costs of their enrollees’ health care and administrative costs, as well as profit margins sufficient to allow borrowing in the capital markets.  To make that work, insurance firms avoid risk. They are rewarded for avoiding, within the rules of the day, those who are already sick, those likely to become sick, and those whose incomes are relatively low.


In short private insurers must limit the risks they take on in order to survive.  And that itself explains a good deal of the behavior that has made commercial health insurance firms unpopular: inclinations to make eligibility difficult for anyone who has or whom they believe is likely to have a costly condition, postpone the payment of claims, quibble about the scope of coverage, and many other behaviors that have filtered into the day to day vocabulary of Americans. The Affordable Care Act takes a good first step at moderating differences and limiting this behavior, but it cannot and does not encourage insurers to pool risk or design plans that attract people with costly conditions as Medicare does.


Commercial insurers will always seek to minimize their exposure to risk:  It’s simply unrealistic to expect commercial insurers to do the job Medicare is already doing. Before Medicare was created in 1965, many argued that the federal government should simply subsidize the purchase of commercial insurance for seniors. But it became clear — even to the industry — that commercial insurers could not find a way to profitably cover older Americans, even with a subsidy. Yet today, some in Congress are embracing the system that was rejected nearly 50 years ago.


The fundamental nature of commercial insurers will undermine any effort to use them to protect the most vulnerable Americans. No matter what regulations are instituted in an attempt to guarantee their good behavior, commercial insurers will still have an incentive to avoid risk, and they will do so insofar as it is possible.
In Massachusetts, where insurers must offer coverage to anyone, plans avoid offering adequate coverage for costly conditions and disguise what they are actually selling. Even heavily regulated Medicare Advantage commercial plans are designed to push people in poor health into traditional Medicare in order to avoid actually paying for care, and they have successfully overcome policies meant to halt this practice. They are also less likely than traditional Medicare to counteract the health care inequalities facing people of color, people with low incomes, the chronically ill, and the disabled.


Since commercial insurers are not publicly accountable, it is difficult to say exactly how commercial insurers perpetuate these inequalities; their data are proprietary, and they generally keep the payment policies that allow them to remain profitable secret.
Medicare is more cost-effective than commercial insurance: Commercial insurance is less effective than Medicare on any number of metrics. Because Medicare has such an enormous coverage pool, the program has bargaining power that no commercial insurance company can match. On average, Medicare manages to pay 22 percent less than what commercial plans pay for physician services, so the only way those plans could compete would be by offering 22 percent fewer services.
Unsurprisingly, Medicare’s per capita costs have risen more slowly than commercial insurers’ and are projected to continue doing so. Meanwhile, commercial insurers invest so many resources in avoiding paying for actual medical care that their administrative costs are much higher. Commercial insurance meets the health care needs of most working people because most workers most of the time do not need a lot of health care.


Only Medicare is designed to insulate Americans from risk: This essay has laid out the differences between two different ideal types of insurance. The realities of how plans actually work can be substantially more complicated. Medicare hospital insurance (Part A) most fully conforms to the social insurance model, since it is financed by proportional contributions from all citizens, whereas Part B uses general revenue and a yearly premium. Meanwhile regulations can moderate the difference between commercial and social insurance. But nothing can change the underlying reality that programs like Medicare are designed to absorb and broadly distribute risk, protecting everyone, while commercial insurers are designed to select and protect individuals with the fewest needs.
The belief that competition among private health insurance firms can produce cost savings or higher quality care represents the victory of illusion over evidence. We need to let the existing Medicare system do what it already does effectively: insulate Americans from risk, rather than shift risk to the most vulnerable citizens.
__________________________
If we read national media we are told many things regarding Medigap-----public and private plans----and as usual most of what they print is not true. The policies of Medicare and Federal funding of Medigap have one goal-----the first stage is to push seniors OFF FEDERAL PUBLIC MEDIGAP POLICIES AND ON TO PRIVATE MEDIGAP POLICIES---MEDICARE ADVANTAGE and this is being done by weakening what public Medigap will cover. The next step will be to end private Medicare Advantage using the excuse that it is not profitable. None of these Federal health programs are meant to be profitable----they are PUBLIC TRUSTS FOR GOODNESS SAKE---WE PRE-PAID FOR ALL THIS HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.
Baby boomers have these several years been aging towards retirement--this is why 1% global Wall Street has its pols working NOW to end public health. Seniors on Medicare now are seeing rates rise but still manageable but seniors this coming decade will see they will not access health care at all---only preventative and clinic care----not hospital and disease vector care----such as diabetes.
Those 20% of Americans having weathered all Wall Street booms and busts to maintain an affluent retirement/savings----will be aging into what will take much of that disposable income ----DO THINK UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS WILL BE ACCESSING ORDINARY CARE FOR LONG!
It becomes national media's job to make Americans feel that subtle changes are occurring but loses will be subsidized---don't worry -----maximizing health industry profits while creating extreme wealth and extreme poverty -----we'll do all that and still have a developed nation USA!

What's worse than a US ranked second world in health care costs and access? A third world ranking!

Congress Schedules End to Insurance Coverage of Medicare Part B Deductible


Medicare beneficiaries often buy “Medigap” insurance that pays for many of regular Medicare’s deductibles and copayments.  But as a result of legislation just passed by Congress, starting in 2020 Medigap plans will no longer be allowed to offer coverage of the Medicare Part B deductible, which is currently $166 (in 2016).  However, current Medigap policyholders and those buying policies before 2020 will still be eligible for the deductible coverage after that date.

The change is an effort to help pay for so-called “doc fix” legislation that overhauls the way Medicare pays doctors and that is expected to cost $200 billion over 10 years. Medicare Part B covers doctor visits and other outpatient care, and currently Medigap plans C and F offer coverage of the Part B deductible. The reasoning behind making Medicare beneficiaries pay the deductible themselves is that it will cause them to think twice before going to a doctor and perhaps costing the Medicare system unnecessary money. 
Some argue, however, that if the change prompts beneficiaries to forego needed medical care, they may simply require more expensive care later, costing Medicare more in the end.  Critics also say that the change will encourage more beneficiaries to abandon regular Medicare and join Medicare Advantage plans, which will still be able to cover the deductible.
In addition to the Medigap change, affluent seniors will have to pay higher Part B premiums as a result of the legislation.  Starting in 2018, individuals with incomes between $133,500 and $214,000 (or twice these figures for couples) will pay more; details here.  And the regular Part B premium will rise faster than under current law as a result of the "doc fix" legislation.

_____________________________________________
If we think ObamaCare looks just like RomneyCare and wonder what is the difference between these candidates who PRETEND TO BE conservative and social progressive. The answer is they are neither----they are simply CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD the same privatized, profit-driven, global health systems ending our public health and Medicare and Medicaid Trusts in the US.
Below we see Bill Clinton doing just that as he POSED SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE BACK IN THE 1990S TO SAVING AND PROTECTING MEDICARE-----and he started the defunding, dismantling of oversight and accountability that allowed the health care industry to fleece our Federal health programs of hundreds of billions each year.
IT WAS CLINTON SETTING THE STAGE FOR PRIVATIZING AND ENDING MEDICARE AND MEDICAID---JUST AS WITH ALL NEW DEAL AND WAR ON POVERTY.
It was Bill and Hillary as Clinton Initiative that partnered with Microsoft's Bill Gates to promote the building of Gate's global PHARMA corporation. It is Bill and Hillary with team Obama and Bush that promoted Trans Pacific Trade Pact packed with global health policy having a goal of ending public health subsidy around the world-----THAT IS WHO IS KILLING OUR US PUBLIC HEALTH----ONCE THE BEST IN THE WORLD.
All of the secrecy behind Hillary and her heading the health care reform during Bill's terms was just what we see with Obama----she was seeking to privatize and end Medicare and Medicaid as well. The far-right Republican think tanks call HEALTH CARE FOR ALL simply gutted of funding MEDICAID FOR ALL-----preventative health care access only which is what ROMNEYCARE/OBAMACARE IS.
'Three years ago Clinton himself proposed basically the same package of reforms for Medicare--a fact everyone seems to have forgotten since it was embedded in his massive, ill-fated Health Security Act. Here's the rundown'.
Remember, REAGAN had just tripled payroll taxes so SS and Medicare Trusts would handle baby boomers---then Clinton starts to defund and create conditions for fleecing of these trusts to occur.

Clinton's Medicare Cuts
Bill in '93 = Bob in '96.

By John Merline

D uring the first presidential and vice presidential debates, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp were hit by Medicare attacks from Bill Clinton and Al Gore some 22 times. That's an average of one Medicare attack every four minutes.


Dole's sins: Not only did he want to slash $270 billion from the program--more than needed to protect the Medicare "trust fund"--he wanted to hike premiums, force seniors to pay more out of pocket for care, and push them into managed care. Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the president and vice president said, wanted Medicare to "wither on the vine." All these were, as Gore put it on Meet the Press recently, "extremist measures that would have devastated Medicare."




Thank God Clinton was there to stop it.




Dole's limp response was that he would honor his mother's word not to cut Medicare. He needn't be so defensive. Three years ago Clinton himself proposed basically the same package of reforms for Medicare--a fact everyone seems to have forgotten since it was embedded in his massive, ill-fated Health Security Act. Here's the rundown.




Big Cuts vs. Slower Growth. Consider this exchange in the veep debate:




Jack Kemp: "The president himself suggested that the reduction in the growth of Medicare over the next five or six years ought to be held to 6 percent. Under the Republican plan, irrespective of the numbers, it will grow at 7 or even more percent."




Al Gore: "I think Mr. Kemp has unintentionally made a mistake in saying that President Clinton called for a reduction to 6 percent. ... It is not the president's position."




Nobody bothered to check out this one. But the fact is that in 1993 Clinton boasted he could cut Medicare growth to 6 percent while protecting the program.




Here's Clinton speaking to the American Association of Retired Persons in October that year: "Today, Medicaid and Medicare are going up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of inflation." Given that prices were expected to climb 3 percent a year, Clinton meant 6 percent growth for Medicare.




"That is not a Medicare or Medicaid cut," he reassured seniors. "So when you hear all this business about cuts, let me caution you that that is not what is going on. We are going to have increases in Medicare and Medicaid, and a reduction in the rate of growth."




A draft summary of the Health Security Act, released in September of 1993, contained a chart showing projected growth for Medicare slowing to less than 6 percent by 1997, and less than 5 percent by 1999. And in its independent review of the Clinton plan, health-care consulting firm Lewin-VHI noted that the act "attempts to slow the growth in public and private health spending to the rate of growth in the CPI plus an allowance for population growth." That puts Medicare growth at just over 4 percent a year.




Far from devastating, this slowdown was, the White House said at the time, good for seniors. Ira Magaziner told a press briefing that "slowing the rate of growth actually benefits beneficiaries considerably because it slows the rate of growth of the premiums they have to pay."




But looked at in the terms the White House uses today, Clinton was proposing cuts in Medicare spending beyond the $270 billion Republicans dared propose.




Like the GOP plan, Clinton wanted to take a big chunk of savings from Medicare providers--doctors and hospitals--by cutting back payments to them.


M ore Cuts Than Needed. At one point, Clinton warned that the GOP cuts were "more than was necessary to repair the Medicare trust fund." The implied political point was that Medicare cuts were going to pay for tax cuts for the rich.


Clinton's Health Security Act, however, also cut Medicare more than was needed to repair the trust fund. Most of the savings from Medicare were to be plowed back into new federal health programs. As the Congressional Budget Office put it: "Reductions in Medicare spending would provide a major part of the funding for the Administration's proposal." More than a quarter of it, by White House calculations.




Raise Costs to Seniors.

Several times during the debates, Clinton and Gore said that the Republicans' Medicare-reform plan would have boosted costs to seniors. "It would have charged seniors more for out-of-pocket costs as well as more in premiums," Clinton said at one point.




Under Clinton's Health Security Act, more than a quarter of the savings came out of the hides of seniors. They were to be charged higher premiums for Medicare Part B, the program that covers physician services. New copayments were to be added for some Medicare services that are now 100 percent covered. Over six years, those costs to seniors would have totaled $33 billion.




To be sure, Clinton concentrated the premium hikes for Part B on the well-to-do--those seniors earning $90,000 a year or more. The rest would pay only a quarter of the premium cost, with taxpayers picking up the rest. The GOP set the contribution rate at just under one-third of the full cost, but they also "means tested" the premiums so that seniors with incomes over $75,000 would pay a bigger chunk.




Push Seniors Into Managed Care.

"Sen. Dole's Medicare plan ... would have forced a lot of seniors into managed care," Clinton said. That's something of a misrepresentation. The GOP plan would have expanded the managed-care options open to seniors, and encouraged them to take it. Today, seniors can stick with Medicare, or opt for Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) coverage, with the government ponying up the premiums. The GOP plan would have opened that door to the rest of the alphabet soup of private managed-care plans, such as preferred-provider organizations, point-of-service plans and physician hospital organizations.




So would Clinton's 1993 reforms, and even his more recent Medicare proposals. One section in his Health Security Act was titled "Encouraging Managed Care Under Medicare Program." Clinton's current reform proposal suggests expanding managed-care options for seniors. The only difference between the Republicans and Clinton on this score is that the GOP wanted to give seniors one extra option--to enroll in a "medical savings account" plan.

WHICH OBAMA DID


Both parties used basically the same regulatory machinery to try to make their plans work in the market without creating a huge "adverse selection" problem--healthier seniors opting into lower-cost plans. The Republicans' machinery, in fact, was borrowed almost verbatim from Clinton's plan--which, in a double twist, the GOP had previously attacked as unworkable.




Let Medicare Wither on the Vine.

Clinton twice said that Medicare would "wither on the vine" under Republican reforms. The reference is to a comment by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said that the GOP wanted the Medicare bureaucracy to wither on the vine, as seniors opted for the private plans. But the quote has been misused by Democrats ever since.




In any case, Clinton also forecast the decline of the Medicare bureaucracy. New retirees under his Health Security Act would be able to stick with the plan they had when they worked. The government would pay the premiums instead of the employer. Current retirees could choose a private managed-care plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Clinton's plan would have moved nearly 3 million seniors from Medicare into private plans in 1998 alone.




To be fair, the White House wanted to sweeten the Medicare pot at the same time it was making these cuts by adding a prescription-drug benefit.




It has also claimed since that its proposed cuts in Medicare were acceptable because they were in the context of "universal health care reform." But that wasn't the argument it made at the time. Hillary Rodham Clinton told a Senate panel in 1993 that savings in Medicare were easy because "we have too many examples now of how it can be done better at lower costs with the same or better quality, and that's what we're counting on."
________________________________________________

Folks think we are conspiracy theorist because we know what the original founding and goal of national corporate non-profits are----here we have AARP founded by someone tied to who else-----CORPORATE  INSURANCE---COLONIAL PENN.  AARP has been used by 1% Wall Street to allow policies installed as SOCIALLY PROGRESSIVE---AS GOOD FOR SENIORS be sold that way.  It was not created to protect seniors but to advance corporate insurance policy and AARP has tied itself to ENDORSEMENTS OF PRODUCTS said to be helping seniors.  Have you tried that cellular corporation with discount rates for seniors?  Talk about rip off.

So, AARP was sent in to deregulate our Medicare by creating its own MEDIGAP-----they kept it public with the intent of privatizing Medicare away.  That step of public Medigap Insurance created a way for seniors to bridge rising health care costs caused by widespread health industry fraud and profiteering -----Bill Clinton doing to our Federal Health Care what he did to banking----our Federal Housing Agency----and our Federal Education student loan program-----

It would have been an AARP that shouted with REAL social Democrats in the 1990s against Bill Clinton that all of what his policies did was going to end our Federal Medicare and Medicaid programs----which it did. While Bush allowed all that health industry fraud to soar-----he waited for an Obama to end it because know who is hurt most?  Black and brown citizens-----wait for Hillary because it is women hurt by losing Federal public health-----and that is the reason for these faces on 1% Wall Street global corporate neo-liberalism----FAR-RIGHT WING WALL STREET do not work for public interest.


AARP

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
AARP, Inc.
AARP logo, eff. January 2007


Headquarters in Washington, D.C.


Formerly calledAmerican Association of Retired Persons
AARP, Inc., formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, is a United States-based interest group with a membership founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus, Ph.D., a retired educator from California, and Leonard Davis, later the founder of the Colonial Penn Group of insurance companies.

Of course sending all that Medicare Trust funding to public and private MediGap over these few decades simply drained to a corporation more and more of our TRUST-------AARP WAS TRUST-BUSTING as it PRETENDED to fight for our SS and Medicare Trusts.

If we educate broadly on public policy we knew all this in 1990s-----so we would not keep falling for progressive posing non-profits and leaders and media working for 1% Wall Street and not WE THE PEOPLE.

AARP Moves to Protect Social Security and Medicare

Seniors’ group launches “You’ve Earned a Say” program to defend against cuts it feels are unfair.


By Philip Moeller | Staff Writer March 20, 2012, at 10:00 a.m.

 AARP began to engage its 37 million members Monday in an effort to dissuade Congress from making what they feel would be unfair cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. AARP's "You've Earned a Say" program is being promoted through town hall meetings in every state, online member surveys, and national advertising.

AARP said the program is educational and will not include direct lobbying efforts or be used in this year's elections. But it will build and communicate an extensive record of how individuals are affected by the two programs.
Cuts to both programs have been called for in a series of budget deficit proposals, including the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Since its report more than a year ago, several other sets of proposals have been introduced but sidetracked by the increasingly partisan political divide in Congress.
"Instead of talking about balancing the budget on the backs of America's seniors, they should be talking about ways to strengthen" these programs, AARP CEO Barry Rand said at a town hall meeting. "It's time to have a debate about the health and retirement security of real Americans."
AARP also released results of a national survey of adults of all ages. By overwhelming levels of 80 to 90 percent, they said Social Security and Medicare were crucial to people's financial security and health in retirement, and that Washington was deciding the future of these programs behind closed doors and without listening to the needs of ordinary citizens.

"We all know Washington isn't listening and that the only way to get them to listen is to get you involved," Rand said in a series of town hall meetings in Columbus, Ohio, Denver, Miami, and Richmond, Va. "AARP is listening even if Washington is not listening ... There is no American dream if you don't have Medicare and Social Security."


Here are the challenges that AARP sees to both programs:


Social Security

• Social Security can pay full benefits for nearly 25 years. After that, it will still be able to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits for the next 75 years or more even if no changes are made.
• In 1940, a 65-year-old could expect to live an additional 12 or 13 years. A 65-year-old today can expect to live another 20 years, and thus collect benefits for longer periods.
• The drop in birthrates and the increase in life expectancies have reduced the number of workers per beneficiary to 2.8; by 2036, the ratio will be 2.1 workers for each beneficiary.

Medicare


• In only 12 years, there will be a shortfall in the money needed to pay full benefits in the Medicare Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which helps pay for inpatient hospital care.
• The total number of Medicare beneficiaries is expected to double—from about 40 million to 80 million—between the years 2000 and 2030.
• Rising healthcare costs have increased both the overall cost of Medicare as well as the amount older Americans spend out-of-pocket.
• Medicare currently accounts for just under 14 percent of all federal spending, but it is projected to increase from $471 billion in 2012 to $818 billion in 2021.

__________________________________________
Just an aside------here is Colonial PENN----the insurance corporation started back in the mid-1900s-----with the founder of AARP -----Colonial PENN leads in subpriming the LIFE INSURANCE INDUSTRY----just as housing loans were subprimed------anyone with a pulse can now get life insurance.  1% Wall Street has done this these few decades because LIFE INSURANCE corporations are going to implode in this coming bond market collapse and fraud.

So, when social Democrats shout----STAY AWAY FROM NATIONAL NON-PROFITS that pretend to be working for labor and justice----this is one.  AARP founder not only worked to privatize and end Medicare but has worked to fleece LIFE INSURANCE CONSUMERS.

BUT EVERYONE'S FAVORITE ALEX TREBECK OF JEOPARDY HAWKS THIS!  WELL YES, ALL HOLLYWOOD STARS WORK FOR GLOBAL 1% WALL STREET.


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We will discuss health care policy next week.  Today let's summarize what are attacks on our US Constitution that will end harming ALL POPULATION GROUPS.  We need to shake race and class out and come together as a 99% vs 1%.

First, we need to know all of the attacks on our US Constitution---from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA using Executive Order including the Federalism Act to ignore and fail to enforce all of our US Constitution these few decades WAS ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.  Our founding fathers wrote a US Constitution just to keep just this kind of extreme wealth and extreme power from taking our nation.  They gave legislative powers to each citizen just to keep that balance so just because CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA have captured our election process with election rigging and fraud to install a 5% to the 1% willing to do anything ---even kill our nation and our rights as citizens-----does not mean it is not EASY PEASY to reverse all this.  WE SIMPLY NEED TO GET RID OF ALL GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.  That means paying attention----knowing and educating on public policy and candidates----knowing voting histories and broad education on different political stances.  See why CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA were about dismantling public education---defunding and dumbing down our once strong, rigorous public standards----educating broadly?  When the working class citizen says to me-----WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW HISTORY, WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING OUTSIDE OF OUR CITY OR STATE----they are repeating what that 1% is telling them----because we cannot be CITIZENS without knowing all of the above.

WE THE PEOPLE CANNOT COME TOGETHER TO FIX THESE ATTACKS ON OUR CONSTITUTION UNTIL WE STOP ALLOWING 1% WALL STREET CREATING FACTIONS AND THAT INCLUDES THIS BLAME GAME ON DEMOCRAT VS REPUBLICAN BEING THE BAD GUY.

CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are the bad guys and they are not Republican or Democrat-----

Below we see 1% Wall Street telling Republican voters it is the Democrats fault PRETENDING Obama is a left-leaning Democrat when Obama is a far-right wing global Wall Street neo-liberal/ Libertarian.  Peter Orzag mentioned below is a great big ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL 2% TO THE 1% so we would not believe anything he says.

THE GAME OF PRETENDING IT IS WE THE PEOPLE TELLING THESE PRESIDENTS TO USE EXECUTIVE ORDER TO BY-PASS OUR US CONSTITUTION IS PROPAGANDA----THEY MAKE IT UP---BELOW WE SEE A GLOBAL 2% TO THE 1% LA RAZA---LIKE CASA DE MARYLAND---SUPPORTING THIS BY-PASS FOR IMMIGRANTS WHEN THE GOAL IS TO FURTHER ENSLAVE IMMIGRANTS.

The Left’s Attack on the Constitution
The Left’s Attack on the Constitution

05 Oct Posted by Milton
 

Peter Orszag says we have too much democracy in the U.S.

North Carolina Governor says we should suspend 2012 elections.
Washington Post Editor Eugene Robinson says Obama should violate the constitution to prevent a preacher from burning the Koran.
(refresh page to see video)

Obama says the Constitution did not go far enough and is a charter of negatives saying what government cannot do as opposed to what government should do for its citizens.


People at a La Raza banquet encouraged Obama to bypass Congress to get things done.

View @ 15:19 mark; the concern here is the encouragement by the audience for Obama  to violate the constitution.


And there are many more examples of government officials, Hollywood and Northeast elites who have challenged the legitimacy and relevance of the U.S. Constitution. The point to these examples is that Americans are being conditioned to accept some dramatic change in our constitutional form of government. Perhaps even an effort to replace the Constitution? Clearly these examples show that there are some in America, Progressives / liberals, who are ready for this change.


There is a growing cancer in America and it is threatening the very existence of the Republic. Quite frankly, in my opinion, it is a cancer that has existed in one shape or form now for over 100 years. I believe the cancer is Progressiveism and it’s first most ardent supporter, Woodrow Wilson laid much of the ground work which is spreading at a more rapid pace today, especially in the perception of our Constitution as a road bloc to accomplishing Progressive ideas and programs..


It is risky business to question a person’s patriotism; the argument goes that one’s perception or definition of patriotism is broad enough for most acts not to be disqualified. For example, many on the left describe Tea Party folks as racist, bigoted, narrowed minded and un-American. I, however, believe that Tea Party participants represent the essence of what the Founders envisioned for the Republic; a well informed and politically active citizenry peacefully exercising their Constitutional freedoms in seeking redress to government actions they think are a threat to the Republic. The operative word here is “Constitutional” freedoms. Tea Party patriots are seeking to ensure that Congress and the Executive Branch work within the confines of the Constitution to fix the nation’s problems. I challenge anyone to provide any picture, video or anything else that proves otherwise for Tea Party participants.
People on the Right might characterize people on the left (i.e. the Day of Rage  and Occupy Wall Street participants) as extremist who are bent on overthrowing our democratic form of government to be replaced by some sort of Marxist, socialist or communist utopia. No doubt the members of the left see themselves as peaceful protesters, like Tea Party members, exercising their Constitutional freedoms to seek redress for government and private sector acts. While this might be the case for some on the left,  it is also clear that many on the left make their complaints of government known under the cloak of Constitutional protections while at the same  time demanding that a new form of government, Socialism or Marxism, replace our Constitutional form of government.


Since the inception of our beloved Constitution it seems that forces have been at work to undermine its protections.  There is an element consisting of elitist who believe that their New England education qualifies then to determine how America can best be governed.


ECONOMIC Progressives today, as in the past, take a rather dim view of the Constitution. Progressives have as their central belief the fact that big government should play an intimate role in the daily lives of all Americans. From jobs to job benefits; healthcare, education; you name it, if it is a human need, Progressives believe government has the responsibility to provide it. However, in order to accomplish their goal of benevolent governance,  Progressives realize that the government has to play a larger role if not in fact control all elements of our economy. Socialism is one form of governance that would allow Progressives to realize their ambitions for America. Is this what is in store for America? Facts seem to suggest that the Left, Progressives, are laying the ground work for deconstructing America and reestablishing a new America under a different constitution. Their strategy to accomplish this objective appears to be to create conditions that are so horrific the public will demand a change in our form of governance.



The following video was made available at The Blaze and we are adding it here as an update. In the video, Steven Lerner, SEIU Executive and community organizer,  tells the crowd that they are about to create economic terrorism, and amazingly, the crowd cheers. Given the tenuous economic conditions in the country, who stokes economic riots, especially where the focus of the unrest is directed to our financial system.  The answer, radicals; radicals bent on bringing down the entire economic system not to repair a broken system.


The left is increasingly complaining how our government is in gridlock. We hear daily, especially on liberal media outlets like MSNBC, that our government is not working; how Congress has become too partisan; how the Tea Party’s racism has prevented any moderate legislator from working with Progressives; how too much money is poisoning the system and the lack of leadership needed to correct these deficiencies.
As the above videos and articles show, the left is very comfortable with suspending or violating the U.S. Constitution if it means that their greater good is achieved.


What is this all leading to?To view this question in the context of leftist organizations, media, unions and non-profit organizations, espousing how corrupt and broken our government is, it seems inevitable that these same leftist individuals and groups will eventually call for a new government structure. Oh wait….they are already making this demand.


For the past two weeks protestors have descended on Wall Street as part of the Occupy Wall Street rally. What originated in New York is now being seen throughout the country with more protests planned.
While the nature and purpose for the protest is somewhat vague, increasingly we are now told that the general purpose and intent is to change the banking system and to hold all who were involved in the 2009 financial collapse accountable. While this is offered by protesters as their driving purpose there are ominous signs that a greater agenda exists.


A general perusal of signs and listening to some supporters suggest that the real purpose is to fundamentally change our economic system and thus America. This objective is not only consistent with the call of people who support the protests, people like Michael Moore, Cornel West and others, it is seen also in the signage carried by protesters.




For years now, the Left has decried and vilified our economic and financial system often calling it cruel, impassionate, corrupt and slanted in favor of the rich. Now, with a presidential campaign structured on class warfare; radicals coming out for a new America; a bias complicit media bent on giving the radicals legitimacy; a weaken and vulnerable America economically; America is in real trouble and could very well be disrupted to an extent that Americans, looking for solutions, could embrace the idea that capitalism has failed and that a new system is needed.
A new economic system and governmental structure is the goal and objective of many of the people in the Obama Administration including Obama himself, if one understands what Obama meant by fundamental transformation.


Capitalism and our constitutional form of government are under attack and the inroads of those hoping to replace these systems are now reaching an apex. Shortly, America will experience social unrest and during the midst of this upheaval there will be efforts to do away with our constitutional form of government. Yes, this sounds too incredible to believe but the social disorder that we will witness will be so great, so devastating, so unprecedented and that will disrupt the lives of people to such degree that Americans will look for solutions. It will be conditions like these that opportunist like those seen in the Obama Administration (never let a crisis go to waste) will obligingly step in.



There are several current events that will lead to the massive social upheaval not only in America but throughout the world; including the inevitable Greece and Italian defaults; Middle East unrest; and ultimately a financial collapse in America and the rest of the world. These events will create such mass confusion and chaos that an already conditioned people will become receptive to answers that under normal circumstances would not see the light of day.
Dark clouds are surrounding America and the world; similar clouds that gathered just prior to World War II. This time there will be no America to fight back the evils that will encompass all nations, unless……Americans wake up, pray and return to God.
We would like to end this article with this video of The Forgotten Man

______________________________________________
Social Democrats like me were shouting back in the 1980s and 90s that REAGAN/CLINTON were not Democrats or Republicans.  We knew 3 decades ago of this move by old-world global rich to take control of our American governance.  WE WERE CALLED CONSPIRACY THEORISTS because that is what national media told US citizens to think.  So, Clinton was allowed to take control of our people's Democratic Party and Reagan set the stage for a global Bush neo-con control of our Republican Party. All were Harvard/Yale----Ivy League global wealth.  Not all Ivy League students and grads are involved in this SKULL AND BONES attack on our US Constitution and freedoms----it is a very secret group.  We must have US citizens to WAKE UP----stop allowing media/Wall Street to tell us what populist opinion -----who is a populist leader----what actions are populist.

This is why we spend so much time describing WALL STREET PLAYERS. Below we see all kinds of political terms being used by national media and captured CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA organizations and they all use these political terms INCORRECTLY----THEY USE THEM TO LIE, CHEAT, AND CONFUSE VOTERS.

HERE IS THE GUY OBAMA PLACED AS HEAD OF OUR US BUDGET AGENCY----JUST AS GEITHNER/LEW----AND THEY ARE ALL CRIMINALS.

'Peter Orszag is vice chairman at Citigroup and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This article appeared in the October 6, 2011, issue of the magazine'.



We talk about who is and is not a populist leader----media chooses who to place in front of cameras during civil unrest and they are WALL STREET PLAYERS not populist leaders---don't listen to them.

We talk about how global 1% Wall Street is confusing citizens over what is MARXISM----WHAT IS SOCIALISM----WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL!  If we know the global rich use terms like Marxism and Socialism as propaganda to protect NAKED CAPITALISM----as with what is happening in Asia and Latin America these few decades-----then we know the policies being pushed by Congress, state assemblies, our city halls have that global corporate campus/global factory extreme wealth extreme corporate power----AND THEY WANT TO CALL THAT SOCIALISM/MARXIST.

We talk all the time about the difference between ECONOMIC PROGRESSIVES and SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES----the same with economic liberals and social liberals.  We have these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA had only far-right economic progressives-----far-right economic liberalism called NEO-LIBERALISM.  IT IS NOT LEFT-LEANING.


civil unrest in America, Marxism, Occupy Wall Street, Progressives, Socialism, U.S. Constitution, Unconstitutional


One thing is sure---we do not call lying, cheating, stealing----pragamatic nilism -----no morals, no ethics, no attention to Rule of Law ELITE----OR RELIGIOUS.  The 1% and their 2% are not smart----they are criminal.  We don't call the mafia Godfather ELITE----we don't call international drug cartel leaders ELITE-----we don't allow them to PRETEND they are a religious group as with OPUS DEI FOR EXAMPLE BEING SIMPLY A RELIGIOUS CULT.  The global rich use religion to launder stolen money---as with these corporate and Wall Street frauds. The once strong academic Ivy League universities in the US are gone-----they have been since Clinton simply Wall Street product mills.....nothing academic---nothing elite happening in the US.

'Since the inception of our beloved Constitution it seems that forces have been at work to undermine its protections.  There is an element consisting of elitist who believe that their New England education qualifies then to determine how America can best be governed'.

Too Much of a Good Thing
By Peter Orszag
September 14, 2011


Why we need less democracy.

In an 1814 letter to John Taylor, John Adams wrote that “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” That may read today like an overstatement, but it is certainly true that our democracy finds itself facing a deep challenge: During my recent stint in the Obama administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget, it was clear to me that the country’s political polarization was growing worse--harming Washington’s ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing. If you need confirmation of this, look no further than the recent debt-limit debacle, which clearly showed that we are becoming two nations governed by a single Congress—and that paralyzing gridlock is the result.

So what to do? To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.



I know that such ideas carry risks. And I have arrived at these proposals reluctantly: They come more from frustration than from inspiration. But we need to confront the fact that a polarized, gridlocked government is doing real harm to our country. And we have to find some way around it.


POLARIZATION—the divergence of voting patterns in Congress—was historically low following World War II. But it started rising rapidly in the 1970s, and it’s now at historic highs. To grasp why such bold measures are needed to circumvent polarization, we first need to understand that it cannot be easily fixed and that it is therefore not going away.
A common idea in Washington policy circles is that gerrymandering is to blame for polarization. In fact, gerrymandering doesn’t play nearly the role that many people believe. This becomes clear when you compare the House with the Senate. If gerrymandering were the main culprit, we would expect polarization to be considerably worse in the House (where districts are gerrymandered) than in the Senate (where they are not). Yet polarization patterns have been roughly similar in both parts of Congress. Indeed, although the political science literature contains deep disagreements about the causes of polarization, it is virtually unanimous in dismissing gerrymandering as an important force. Sean Theriault of the University of Texas at Austin has concluded that redistricting can explain no more than 10 to 20 percent of the rise in polarization. Other estimates are similar. As Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution has argued, “Gerrymandering cannot account for the sharp partisan polarization of the House, and diagnoses that place it at the center of the problem—as well as the prescriptions that invest entirely in redistricting reform—are clearly flawed.”
It’s too bad the redistricting myth is not right, because, if it were, the problem of polarization would be much easier to fix. All we would have to do is change the country’s redistricting laws. Unfortunately, the true causes are less amenable to simple solutions. One crucial cause, as documented in Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort, is that Republicans and Democrats are increasingly living in separate places. Compared with the ’70s, roughly 25 percent more of the American population now lives in a county that votes decisively, one way or the other, in presidential elections.
This trend is taking place alongside technological changes in the media that have created a splintered market. Common news sources, such as major broadcast TV stations and national newspapers, have been joined by an array of websites, podcasts, and cable shows. Research suggests that Americans are only tuning into or logging onto a small share of the media choices available to them—and they are picking the ones that fit their beliefs. The effect is to further reinforce geographical sorting.
Psychology research shows that, when people with similar opinions are put together, their views become more radical. In Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide, Cass R. Sunstein, the legal scholar who is now administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, reviews a variety of evidence and concludes, “When people talk to like-minded others, they tend to amplify their preexisting views, and to do so in a way that reduces their internal diversity.”
It is true that several respected political scientists have suggested that elites play a larger role in polarization than my analysis would suggest. But those arguments founder on a simple point: Political scientist Gary Jacobson has found that people’s views on politics have not diverged considerably from those of their representatives. This suggests that polarization is not primarily an elite-driven phenomenon. As Bill Galston and Pietro Nivola of Brookings explain, “Polarized politics are partly here, so to speak, by popular demand. And inasmuch as that is the case, undoing it may prove especially difficult.” 
FACING THIS PROBLEM is crucially important because our current legislative gridlock is making it increasingly difficult for lawmakers to tackle the issues that are central to our country’s future—issues like climate change, the hard slog of recovering from a financial slump, and our long-term fiscal gap. It is clear to everyone that a failure to act will lead to undesirable outcomes in these areas. But polarization means that little action is possible. This is why I believe that we need to jettison the Civics 101 fairy tale about pure representative democracy and instead begin to build a new set of rules and institutions that would make legislative inertia less detrimental to our nation’s long-term health.
Let me be more specific in the context of fiscal policy, which was at the heart of the debt-limit debate. Virtually all responsible economists agree that we should be aiming to reduce the deficit in the long-term but not in the short-term. We need an even larger deficit in 2011 and 2012, to support a weak economy—but a much smaller deficit in 2020 and 2050, to put the nation back on a sustainable fiscal course. Yet our polarized political system has proved incapable of reaching a consensus on this common-sense approach.
What we need, then, are ways around our politicians. The first would be to expand automatic stabilizers—those tax and spending provisions that automatically expand when the economy weakens, thereby cushioning the blow, and automatically contract as the economy recovers, thereby helping to reduce the deficit. A progressive tax code is one such automatic stabilizer. The tax code takes less of your income as that income declines, so after-tax income tends to decline less in response to an economic shock than pre-tax income. Since spending is based on after-tax income, the impact on the economy is cushioned. Alan Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley has found that, as a result, the tax code has, over the past 50 years, offset about 8 percent of the initial shock to GDP from economic downturns. For the same reason, making the tax code more progressive would strengthen its role as an automatic stabilizer. Unemployment insurance is another automatic stabilizer; as the economy weakens, unemployment insurance expands, providing a boost to demand right when the economy needs it.
Other automatic stabilizers are possible as well. For instance, rather than simply extending and expanding the existing payroll-tax holiday, as President Obama has proposed, policymakers should permanently link the tax to the unemployment rate. Consider a system under which the payroll tax would be reduced by 6 percentage points whenever the quarterly average unemployment rate exceeded 7.5 percent or increased by more than 2 percentage points over the previous year. Since a cut in the payroll tax is a powerful form of stimulus, this would be a built-in way to ensure a quick and effective government response to an economic downturn.
Beyond automatic stabilizers, we also need more backstop rules: events that take place if Congress doesn’t act. In this sense, the fiscal trigger created as part of the debt-limit negotiations is a good step forward. It leads to automatic spending reductions if Congress doesn’t enact measures to reduce the deficit; in other words, it changes the default from inaction to action.
Finally, a significant part of the response to polarization and gridlock must involve creating more independent institutions. A good model for this was the process of closing military bases that began in the late ’80s and involved several rounds. To deal with the political difficulty of shutting down bases, Congress empowered a commission of nine independent experts to come up with a list of bases to close. If the president accepted the list, Congress had 45 days to enact a joint resolution disapproving of the entire list—or else it went into effect.
That final point is the key: The commission’s recommendations took effect unless Congress specifically disapproved. Thus, unlike most commissions, this one had a guarantee that its recommendations would not sit on a shelf collecting dust. On the other hand, even though this process favored action over inaction, it was not completely undemocratic: Congress still had oversight and could, if it wanted to, reject the commission’s ideas.
Proposals abound for expanding this type of process. In the late ’90s, economist Alan Blinder proposed shifting responsibility for tax policy to a Fed-like institution of experts. Stephen Flynn of the Center for National Policy has proposed a similar process for infrastructure decisions—and, indeed, creating an infrastructure bank, as President Obama has proposed, would accomplish much the same goal. Such a bank would be empowered to select individual infrastructure projects, thereby removing some decision-making power from Congress.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this idea is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), created as part of the recent health care reform legislation. The IPAB will be an independent panel of medical experts tasked with devising changes to Medicare’s payment system. In each year that Medicare’s per capita costs exceed a certain threshold, the ipab is responsible for making proposals to reduce projected cost growth. The proposals take effect automatically unless Congress specifically passes legislation blocking them and the president signs that legislation.

THE PROBLEM WITH such commissions is that, like automatic stabilizers and backstop rules, they reduce the power of elected officials and therefore make our government somewhat less accountable to voters. Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution at Stanford puts it this way: “There is something undemocratic about entrusting the formation of big policy decisions to expert commissions.” And yet he also goes on to note that “the process is not less democratic than having nine unelected justices with lifetime tenure and no political accountability to anyone but themselves decide such basic questions as when a woman can have an abortion and where a child can go to school.” He concludes that, despite the risks, rising polarization justifies the increased use of these types of commissions.
As the debt-limit experience vividly illustrated, by polarizing ourselves, we are making our country more ungovernable—and no one has come up with a practical proposal to deal with the consequences. I wish it were not necessary to devise processes to circumvent legislative gridlock, but polarization isn’t going away. John Adams may have been exaggerating when he pessimistically noted that democracies tend to commit suicide, yet, as we are seeing, certain aspects of representative government can end up posing serious problems. And so, we might be a healthier democracy if we were a slightly less democratic one.
Peter Orszag is vice chairman at Citigroup and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This article appeared in the October 6, 2011, issue of the magazine.


________________________________________
Below you see the ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE MOVEMENT----they are indeed calling for a new government structure.  These are the 5% to the 1% working for global Wall Street ---not leftist groups.  They are setting the stage to install global 1% and their 2% rich enslaving a global labor pool working at $3-6 a day or $20-30 a day and calling that LEFT-LEANING SOCIALISM/MARXISM. 

IT IS SIMPLY GLOBAL SLAVE TRADING.  THAT IS WHAT OLD WORLD GLOBAL RICH DID FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS----AND THAT IS WHO NOW CONTROLS OUR US GOVERNANCE----THEY ARE MAKING A COLONIAL ENTITY OF AMERICA SEEING ONLY US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AS GLOBAL CITY STATES UNDER A GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL LAW----MUCH LIKE THE ROMAN EMPIRE.


Nothing leftist happening folks---this is all far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth and extreme poverty complete with their own religious cults----their own global COMMON CORE NEO-LIBERAL EDUCATION controlling all the information WE THE PEOPLE GET----

'What is this all leading to?To view this question in the context of leftist organizations, media, unions and non-profit organizations, espousing how corrupt and broken our government is, it seems inevitable that these same leftist individuals and groups will eventually call for a new government structure. Oh wait….they are already making this demand'.

Larry Diamond/Hoover Institution/Stanford University are all Bush neo-conservative institutions like Yale and Johns Hopkins so when they push this idea of COMMISSIONS as being the only way to DEMOCRATIZE----we see in Maryland and Baltimore where absolutely no citizen participation occurs because of these quasi-governmental structures and it is indeed the MAOIST CHINESE governance structure.  There is nothing left-leaning in all this and we see that when these far-right Bush neo-conservative institutions push this.  Baltimore is Bush/Hopkins global neo-conservative and has been a global Wall Street corporate plantation for decades.  IT'S FAR-RIGHT FOLKS---NOT LEFTIST---NOT SOCIALIST----NOT DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN.

'Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution at Stanford puts it this way: “There is something undemocratic about entrusting the formation of big policy decisions to expert commissions.”' 'He concludes that, despite the risks, rising polarization justifies the increased use of these types of commissions'.


Since most Democratic and Republican voters have caught on to their pols being Wall Street players this past decade was about creating new POPULIST LEADERS and political groups so we have

GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION AND THE ELIZABETH WARREN/ROBET REICH wing of the Democratic Party---ALL THE SAME GLOBAL 1% WALL STREET ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE PEOPLE.


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Friends of the Earth


Friends of the Earth U.S. defends the environment and champions a healthy and just world. www.foe.org
May 27
Day 60 of Occupy Wall Street in New York City, NY on November 15, 2011. Photo credit: David Shankbone.



The revolving door in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, part 1



by Bill Waren, senior trade analyst“…

[T]he Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) could make it harder for Congress and regulatory agencies to prevent future financial crises. With millions of families still struggling to recover from the last financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed, we cannot afford a trade deal that undermines the government’s ability to protect the American economy.” — Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Ed Markey, letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, December 17, 2014.[1]The Obama White House and the Republican leadership in Congress are pushing hard for three massive and environmentally- destructive[2] trade agreements: the Trans Pacific Partnership[3], the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership[4] and the Trade in Services Agreement[5]. These three agreements and similar deals going back to the North American Free Trade Agreement reflect the philosophy and culture of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which assume that many forms of regulation by democratic institutions inhibit global economic growth.[6]
This is not surprising, given that the U.S. Trade Representative and members of his senior staff frequently rotate through the revolving door to and from positions in Wall Street banks[7], multinational law firms[8], corporate lobby shops, political campaign fundraising operations and the executive suites of global corporations[9]. The agency conducts little independent policy analysis, and is dependent on lobbyists for information[10].
It is no wonder that public opinion data show that, beyond the Capitol Beltway, people believe our current trade policies are imbalanced.[11]


Take the case of Ambassador Michael Froman[12], the current U.S. Trade Representative. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called Froman someone with whom they are quite comfortable[13]. The American Chemistry Council representing manufacturers and exporters of products associated with a range of health and environmental problems has applauded him[14]. Wall Street banks are especially close to Froman[15].

This is not surprising. Ambassador Froman, a former Citigroup executive[16] and bundler of Wall Street and other contributions to the 2008 Obama presidential campaign[17], has been through the revolving door between Wall Street and government service repeatedly[18]. He is a man who, by background and mindset, responds to financiers and corporate chieftains rather than the woman or man on the street[19].
In the Clinton Administration, Froman served as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin (and former head of Goldman Sachs) where they pushed legislation to deregulate the financial services industry: a root cause of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession[20].
At the end of the Clinton Administration, Froman followed Rubin to Citicorp[21] where they engaged in alleged casino gambling investments that broke Citi[22] when the house of cards tumbled. U.S. taxpayers had to spend billions to bail out Citi and other Wall Street institutions[23].



But, Froman did not go to jail or lose his shirt but rather pocketed millions in compensation at Citi. He was then given a reported $4 million bonus[24], aka Golden Parachute, by Citi to join the Obama Administration[25] first on the White House staff proper and now as U.S. Trade Representative — where he is pushing for the TPP, TTIP and TiSA agreements that would deregulate financial services[26] even more and put a brake on environmental and other public interest safeguards.
Froman acts to protect Wall Street
TPP. So, how in particular has Froman acted to protect Wall Street in the investment and services chapters of the TPP and similar deals?[27] Public Citizen sums it up: “The TPP’s Financial Services chapter ‘reads in’ Investment Chapter provisions that would grant multinational banks and other foreign financial service firms expansive new substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to U.S. firms under domestic law to attack our financial stability measures.”… “the TPP would grant foreign firms new rights to attack U.S. financial regulatory policies in extrajudicial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals…”[28]


According to U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Ed Markey “Past trade deals have included terms that allowed foreign firms to use the investor-state dispute settlement process to challenge a wide range of government financial policy decisions.” They conclude that, “the TPP should not include an investor-state dispute resolution process…The consequence would be to strip our regulators of the tools they need to prevent the next [financial] crisis.”[29]


Open-ended definitions of discriminatory government financial regulations. For example, so –called “too big too fail” regulations to limit the size or restrict the activities of banks because their failure would threaten the whole economy, could be challenged … on the grounds that they deny a foreign investor’s right under the TPP “to fair and equitable treatment,”[30] a largely undefined element of the TPP’s “minimum standard of treatment” article obligation that allows pro-Wall Street investment tribunals to assess money damages of unlimited size in compensation for application of common-sense financial regulations[31]. This is illustrated by the case of Saluka Investments v Czech Republic, brought under provisions of a bilateral investment treaty very similar to the TPP investment chapter[32]. More such cases can be expected if the TPP is approved by Congress.


Restrictions on capital control regulations.

The TPP investment chapter also sharply restricts regulation of capital flows intended to promote financial stability.[33] “A new “temporary safeguard” provision[34] that might appear to a lay person to protect government authority, in fact, as Public Citizen observes, “would not adequately protect governments’ ability to regulate speculative, destabilizing capital flows. The safeguard is subject to a litany of constraining conditions…”[35]
Sarah Anderson, at the Institute for Policy Studies, says such capital control provisions in international trade and investment agreements put governments in policy handcuffs when so called “hot money” flees a country during a financial crisis[36]. Such panicked capital flight was a major cause of the disastrous Asian financial crisis of 1997. Fauwaz Adbul Aziz, at Third World Network , reports that, “ More than 100 prominent economists from the Asia Pacific region have urged negotiators of the…Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement…talks to ensure that the eventual document their governments sign on to does not preclude, or impose sanctions against, the use of capital controls.”[37] But, these calls went largely unheeded, as Wall Street flexed its political muscle.


Restrictions on regulation of risky new financial products.

The 2008 financial crisis was caused in significant part by the introduction of new, risky and little understood financial products like toxic derivatives, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps[38]. But, the complex language of the TPP financial services chapter might well be read to require governments to allow foreign firms to sell new financial products and services, if they are allowed in other TPP countries[39]. Public Citizen reads this language to say that, “…the TPP’s financial services chapter would require each signatory government to allow foreign-owned firms to sell in their territory any new financial products and services that do not exist on the domestic market, but do exist in any of the other 11 TPP countries.”[40]
The list of potential giveaways to Wall Street in the final text of the TPP goes on.[41]


TTIP. Froman is also carrying water for his Wall Street buddies and CEOs of global corporations in negotiations on the U.S. — Europe trade deal. The TTIP chapter on regulatory cooperation would weaken regulation of the financial services industry. Regulatory review provisions in the TTIP deal would encourage business-friendly, cost-benefit analysis that would hamstring financial and other public interest regulations. It would also allow trade bureaucrats and industry representatives to screen proposed regulations and also contemplates mutual recognition and harmonization of regulations between the EU and the U.S. that could effectively reduce standards to the lowest common denominator.[42]
Froman has also taken a hard negotiating line on TTIP services provisions of critical importance to Wall Street, calling for much broader coverage than that provided by the General Agreement on Trade in Service administered by the World Trade Organization.[43]
Ambassador Froman and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew claim that they will not allow the TTIP to gut the relatively mild Dodd-Frank reforms of Wall Street practices. Lew has frankly admitted that, “Normally in a trade agreement, the pressure is to lower standards on things like that.”[44] So, given that TTIP negotiations are almost certain to carry over to the next presidential administration, what would a President Trump or even Clinton do? This not an idle question given that EU negotiators appear to be pushing for a dilution of Dodd- Frank and similar standards — at the behest of the investment bankers in “The City of London,”[45] by some measures the world’s biggest financial center[46] and one known for its risk-taking culture.[47]
TiSA. Michael Froman’s actions in the secretive negotiations for the massive Trade in Services Agreement clearly expose his working relations with Wall Street and his former employer, Citigroup. This is a textbook case of the policy consequences of the revolving door.


The TiSA deal[48] being negotiated in Geneva by the United States, 23 other countries and the EU, flies in the face of the international consensus after the 2008 financial crisis that deregulation of financial services was a primary cause of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. As a result of the crisis, financial reforms were adopted in the United States and around the world. But as leaked documents published and analyzed by WikiLeaks demonstrate, “TISA does not support these reforms but continues to ‘discipline’ and restrict how legislators, regulators and supervisors can regulate the financial sector.”[49]
Wesleyan students protesting unfair Citibank employment policies in Delaware, Ohio on November 16, 2001. Photo credit: Maccarton.TiSA is designed for and in close consultation with the global finance industry. In particular, Froman’s old firm, Citigroup is leading the charge for TiSA and financial services deregulation. The Chairman of the Board of a powerful trade lobby, the US Coalition of Service Industries[50] is the Vice Chairman of the Institutional Clients Group at Citi. Citi is also a leader of Team TiSA,” a broader business coalition, including not only global services industries, but also big manufacturing firms and big agriculture interests. “Team TiSA,” is co-chaired by Citigroup and coordinates its lobbying activities with Ambassador Froman, who stated in a speech to the Coalition of Service Industries that, “We need to move forward together with a Trade in Services Agreement that unlocks opportunity for Americans, and with Team TiSA behind us, I’m confident that we are on the right track.”[51]



It’s time to slam the revolving door shut


The trade policymaking in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is biased. As David Dayan has written in the American Prospect, “Michael Froman, former Citigroup executive…, runs USTR, and his actions have lived up to the agency’s legacy as the white-shoe law firm for multinational corporations.”[52]
It’s time for institutional reform of USTR and an end to the revolving door.[53] A tough new ethics code must be put in place. Also, like the State Department, the USTR should be primarily staffed by government professionals who plan to spend their whole careers in public service.

Reform of USTR must also address its single-minded export promotion culture[54] and clearly mandate that the agency give equal weight to protecting domestic laws and regulations and protecting the environment, consumers and the public interest more generally. USTR must be charged with protecting the authority of our democratic institutions, as well as opening foreign markets to U.S. goods and services.
The secrecy of trade negotiations must end. Trade deals like the TPP are negotiated behind closed doors with input from official advisors, most of whom represent global corporations.[55] This facilitates special interest capture of the U.S. negotiating agenda. Moreover, USTR is exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act and functionally exempt from the bulk of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.”[56] Congress should explicitly require that USTR end the secrecy and release the draft text of U.S. proposals after each round of negotiations, as was the practice in the George W. Bush administration, abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and end the corporate capture of the USTR advisory committee process.[57]


Reorganization of trade policymaking in the executive branch is equally essential. The centralization of power in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative must be unwound.[58] The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Labor and Department of Justice must be given more powerful roles in trade policymaking. Above all, USTR must be evicted from the White House.[59]
The revolving door career path of Ron Kirk. Learn more here. Image credit of Ron Kirk: United States Mission Geneva.Most important of all, it is time to slam shut the revolving door between Wall Street and the White House. Michael Froman is not the only U.S. Trade Representative or senior USTR official who has been through the revolving door. His immediate predecessor Ron Kirk and many others preceded him. And, many others will follow him unless there is institutional reform of the USTR office.
Why does the revolving door matter?Senator Elizabeth Warren asks and answers, “Because it means that too much of the time, the wind blows from the same direction. Time after time in government, the Wall Street view prevails, and time after time, conflicting views are crowded out.”

________________________________


And yes conservative Democrats and Republicans---it was your blind faith in Chamber of Commerce allowing it to be government that created this mess. These few decades has seen US Chamber of Commerce being those global Wall Street corporations enfolding all our businesses into great multi-national conglomerates no longer attached to our US or America----and still locally we see our local Chamber of Commerce installing whatever this global Chamber of Commerce tells them---and this is how they killed our local economy and keep it stagnant. WAKE UP CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS FOR GOODNESS SAKE.
While REAL left-leaning Democratic voters are hanging on to lying, cheating, stealing CLINTON/OBAMA FAR-RIGHT WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS-----our REAL right-leaning conservative are still tying themselves to Chamber of Commerce telling themselves that business has all the answers and knows how to do policy best. Well, we have had these few decades a GLOBAL US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE so if a state or local Chamber does what this national organizations says it is pushing policies of ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL. Who shouts against this the loudest? RIGHT-LEANING REPUBLICANS SAYING THEY WANT LIBERTY AND FREEDOM. They are allowing the very far-right global CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA tell them what to do.
Both Bush neo-cons and Clinton/Obama neo-liberals are KILLING OUR US CONSTITUTION AND REPLACING IT WITH A GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL CONSTITUTION and doing it by pretending these policies are for what WE THE PEOPLE are shouting. LET'S BE OUR OWN VOICES----STOP ALLOWING THESE GLOBAL NON--PROFITS AND MEDIA tell us what is populist!

Here is global Wall Street paraphrasing one of their 2%----Hillary Clinton---IT TAKES A VILLAGE.


This is for whom our US Supreme Court is working----and that is why our US Constitution is failing WE THE PEOPLE----the NEW CONSTITUTION is for global corporations and not for fixing a failing of our own constitution.


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We notice that these several years of Obama have seen public policy tied to 2020----from minimum wage to rolling out affordable housing to passing Trans Pacific Trade Pact.  Our SS Trust is now supposed to only last until 2020----our K-12 corporatization of education policies are tied to 2020.

WE'LL SEE ACHIEVEMENT GROWTH BY 2020.

The 2008 Presidential election left Democratic primary voters the choice between a far-right 1% Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal Obama who the national media painted as being a left-leaning FDR New Deal kind of guy and a Hillary who was a far-right 1% Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal -----left-leaning Democrats were told in 2008---VOTE FOR THE LEAST WORST----just as they are saying this Presidential election. 

I DO NOT VOTE FAR-RIGHT REAGAN REPUBLICAN I SAID IN 2008 AS I AM NOW.

I knew Obama was the latest plant as a candidate because I knew his history.  I knew as well why a National Public Media----an American Public Media----and all the national media outlets promoted his record as A US CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR FROM HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.  Social Democrats were lead to believe that Obama was going to stand for our NEW DEAL AND EQUAL PROTECTION US CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.  What the real message from 1% global Wall Street was this------OBAMA AS A GRAD FROM HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND PROFESSOR AT U OF CHICAGO KNOWS HOW TO CHANGE THE US CONSTITUTION FROM WE THE PEOPLE TO WE THE GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% and that is what Obama has spent these several years doing.  A Hillary win in 2008 would have brought the same---this is why our Democratic primary elections are rigged so that only MOVING FORWARD candidates reach the general elections.

Chicago school of economics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Part of a series on the
Chicago school
of economics

The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles.
In the context of macroeconomics, it is connected to the "freshwater school" of macroeconomics, in contrast to the saltwater school based in coastal universities (notably Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley).

It appears that the ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE CROWD SEE 2020 AS THE PIVOTAL TRANSITION FOR INSTALLING US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  This is tied to the fact that this coming 2016 Presidential election partnered with a collapsing US Treasury and municipal bond market and economic crash will take a few years to create massive economic disruptions in the US and especially our US cities.  This is about when the global 1% Wall Street expect to send in the World Bank and IMF to RESCUE OUR US CITIES AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.  It's not exact science but a PROJECTION.

WHY ARE THE ONLY DISCUSSIONS ON WE THE PEOPLE RIGHTS ONLY COMING FROM GLOBAL IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY CORPORATIONS PARTNERED WITH GLOBAL WALL STREET?

'Michelman also emphasized that the best way to have these economic powers recognized as constitutional rights is by changing how people read the Constitution, rather than changing the text of the Constitution itself'.


 So Harvard and Yale are having these discussions on US Constitution 2020----Obama is pushing to FAST TRACK TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT as hard as he can so the next 4 years can see Congress AMEND THE CONSTITUTION to install these global policies.



American Constitution Society hosts “The Constitution in 2020”


November 16, 2009
Teaching & Learning

The American Constitution Society of HLS sponsored “The Constitution in 2020,” a panel discussion in November featuring Harvard Law School Professors Yochai Benkler ’94, Frank Michelman’60, Mark Tushnet, and Noah Feldman, all contributors to a recently published book of the same title. The book’s goal is to contest the conservative idea that constitutional law should not be influenced by contemporary understandings of law and the political landscape.


Benkler focused on the interaction of information technologies and First Amendment rights, and suggested that freedom of speech is better protected when law-making bodies create rules and regulations that actively promote a diversity of viewpoints, rather than taking a “laissez-faire” approach to the marketplace for speech. He emphasized that copyright and patent laws, as well as laws regulating industries, will be just as important to the development of constitutional law in the future as civil rights laws.


“The critical point is, as you go forward, as you think about what goes into individual freedom and into a well-functioning democracy, you have to think about the basic technical and market infrastructure,” Benkler said. “What does that mean as a matter of what counts as constitutional law? It means that it’s not just constitutional law, it’s not just the First Amendment, it’s technical economic structures.”



Michelman provided an overview of the essay that he contributed to “The Constitution in 2020,” titled “Economic Power and the Constitution.” He argued that basic constitutional rights should encompass basic economic powers, including the ability to meet one’s own needs, including work, access to equal opportunities and political influence, safeguards for basic personal rights, an open and diverse media, and competitive markets. Michelman also emphasized that the best way to have these economic powers recognized as constitutional rights is by changing how people read the Constitution, rather than changing the text of the Constitution itself.



“How people read the Constitution depends on their background beliefs about what our laws actually would say about these matters if our laws were to conform to what the reader takes to be the country’s deepest political and social ideas,” he said. “So in other words, it depends on the background political culture, or constitutional culture. And as lawyers, our tools for working on that certainly don’t exclude the courtroom, but the courtroom isn’t going to be center stage.”


Tushnet analyzed the state action doctrine, which prevents the federal government from interfering with the actions of states and encourages judicial restraint in the application of federal laws. “For 30 years, conservatives have hijacked the Constitution, and we’re taking it back,” said Tushnet. He suggested that, by creating a space within which the public could participate more fully in governmental policymaking, the current, judicially-restrained reading of the Constitution could be expanded.
Tushnet emphasized that “what we need to do is participate in the creation of a constitutional culture in which participation by the public in the shaping of public policy is understood as a constitutional activity. Not merely that you are engaging in something constitutionally permissible when you’re engaging in policies, but the policies that you are promoting are themselves… oriented to the Constitution.”


Concluding the presentation, Feldman noted:

“All of us have spoken about a vision of the Constitution in which the Constitution is not a piece of paper, it’s not even the body of constitutional law, i.e. binding court decisions, that interpret that piece of paper. The Constitution is something completely different. The Constitution is a collection of customs, practices, beliefs, laws, and values, which includes market structures and other institutional structures, which together shape and legitimate the exercise of not just public power, but all power in our society. And it is a progressive… vision to see the Constitution that way.”


He went on to describe the process of constitutional politics, and how views about the meaning and scope of the Constitution are changed through political conversation and action.
“It’s about viewing constitutional politics in real world terms, where you identify constituencies, interest groups, values and desires that actually motivate people, and address them, and deal with them directly,” he said. “I think that’s a part of the process of constitutional politics, and it’s desirable, and it’s a progressive way of thinking to acknowledge that it’s a justifiable and legitimate part of how constitutional law and constitutional studies, more broadly, and constitutional politics in the deepest sense ought to operate.”


In addition to the contributions of the panelists, the book “The Constitution in 2020” includes 23 essays, including one from HLS Professor Cass Sunstein.
A companion website, www.Constitution2020.org, includes ten sample chapters from the book, essays about the future of the U.S. Constitution, discussions of current constitutional issues, a bibliography and resources for further study.


In early October, the Yale Law chapter of the American Constitution Society hosted The Constitution in 2020 Conference, bringing top legal scholars, practitioners, and activists from around the country to Yale Law School for in-depth discussions about the future of American constitutional law.

_________________________________________
We are not discussing the validity of attacks from left or right wing critics against the Obama history presented by national media.  We are simply looking at how global 1% Wall Street stages these candidates and creates an artificial history.  Whether we want to believe that to be made a RHODES SCHOLAR means someone is 'exceptional' and not simply someone identified as a WALL STREET PLAYER GOOD FOR BEING A SHOW ME THE MONEY AND I'LL DO ANYTHING I'M TOLD citizen----these are not exceptional people and they have rigged histories to make them seem to be working for WE THE PEOPLE.

Below we see a comment stating the obvious---how did a brand new grad get tenure right out of university----with no history of legal writing?  It seems Obama was placed at the head of Harvard Law School just as the Clintons were placed in positions they could not have achieved -----this doesn't say Obama is not very smart---he is----it speaks to staging people for future lives as politicians.  Why was it important that Obama be tied to being a US Constitutional scholar TODAY-----because he would be the face of MOVING FORWARD these NEW US CONSTITUTION policies.  So, no doubt Obama was taught what those new constitution policies would be---while US media PRETENDED Obama would bring that scholarship to protect our current US Constitution----for WE THE PEOPLE.

'It was as a law student that Obama first made history—and national headlines—when he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in the spring of 1990'.



'Accordingly, a reader asks: “I’d like to know how unusual it is for an elite law school like Chicago to offer a tenured position to a professor who has not produced any academic writing.”'

Notice this was during the 2008 Presidential election-----the point is this: Harvard and Yale decades ago developed what they saw as a NEW CONSTITUTION and have been setting the stage to install this ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----and all this is coming to a head with the 2020 timeline

And all this is tied to the AMEND THE CONSTITUTION MOVEMENT.

Inside Professor Obama’s Classroom

By
Jodi Kantor

July 30, 2008 11:11 am July 30, 2008 11:11 amWe’ve asked four legal experts to take a look at then-Professor Barack Obama’s course materials and offer some insight into what they say about Mr. Obama’s teaching methods, priorities and approach to the Constitution.
Please use the comment section of this post to ask questions about Mr. Obama’s course materials and the related article.
Pamela S. Karlan | 6:20 p.m.: John Eastman’s second post, along with a number of the readers’ comments, prompts me to make the following points.


The first is about titles. John is 100 percent right both about the fact that “professor” is often used as a courtesy title to refer to law school teachers whatever their formal rank. (Students usually call every teacher either “Mr.” – or “Ms.” – X or “Professor X.” I’ve never heard a single one call a teacher “Lecturer X.”) He’s also 100 percent right that it would be very, very rare for anyone to have been appointed in recent times to a regular tenured position at a school like Chicago without any scholarship at all.
That being said, titles like “senior lecturer” differ from school to school. They’re sometimes used for long-term appointments for people of great professional distinction who come to the academy, later in their careers. And some schools even have positions accompanied by the title “professor” that do not require prior publication experience. For example, here at Stanford, we have the Warren Christopher Professorship of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy. It’s been held by two very distinguished people – Allan Weiner, who has decided to stay on at Stanford as a Senior Lecturer, actually, and who is now writing very interesting and important scholarship – and by William Taft IV, who has served, among other posts, as general counsel and deputy secretary in the Department of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and the U.S. Department of State’s legal adviser, the highest legal position in the department. But neither Allan nor Will was given the Christopher Professorship because of traditional scholarly publication.
*****
Jodi Kantor | 3:48 p.m.: Several readers have asked questions about Mr. Obama’s status at the school. Let me clarify: he started teaching as a lecturer, meaning as a member of the adjunct faculty. But in 1996, he was promoted to senior lecturer, which in Chicago’s parlance, made him a professor.


When the law school tried to hire Mr. Obama after his failed 2000 congressional race, it was for a tenured job, according to Daniel Fischel, the dean at the time. In our interview, I asked him if he meant “tenure-track,” and he said no. “He would be hired as a tenured professor,” he explained. The faculty would vote, but Mr. Obama already had their support, he added.
Accordingly, a reader asks: “I’d like to know how unusual it is for an elite law school like Chicago to offer a tenured position to a professor who has not produced any academic writing.”


Now over to John Eastman, for an answer:

One of the comments challenges Ms. Kantor’s use of the term, “professor,” to describe Barack Obama’s position at the University of Chicago Law School. Chicago uses the formal title of “lecturer” for adjunct professors, and it was in that capacity that Senator Obama was first affiliated with the law school. He was at the time affiliated with a law firm, and there is nothing unusual in law schools, even elite law schools such as Chicago, tapping into local law firms for adjunct faculty. Nor is there anything unusual in students referring to adjuncts and “lecturers” as “professor.”


What is unusual is the University of Chicago’s “promotion” of Senator Obama to the position of “senior lecturer.” As the law sSchool correctly points out on its Web site, that title is used for such long-established legal scholars as Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both of whom continued to teach after their appointment to the United States Court of Appeals. Both were (and remain) extremely prolific scholars as well as teachers, and the “senior lecturer” title was acknowledge of that status and their judicial “day job.” Barack Obama never achieved such a scholarly stature—indeed, it does not appear that he engaged in legal scholarship at all. And to my knowledge, the title of “senior lecturer” has never been applied to someone who was basically an adjunct professor.


Even more unusual is Chicago’s claim that Barack Obama was offered a fully tenured position. The University of Chicago is one of the most elite law schools in the country, and it would be extremely rare for the law school to offer a tenure-track position to someone without any legal scholarship, much less one with tenure. The course materials and examination questions prepared by then-Professor Obama demonstrate a deep and nuanced command of the law, but for that to have resulted in an offer to the tenured or even tenure-track faculty, the normal course (indeed, nearly the only course) is for that command of legal subjects to have first manifested itself into published articles.


Perhaps then-Professor Obama’s observation of the way other legal scholars such as Robert Bork and Lani Gunier had had their work distorted for partisan political purposes counseled him against publication of his scholarly views. Too bad for us, and for the legal academy more generally. The chilling effect on true and important scholarship that has resulted from the last few decades of obnoxious confirmation fights is quite evident in Senator Obama’s prior silence.
*****
Jodi Kantor | 3:37 p.m.: We’ve been talking today about Mr. Obama’s voice as a professor, and now, thanks to WBEZ in Chicago, we can actually hear that voice.
In a follow-up to our article, the Chicago public radio station has posted audio of a 2001 appearance in which Mr. Obama discussed Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, landmark cases that upheld, respectively, slavery and segregation.
*****
Pamela S. Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, an expert on voting issues and a former clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun, concludes that “it’s hard to tell whether Professor Obama is simply playing it close to his vest – that is, he has strong views but thinks the classroom isn’t an appropriate place for revealing them – or whether his views fall within the mainstream of the constitutional law professoriate, which tends to be moderately liberal on individual rights issues.”


Examining the Course Materials


Pamela S. Karlan | 1:30 p.m.: Three preliminary reactions to this really interesting story.


1. In thinking about what inferences we might draw about a President Obama from a Professor Obama, we’re handicapped a little by a distinctive aspect of the University of Chicago Law School’s constitutional law curriculum. Unlike most other first-tier American law schools, Chicago separates into two separate courses what are often referred to as the “structural” and “individual rights” provisions of the Constitution. (This is probably more a function of the fact that Chicago uses three shorter terms each academic year, rather than the more conventional two longer ones, so each course covers a bit less territory.)
So the course that Professor Obama taught did not examine many of the issues that have come to the forefront of constitutional debate during the last eight years – such as the president’s inherent powers under Article II of the Constitution to disregard limitations placed on his authority by Congress or other aspects of what’s referred to as “separation of powers” (the checks and balances among the three branches of government).


The only slight hint we get about the war on terror, for example, comes from one question about handing out limited supplies of an anti-biological weapon drug, and there we’re focusing on individual rights, not the government’s powers.


2. Looking at the exams for the Constitutional Law class, one of the most striking features to a law professor is how conventional they are. If you put Professor Obama’s exam questions in a pile with the questions asked by me or my colleagues – or if you asked one of us to prepare model answers to his exam questions – you would not be able to guess which ones he prepared and which ones were prepared by full-time legal academics.

There are at least three inferences I draw from this. First, Senator Obama has a first-rate mind for legal doctrine and could have been a first-rate academic had his interests gone in that direction. He would have been most unlikely – even beyond the fact that his values differ – to have bought into the legal work underlying many of the current Administration’s policies, such as the incomplete “torture memos.”

Second, Senator Obama has a sensitivity to role. By this I mean that he doesn’t appear to have used his classroom as a platform for pushing his own pet theories of constitutional law. He seems to have taught “down the middle” in a way that gave the students the tools to be fine constitutional lawyers but didn’t require them to agree with his position. By contrast, I’ve seen other constitutional law professors’ exams and model answers where a student who disagrees with the professor’s idiosyncratic approach or policy preferences would have found it hard to do well.


Third, and perhaps related, precisely because the examinations and the model answers are so conventional, it’s hard to tell whether Professor Obama is simply playing it close to his vest – that is, he has strong views but thinks the classroom isn’t an appropriate place for revealing them – or whether his views fall within the mainstream of the constitutional law professoriate, which tends to be moderately liberal on individual rights issues.


3. The syllabus for Professor Obama’s Racism and the Law class is an interesting one. The materials are not particularly surprising, but seem relatively well thought-out. But their focus, as well as the focus of the exam questions, tends to be almost entirely on blacks and whites, with only one session devoted to the distinctive issues surrounding Native Americans – and that session being primarily historical – and relatively little attention devoted to questions that arise with respect to Latinos.


That’s not surprising as a matter of law school syllabi – the black-white paradigm remains dominant. And the syllabus is fifteen years old. But it’s interesting that Senator Obama, despite having spent many years in Hawaii, where a number of very interesting questions about multiracial groups and indigenous people have been playing out, hewed so closely to the black-white line. I would imagine if he were teaching such a course today, he might have ranged further afield.

Randy Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, writes that Mr. Obama’s exam questions seem to be designed to “ferret out the student’s understanding, but also the cracks and fissures in the Supreme Court’s current approach to the Constitution.”


Randy Barnett | 12:15 p.m.: While the course materials themselves do not tell us very much about Senator Obama, the candidate, what they do tell us about Obama, the teacher, is generally favorable. I was particularly intrigued by his 1994 syllabus on “Racism and the Law.” The materials assigned were balanced, including several readings by Frederick Douglass, who many modern race theorists have come to disparage as insufficiently radical (as Obama would know), along with an exchange between Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy on the one hand and Charles Cooper (who is now on Senator McCain’s advisory committee) and Texas law professor Lino Graglia on the other. All three essays appeared in the conservative/libertarian Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy as part of a 1991 symposium on “The Future of Civil Rights Law” and were initially presented at the Federalist Society’s 1990 National Student Symposium held at Stanford. The articles were published during Obama’s third year as a law student so it is not surprising that he would be aware of them. And they would have been fresh at the time they were assigned.


I was struck by Obama’s list of possible discussion topics for his seminar. They comprehensively and concisely identified most of the issues of “race and the law” that were then being widely discussed. What particularly impressed me was how even handed were his presentations of the competing sides the students might take. These summaries were remarkably free of the sort of cant and polemics that all too often afflicts academic discussions of race. Were this not a seminar on “racism and the law” I doubt one could tell which side of each issue the teacher was on. And indeed, even knowing it was written by Senator Obama, one cannot be sure which side of each issue he really took. Whatever position he held, however, Obama could clearly see and dispassionately articulate the other side.

The exam question and answer keys manifest a keen comprehension of then-prevailing Supreme Court Due Process and Equal Protection Clause doctrine. There is no doubt that his students were taught “the law” (such as it was), not merely the teacher’s viewpoints. His exam questions were nicely designed to ferret out the student’s understanding, but also the cracks and fissures in the Supreme Court’s current approach to the Constitution. What they did not show, however, were any insights on how he thought Supreme Court doctrine could be improved.


Indeed, if one is looking to these material to learn more about Senator Obama’s own views of either “racism and the law” or the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, one will be disappointed. He either was skillful at concealing his own take on these issues both in these materials and in the classroom (as reported by his former students) or he held no deep commitments on what one would think were matters of central concern to him. While this latter possibility would make him a flexible politician, it is bound to disappoint his most vehement supporters and detractors alike. In the end, while they confirm that the former president of the Harvard Law Review is a smart guy, and an exceptionally fair-minded teacher, they tell us little about his core beliefs on the very sensitive issues covered by these courses. Nor perhaps should we have expected them to.
*****
The next post is from Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of constitutional law at Yale and a former clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer, who compliments the quality of Mr. Obama’s exam questions.

Akhil Reed Amar | 11:51 a.m.: Barack Obama’s exam questions and answers engaged me on several levels.
First, As a constitutional law professor, I came away impressed — dazzled, really — by the analytic intelligence and sophistication of these questions and answers. A really good exam — an exam that tests and stretches the student, while simultaneously providing the professor with a handy and fair index to rank the class — is its own special art form. Composing such an exam is like crafting a sonnet or a crossword puzzle. We don’t have Obama’s answer key every year; but the questions themselves are in many instances beautifully constructed to enable students to explore the seams and plumb the depths of the Supreme Court’s case law. I am tempted to use variations of several of these questions myself in some future exam. (I won’t say which, lest I tip my students off.) When I read Jodi Kantor’s piece, I was very interested to hear that the University of Chicago Law School was willing to offer Obama tenure. In these materials I see why.
Second, as a student of history, I couldn’t help thinking of Lincoln. Not just because we have a skinny guy from Illinois who is largely self-made and who can write a great speech — I knew that already. Lincoln was a brilliant lawyer, who did his own thinking and writing and cut to the essence of hard legal issues with amazing incisiveness. Lincoln understood the Constitution and its deepest structures as well as or better than any of the Justices on the Supreme Court of his day. These materials helped me see Obama in a similar light.
Which brings me to the last level — the moral level. Like Lincoln, Jefferson and Madison were also brilliant. But Jefferson and Madison lived and died as slaveholders and did much less than they could have done to put slavery on a path of ultimate extinction. Nixon had a keen legal mind, but a large moral blind spot. Lincoln had a rare combination of moral depth and legal brilliance. Make no mistake, he was a politician who understood how to tack and trim. But he was a politician with a strong moral compass and a deep understanding of the rule of law. Similarly, there is a great deal of moral seriousness in Obama’s legal materials. They are not just about technical and technocratic legal questions. Some of the great mysteries and tragedies of human life and American society — involving marriage, divorce, childbearing, cloning, the right to die with dignity, infertility, sexual orientation, and yes, of course, race — are probed in these materials in ways that encourage students to think not just about law, but about justice, and truth, and morality.
*****
First up, John C. Eastman, Dean and Donald P. Kennedy Chair in Law at Chapman University and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas:


John C. Eastman | 11:11 a.m.: Although Senator Obama’s teaching position at the University of Chicago Law School overlapped my own time there as a student, I did not have occasion to take one of his classes—I tended to register for the classes of the full-time tenured faculty rather than those taught by adjuncts such as Mr. Obama—but I am not surprised to see the intellectual diversity for which Chicago is famous reflected in then-Professor Obama’s course syllabi and examinations. The syllabus from the 1994 “Current Issues in Racism and the Law” course is particularly instructive. While at many law schools, such courses are frequently taught by critical race theorists who focus largely on one side of a complex legal and policy debate, then-Professor Obama’s course included, quite appropriately in my view, readings from across the ideological spectrum, from Derrick Bell and Malcolm X to Chuck Cooper and Lino Graglia.


I was particularly pleased to see a reading from the classic work by Vattel, one of the leading international law theorists in all of human history, The Law of Nations. What is more, it is evident from the sampling of proposed topics for group presentations contained in the syllabus that this spectrum of authors was included for more than mere exposure. Rather, it appears that then-Professor Obama was leading his students in an honest assessment of competing views regarding some of the most difficult legal and policy issues our nation has ever faced—a refreshing change from what passes for debate about contested questions in our political classes these days. My one criticism of the course is his recommendation that students read Derrick Bell’s summary of some landmark (if notorious) Supreme Court decisions. Cases such as Dred Scott v. Sanford, The Slaughterhouse Cases, and Plessy v. Ferguson, and in particular the strong dissenting opinions in those cases, cry out for careful study of the original materials, not a secondary summary.

Only occasionally do then-Professor Obama’s decidedly personal views come across. He refers to Justice Scalia’s approach to assessing fundamental rights as “cramped,” for example. But on the whole, this is a body of course materials that is as would be expected of Chicago Law Professors.
****
Original Post | July 29:
An excerpt from the syllabus for Barack Obama’s 1994 Current Issues in Racism and the Law seminar. In the course of reporting an article on the 12 years that Barack Obama spent teaching law at the University of Chicago, we unearthed some of Mr. Obama’s old class materials: the syllabus and assignments for his “Racism and the Law” seminar, as well as a set of his constitutional law exams and a partial set of memos he wrote about the answers.

The documents let us hear his voice as a professor, asking students to wrestle with hot-button topics like cloning and reparations. He tells students what he wants and interrogates them on what they have learned. In his little asides about gym visits and his wife, Michelle, we hear hints of his professorial style.
But the documents also offer clues about his thinking. They show us whose writings he wanted students to explore, from Malcolm X to Robert Bork. He framed complex legal, moral and political issues for his students, and in the case of post-exam memos, answered a few problems for them. Those memos also contain a few references to still-sitting Supreme Court justices.
We’re posting the documents here, and inviting you to offer your insights. Since the exam questions in particular involve hard-to-parse issues of constitutional law, we have asked four legal experts, of diverse ideological backgrounds, to lead our inquiry. John Eastman, Randy Barnett, Pamela S. Karlan and Akhil Reed Amar have already looked through the documents, at our request, and on Wednesday we will post their assessments here.

Some of the questions we’ve asked them to consider: Based on what you see here, how does Mr. Obama’s teaching measure up? What do the courses he taught, and the way he taught them, tell us about his interests, beliefs and priorities, including his approach to the Constitution?

We will be integrating reader questions and comments into the discussion, so please post yours below. Everyone is welcome: readers, constitutional law professors, former students and colleagues of Mr. Obama’s. (As for the documents, if you’re not a lawyer, you will probably find the “Racism and the Law” syllabus a more satisfying read than the constitutional law exams.)

__________________________________________

As Obama installed all of Clinton era and Wall Street 1% and their 2% into cabinet and administration positions in 2009 ----telling us he was no left-leaning FDR---he began using Executive Order just as CLINTON/BUSH to install what was this NEW CONSTITUTION.  This is why all Americans have been facing so much LYING, CHEATING, STEALING, LOSS OF PUBLIC JUSTICE, CIVIL RIGHTS, INCREASING LOSS OF PRIVACY, HEIGHTENED SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY-----it is all ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE and it sets the stage for what a NEW CONSTITUTION will look like.

A decade ago I attended here in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins a symposium in which Harvard and Ivy Leagues told us AMERICAN POLITICS IS DEAD.  The goal of that meeting was reorganizing all university political science departments away from American right and left politics to INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL CORPORATE LAW.  There was to be no more American politics.  So, we have known these few decades of this goal-----international and global corporate law only.  That is what our US Justice Department leaders, our state Attorney's General, and even our local city attorneys have as a focus.

This article is written from a right wing viewpoint because they are STILL calling 1% Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal IVY LEAGUE universities LEFT-LEANING FOR GOODNESS SAKE. 

We see here the movement away from fundamental policy and US law to generalization of social context we see a law school knowing from where ONE WORLD ONE GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE law will come----and its restructuring is tied to global societal issues to be dealt with during this transition. This is the global NGO syndrome we are facing today in our US cities ---where all policies are being pushed by global non-profits and not WE THE PEOPLE.


'Six of nine United States Supreme Court justices attended Harvard, so they must be doing something right.  But the course catalog at Harvard reveals a great divide emerging in American legal education.
Is law school about learning to practice law, or fundamental transformation'?


'And therein lies the danger -- law professors with a captive audience of first year students turn law into political ideology, a training academy for the institutional left at an elite law school.  And after the first year of core classes ends, just imagine what happens in these actual classes (detailed below) that are now taught at Harvard Law School':

Below we see one example of global legal issues-----ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE would need to reconcile the fact that many third world nations joining Trans Pacific Trade Pact see animals we call PETS-------as food.  Dogs, cats, horses for example.  While the global IVY LEAGUES are writing discussions and policy for global law WE THE PEOPLE are being made to come out for AMEND THE CONSTITUTION being told it is only about campaign finance reform to GET THE MONEY out of our elections-----


'Animal Law
A course, perhaps, about laws surrounding animal-based commodities'? 


Rule of Law

Does Harvard Teach Law Anymore?
By J. Christian Adams June 17, 2015

Harvard is to law what Winchester is to bolt actions.  Powerful, dependable, well engineered and the mark of a serious craft, at least that's what I was told.
These days, Harvard graduates probably don't know much about bolt actions, unless they are a member of the Harvard Law School shooting club.  A stroll through the Harvard Law School course catalog also makes you wonder how much they know about the real practice of law.
The course catalog from Harvard Law School hints that the answer might be -- not as much as we thought.
The Harvard Law School course catalog frequently reads more like an ideological training academy than it does a program for teaching lawyers how to practice law.
I may be unqualified to opine about Harvard Law considering that I went to a law school in the SEC.  That's the Southeastern Conference, not the Securities and Exchange Commission.  As such, I spent most of my law school years taking courses that trained future lawyers to practice real law in real American courtrooms: remedies, civil procedure, criminal procedure, legal writing, trusts, evidence, and even more civil procedure.
Six of nine United States Supreme Court justices attended Harvard, so they must be doing something right.  But the course catalog at Harvard reveals a great divide emerging in American legal education.
Is law school about learning to practice law, or fundamental transformation?

Elite universities are graduating lawyers who seem most qualified to engineer fundamental social change, not represent clients in court.  Law schools in most of America still seem to focus on graduating lawyers who know how to practice law.  The course descriptions, below, reveal a different approach to legal education at Harvard.  The political ramifications for the nation should be obvious, especially when so many positions of power are filled with graduates of elite law schools.  That's not just me saying it, Harvard's own website boasts of this fundamental transformation:


Harvard Law School recently undertook a sweeping overhaul of its first-year curriculum. The new curriculum reflects legal practice in the 21st century, adding courses in legislation and regulation and international and comparative law to the traditional curriculum of civil procedure, contracts, criminal law, property, and torts. . . . In the second and third years of law school, Harvard students shape their own courses of study, selecting among a wide offering of electives. . . .  Five optional Programs of Study – Law and Government; Law and Social Change; Law and Business; International and Comparative Law; and Law, Science and Technology €”developed by the Law School faculty provide pathways through the upper-level curriculum.



Sorry, but "legislation" doesn't reflect the "legal practice in the 21st Century."  I took legislation in law school, and a small fraction of lawyers ever dabble in the area.  Lawyers inside the D.C. Beltway seeking to expand the power of the federal government are one exception.  I've sat in courtrooms listening to thousands of docket calls, and never once heard "comparative law" on the menu.  Worse, in most of America, no lawyer has any use for nonsense like "Law and Social Change," unless politics are on the agenda instead of law.




Classroom blackboard at Harvard Law

Joel Pollak, a graduate of Harvard Law School and editor at Breitbart News, told me that the shift isn't always passive, where Harvard law students can hear both sides and peacefully choose.  "Many of the professors who teach the 'core' classes are conscientious about fostering debate, open to different perspectives, and able to separate their own political views from their pedagogy. Others, however, seem unable to resist the urge to foist their personal ideological convictions onto their classes, resisting questions from students who disagree."


And therein lies the danger -- law professors with a captive audience of first year students turn law into political ideology, a training academy for the institutional left at an elite law school.  And after the first year of core classes ends, just imagine what happens in these actual classes (detailed below) that are now taught at Harvard Law School:


The Art of Social Change

"We will bring into the classroom as visiting lecturers leaders from the worlds of policy, practice, and academia -- people who have themselves operated as successful change agents and who represent different disciplines, career paths, and strategies for change."


Fidelity in Interpretation

"This seminar will develop a theory of interpretation for the Constituiton [SIC!!!!!] of the United States tied to a particular conception of interpretive fidelity. The aim is Dworkinian -- to develop the theory that best explains and justifies our constitutional tradition."  A screenshot from the Harvard Law catalog, errata included.


Feminist Legal Theory


Prof. Janet Halley

"This course will survey the most important sources of feminist thinking in and around law and law reform, with attention to the ways in which differing feminist ideas have and have not become operationalized as law that actually governs. We will pay attention to the rise and fall of feminist ideas; to competitor theoretical frames and ongoing contests among different feminist worldviews for influence on law; to nonwestern sources of feminist legal thought; and to modes of transmitting feminist ideas from one national, regional, and/or international system to another. A constant theme will be the collaborations among and conflicts between feminist social movements and social movements for emancipation of groups other than women: racial minorities, sexual minorities, immigrants, the poor."


Law and Psychology: The Emotions


Ironically taught by Professor David Cope:  "Love, jealousy, guilt, anger, fear, greed, compassion, hope, and joy play important roles in the lives of lawyers and those with whom they interact."

Law and the Political Process

Professor Lani Guinier teaches Law and the Political Process. "Prerequisites: None. Constitutional Law is strongly recommended but is not a prerequisite for this course.”   No surprise in a Guinier-taught course.


Litigating Health Rights: Can Courts Bring More Justice to Health?

"The question of whether courts can not only call for modifying legislation and policies but also enforce affirmative entitlements to care has been answered in many contexts. Yet questions still persist as to when and how litigation can lead to greater equity in health and enhance the functioning and oversight of health systems, rather than distorting priorities and budgets."


Animal Law

A course, perhaps, about laws surrounding animal-based commodities?  Maybe a survey of useful contractual issues involving agricultural commerce?  Stop it, this is Harvard, not the University of Wyoming!:


Animal Law Prof. Kristen Stilt

"The course will also engage with fundamental questions about animals and the law, such as: Are some animals more deserving of protection than others, and if so, on what basis? What role does culture and belief play in animal law—why are dogs considered pets in the U.S. and food in some parts of the world, for example? Does the status of animals as property pose an insurmountable barrier to increasing protections for animals? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the concepts of “animal rights” and “animal welfare”?

_____________________________________

Obama's choices for Supreme Court plays on this global corporate feminism championed by Hillary and her global 1% and their 2% of women.  This is the policy of being socially progressive because 1% Wall Street has allowed a 2% of women to gain wealth in exchange for enslaving 99% of women in each of their nations.  Same set to happen in the US under a Hillary MOVING FORWARD with US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.  They don't call Hillary corporate feminists NASTY LADIES for nothing. 

LYING, CHEATING, STEALING IS NOT A MAN'S GAME ONLY SAY THESE 1% AND THEIR 2% GLOBAL WOMEN.

So, with Obama 1% Wall Street installed the Harvard President KAGAN----and the Wall Street IVY LEAGUE university Sotomayor.  Women yes, WE THE PEOPLE----no.  Now we have a Supreme Court consisting of mostly far-right ultra-conservative OPUS DEI -----and now far-right Wall Street Libertarian do anything you want to gain wealth global neo-liberals.

'We will pay attention to the rise and fall of feminist ideas; to competitor theoretical frames and ongoing contests among different feminist worldviews for influence on law; to nonwestern sources of feminist legal thought; and to modes of transmitting feminist ideas from one national, regional, and/or international system to another'.


 If we think the global 1% and their 2% of women calling themselves corporate feminists care about the 99% of women then look at who is at the bottom of global labor pool ----global factory labor---and we see women in the worst of abuse and exploitation BY THESE GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% OF WOMEN.

We are not prejudice against Catholics, Jewish, Protestant, or Muslim religions ----we are recognizing a highly imbalanced leadership structure given the total population of America and towards the austere far-right.

Here we see Sotomayor is that Roman Catholic Justice--we are being told because she is a woman she will be protecting our left-leaning EQUAL PROTECTION for all women when in fact she will as with black and brown citizens only be protecting those 1% and their 2%.  As we know American Catholicism became more right and austere after many US citizens left the Catholic Church with scandals. 


'Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The fifth Catholic, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often votes with them.

There are indications that Judge Sotomayor is more like the majority of American Catholics'

Sotomayor Would Be Sixth Catholic Justice, but the Pigeonholing Ends There
By LAURIE GOODSTEINMAY 30, 2009

If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed for a seat on the Supreme Court, she will be the sixth of the nine justices who are Roman Catholic — a stunning robed portrait in a country where Catholics were once targets of discrimination and suspicion.


Four of the Catholics on the court are reported to be committed attenders of Mass, and they make up the court’s solid conservative bloc — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The fifth Catholic, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often votes with them.


There are indications that Judge Sotomayor is more like the majority of American Catholics: those who were raised in the faith and shaped by its values, but who do not attend Mass regularly and are not particularly active in religious life. Like many Americans, Judge Sotomayor may be what religion scholars call a “cultural Catholic” — a category that could say something about her political and social attitudes.
Interviews with more than a dozen of Judge Sotomayor’s friends from high school, college, law school and professional life said they had never heard her talk about her faith, and had no recollection of her ever going to Mass or belonging to a parish. Her family did not return phone calls for comment.

A White House spokesman, speaking on background, put it this way: “She currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions.”
Many of Judge Sotomayor’s friends and colleagues also said they believed that her expressed commitment to social justice and community service is a reflection of her Catholic upbringing.


“In law school, it was very clear she was committed to serving the community and using the law as an instrument of service to the greater good,” said Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law who is on leave to help establish a law school at the University of California, Irvine. “That’s a mark of religion, even if she didn’t say so.”
Studies have consistently shown that the 57 percent of Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass are far more liberal on political and cultural issues than Catholics who attend weekly or at least once a month.


In fact, 52 percent of Catholics who do not attend church regularly say abortion is morally acceptable, compared with 24 percent of churchgoing Catholics, according to a Gallup study released in March based on polling over the previous three years. Gallup found that 61 percent of non-churchgoing Catholics found same-sex relationships morally acceptable, compared with 44 percent of churchgoers.
But legal scholars say that while Judge Sotomayor’s Catholic identity will undoubtedly shape her perceptions, they will not determine how she would rule on the bench. After all, they point out, Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Frank Murphy, both Catholics, had records as liberals, while Justice Scalia has been a reliable conservative. Their positions have differed, even on issues covered in Catholic teaching, like abortion.


“I don’t think there is any one Catholic stance on the law,” said M. Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at the University of Notre Dame. “Catholicism is a big tent, so different people are drawn to different aspects of it. A Dorothy Day Catholic is going to be different than an Opus Dei Catholic,” she said. (Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker movement that promotes justice for the poor; Opus Dei is a church prelature that promotes personal orthodoxy.)

“You’ll have judges who are pro-life personally who are going to rule that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land,” Ms. Kaveny said. “People recognize that the task of the judge is different than the task of a lawmaker.”
After her father died, Judge Sotomayor was brought up in the Bronx by her mother. She attended Cardinal Spellman High School, an academically rigorous Catholic school, in an era when boys and girls were segregated.
But it was also in the era after the Second Vatican Council, when the church was opening to modern culture. Mass at Spellman High was accompanied by a guitar, and girls were asking why they could not be altar servers, said Jane Morris, who knew Judge Sotomayor while both were student council leaders.
“We were allowed and encouraged to ask a lot of questions,” said Ms. Morris, who is now the girls athletic director at Spellman High. “We were asking, what’s wrong with the other religions, and why do you say everybody else is going to Hell?”


At Princeton, where Judge Sotomayor belonged to a Puerto Rican student group, a group of Latino students attended Mass every week, but she was not among them, a former classmate recalled.
Judge Sotomayor married her boyfriend from high school, Kevin E. Noonan, in a small chapel at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in the summer of 1976, after both graduated from college, according to a friend of Judge Sotomayor. But within seven years they were divorced, and it is not known whether she obtained a marriage annulment from the church. She has not remarried and has no children.
As a Hispanic Catholic, Judge Sotomayor is part of the church’s most vibrant and growing wing. Hispanic Catholics, studies show, are more liberal than white Catholics on some social and economic issues, like immigration and health care reform, but more conservative on homosexuality and abortion.


Justice Scalia, whose son is a Catholic priest, and Justice Alito are of Italian Catholic ancestry. Justice Thomas is an African-American convert who once went to seminary, left the church for 28 years and rejoined in the mid-1990s.
Lucas A. Powe Jr., a professor of law and government at the University of Texas, Austin, said Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito are “Catholic and movement conservatives.”


“That combination is just golden for being anti-abortion and anti-affirmative action,” said Mr. Powe, author of “The Supreme Court and the American Elite, 1789-2008” (March 2009, Harvard University Press).
Justice Kennedy, who wrote two decisions favoring equal rights for gay people, is a “country club Republican,” which Mr. Powe described as “an economic conservative without some of the social conservatism.”
The court’s liberal wing is made up of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, who are Jewish, and John Paul Stevens, a Protestant.

The Rev. Joseph A. O’Hare, a Jesuit priest and the former president of Fordham University, who came to know Judge Sotomayor when they both served on the New York City Campaign Finance Board in the 1980s, said: “I just don’t think Sonia would fit in with Roberts, exactly, and certainly not Scalia. I think they’re very different Catholics.”

________________________________________

The concept of LIVING CONSTITUTION is vital for 1% global Wall Street because once they ignored MONOPOLY, ANTI-TRUST, estate taxes to keep extreme wealth and extreme power at bay in the US----they had to make adjustments for global corporate rule.  That is why a US Constitution allowing for all kinds of free market freedoms no longer works for US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.

One does not get to be President of Harvard unless one is global 1% Wall Street and ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----and indeed Kagan is.  Again, just because she is a woman does not make her left-leaning-----she is a far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, Libertarian soon to be Marxism.  Remember it is that Marxism the 1% Wall Street will sell as left-leaning when it is simply MOVING FORWARD with US labor pushed into the global labor pool ----$3-6 a day or $20-30 a day------this is what global corporate campus SOCIALISM looks like.

'For Kagan's published scholarship demonstrates that the "living constitution" is alive and well and even growing and changing. That is, this theory of constitutional interpretation, which holds that the constitution should change over time, has itself been modified by Kagan and her generation of liberal judicial activists'.


One would ask---how did a Kagan get past a supposedly Republican Congressional approval-----the answer is that Congress does not have Republicans and Democrats---they have CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA global Wall Street pols capturing both parties----and this is why systemic primary election fraud and rigging matters.

BYE BYE CENTURIES OF US CONSTITUTIONAL AND COMMON LAW COURT RULING PRECEDENCE----WE ARE GOING WITH WHATEVER THESE INDIVIDUAL JURISTS FEEL IS RIGHT----and this is indeed what these few decades of Supreme Court rulings have been----ergo Chief Justice Roberts



'Kagan’s new living constitutionalism, according to which individual jurists breathe the life of their own meanings into our fundamental law, is even less defensible than the earlier version articulated by Justice Brennan'.

Public Discourse Ryan T. Anderson
Founder & Editor
Serena Sigillito
Managing Editor

Elena Kagan’s Living Constitution

by  Carson Holloway
within Constitutional Law
 
July 2nd, 2010
 

Kagan’s advocacy for a living constitution should kill her Supreme Court chances.
As Elena Kagan's Senate testimony concludes, the talk of Washington is dominated by admiration for her artful ability to avoid committing herself to positions that might imperil her confirmation to the Supreme Court. This reaction is ironic, because Kagan entered her Senate hearings having already committed herself in writing to a position that should kill her chances for confirmation. For Kagan's published scholarship demonstrates that the "living constitution" is alive and well and even growing and changing. That is, this theory of constitutional interpretation, which holds that the constitution should change over time, has itself been modified by Kagan and her generation of liberal judicial activists. This updated living constitutionalism, however, is even less compatible with a judge's duty than the old, a problem left largely unexplored by Kagan's Republican critics on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The older version of living constitutionalism was famously defended by Justice William Brennan in his 1985 speech at Georgetown University entitled “The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification.” In that speech Brennan rejected calls for a jurisprudence of “originalism” and instead insisted that the constitution should be interpreted in light of contemporary values. Brennan strictly averred, however, that these contemporary values must not simply be the judge’s own values. Rather, the judge’s task is to discern the community’s current interpretation of the constitution, to be guided by the public’s contemporary values, and not by his own idiosyncratic beliefs, in deciding constitutional cases.


The problem is that often a constitutional case demonstrates the existence of an important clash of values within the community itself. Frequently, such a case will involve a clash between a majority whose values have been enshrined in law or policy through the democratic process and an individual or minority that cannot prevail politically and thus has had recourse to the courts. A judge who invokes the “living constitution” to invalidate democratically enacted policy in such a case—and this is a use of living constitutionalism that its proponents have not been reluctant to embrace—is not finding a solution based upon the community’s values. He is rather siding with one part of the community over another, and, again, in many cases siding with a minority position over a majority position. In view of this conflict within the community, and hence the inability of “community values” to give him any clear guidance in the dispute before him, he is deciding which set of values he agrees with or thinks more just and ruling accordingly. That is, he is imposing his own values, which is precisely what Brennan had said must not be done.


In some recently reported and widely defended comments, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has gone much further, suggesting that judges may properly be guided by their own values in deciding cases. In a 1995 review of Stephen Carter’s The Confirmation Mess, Kagan approvingly quoted Carter’s claim that “the interpreter’s own experience and values become the most important data” at a “crucial moment” that arises in most cases heard by the Supreme Court. Then, speaking clearly for herself, Kagan adds that “it should come as no surprise by now that many of the votes a Supreme Court justice casts have little to do with technical legal ability and much to do with conceptions of value.” According to Carter, this is the proper mode of resolving controversial questions such as “flag burning, segregated schools, and executive power,” and Kagan adds that one could cite “countless more” examples.


Supporters of Kagan’s nomination have defended her by pointing out that her views are widely shared by members of the American legal left. In fact, her position is not in principle different than that of President Obama last year when he contended for the role of a judge’s sense of “empathy” in deciding important cases. After all, a judge’s values will inexorably influence which litigants receive the benefit of his empathy. In her book review Kagan reveals herself as, if anything, an even more ardent judicial activist than her presidential patron. In defending his theory of judicial empathy, President Obama went out of his way to insist that the proper legal answer would be clear to a judge or justice in the vast majority of cases, but that empathy would have to come into play in the handful of truly difficult cases that the Court must confront from time to time. In contrast, as the language quoted above indicates, Kagan thinks that a justice’s own values and experiences, and not technical interpretations of the law, will be the most important considerations in “many” and perhaps even “most” cases the Court must resolve.


Kagan’s new living constitutionalism, according to which individual jurists breathe the life of their own meanings into our fundamental law, is even less defensible than the earlier version articulated by Justice Brennan. It is not even an accurate description of what Supreme Court justices do, or at least not an accurate description of how they present what they do. One can seek almost in vain for examples of Supreme Court opinions in which the author even refers to his own experiences and values, let alone deploys them as the decisive considerations for the case in question. In the few cases when such considerations are mentioned, they are often raised so that a Justice can demonstrate his personal sympathy with the side for which he cannot, for legal and constitutional reasons, render judgment.


This is not to say that justices are never influenced by their own values in their work. Any astute observer, by discerning the weakness of the legal reasoning deployed in many cases, can reasonably conclude that the justices could not have been guided by anything other than their own values. The unwillingness of justices to state their personal reasons for the public record, their insistence on crafting opinions in terms of objective legal analysis, suggests that they know that the personalized justice advocated by Elena Kagan cannot stand the light of day. They know that to embrace it openly would be to destroy the Court’s legitimacy by openly flouting long-established, deeply-rooted American expectations about the role of courts in a constitutional democracy.

The idea that judges should be guided by their own values in rendering judgment is not one that anyone can honestly and consistently embrace. For if liberal judges may properly be guided by their own values, then conservative ones can be as well. But does anyone really believe that if a majority of conservative justices were to overturn, say, Roe v. Wade, simply on the basis of the justices’ own moral convictions about abortion, Elena Kagan and her supporters would not complain bitterly about both the outcome and the illegitimacy of the reasoning? In the face of such a difficulty, the proponents of Kaganism must either admit that, as a matter of principle, judges should not be guided by their own values, or claim that only liberal judges may properly be guided by their own values. To admit the former is to surrender their position. To claim the latter is to reveal their jurisprudence as a barefaced exercise of power.

__________________________________________

Bush neo-cons have right wing voters concentrating on gun rights while Clinton/Obama have left-wing voters concentrating on their pensions, retirements, and police brutality ----while quite literally rewriting OUR US CONSTITUTION.

Kagan is that INTERNATIONALIST-----she is that global corporate tribunal rule jurist.

'It was under Ms. Kagan's leadership while dean of Harvard Law School, for instance, that Harvard dropped constitutional law as a required course for graduation, while adding a requirement for a course in "International/Comparative Law."

NewsMax is a right leaning media outlet and they have it right.  Remember Justice Ginsburg was reaching for foreign legal writings in her writings.  Now, some may say we have seen this done in the course of US history----but we were not captured by global Wall Street and global corporations MOVING FORWARD with dismantling our democratic republic, our US Constitution, our Bill of Rights with a guarantee that WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE LEGISLATORS.

This is to where the AMEND THE CONSTITUTION MOVEMENT is going. Policy written by 1% Wall Street-----not any left-leaning group protecting WE THE PEOPLE and our free and fair elections.

These were the goals in Obama's Supreme Court justices and a Hillary will have the same goals with her appointments-----Trump will simply do what Wall Street tells him.


Editorial: Kagan Put Foreign Law Before Constitution

Thursday, 27 May 2010 03:34 PM

Breaking News at Newsmax.com


Solicitor General Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court should founder unless she adequately explains why she quite literally put "International/ Comparative Law" ahead of the U.S. Constitution. Senators should question Ms. Kagan in great depth about her views on the applicability of foreign law in American courts.

Increasing references to international laws and norms in American courts have become controversial in recent years, and deservedly so. During the confirmation hearings for new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Ms. Sotomayor tried to weasel away from past support for judges using the "ideas" of foreign law, and she made a rather categorical statement: "Foreign law cannot be used as a holding or a precedent, or to bind or to influence the outcome of a legal decision interpreting the Constitution or American law."


That's right: She said foreign law should not even "influence" a U.S. court decision. That statement is correct, even if Justice Sotomayor's actual record doesn't support it. Ms. Kagan should be held to the standard set by Justice Sotomayor's testimony.

The available evidence suggests that Ms. Kagan's views don't comport with that judicial principle. The first clue came during her confirmation hearings for her current position of solicitor general. Here's what she said: "At least some members of the court find foreign law relevant in at least some contexts. When this is the case, I think the solicitor general's office should offer reasonable foreign law arguments to attract these justices' support for the positions that the office is taking."

Well, no. Even to win a case, it is wrong to argue in favor of something on which it would be wrong to decide. Rather than playing into misguided prejudices of current justices, the solicitor general should argue her position based on the Constitution and laws of our own land, regardless.

The increasingly influential law-and-policy organization Americans United for Life, meanwhile, has raised several other red flags with regard to Ms. Kagan's views on the relative weight of foreign law and the U.S. Constitution. It was under Ms. Kagan's leadership while dean of Harvard Law School, for instance, that Harvard dropped constitutional law as a required course for graduation, while adding a requirement for a course in "International/Comparative Law." The de-emphasis on the Constitution itself is part of a horribly misguided trend in liberal academia. To replace con-law with international law is symbolic of a mindset that runs far afield from the basics of American legal tradition.

In a New Hampshire speech on Oct. 6, 2008, then-Dean Kagan referred to "a transnational perspective" as being "foundational" as "part of the core of legal thought and activity in this new century." The academic jargon is instructive: "Transnationalism" is, in the words of radical State Department counsel Harold Koh, the idea that "domestic courts must play a key role in coordinating U.S. domestic constitutional rules with rules of foreign and international law." Another key supporter of transnationalism goes so far as to argue that "international law is supreme over domestic law."


Senators must ask Ms. Kagan if that is what she means by "transnationalism" being "part of the core" of modern legal thought. If it is, or if it is anything close to it, then she should not be confirmed.

_________________________________________

There is a great meme on social media of a small child looking up at a Hillary supporter saying----SO, I'M SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE A CANDIDATE WHO COMMITS NATIONAL PRIMARY ELECTION FRAUD IS INTERESTED IN VOTING RIGHTS?


If American citizens still do not understand what a Bill Clinton EXECUTIVE ORDER CALLED THE FEDERALISM ACT did back in the 1990s----it set the stage for CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA future Presidents embracing a policy of not enforcing Federal law, US Constitutional rights, dismantled Federal agencies allowing for these massive corporate frauds, police abuses, government corruption----and it was written by a Republican Think Tank.

So, Hillary has decades of ignoring all of the NEW DEAL civil rights, women's rights, labor rights, rights of disabled----all of Equal Protection US Constitutional rights----AND WE ARE TO BE WORRIED ABOUT WHAT A TRUMP WILL DO?  None of these issues would be safe in a global corporate tribunal rule ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE structure.

If a Chinese, Bahraini, Singaporean, Chilean, Nigerian foreign corporation comes to a US Foreign Economic Zone---that global corporation and its executives will operate anyway they want to.  No regard to anything other than international trade laws.

It is disgusting how a Hillary campaign has had to fear-monger voters into voting for her. No one knows better than global labor pool immigrants what Clinton global neo-liberalism has done for their nations!

President Donald Trump would transform the Supreme Court—and upend our most fundamental rights.

The fate of the Supreme Court hinges on the next election.
September 14, 2016 by Elizabeth Chan

The fate of the Supreme Court hinges on the next election.

Months after the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Republicans are still refusing to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to give President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a fair confirmation hearing.
To make matters worse: Our next president might be Donald Trump—and the short list of justices he’d consider nominating includes a judge who upheld a law requiring doctors to restrict reproductive rights and another judge who equated homosexual sex to “bestiality,” “pedophilia,” and “necrophilia.”
If that’s not scary enough, consider this: With three current justices nearing or older than 80 years—past the court’s average retirement age—the next president will likely have the opportunity to nominate several justices to the Supreme Court. And in doing so, she or he could have the power to transform the court, and American law, for generations to come.

Here’s what’s at stake—not just in this election, but for the future of our country:


1. Safe and legal abortion

Trump has proposed banning abortions, going as far as to suggest that women who get them would be “punished.” He’s also stated that he would only support justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that guaranteed American women their constitutional right to safe and legal abortion. Under a Trump presidency—with a court potentially filled with Trump appointees—the right to safe and legal abortion could become be a relic of the past.


2. Voting rights

Shelby County v. Holder gutted one of the most important parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a decision that has fueled a coordinated, Republican-led attack on the voting rights of people of color, low-income people, students, and seniors in recent years.
A conservative court would erode voting rights even further.
Just take a look at the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on North Carolina’s restrictive voting law. In late August, the Court declined to reinstate the law, but only because the justices split 4-4, leaving in place a lower court opinion that had struck it down. That means, if just one additional conservative justice had been on the court, North Carolina could have gotten away with passing a measure disproportionately preventing people of color from voting. In 2016.
Imagine how many similar laws could be passed—and upheld—across the country with a conservative-leaning court.
A conservative court could erode voting rights even further.

3. Marriage equality

The historic Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality was decided by a 5–4 margin. A shift in the balance of power on the bench would provide the conservative wing of the court an opportunity to reverse that decision—an opportunity that a Republican president like Trump would be happy to give them. (He denounced the Supreme Court’s affirmation of marriage equality and said he would consider appointing Justices to overturn it).


4. Campaign finance reform

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence federal elections. Since that 2010 ruling, the conservative-led court has declined to revisit that decision—and more conservatives on the court would only work to cement the status quo.
That’s why Hillary Clinton has promised to do whatever it takes to overturn this ruling, including fighting for a constitutional amendment.


5. Affordable health care

The Affordable Care Act has now survived two attempts to strike it down in the Supreme Court—but there are more challenges to the law making their way through the lower courts. Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and you can bet the justices he’d appoint would lead the charge against the law that has given more than 20 million Americans the care they need.

6. President Obama’s executive actions on behalf of DREAMers and parents

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court split 4-4, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that blocked two of President Obama’s most important executive actions: DACA and expanded DAPA, which would have provided relief from the prospect of deportation for DREAMers and the parents of American citizens and lawful permanent residents.
While Hillary would fight for DACA and DAPA and keep families together, Trump is calling for the U.S. to build a wall and mass-deport 16 million people, including American citizens who were born here to undocumented parents. He also wants to permanently end DACA and DAPA, and, in turn, break apart millions of families.

__________________________
Regardless of who wins in the fall, the balance of the court hangs on this election. So, if you care about a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion; protecting voting rights; marriage equality; getting the outsized influence of money out of politics; giving more people access to health care; keeping families together; or preserving any other fundamental right, it’s time to register to vote.
So, share this article, go to IWillVote.com, and tell your friends to register too. This election really will decide the future of the court—and, as a result, the future of the country.

We will finish this week's discussion of AMEND THE CONSTITUTION -----NOT! by talking about the Supreme Court appointments from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA because that is why we have a far-right global corporate 1% Wall Street Supreme Court today.  When we listen to the media telling us the difference between a Trump and Hillary appointment the media allows these candidates to POSE PROGRESSIVE FOR HILLARY AND POSE CONSERVATIVE FOR TRUMP when they are neither.

Congress and/or a President would not even be allowed to bring forward Trans Pacific Trade Pact or Foreign Economic Zone policies because they are illegal and threaten our national sovereignty.  It would be that Supreme Court ruling against MONOPOLY AND ESPECIALLY GLOBAL MONOPOLY----but they don't.

Ginsburg has been hailed as a socially progressive justice and indeed she has made some good votes.  Gradualism is Marx's credo so any Bill Clinton appointee was to gradually dismantle all NEW DEAL and CIVIL/LABOR/WOMEN'S rights EQUAL PROTECTION.  Ginsburg would not have come out conservative and right-leaning right from the start.  We can see Ginsburg voting that right corporate stance these few decades.

One of the first opinions by Ginsburg was exactly this-----she was accepted by Republicans because she viewed the abortion issue as SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION and not a PRIVACY issue.  Now, the US Constitution has far more PRIVACY PROTECTION than it does SEXUAL RIGHTS protection so when Ginsburg moved this abortion issue from PRIVACY TO SEXUAL she was weakening the ABORTION STANCE.  As she did this media kept calling her strong on women's rights.


'Clinton announced Ruth Bader Ginsburg as White's replacement on June 15, 1993, and she was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 3, 1993.[2]On April 6, 1994, Associate Justice Harry Blackmun announced his retirement (and assumption of senior status), which ultimately took effect August 3, 1994.[3] President Clinton announced Stephen Breyer as Blackmun's replacement on May 13, 1994, with the United States Senate confirming Breyer on July 29, 1994'.

'More important, she was a pioneer in the legal fight for women's rights—a female Thurgood Marshall."[7][8] In addition, Ginsburg was noted as moderate-to-conservative on criminal matters and had a different rationale for supporting Roe v. Wade than most liberals: she considered laws banning abortion a form of sex discrimination rather than a violation of privacy. Hatch told Clinton that he would support Ginsburg as well'.

Ginsburg has been quite the global market wealth and power player on the Supreme Court which is why Bill Clinton appointed her.  Never look at one vote-----never allow the media to sensationalize that one vote---look broadly at all votes to know a candidate or appointee.

Now, when a court ruling is written whether in defense of the majority or in dissent it is the WORDING of that stance that sticks to PRECEDENT.  We may think a ruling that International Law regarding torture is good----AND IT IS-----it is the way Ginsburg's opinion is written that opens the door broadly to FOREIGN LAWS BEING ACCEPTABLE.  If the goal of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA was to install a ONE WORLD GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE----then having a Supreme Court precedent of foreign laws being OK under our US Constitution would MOVE FORWARD that goal.  Our Supreme Court would not be the place for rulings on foreign activity that is an Executive and a Legislative venue.

We see every left-leaning citizens' bad guy Thomas writing the CORRECT STANCE ON SUPREME COURT RULINGS........opposing citation of foreign law in constitutional cases.  Ginsburg did this to open the door to Trans Pacific Trade Pact ----Foreign Economic Zones and global corporate tribunal rule.  When she is called LIBERAL-----they mean FAR-RIGHT WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL.

THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL THE BROUHAHA FROM CONGRESS.




“I frankly don’t understand all the brouhaha lately from Congress and even from some of my colleagues about referring to foreign law,” Justice Ginsburg said in her comments on Friday'.

'The court’s more conservative members — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — oppose the citation of foreign law in constitutional cases'.

Ginsburg uses Canada as an example of Supreme Court rulings siting foreign law but Canada has a very different governance structure -----the US has other venues where that citation occurs.

The US Constitution was written heavily protecting America from foreign wealth and power because our history is revolution to break free from just that. These kinds of Supreme Court writings paves the way for America to be held under more foreign legal influence which is why a Congress back then would have cried FOUL.

Ginsburg Shares Views on Influence of Foreign Law on Her Court, and Vice Versa


By ADAM LIPTAKAPRIL 11, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In wide-ranging remarks here, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended the use of foreign law by American judges, suggested that torture should not be used even when it might yield important information and reflected on her role as the Supreme Court’s only female justice. The occasion was a symposium at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University honoring her 15 years on the court.
“I frankly don’t understand all the brouhaha lately from Congress and even from some of my colleagues about referring to foreign law,” Justice Ginsburg said in her comments on Friday.


The court’s more conservative members — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — oppose the citation of foreign law in constitutional cases.


“If we’re relying on a decision from a German judge about what our Constitution means, no president accountable to the people appointed that judge and no Senate accountable to the people confirmed that judge,” Chief Justice Roberts said at his confirmation hearing. “And yet he’s playing a role in shaping the law that binds the people in this country.”


Justice Ginsburg said the controversy was based on the misunderstanding that citing a foreign precedent means the court considers itself bound by foreign law as opposed to merely being influenced by such power as its reasoning holds.

“Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?” she asked.
She added that the failure to engage foreign decisions had resulted in diminished influence for the United States Supreme Court.
The Canadian Supreme Court, she said, is “probably cited more widely abroad than the U.S. Supreme Court.” There is one reason for that, she said: “You will not be listened to if you don’t listen to others.”
She also offered a theory about why after World War II nations around the world started to create constitutional courts with the power to strike down legislation as the United States Supreme Court has.


“What happened in Europe was the Holocaust,” she said, “and people came to see that popularly elected representatives could not always be trusted to preserve the system’s most basic values.”
American hostility to the consideration of foreign law, she said, “is a passing phase.” She predicted that “we will go back to where we were in the early 19th century when there was no question that it was appropriate to refer to decisions of other courts.”


Justice Ginsburg turned 76 last month and underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in February. Here on Friday, she was energetic, enthusiastic and characteristically precise in her answers to questions from two law professors in a 90-minute conversation. She spoke mostly about her career as a litigator specializing in women’s rights and her years on the court.
In a videotaped tribute, Chief Justice Roberts described Justice Ginsburg’s work habits — including her “total disregard for the normal day-night work schedule adhered to by everyone else since the beginning of recorded history” — and congratulated her for reaching what he said was the midpoint of her career on the court.
In her remarks, Justice Ginsburg discussed a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court concerning the use of torture to obtain information from people suspected of terrorism.


“The police think that a suspect they have apprehended knows where and when a bomb is going to go off,” she said, describing the question presented in the case. “Can the police use torture to extract that information? And in an eloquent decision by Aharon Barak, then the chief justice of Israel, the court said: ‘Torture? Never.’ ”
The message of the decision, Justice Ginsburg said, was “that we could hand our enemies no greater victory than to come to look like that enemy in our disregard for human dignity.” Then she asked, “Now why should I not read that opinion and be affected by its tremendous persuasive value?”


Justice Ginsburg also discussed her career as an advocate, one that included six Supreme Court arguments and a role in shaping the language of the law. She helped introduce the term “gender discrimination” as a synonym for “sex discrimination,” she said, explaining that her secretary had proposed the idea while typing a brief to be submitted to male judges.


“ ‘The first association of those men with the word “sex” is not what you’re talking about,’ ” the secretary said, Justice Ginsburg recalled. “ ‘Why don’t you use a grammar-book term? Use gender. It has a neutral sound, and it will ward off distracting associations.’ ”
Justice Ginsburg expressed dismay at being the only woman on the Supreme Court. “There I am all alone,” she said, “and it doesn’t look right.”
In this area, too, the Canadian Supreme Court provides a model, Justice Ginsburg said. That nine-member court has four women, including its chief justice.
Justice Ginsburg concluded her remarks with advice to the students in the audience about one of her great passions.
“For a first opera, I would say, pick ‘Butterfly’ or ‘Bohème,’ ” she said. For her part, she added, she was looking forward a little warily to a six-hour production of Wagner’s “Siegfried.”

“Wagner is a great, great composer,” she said, “but he needed a good editor.”

________________________________________

SURVEILLANCE AND POLICE STATE KIND OF GUY THAT BREYER----

The importance of Bill Clinton's Stephen Breyer was his commitment to legislative activism trumping US Constitutional ruling precedence.  He was the one who was willing to ignore a century of NEW DEAL SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC STANCES to return to Robber Baron and landed gentry kinds of power.  Breyer was that CLINTON/BUSH neo-liberal/neo-con BLEND of extreme wealth and extreme power trumping our equal protection amendments.

These few decades were important for issues of PRIVACY------as regards everything from selling WE THE PEOPLE'S personal information---to police and HOMELAND SECURITY PATRIOT ACT kinds of search and seizures.  Stephen Breyer was that majority vote with conservatives.  Every time I turned around Breyer was right there with the extreme wealth and extreme power vote ---and that was why Bill Clinton appointed him.

'The fourth member of the court's liberal wing, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined the four conservatives to form a majority on the eight-justice court'.

Remember the dynamics of voting---whether in congress, state assembly, or city hall-----pols and appointees look at the totals to decide how they will vote.  Just because what we are calling LIBERALS----like Kagan, Sotomeyer voted for privacy now definitely does not mean they will support privacy later----they are 1% Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal appointments who are ruling for that 1% and their 2%.  BREYER was that fall guy in what was called the liberal group of justices-----he made that majority vote so the other 'liberals' did not have to.

BREYER IS HAILED AS A GREAT JURIST BY THE GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% BECAUSE HE INDEED BROKE WITH OUR ORIGINAL PRECEDENCE ON ISSUES LIKE THE 4TH AMENDMENT----AND MORE. THIS IS WHY A BILL CLINTON APPOINTED HIM.

1. U.S. Constitution

Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment originally enforced the notion that “each man’s home is his castle”, secure from unreasonable searches and seizures of property by the government.  It protects against arbitrary arrests, and is the basis of the law regarding search warrants, stop-and-frisk, safety inspections, wiretaps, and other forms of surveillance, as well as being central to many other criminal law topics and to privacy law.
*******************************************************

Remember, NEGATIVE LIBERTY is the code for the rich accumulating wealth anyway they want ---no morals, no ethics, no Rule of Law.  All of today's massive looting of our US Treasury, corporate fraud and corruption is tied to NEGATIVE LIBERTY.


JUSTICE BREYER’S FOURTH AMENDMENT JURISPRUDENCE

INTRODUCTION
.........................................................................
199
I.
BREYER’S
CONSISTENCY
.......................................................
204
A. The Proportionality Analysis in Action
.........................
204
B. Narrow Rulings
.............................................................
212
C. Relying on the Common Law as of 1791
.......................
216
D. A Clear Case of Active Liberty
.......................................
217
II.BREYER’S LACK OF
CONSISTENCY
.......................................
218
A. Negative Liberty
............................................................
218
B. Out of Left Field
............................................................
220
CONCLUSION
............................................................................
222

Stephen Breyer

has managed to remain relatively consistent in his two majority opinions and most of his thirteen dissents or concurrences

Breyer believes that there are “two overarching goals of our democratic Constitution:

to protect negative liberty, meaning freedom from government constraint, and to protect active liberty, meaning the ability to participate in governance” and the ability to trace a governmental decision back to the people in the area of Fourth Amendment law.

Several of Breyer’s decisions, however, are inconsistent in that they do not align with his usual constitutional and Fourth Amendment views, but these decisions can at least be explained by other considerations. On the other hand, there are a few of Breyer’s decisions that completely lack consistency and provide little insight into why Breyer ruled the way he did. Although one could possibly square away these outliers with Breyer’s usual constitutional and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, doing so is quite a strain.




He was nominated by President Clinton as a justice of the Supreme Court in 1994.

It is this second aspect that Breyer attributed great significance to in the several books he has written, emphasizing that “
judicial review . .. should be undertaken with close reference to active liberty.”

In other words, Breyer believes that judges should practice judicial modesty and defer to the decisions of the political branches.




Statistically, it appears that Breyer has held true to his
statement. Several studies conducted in 2005 have shown that Breyer, more so than any other justice on the Rehnquist Court, had the highest percentage of votes to uphold congressional acts and executive decisions.


In light of Breyer’s active liberty jurisprudence, he argues that constitutional individual liberty cases require an emphasis on the use of two unique interpretive tools—what Breyer calls values and proportionality.

The first tool, values, requires determining
the basic underlying values of the constitutional provision and
ensuring that the solution reflects those values.

To determine the provision’s purpose, the judge must ask what the Framers sought to protect when drafting the amendment, while also taking into consideration changing circumstances.

Breyer has stated that he considers “individual constitutional provisions as embodying certain basic purposes, often expressed in highly general terms.”

THE CIVIL RIGHT OF INDIVIDUALS TO BE FREE FROM GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE ---IS WHAT IS GIVING US NO OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY AS FRAUD AND CORRUPTION GO WILD.


For instance, Breyer believes one of the underlying values or purposes of the Fourth Amendment is the protection of privacy.

Once the judge comes up with a proposed interpretation, he must again use his values tool to ask whether the likely consequences of his decision “are more likely to further than to hinder achievement of the provision’s purpose.”

The tool of proportionality comes into play when important constitutional rights and interests clash.

Proportionality involves asking whether the restriction on the constitutional right “is proportionate to, or properly balances, the need.”

This analysis requires a three-part enquiry. First, the judge must use the values tool to determine the underlying value of the particular constitutional provision.

The judge must then determine whether the restriction furthers a competing and compelling state interest and whether that interest imposes a burden on the constitutional value.

If it does, the judge must determine whether the restriction, in its efforts to further the compelling state interest, “disproportionately burdens the interest the[constitutional provision] seeks to protect.”

If the burden is proportionate, the restriction is constitutional.

_______________________________________
Remember, CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA is simply a GRADUALISM towards global corporate rule----they are a tag team and not Republican or Democrat.

Bush's appointment of ROBERTS has made even Republican voters mad as Robert's is that same Justice Breyer who goes back to US Constitution as its original interpretation and Roberts is squarely with team global rich.  This is why Roberts' rulings are taking the US beyond that national sovereignty as with Ginsburg-----and creating obligations inside the US to global legal standings----the global 1% and their 2%. 

Here is Roberts using Ginsburg in moving issues of women from privacy to sexual rights -----he does the same with the GBLT marriage rights.

'Then Chief Justice Roberts quoted another member of the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from a 1985 law review article criticizing the court for moving too fast in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision identifying a constitutional right to abortion: “Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”'

**********************************************
'On September 5, two days after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Bush renominated Roberts as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 29, 2005.[1]
On October 3, Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed O'Connor. However, Miers withdrew her nomination on October 27 after facing significant opposition.
On October 31, Bush nominated another federal appellate judge, Samuel Alito, as his new choice to replace O'Connor. Alito was confirmed as the 110th Justice of the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006'.

*************************************************
'Young libertarian and conservative lawyers had gained valuable experience in the Reagan and first Bush administrations'.


Roberts was behind the MANDATORY HEALTH CARE INSURANCE----a massive win for the global health insurance corporations.  This is a Republican think tank policy painted through PROGRESSIVE POSING as funding for low-income health care access that will never happen.  This brings us to this week's discussion of campaign finance with Roberts allowing a ruling of CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE.  We see here as well the second amendment----the right wing rights to bear arms-----now, in colonial America colonists were not allowed to have a standing army-----no weapons to use against global corporate rule ----at that time it was England and global corporation EAST INDIA CORPORATION.  So, Roberts is that kind of guy that will go all the way back to colonial interpretations of law----that look upon gun ownership as threatening to global rule.  When we go all the way back to colonial America for our interpretation of meaning to US Constitution----we have that 1% and their 1% having all the rights and no WE THE PEOPLE WITH RIGHTS.  This kills both right-wing and left-wing US Constitutional rights.

'All they needed was Roberts’s vote. They didn’t get it'.

Conservatives are still searching for silver linings, and perhaps there will be some. By vindicating the individual mandate as a tax, the Roberts decision makes it vulnerable to repeal through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process (though Democrats will surely return to text of the statute and insist the mandate is a fine).

The photo of John Roberts and Elena Kagan both tied to Wall Street's Harvard University as that ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE global rich having no connection to a US Republican or Democratic Party.  Mandated insurance is that same GLOBAL EAST INDIA TAX ON TEA-----that sent colonial citizens into warfare.  Roberts is OPUS DEI-----extreme wealth and extreme poverty----and Kagan as President of Harvard is ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ---the NEW CONSTITUTION according to HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.....which leads next to OBAMA. 

John Roberts’s Betrayal

The "stealth strategy" for the court has failed -- try winning elections instead.



By W. James Antle III • June 28, 201
Talk Radio News Service / Flickr
The Supreme Court was poised to deliver conservatives a major victory by overturning a hated liberal policy with little basis in the Constitution. A majority of the justices had been appointed by Republican presidents. Some of them were so conservative that Senate Democrats had attempted to prevent their confirmation.
Yet when the much anticipated ruling was finally handed down, the liberal policy was upheld with fairly minor caveats. A Republican-appointed justice unexpectedly voted with the liberal bloc. Instead of a victory, conservatives feared they had endured a permanent defeat on an important issue, and in an election year to boot.
While this certainly describes the past day’s events, it was also true 20 years ago. When the Senate narrowly confirmed Clarence Thomas, liberals feared he would be the deciding vote against Roe v. Wade. Well, Thomas did rule that Roe was wrongly decided at his first opportunity. But in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 5-4 majority affirmed the core holding of the infamous abortion decision.
Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, saved Roe with a pivotal flip-flop and ended up writing an opinion as filled with liberal clichés as any amicus brief filed by a pointy-headed lefty law professor. Sandra Day O’Connor, also a Reagan pick, was another of three Republicans to join the plurality opinion. Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee, gave us Roe in the first place. Earl Warren, William Brennan, John Paul Stevens, David Souter—some of the most liberal justices of the postwar era were actually named by Republican presidents.
It’s too early to include John Roberts in that sad pantheon of Republican judicial failures. The chief justice has generally been the conservative jurist his supporters had hoped he would be, and a conservative conviction—a belief in judicial restraint—likely factored into his opinion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. But Roberts’s untimely defection was in many respects a bigger blow to conservative legal circles than Kennedy’s two decades ago.
When Kennedy was nominated to the High Court, he was Reagan’s third choice. The Democratic-controlled Senate rejected Robert Bork as too conservative. Douglas Ginsburg had to withdraw amidst allegations that he had smoked marijuana. By this time Reagan was getting desperate to fill the seat and he turned to someone with a shorter paper trail of controversial legal writings. Souter was a similar “stealth” appointee.
The stealth strategy was good for getting Republican nominees confirmed, but bad for the conservative project of changing the composition of the courts. If Kennedy was a disappointment, Souter was an unmitigated disaster. Reagan may have gotten assurances from Kennedy’s priest that his nominee was pro-life; John Sununu vouched for Souter. But Kennedy was at best a swing vote and Souter became a full-time member of the liberal bloc.
Thanks to organizations like the Federalist Society, conservative legal networks were growing. Young libertarian and conservative lawyers had gained valuable experience in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. There were now clear markers to identify conservative legal talent that were more subtle than Bork’s abrasive public polemics. Absent such markers, there was no reason for conservatives to support a particular judicial nominee—and increasingly, they didn’t. When rumors circulated that George W. Bush intended to nominate Alberto Gonzales to the Supreme Court, conservatives pushed back and ultimately got Roberts. When Bush actually did nominate Harriet Miers, the right went into open revolt and got Samuel Alito.
Nobody embodied this new, improved judicial nomination strategy more than Roberts. He was widely known as a conservative in personal and professional circles, but had a sparse enough track record on substantive issues to plausibly keep Senate Democrats from pinning him down on future high-profile cases. His credentials were impeccable, so exactly half the Democratic conference felt they had no choice but to vote in favor of his confirmation. The other half, including then-Senator Obama, saw the same smoke signals the Federalist Society did and voted no.
Obama probably feels a bit guilty about that vote now. Roberts single-handedly rescued Obamacare’s individual mandate, despite agreeing with a set of constitutional arguments advanced principally by libertarian legal theorist Randy Barnett that would have allowed the mandate to be overturned without departing from generations of commerce-clause precedent. Four other Republican-appointed justices—including Kennedy—were prepared to strike down the whole healthcare law in a toughly worded conservative decision.
All they needed was Roberts’s vote. They didn’t get it. Instead of voting with Alito, Thomas, and Antonin Scalia, Roberts effectively sided with Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To be sure, he limited the damage the liberals would have done in turning the commerce clause into a general federal police power. But like Kennedy in Casey, he turned what could have been a 5-4 conservative triumph into a defeat.
Conservatives are still searching for silver linings, and perhaps there will be some. By vindicating the individual mandate as a tax, the Roberts decision makes it vulnerable to repeal through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process (though Democrats will surely return to text of the statute and insist the mandate is a fine). Politically, he has established Obama as a tax-hiker, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that 75 percent of those subject to this tax earn less than $250,000 a year.
Casey had its silver linings too. The decision paradoxically ended up strengthening pro-lifers during the 1990s by giving them the flexibility to change the law in areas where the public agreed with them (such as parental notification for minors seeking abortions) while keeping their more sweeping goals constitutionally off-limits.
Perhaps that should be the lesson taken from Roberts as well. Like the pro-life movement, those who wish to restore constitutionally limited government can only expect so much from the courts, no matter what nomination strategy Republican presidents pursue. Making public arguments, winning elections, and passing constitutionally sound legislation is at least as important as trying to get five unpredictable justices. If Republicans mean what they say about Obamacare repeal, they must demonstrate it by their actions. They can no longer hide behind John Roberts’s robe.

_________________________________________
The common theme of Supreme Court rulings these few decades has both Republicans and Democrats shouting 'foul'-----because these are global 1% Wall Street Libertarian appointments---rewriting our US Constitution taking us back to before the American Revolution. The common thread to far-right, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth and extreme poverty Libertarian Marxism is the DARK AGES ---

I have been very open to ties to our US 1% and their 2% to growing authoritarian and global rich ------and in educating on public policy we must understand where these appointments will lead policy



Opus Dei Influence Rises to the Top in the Vatican
By Betty Clermont
Sunday Apr 06, 2014 · 8:07 AM EST

Opus Dei, an official institution of the Catholic Church, at the top is a secret society of international bankers, financiers, businessmen and their supporters. Their goal is the same as other plutocrats – unbridled power – except they use the influence of the Catholic Church and its worldwide network of institutions exempt from both taxes and financial reporting requirements to advance rightwing parties and governments.“It's widely known that Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas belong to Opus Dei - and that Chief Justice John Roberts may also be a member,” stated Matthew Fox, a former priest, progressive theologian and author of more than 23 books'.

If Democratic voters would stop and think about the goals of Affordable CAre Act-----being a mirror of deregulation and consolidation of the banking industry-----global for-profit health care systems----then they will see that INSURANCE MANDATE has nothing to do with helping to fund health care access for the poor-----it was written by Republican think tanks to maximize profits for the private health industry...............so, we see 1% Wall Street global neo-liberals Kagan, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor joining with Bush neo-con Roberts to pass what will become a tax on WE THE PEOPLE


'Roberts effectively sided with Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg'.

Conservative voters know this but somehow social Democrats are still believing that Affordable Care Act is socially progressive instead of 1% Wall Street profiteering.


HMMMM....wonder if Cardinal O'Malley is related to our Baltimore Mayor turned Governor O'Malley? 

'Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the only American on the G8, is a faithful supporter of Opus Dei and has sponsored the canonization of the priest who “established an Opus Dei presence among students and professors at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology” between 1946 and 1956'.


Bush's second appointment ALITO is Opus Dei conservative as well----this is why we are getting lots of Supreme Court rulings ignoring centuries of court precedence, threatening our US Constitutional rights, Bill of Rights, and protecting WE THE PEOPLE against this push towards third world societal structure.

Opus Dei Influence Rises to the Top in the Vatican
By Betty Clermont  
Sunday Apr 06, 2014 · 8:07 AM EST


Opus Dei, an official institution of the Catholic Church, at the top is a secret society of international bankers, financiers, businessmen and their supporters. Their goal is the same as other plutocrats – unbridled power – except they use the influence of the Catholic Church and its worldwide network of institutions exempt from both taxes and financial reporting requirements to advance rightwing parties and governments.
A year after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s elevation as head of the Church and his many appointments, the dust has settled. Three cardinals have emerged as the most powerful in this papacy; all have close ties to Opus Dei. Two now control all Vatican finance.


Still the most exhaustively researched book written about “The Work” as it is referred to by its members, Their Kingdom Come (1997, 2006) by Robert Hutchison, a Canadian financial journalist, traces the growth of Opus Dei financial power “by all available means” - deception, dirty tricks, even “physical muscle” like poisonings which mimic heart attacks. “What gives Opus Dei its importance is the influence it wields and also that it deploys its immense financial resources…Opus Dei knows very well that money rules the world,” Javier Sainz Moreno, professor of Law at Madrid University, told Hutchison. One of their goals was to control the Vatican’s wealth, now closer than ever to being realized.  


Like many religious cults, the members at the bottom are sincere believers that Opus Dei is the path for personal holiness. Many are “numeraries,” men and women vowed to celibacy who live in communal residences and hand over their earnings to the organization. This creates workers totally dedicated to their assigned tasks, assures a steady stream of revenue and makes it difficult for members to leave. “Supernumeraries” are married and live independently but are still required to make large contributions and send their children to Opus Dei schools if available. At all levels, the names of the lay members are secret unless self-disclosed. Opus Dei also has an order of publicly identified priests and prelates.
Opus Dei's only "charity" is founding schools, mostly business schools and student centers at the world’s leading universities to train and recruit a continuous supply of professionals dedicated to Opus Dei/Catholic goals. Opus Dei is “significantly connected to 479 universities and high schools,” according to journalist Michael Walsh based on a confidential report submitted to the Vatican in 1979.  


Opus Dei’s flagship university is in Navarre, Spain. Its graduate business school, IESE, founded in 1958, “has growing alliances in key areas such as Latin America, China and Eastern Europe, campuses in Barcelona, Madrid, and New York City and teaching facilities in Munich and Sao Paulo,” according to a 2012 report in the Economist. They also operate a global network of MBA schools per Bloomberg.  


Probably Opus Dei’s largest financial institution is Banco Santander S.A., “the largest bank in the Eurozone by market value and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalization.”  Santander funds Opus Dei schools. "Santander's interest in higher education is a deep interest, long term, because we understand that at the university are studying the leaders who will run the country in the future,” explained a company official.  
“Opus Dei pursues the Vatican’s agenda through the presence of its members in secular governments and institutions and through a vast array of academic, medical, and grassroots pursuits. Its constant effort to increase its presence in civil institutions of power is supported by growth in the organization as a whole….Their work in the public sphere breaches the church-state division that is fundamental to modern democracy,” wrote Gordon Urquhart author of The Pope’s Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church (1995).


“It's widely known that Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas belong to Opus Dei - and that Chief Justice John Roberts may also be a member,” stated Matthew Fox, a former priest, progressive theologian and author of more than 23 books.

“They're in the CIA, the FBI,” said Fox. “Daniel Ellsberg recently told me that some of the ranking commanders of our military are also Opus Dei,” Fox stated in another interview. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh made a similar observation. “Hersh stated that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the Joint Special Operations Command (the group responsible for the assassination of Osama Bin Laden) were members of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei. ‘They see themselves as protecting [Christians] from the Muslims….And this is their function.' Hersh added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent ‘the whole notion that this is a culture war between religions.'”  

The New York Times noted in 2012 that an Opus Dei boy’s prep school “has become the popular school for a small clique of Washingtonians”: Rick Santorum; lobbyist and former U.S. Senator (R-FL), Mel Martinez; Sect. of Defense Chuck Hagel; the infamous FBI spy and Opus Dei member Robert Hanssen’s boss, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh; NOM founder Maggie Gallagher and National Review editor Kate O’Beirne.  
Fox said that both Santorum and Newt Gingrich are members but that doesn’t guarantee Opus Dei/Catholic Church backing. These organizations will support whichever Republican candidate has the best chance of winning regardless of his religious affiliation. That’s why the endorsement by five former U.S. ambassadors to the Vatican of Mitt Romeny in early January 2012 before the primaries signaled that “big money” had already chosen the GOP presidential nominee.  
Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor closely associated with Opus Dei, changed the landscape of U.S. politics. Neocon politico Deal Hudson stated that "If there really is a vast, right-wing conspiracy, its leaders probably meet in George's basement." Referred to by the New York Times as “the country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker,” it was George's study conducted in the late 1990s showing that allegiance to the Republican Party depended not so much on religious affiliation as the frequency of church attendance which Karl Rove used to direct support for George W. Bush into pulpits, church bulletins, parking lot pamphlets and mailing lists taken from parish rosters.


After the Religious Right lost the 2008 Presidential Election, it was George who drafted the November 2009 Manhattan Manifesto introducing the theme of “religious liberty” as the new battle cry for the 150 Christian leaders who signed it. “We see [the struggle for religious liberty] in the use of antidiscrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral....We view [restrictions on the free exercise of religion] as an ominous development, the overweening authority of the state,” they declared.
George is NOM (National Organization for Marriage) board chairman emeritus. “NOM, the Catholic Church and Knights of Columbus are responsible for funding nearly 65 percent of all anti-equality efforts in Minnesota, Maryland, Washington State and Maine.”
Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) and supernumerary declared last month that liberal and women’s studies professors should be “taken out and shot.” He had previously called for the murder of Hillary Clinton.  


Opus Dei Influence in the Vatican (It’s the Money, Stupid)


The emptying of church pews in Europe has been reported for decades. In the U.S. Catholics are roughly 22-24 percent of the population. The latest poll conducted in Feb. 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that the percentage of Catholics who are non-Hispanic white is down to 60 percent. Of those, the majority (58 percent) attended Mass only a few times a year, seldom or never. Considering the lower average income of Latinos and that around 90 percent of Sunday collections remain in the parish, it is not the people in the pew providing the funding for Catholic organizations to mount scores of court challenges to Obamacare (at what cost to taxpayers?), lobby against women’s health care and same-sex marriage legislation, obstruct every state’s expansion of statutes-of-limitations which would favor survivors of child sex abuse nor pay almost $3 billion in legal costs and settlements to the Church's victims of sex abuse in the past eight years.  
Nor can the Vatican maintain its inestimable wealth from Third World Catholics.
After a year of concentrated activity to make sure his assets are better managed and under his control, including the creation of four commissions, the hiring of six international consulting firms which service the plutocracy together with appointments of trusted allies, Pope Francis established the Secretariat of the Economy this past Feb. 24.


He appointed Australian Cardinal George Pell as its head reporting directly to him. With “authority over all economic and administrative activities within the Holy See and the Vatican City State,” this makes Pell de facto manager of the entire Roman Curia since he holds the purse strings.
After becoming an archbishop, Pell invited Opus Dei  to establish themselves in Melbourne and then Sydney. Under Pell’s patronage, “Opus Dei's star is on the rise, it is said, and that of others - including other more established groups within the Church - is sinking,” Sydney Morning Herald’s religious affairs columnist wrote in January 2002. This reporter saw “signs of a new elitism….a clerical culture is being encouraged in which there is a highly select ‘in’ crowd around Pell.”  


Pell has maintained a close relationship with Australia’s conservative PM, Tony Abbott, and his party for decades. Days before Pope Bergoglio appointed Pell on April 13, 2013, to his “G8” group of cardinals who would advise the pope on “governing the Church,” Pell attended a “Gala Dinner” celebrating the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) an “ultraconservative think tank.” Rupert Murdoch was guest of honor and Abbott the keynote speaker. (Murdoch was awarded a papal knighthood by Pope John Paul II for “promoting the interests of society, the Church and the Holy See.")  


From Bergoglio's point of view, Pell has sound business experience. “[Pell’s] archdiocese's assets have nearly doubled since 2004 to over $1 billion at the end of 2013....Since Pell became archbishop in 2001 the archdiocese has paid out $6.8 million to settle 82 claims for sex abuse according to figures provided by the archdiocese's business manager - an average of $83,200 each," reported one Australian newspaper. “The disturbing consequence of this strategy, adopted widely in the Catholic Church, is that Catholic leaders effectively accepted that human worth can be measured by economic price. They accepted that the priority of the Church lay in the market where its task was to preserve and enhance its financial resources,” noted another Australian publication.
Pell is permanently relocating to Rome and will probably reside in the "grand apartment" he has used in the past at the Australian Church's guest house in Rome recently refurbished at a cost of “between $30 million and $85 million.”
As regards clerical sex abuse, Pell said the Church had been a victim of "smears," and he had refused communion to gay and lesbian parishioners. All Bergoglio’s appointees share his worldviews.


Along with the Secretariat of the Economy, the pope also created a new Council for the Economy which “will consider policies and practices and to prepare and analyze reports on the economic-administrative activities of the Holy See.” This council is comprised of eight prelates and seven laymen “reflecting various parts of the world.” As we have seen a year after the pope named his G8 “from the five continents of the world” only those close to Opus Dei have advanced in power; the rest have hardly been heard from since. Tokenism is becoming evident in all of Bergoglio’s group appointments. By all accounts, all power rests firmly in the pope and those close to him.
The Council for the Economy will be coordinated by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, another member of Bergoglio’s G8. Marx was the invited speaker for 300 guests of Opus Dei at a meeting held in the Deutsche Bank, Germany’s central bank. He has presided at Masses celebrating Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaria Escrivá, and visits the Opus Dei center for university students in Munich.


The Work is said to be very powerful in Germany’s financial capital of Frankfurt. Der Speigel observed that “There is hardly a German bishop who does not regard the organization with favor."


After his appointment as coordinator of the Council for the Economy, Marx told the press that the Vatican’s “real bank” would no longer be the IOR (Institute for Religious Works commonly referred to as the Vatican Bank) but will be the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the department which, up to now, has primarily managed the humongous Vatican securities and property holdings. Whether or not this decision is a result of pressure from financial regulators on Bergoglio and his predecessor to “clean up” the IOR or else the bank would be prohibited from engaging in international transactions, remains to be seen.
Opus Dei/Vatican may have been preparing for this shift under the guidance of Peter Sutherland, managing director and chairman of Goldman Sachs International, former chairman of BP Oil and member of the International Advisory Board of IESE, the flagship Opus Dei graduate business school. Sutherland has been a Vatican consultant for years and was appointed by Bergoglio to the supervisory board for APSA.


In the event that APSA comes under the same regulatory pressures as the IOR, Banco Santander already “offered its availability” to the Vatican months ago. I suspect that this Opus Dei banking group will handle any Vatican financial dealings which, if exposed, would threaten the carefully constructed public image of Pope Francis since it already has the reputation of being ethnically-challenged. (see “Banco Santander S.A.Fined $200 Million for Advice Failings,” “Banco Santanger, The Epitome of Bankster Evil” and “Huge Eurobank, rated ‘Britain’s worst,’ now accused of gouging U.S. consumers.”)


One of the seven cardinals in addition to Marx named to the Council for the Economy is Houston’s Daniel N. DiNardo. The rest come from Peru, France, Mexico, Italy, Hong Kong and South Africa. As with so many of the pope's other appointments, three of the cardinals have “words and deeds regarding clergy sex crimes and cover ups” which are “deeply troubling”: DiNardo, Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico and Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa.  


Latin America


Houston is the center of the U.S. petro-chemical industry. In 2007, Archbishop DiNardo was elevated to the rank of cardinal – the first American city to be so recognized for its importance since Los Angeles was given a cardinal in 1952. The current prelate of the Los Angeles archdiocese, Jose Gomez, headed the Opus Dei regional headquarters in Houston. Gomez was appointed to lead the Church in Los Angeles the same month (April 2010) that Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who had given the invocation at the 2008 Republican National Convention, was put in charge of Miami.
The plutocracy now had the right hierarchs to represent their interests in three U.S. cities with close commercial ties to Latin America.

With “vast oil reserves,” in Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, Cuba looking to increase foreign investment and a pope from Argentina, Latin America will be an increasingly important area of “evangelization” for the Church.


Catholic reporter Rocco Palmo referred to a group who met in Mexico City as the “A-list prelates.” The meeting held this past November was cosponsored by the Knights of Columbus, and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson addressed the group.  

Attendees included:

• Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the G8, has become the pope’s right-hand man, “some might say vice pope.” Rodríguez Maradiaga is “the leader of Opus Dei” in Honduras which “participated actively in the 2009 coup against the constitutional [and progressive] president, Manuel Zelaya.” “Active members of this clan are making intromissions in Honduran national politics.” “Honduras now has the highest homicide rate in the world fueled by the drug trade and government corruption. Only 2 percent of murders are solved.” Rodríguez Maradiaga blamed "the Jews"for the scandal arising from clerical crimes.  

• Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the only American on the G8, is a faithful supporter of Opus Dei and has sponsored the canonization of the priest who “established an Opus Dei presence among students and professors at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology” between 1946 and 1956. Metropolitan Boston now has more than eighty colleges and universities attracting thousands of students from around the world. Like Cardinal Marx, O’Malley celebrates special Masses commemorating Opus Dei founder, Josemaria Escriva, and visits the Opus Dei (male only) center at Harvard.

• Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet was reconfirmed by Bergoglio as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Prior to Pope Ratzinger’s departure to Mexico and Cuba in 2012, Ouellet said, “Latin America is recognized as a leader on the current international scene....Aren’t Latin American countries going through economic processes involving exportation to various markets on the one hand, and attracting foreign capital on the other?”  The week after Ratzinger returned to Rome, Mexican President Felipe Calderon met with Cuban President Raul Castro and Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega to discuss “deepening the dialogue on trade and investment between the two countries,” including “the extraction of shared oil resources” in the Gulf of Mexico.  

• Laymen Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, reconfirmed by the pope as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, is a member of Opus Dei, Bergoglio’s “close friend” and “highest ranking layman at the Vatican.” Having been founded in Spain, Latin America was the first target of Opus Dei expansion in the 1950s.

• Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput is to be host to the pope’s October 2015 trip to the U.S.  House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has invited the pope to address the full Congress and Pres. Obama invited him to the White House. The pope’s visit is a “thank you” for Chaput’s exemplary service to the plutocracy as leader of the U.S. bishops’ assault against Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008. As head of the Denver archdiocese until 2011, Chaput gained the support of local moguls, turned out faithfully Republican priests from his two seminaries, obstructed justice for victims of clerical sex abuse and founded a nationwide campus ministry and influential media empire.  
• Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron might seem like an odd choice until we remember that Wojtyla removed the Cayman Islands, where the Vatican has its own financial facilities, from its geographical diocese of Kingston, Jamaica, and put it under the authority of his close ally, Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida. The Cayman Islands remained attached to the Detroit archdiocese after Maida’s death. Similarly, the Turks and Caicos Islands, another offshore haven for those who wish to hide their fortune from tax collectors and regulators, are a “mission” of Opus Dei Cardinal John Myers of Newark. The chancellor for this territory, Bishop Peter Baldacchino, was just moved from Newark to Wenski’s Miami archdiocese.  

• Peruvian Opus Dei Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, also named to the Council for the Economy and the most senior Opus Dei hierarch, was present to “welcome” Gomez as archbishop of San Antonio in 2005 and to Los Angeles in 2010.

The prelate of Wall Street, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Wenski and Gomez were also present at the November meeting in Mexico City. In January, Bergolgio named Rodriguez Maradiaga, Cipriani Thorne and Gomez as additional members of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Also in January, the pope gave the annual “state of the world” address to diplomats assigned to the Vatican and it was “noted with interest, even astonishment, that Europe was barely mentioned beyond its role as a destination for poor migrants.”  


Laymen appointed to the Council for the Economy



Pope Bergoglio has verbally attacked the global economic system as based on a “god called money,” and has urged international financiers to break down “the barriers of individualism and the slavery of profit at all cost.” Yet again and again, Bergoglio has appointed those who labor for the plutocracy to manage his own wealth. Widely reported as “cleaning up” Vatican finances, the pope has never appointed any forensic accountants or other specialists from any law enforcement or government regulatory agency whose expertise is curbing unethical/illegal finance to advise him about the notoriously dishonest Vatican finances. The seven laymen on the Council for the Economy reflect this.

• Joseph F.X. Zahra, coordinator for the laymen, is a former director of the Central Bank of Malta, former chairman of Bank of Valletta plc., Maltacom plc., and Middlesea Insurance plc.
• Jean-Baptiste de Franssu is chairman of INCIPIT, a mergers and acquisitions consulting firm. He was CEO of Invesco Europe, an investment management company.
• John F. Kyle retired in 2008 as vice president and treasurer of Imperial Oil Ltd., Exxon Mobil’s Canadian subsidiary.
• Enrique Llano Cueto was an audit partner of KPMG and then lead partner responsible for major clients in the public and private sectors. (See “KPMG Facilitated the Financial Fiasco”)
• Jochen Messemer is a former partner of McKinsey & Company (1993-2003). (See the list of criticisms resulting from McKinsey's advice to the world’s largest firms) He is chairman of the board of Ergo International Ltd.  
• Francesco Vermiglio was a board member for Banco di Sicilia and Bank of Valletta (Malta).
• George Yeo was Minister of Finance for Singapore and a Brigadier-General in the Singapore Armed Forces. He was a visiting scholar to Peking University and remains a visiting scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He is on the advisory board of Harvard Business School and Opus Dei’s graduate IESE Business School.

Yeo’s appointment, along with Hong Kong Cardinal John Tong Hon, to the Council for the Economy indicates Opus Dei/Vatican’s increasing interest in the Pacific Rim. South Korean Archbishop Andrew Yeom Soo-jung was just elevated by Bergoglio to cardinal and the pope is scheduled to visit South Korea to participate in Asian Youth Day this August.
Paul Bui Van Doc was recently named archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City in the hope that he “may ease the relationship between the Holy See and Vietnam,” one of the few countries which doesn’t have diplomatic relations with the Church. Bui Van Doc has encouraged dialogue between the two governments. On March 22, the pope met with Nguyen Sinh Hung, president of the Vietnam parliament.


Opus Dei has been in Tokyo since 1958, Hong Kong 1981 and Singapore 1982. The Work “embraced” South Korea and Vietnam in 2008.  


Sex Abuse Commission

Cardinal O’Malley was named to Bergoglio’s new commission on child sex abuse which was announced in December. Details were withheld until the day before Pres. Obama left for his trip to Europe which would include a visit with the pope. (Gerald Slevin, a rare independent Catholic blogger, made this “catch.” Please read his perceptive and astute "Pope Picks Abuse Panel On Eve Of President Obama’s Visit".)  
Five women were also named to this commission including one who was raped by a priest when she was 13. As victim’s advocate Fr. Thomas Doyle stated, the new commission is “another promise waiting to be broken”:
[Fr. Hans] Zollner said the commission will look into Church law to see what has worked then make recommendations. That says it all. The pope and the commission could save a lot of time and effort because this has already been figured out, and the answer is short: Not much has worked….So it seems that to avoid having to confront and do something about the real issues facing the Church, the commission will be asked to reinvent the wheel.
Over the past three decades, a massive amount of research has been done into every aspect of clergy sex abuse….The vast majority of this research has been done and continues to be done in the United States. The whole nightmarish cesspool would not have been uncovered were it not for the bravery and determination of the American victims. Yet the only American on the commission is a cardinal.
The same day Obama was at the Vatican (March 27) Bergoglio also met with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops’ conference. The next day, the conference announced its policy as regards clerical sex abuse – “with backing from the Vatican” – stating they are not obliged to inform law enforcement officials if they suspect this crime has been committed. Notifying civil law enforcement agencies has been recommended over and over again by victims and their advocates as one of the necessary reforms the Church has to make if they are really serious about protecting children.


Also on March 28, the American bishops’ conference released the results of a yearly audit they are mandated to conduct under their own "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," adopted in 2002 following that year’s national headlines about pedophile priests. “Of particular concern are four dioceses that would not allow any audits to take place and the fact that ‘most’ dioceses do not allow or conduct audits of parishes or schools, where most reporting of abuse is thought to occur, the auditors write.”  


On April 2, The Irish Times reported:


Claims made by the Vatican in a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) last December were so inaccurate, it prompted Minister for Justice Alan Shatter to write to Rome seeking clarification.
The Vatican asserted to the UNCRC that the four religious congregations [of nuns] that ran Magdalene laundries in Ireland were willing to pay part of a compensation scheme developed by the State for women who had been in the laundries.
However, two of the religious congregations concerned have since repeated their unwillingness to contribute to any compensation scheme for the women.
Recall Bergoglio’s recent interview: “"The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility. No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked.”


On March 31, Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, and his family were granted a private meeting with the pope even though his employee retirement plan – partially funded by the company – “held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions.” Green “thanked the pope for underlining the importance of religious freedom.” Green said Bergoglio “asked when the ruling was going to come down,” referring to Hobby Lobby's case before the U.S. Supreme Court where the company is challenging Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate.
Kudos to former Fox News correspondent and member of Opus Dei, Gregory Burke, Vatican senior communications adviser for brilliantly manipulating the news. Burke said during an interview with the Washington Post, “I would love to bring some Roger Ailes into this job,” but Burke has been doing just fine. What was the most prominent headline about the Church in the past two weeks after Obama meeting the pope and the formation of a sex abuse commission? “Pope Francis Removes German ‘Bishop of Bling.’”

Although Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst had tendered his resignation last October and the committee formed to investigate the matter had not yet reached its conclusion, the day before Obama arrived at the Vatican it was announced that the pope was accepting Tebartz-van Elst’s resignation. The day following the Obama visit, the bishop was granted a private meeting with Bergoglio (no hard feelings?). As a German newspaper reported, “Former Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst can look forward to a good pension.”

We know both Republican and Democratic voters want ALL CONGRESS OUT because they are working for 1 % Wall Street and are the source of all the fraud and corruption so NOW would not be when ANY REAL JUSTICE group would be pushing AMEND THE CONSTITUTION.  We are seeing these groups tell us we need to start over to create a constitution for WE THE PEOPLE----know what?  They are working for the 1% and their 2% wanting to install this NEW ONE WORLD CONSTITUTION. 

Yes, the original US Constitution was written for landed citizens----citizens with rights to vote were white men.  Yes, there were people with no rights, enslaved, so the original US Constitution was not good for WE THE PEOPLE. 

THAT IS WHAT 3 CENTURIES OF AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION WERE ABOUT.  ALL OF THE ABOVE HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED BY AMENDMENTS.  IT'S NOT PERFECT BUT IT IS FROM WHERE WE WOULD WANT TO START.

Anti-monopoly laws and US Constitutional laws are already there to guard against extreme wealth and power-----THEY ARE BEING IGNORED BY CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.  There are already laws stating that EVERYONE IS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE UNDER RULE OF LAW----they are simply allowing massive Wall Street and corporate frauds and government corruption because the 1% is MOVING BACK TO THE FUTURE WHERE THE 1% AND THE 2% HAVE NO LAWS HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

We have the US Constitution laws guarding our free and fair elections----they are simply being ignored.  We have a US Constitution and a structure of government WITH BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT SERVING AS CHECKS AND BALANCES -----they simply are not enforcing those duties.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE US CONSTITUTION ---THERE IS NO NEED RIGHT NOW FOR AMENDMENTS----

The goal of 1% global Wall Street which started this movement to amend-----is to create a constitution that reflects ONE WORLD, TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT, GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE, GLOBAL TRIBUNAL COURTS, AND FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE recognition.  So, all the Wall Street Baltimore Development Corporation 'labor and justice' organizations will be out selling these goals as HELPING WE THE PEOPLE.


How to Amend the Constitution


Five Parts:Proposing an Amendment in CongressUsing the Constitutional Convention MethodRatifying an Amendment in State LegislaturesRatifying an Amendment in Statehttp://www.wikihow.com/Amend-the-Constitution#Ratifying_an_Amendment_in_State_Conventions_sub ConventionsEnacting the AmendmentCommunity Q&A



Article V of the United States Constitution provides authority and instructions for amending the Constitution. Amendments can be proposed by Congress or by constitutional convention. Congress then decides how to ratify the amendment if approved by Congress or convention. The amendment can either be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the states. Some parts of the procedures for proposing and ratifying amendments are well established in federal and state laws, but others, such as the constitutional convention, has never been successfully used.


Part 1
Proposing an Amendment in Congress

1. 
   1
   Write an amendment to be proposed by Congress. Amendments have usually been written by legislators. Ideas for amendments are also initiated by social movements and interest groups.
   • James Madison wrote the first ten constitutional amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights.[1]
   • The 19th amendment was spurred by women's rights movements and the 23rd and 24th amendments were outcomes of the civil rights movement.[2]
2. 
   2
   Secure two-thirds majority support for the amendment. One of the two methods for amending the Constitution is for Congress to propose an amendment. In order for an amendment to be proposed, it must have two-thirds majority support from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. [3] This is also known as a “supermajority.”[4]
   • This means that at least 290 Representatives must support the amendment and 67 Senators must support the amendment.
3. 
   3
   Introduce a joint resolution to propose the amendment. Once you have secured your support, you need to propose the amendment to the entire Congress. Either the House of Representatives or the Senate can initiate a joint resolution.
   • After introduction, resolutions are usually printed and then reviewed by one or more congressional committees.[5]
4. 
   4
   Debate the resolution. Joint resolutions are usually debated by the full membership of each house after receiving committee approval.[6]
5. 
   5
   Pass a joint resolution in Congress. Congress can propose an amendment to the Constitution by passing a joint resolution. Two thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate must approve the resolution.[7]
   • The resolution does not have to be approved by the President, who has no required role in the amendment process.[8]

Part 2
Using the Constitutional Convention Method

1. 
   1
   Write an amendment to be proposed to state legislatures. Amendments have usually been written by legislators. Ideas for amendments are also initiated by social movements and interest groups.
2. 
   2
   Introduce a bill in the state legislature to call a constitutional convention. Article V of the United States Constitution also allows for amendments to be proposed by constitutional convention.[9] A constitutional convention is a meeting of the states to collectively decide whether to amend the constitution. This convention is also known as the “Article V Convention” or the “Amendment Convention.” Each state must approve to submit an application that calls a constitutional convention. [10] Once the state has approved the bill, then the state can file an application with Congress.
   • The Constitutional Convention of 1787 brought together delegates to write the original constitution.[11]
   • This method has been attempted hundreds of times, but a convention has never been called successfully.[12]
   • Sometimes, the threat of a convention has pressured Congress to introduce a proposal for an amendment. Simply initiating this process and gathering support might push Congress to act.[13]
3. 
   3
   Initiate a constitutional convention by the act of a state legislature. Legislatures in two-thirds of the states have to apply to Congress to call a convention that can propose constitutional amendments. This means that at least 34 state legislatures must submit an application.
   • This step was almost completed in the late 1970s and early 1980s during a push for a Balanced Budget Amendment. States in 2015 are trying again to assemble a constitutional convention.[14]
   • States can also rescind their applications, especially if their application was submitted under a government controlled by one party and the government is now controlled by a different party.[15]
4. 
   4
   Consult constitutional law experts. An amendment has never been proposed by constitutional convention before, so work with experts and officials to build consensus about adopting a procedure.
5. 
   5
   Determine the parameters of the convention. Because the constitutional convention method has never been used to propose an amendment, it’s unclear how the convention would actually operate. [16]
   • Congress would need to determine how many delegates each state would get, how the process would proceed, and so on.
   • There are concerns that once a convention is called, delegates could propose anything, even including language that was not part of the original amendment. There are three models that could be implemented in the convention:[17]
     • The “general convention” model considers any and all changes to the Constitution.
     • The “limited convention” restricts debate to one issue.
     • The “runaway convention” is one that was originally intended to consider a single issue but moves beyond its mandate to look at a range of suggested amendments.
6. 
   6
   Draft and approve the amendment in the convention. Once the convention has debated the amendment and arrived at consensus, the convention will draft and approve the amendment. While it is unclear whether Congress itself must ratify the amendment, Article V of the Constitution does specify that Congress must determine the process of how the states will ratify the amendment. It is unlikely that Congress would be able to veto an amendment.[18]

Part 3
Ratifying an Amendment in State Legislatures

1. 
   1
   Work with state legislators to secure support. Congress has the power to decide which method of ratification to use.[19] One of these methods is wherein amendments to the Constitution must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.[20]
   • State legislatures anticipate that they will receive the proposed amendment and begin debating and taking action on it before receiving official notice.
   • All but one of the 27 amendments have been ratified this way.
2. 
   2
   Allow the States to consider the proposed amendment. The Office of the Federal Register, a division of the National Archives and Records Administration, will circulate the joint resolution, along with legislative history notes and “red line” copies (changes made to the resolution), to every state’s governor. The governor then submits the resolution to his or her state legislature.[21]
3. 
   3
   Introduce resolutions in state legislatures to ratify the amendment. Procedures vary from state to state, but generally both houses of the state legislature pass a ratification resolution.
4. 
   4
   Pay attention to any time limits. The Supreme Court ruled that ratification must be within "some reasonable time after the proposal." Congress often requires that the proposed amendment is approved within a certain period of time. Read the resolution that proposed the amendment to see if there are any stipulations.[22]
   • Congress often sets a seven-year time limit.
   • Congress can also extend time limits for ratification. During the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment proposed by Congress in 1972, Congress extended a seven year time limit by three years. Ratification on this amendment still failed.[23]
   • The 27th Amendment, which limits congressional pay, was written with no time limit in 1789. It was finally ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1992, over 200 years after the amendment was proposed.[24]
5. 
   5
   Wait for three-fourths of States to ratify the amendment. At least 38 of the 50 states must ratify the amendment. Once the states have ratified, each state legislature will submit an original copy of its ratification to the Office of the Federal Register. Then the amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as the 38th state ratifies it.

Part 4
Ratifying an Amendment in State Conventions

1. 
   1
   Call a ratifying convention in each state. Congress has the power to determine the method for ratification. One of the methods is to call a ratifying convention in each state. Article V of the United States Constitution allows for ratification of amendments through approval by conventions in three-fourths of the states.
   • Ratification by state conventions has been used once before, to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing prohibition.[25]
2. 
   2
   Check state laws. Many states have laws in place that govern the procedures for calling and running conventions to ratify constitutional amendments.[26]
   • Some states allow voters to elect delegates to a convention who are bound to vote a certain way, while other states require that convention delegates be free to deliberate.
3. 
   3
   Campaign for convention delegates. Voters in each state will elect delegates to a convention that will decide whether or not to ratify the amendment. The process varies from state to state, but backers of the amendment will have to campaign for delegates that support its adoption.
4. 
   4
   Build support in three-fourths of the states. Once conventions in three-fourths of the states have ratified the amendment, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.
   • Currently, the amendment needs ratification from conventions in 38 out of 50 states.

Part 5
Enacting the Amendment

• 
  1
  Arrange a ceremonial signing of the amendment. The president does not have any formal power to ratify an amendment. The amendment does not need the president’s approval, nor can a president veto an amendment after it has been approved by the states. Therefore, it’s purely ceremonial to have a dignitary such as the president sign the amendment. Having a notable or influential person participate in signing the certification of the amendment can serve as a symbol of the overall thrust of the amendment.
  • For example, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 24th and 25th amendment certification as a witness.[27]
• 
  2
  Start adjusting federal and state laws to reflect the amendment. As soon as the amendment gets the required number of states to ratify it, the amendment is part of the Constitution. State and federal governments must then start making changes to policy and laws to ensure that the amendment is observed.
  • Even if a state did not ratify the amendment, it must still follow the amendment now that it’s part of the Constitution.

3
Gather support to repeal the amendment. If your state does not support the amendment, it is possible to repeal it. This process has been successfully completed once before, with the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol.[28]

• In order to repeal an amendment, you’d need to propose a new amendment and go through the entire process again. Unless sufficient time has passed and public opinion on the amendment’s subject matter has changed considerably, or the amendment was highly controversial, it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed in repealing it.

____________________________________________

We use the term KABUKI THEATRE to describe Congress under CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. These few decades have been about 1% Wall Street installing their politicians who PRETENDED to be right-leaning conservatives----like Reagan or Bush----left-leaning social progressives ---like CLINTON/OBAMA ----when they were installing SHOW ME THE MONEY pols who would work as Robber Baron pols. Today's Congress is not Republican vs Democrat----both parties are captured by ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ----simply pretending to be fighting one another. IT IS STAGED AND NATIONAL MEDIA HAS BECOME PROPAGANDA because journalism holds power accountable----today media simply repeats what the 1% and their 2% say.
TODAY'S CONGRESS IS THEATRE---BOTH PARTIES CONTROLLED BY CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA 1% WALL STREET GLOBAL POLS ARE SIMPLY MOVING FORWARD POLICIES IGNORING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
So, the right-wing voters knew this a few decades ago and mounted a movement to get rid of the Bush neo-cons. This was the Tea Party. The left-leaning Democrats knowing Clinton neo-liberals were right-wing have been mounting their attacks ---both undermined by farm team SHOW ME THE MONEY WALL STREET PLAYERS.
Regarding this AMEND THE CONSTITUTION----we will now see CLINTON/OBAMA pretend to be fighting for campaign reform protecting WE THE PEOPLE---and Republicans who will force COMPROMISE----if Clinton/Obama amend for TPP then Bush neo-cons will amend for campaign reform. Together both CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA will amend for foreign economic zones.
THESE 5% TO THE 1% WILL PRETEND THEY ARE FIGHTING IT OUT -----AND WE WILL END WITH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS CREATING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CONSTITUTION---NO WE THE PEOPLE.

Just so I do not appear to belittle a great art form-----indeed, Kabuki is being used as American slang for PUTTING ON A SHOW-----

It's Time To Retire Kabuki


The word doesn't mean what pundits think it does.


By Jon Lackman


Judging from op-ed pages and talk radio, American pundits know a lot about Kabuki, the 400-year-old Japanese stage tradition with the Lady Gaga get-ups. Health care reform recently brought Kabuki to mind for both Rush Limbaugh—"what you have here is 'Kabuki theater' "—and New York Times columnist Frank Rich: "[I]f I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn't choose the kabuki health care summit." For The New Yorker's George Packer, all the capital's a Far Eastern stage, and all its men and women merely players. "I looked for answers outside the Kabuki theatre of Washington personalities."


Pundits use Kabuki as a synonym for "posturing." The New Republic's Michael Crowley, for example, has defined it as a "performance, in which nothing substantive is done." But there's nothing "kabuki" about the real Kabuki. Kabuki, I'll have you know,is one of UNESCO's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity! And it's nothing like politics. It does indeed use stylized gestures, expressions, and intonations, but it's far from empty and monotonous. As the scholar A.C. Scott has written, a great Kabukiactor's performance will "contain an individuality beneath the unchanging conventions, his symbolism must be something more than imitative repetition." Unlike a Dick Durbin stemwinder, the quintessential Kabuki moment (known as a kata) is colorful and ruthlessly concise, packing meaning into a single gesture. It is synecdoche, synopsis, and metaphor rolled together—as when, in one Kabukiplay, a gardener expecting a visit from the emperor cuts down all his chrysanthemums except one, the perfect one. And in contrast with our own shortsighted politics, Kabukiconcerns not the present so much as a "dreamlike time shrouded in mist but ever present in the subconscious," to quote critic Shuichi Kato.
Of course, pundits don't care about the real thing. They use Kabuki precisely because they and everyone else have only a hazy idea of the word's true meaning, and they can use it purely on the level of insinuation.

They deploy Kabuki because:


1) It sounds funny.
2) It sounds childish.
3) It sounds foreign.
4) It sounds incomprehensible.


Kabuki succeeds chiefly because it makes your opponent sound silly and un-American.

And finally kabuki works because:

5) It sounds Japanese.


Needless to say, it sounds Japanese because it is Japanese. Point is, the word can conjure certain stereotypes about Japanese politics. As the scholar Gerald Curtis has noted, we have "an image of Japanese politics in which bureaucrats dominate … and policy making is little more than a process of collusion." For Rush Limbaugh, what better image with which to tar health care reform?


But how did Kabuki, one of Japan's most revered arts, come to signify loathsome fakery? Kabuki escaped derision only so long as no one had heard of it. The Japanese initially considered it too difficult to export; indeed, seeing a Kabuki play cold is like tuning into Lost midseason. Consequently, the word didn't appear in print in English until the late 19th-century, and then only rather infrequently. That changed when, following World War II, Japan's government tried to shed its image as a global marauder by touring its best Kabuki troupes. As historian Barbara Thornbury has written, "spectacular, larger-than-life kabuki was seen as having the potential to reignite America's nearly hundred-year-old romance with exotic Japan." This concept, alas, failed miserably. Although America's urban theatergoers lauded Kabuki, their good opinion did nothing to improve ties between the United States and its one-time enemy. Indeed, relations worsened due to drawn-out treaty negotiations. When American official James C. Hagerty visited Tokyo in 1960, protesters surrounded his car, broke its windows, and nearly flipped it.


According to my research, it was in this hostile atmosphere that Kabukiacquired its modern derogatory meaning. Writing in 1961 about a State Department plan to revise its security measures, Los Angeles Times writer Henry J. Taylor declared, "[By] finally dismissing Chester Bowles as undersecretary of state at the moment he did, the President unhitched the plan's kingpin in this shoddy piece of left-wing kabuki." Six months later, Taylor struck again, "Agriculture Secretary Freeman announced he has discussed Billie Sol Estes' political corruption kabuki with Robert F. Kennedy and 'had mentioned it informally to the president.' "


Writers have enlivened their prose with Kabuki ever since. Usage increases whenever Japan is in the news for disingenuous behavior—as in the early 1990s, when it turned out that Japan's go-go economy was an elaborate sham. It's been cropping up most recently due to the Toyota recall, which has made some Americans question the Japanese car company's commitment to safety. "Toyoda Is Wary Star of Kabuki at Capitol," blared the Wall Street Journal. The word is also on the ascendant whenever fakery seems particularly rife in American politics. Kabuki loves itself a Senate nomination hearing.


It may seem P.C. or peevish to ask writers to resist kabuki. (Is Kabuki resistance itself Kabuki?) The request is impractical, I admit. If a former theater critic such as Frank Rich can't be trusted to use it properly, who can? This is one of those writerly words that is helpfully absent from ordinary conversation, that says, "Stand back, pundit here!" (Slate writers, by the way, have also abused Kabuki--repeatedly!) But how would you feel if your favorite art form, ballet or truckers' quilts, say, became another nation's derogatory epithet? How many Americans today steer clear of actual Kabuki(it is regularly performed here) because of the word's reputation? And there's a final reason to ditch it: Posturing is far too tepid an indictment of contemporary American politics. I'd sooner opt for Grand-Guignol, which Wikipedia aptly defines as "graphic, amoral horror entertainment." It is seppukutime for Kabuki.

______________________________________
Clinton era saw the practice of intervening in war zones for no national security reason-----we did that with the Korean War---with the Vietnam War----with the Desert Storm Iraqi War---and here is the Bosnian War and each time WE THE PEOPLE were told by national media there was some kind of horrible threat to America to justify.  Each one of these wars ended with the US installing Foreign Economic Zone global corporate neo-liberalism in those nations----this is why Asian nations are heavily tied to Foreign Economic Zones.  What came with that is creation of these FREE TRADE ZONE CONSTITUTIONS.  Today, these same nations are now AMENDING THEIR CONSTITUTIONS to include Trans Pacific Trade Pact. 

SO FAR MANY OF THESE NATIONS HAVE SIGNED ON TO TPP.

So, this article shows the CLINTON handiwork and the Clinton Initiative has these few decades pushed for these ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE constitutions since.  Since this 1990s installation of far-right extreme wealth and extreme poverty governance----of course this created that 1% and their 2% in both nations----


FOR A DECADE THE 99% OF CITIZENS PUSHED INTO GLOBAL CORPORATE FACTORIES AND CAMPUSES HAVE BEEN PROTESTING AND THERE IS INSTABILITY ALL OVER AGAIN.

The US Constitution is the only one in the world----giving citizens rights outlined in Bill of Rights, which guarantees CITIZENS the rights to LEGISLATE----to assure EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER RULE OF LAW.  Developing nations' constitutions do not do that.


Pursuant to Article IV.
B.
7. a) (IV) of the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,


I hereby promulgate DECREE ENACTING THE LAW AMENDING THE LAW ON FREE ZONES


The Law Amending the Law on Free Zones adopted by the Parliament of the Federation of BiH at the session of the House of Representatives of 25 May 2004 and the session of
the House of Peoples of 2 June 2004 is hereby enacted.

Number 01-615/04 28 June 2004
Sarajevo
President
Niko Lozancic





LAW AMENDING THE LAW ON FREE ZONES


Article 1
In the Law on Free Zones (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no. 2/95) Article7 is hereby amended and it shall read:


“Any industrial, commercial and service activity (banking and other financial activities, services of insurance and reinsurance of property and persons, etc.) may be carried out in the free zone.”

The industrial activity shall be understood as manufacturing of products which have undergone a certain process of modification or processing in the free zone.

Carrying out the activities or construction of facilities that endanger the environment, health of people, material goods and security of the country and that are not in accordance with the Law on Waste Management, Law on Air Protection, Law on Water Protection, Law on Environmental Protection and Law on Nature Protection (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no.33/03) and the enactment son plants and machinery which require an environmental impact assessment or
plants and machinery which may only be constructed and put in operation if they have an environmental permit, shall not
be permitted in the free zone.


Article 2

In Article 8, paragraph 1 is hereby amended and it shall read:

“Free zone founders may be one or more domestic or foreign legal or natural entities (hereinafter: free zone founders).”


Paragraph 2 is hereby deleted.

In paragraph 4, sub-paragraph 7 is hereby amended and it shall read:


“Other provisions prescribed by the laws regulating the establishment of legal entities.”



Paragraph 5 is hereby deleted.


Article 3

After Article 8, new articles 8 (a), 8 (b) and 8 (c) are hereby added and they shall read:

“Article 8 (a)
The zone management enterprise
shall submit to the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, through the Federation Ministry of Trade (hereinafter: the competent ministry) a request for giving consent as to the location (area) and conditions for
the free zone or a zone therein, i.e. a sub-zone (hereinafter: consent)

Beside the request referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, the zone management enterprise shall also submit:

1.
the act on establishing a zone or a sub-zone;

2.
city-planning consent by the Federation Ministry of Spatial Planning and Environment;


3.
a feasibility study on economic justification for founding a zone or a sub-zone with an estimate of foreign and domestic investments, number of employees and expected profit from the zone operation;

4.
proof that the zone management enterprise or the founder of such an enterprise is entitled to use the land on which the zone or a sub-zone is being founded, on any legal grounds
Article 8 (b) Exempt from the provision of Article 8 (a)
are the instances when facilities had already
been built, in accordance with provisions of the Law on Spatial Planning (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no. 52/02) and the Law on Construction (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no. 54/02) and they are designated for an activity permitted in the free zone; if the designation of an already constructed facility is to be changed, the Federation Ministry of Spatial Planning and Environment shall issue its
consent pertaining to
environ mental protection.



Article 8 (c)
If the enterprise obtains consent as to the location from the Government of the Federation of BiH for the construction of facilities in the free zone or a sub-zone, under the city-planning consent referred to in Article 8 (a) paragraph 2 sub-paragraph 2, it must complete the construction of the facilities in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Construction.”




Article 4

Article 9 is hereby amended and it shall read:

“Upon a reasoned proposal by the competent ministry, which shall contain in particular an opinion on economic justification, harmonization with spatial planning and an opinion on the protection of the living environment, the Government of the Federation of BiH shall give consent referred to in Article 8 (a) within 30 days following the day the request was submitted.”


Article 5

Following Article 9, a new article 9 (a) is hereby added and it shall read:

“Article 9 (a)

The free zone establishment shall be economically justified
if it can be assessed, on the basis of the feasibility study
and other accompanying proof submitted, that the value of
goods exported from a free zone outside of the customs territory of BiH will exceed at least 50% of the total value of the manufactured goods leaving the free zone with in the period of 12 months.

The value of the goods shall be established in a manner
referred to in Articles 24 through 32 of the Law on Customs Policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH
no. 21/98 and 34/00)



The Customs Administration of the Federation of BiH
shall, through the customs authority carrying out the control within the free zone, submit to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH a report on fulfillment of conditions referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article every six months.”


Article 6

Article 13 is hereby amended and it
shall read:


“The fulfillment of conditions for the commencement of
the operation of a free zone shall be determined by the Commission appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH.

The Commission shall consist of a representative from
each of the following bodies: the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, Customs Administration of
the Federation of BiH, Federation Ministry of Spatial Planning
and Environment and local authorities of the canton or municipality.

Having verified the fulfillment of all necessary conditions, with mandatory presence of a representative of the founder and based on the record drafted by the Commission, the Ministry of
Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH shall issue the decision confirming that all conditions for the commencement of the operation of the free zone have been fulfilled and that the free zone may commence its operation.”


Article 7


Article 20 is here by amended and it shall read:


“The equipment imported into a free zone to be used
for industrial activity in the free zone shall be exempt from payment of customs duties – including customs processing
fee, unless otherwise prescribed by the provisions of the Law on Customs Policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Customs, export duties and fees shall not be paid on exports from the free zone to other countries.”


Article 8

Article 30 is hereby deleted.

Article 9

In Article 32 paragraph 1 line 1, the words: “in the range from DEM 10,000 to 50,000” are hereby replaced with the words:

“in the range from KM 5,000.00 to 15,000.00”.


In Article 32 paragraph 2 line 1, the words:

“in the range from DEM 1,000 to 5,000” are hereby replaced with the words: “in the range from KM 1,000 to 3,000”.


Article 10

Article 33 is hereby amended and it shall read:

“The user and the founder of the free zone shall be fined p
ursuant to the Law on Customs Offences of the Federation of BiH (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH” no. 4 6/00)
if he:

1.
removes the goods from the free zone
without an approval from the competent
Customs House;

2.
consumes or uses the goods in the free zone;

3.
engages in retail in the free zone;

4.
hinders the inspection of goods entering, leaving or remaining in the free zone;

5.
prevents inspection of persons or inspection of transportation means entering or leaving the free zone;


6.
for all other activities contrary to the provisions of the Law on Customs Policy of BiH.”

Article 11

Articles 3 and 37 are hereby deleted.

Article 12

To all issues pertaining to the establishment, operation and cessation of the operation of free zones not regulated by this Law, provisions of the Law on Free Zones in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 3/02 and 13/03) shall apply.

Article 13

This Law shall come into force the day after being published in the Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH.

Chairman
House of Peoples Parliament of the Federation of BiH
Slavko Matic

Chairman
House of Representatives
Parliament of the Federation of BiH
Muhamed Ibrahimovic

_____________________________________________

Bosnia is now in revolution three decades after Clinton neo-liberals installed what was A FREE-TRADE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE constitution and governance having a goal of creating that 1% and their 2% in Bosnia and Herzo-------so this WILL BE AMERICA if we allow today's CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA to keep installing MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE global corporate campus rule.
The entire process of filling US cities with global labor pool immigrants and foreign corporations is to create this wealth inequity and societal instability. THAT IS WHAT ALL MARYLAND POLS --ESPECIALLY BALTIMORE POLS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW----WE MUST FIX THESE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY ELECTION RIGGING/FRAUD.

Monday, Feb 24, 2014 12:07 PM EDT


Bosnia: The European unrest we should be talking about

Fierce anti-government protests this month have a class consciousness lacking in Ukrainian revolt narratives


VIDEO Natasha Lennard Follow

Bosnian government building attacked in early Feb. (Credit: CrimeThinc)


While the U.S. media focuses on ongoing turmoil in the Ukraine, with an uptick in Cold War-style geopoliticking, another Eastern European nation has been aflame with protest this month. Anti-government protests in Bosnia, involving tens of thousands of people, have focused on the fierce inequality and neoliberalism marking the postwar Balkan state. As anarchist writer B. Traven noted for CrimethInc, “Unlike the recent conflicts in Ukraine, this movement has eschewed nationalistic strife to focus on class issues. In a region infamous for ethnic bloodshed, this offers a more promising direction for the Eastern European uprisings to come.”


In early February, protests — initially organized around solidarity with workers who have for some years mobilized against the privatization of Bosnian companies — took a violent turn when police brutally cracked down on demonstrators.

Detailing the February upheavals and their swift escalation, Predrag Kovacevic noted:


[I]n Tuzla (formerly a large industrial centre), the workers of a bankrupt factory joined forces with an organisation of young activists to carry out a protest of relatively minor proportions in the city centre. Unexpectedly, the demonstrators were joined by huge numbers of people sharing their grievances.

Some of the messages that were conveyed that first day were:

the demand for a revision of privatization throughout the country, an increase of the minimum wage and the prosecution of corrupt politicians. It was clear from that afternoon on that nothing would be the same in Bosnia. Within the next two days, most key government buildings were in flames and protesters had occupied government buildings in Tuzla, Sarajevo and Mostar. Other protests were carried out in a whole range of small towns.


The significance of the Bosnian revolt is multifaceted. Commentators have noted that the escalated unrest marks the failure of the Dayton Peace Agreement (brokered by the U.S. to end the 1992-1995 Bosnian war). “While Dayton helped stop the ‘ethnic cleaning’ and mass murder that drew global media attention, it also created a largely dysfunctional and struggling state,” wrote Georgetown law professor Mark V. Vlasic. Vlasic, writing a HuffPo column, called upon the U.S. to offer bureaucratic intervention, and for a European-style technocracy to be put in place. Vlasic’s assumption — that Bosnia should go the way of its neighbors toward a neoliberal nation state model — does not reflect much of the prevailing sentiment of the current unrest. A liberal or neoliberal reading of the Bosnian protests, however, misses their significance as a class struggle.

As Kovacevic put it, “the leftist, proletarian character of the protests in Bosnia asserted itself over and over again”:


The liberal and libertarian currents, of course, saw the protests as a message against the corrupt state bureaucracy, the massive public sector and the meddling of the state with the free market. But although there were some anti-government demands among the protesters, most of them were attacking the government for protecting the wealthy tycoons who emerged from the wars of the early 1990s. With their obscene wealth, they bought factories for peanuts and then sold them to foreign investors for five to ten times the sum, thus multiplying their loot from the war. Of course, no liberal commentator tackled the question of the protesters’ demands for the revision of privatisation – and if they did, it was merely written off as a Utopian idea incapable of yielding any productive results.

 

The limits of Dayton in maintaining Balkan peace have not been determined by corruption and greed alone. A process of privatization and wealth concentration has left the Bosnian people impoverished and unemployed. The situation carries echoes of recent Greek history. As such, commentators urging the installation of a technocratic government should be wary of lessons from beleaguered Greece. And in Bosnia too (as in Greece, as in Ukraine) a rise in right-wing demagoguery has accompanied the social crisis. Interestingly, though, the Bosnian unrest has been colored by rhizomatic organizing and a revolution in leadership predicated on placing power in the hands of the Bosnian people.


Protests are still going on, and people have organized themselves in plenums [assemblies]. Four cantonal governments have been forced to resign. Two of them are negotiating with plenums about forming governments of people who are not active members of any political parties. The authorities are fighting back hard—spreading fear of another civil war, arresting people, beating them, pressing charges for terrorism and attack on constitutional order… The movement is still continuing on a daily basis, the protests as well as the meetings of the plenums. The demands that are being made by the plenums are clearly social: the revision of the privatization process and the like. Politicians are terrified of losing their privileges, their positions, their wealth, and their freedom; this is causing different political parties to unite against their own people. They are using the mainstream media to discredit protests and plenum participants.

While the attacks on government buildings and the street clashes have quieted in the last week, the unrest in Bosnia is far from over and the political situation remains in flux. With media focus squared on the Ukraine — unrest all-too marked by nationalistic fervor — it is worth keeping an eye on Bosnia, where upheaval is opening up new modes of political organization with a fierce class consciousness.
_________________________________________

The Philippines have been captured by all this Reagan/Clinton Foreign Economic Zone policy since the MARCOS-----extreme wealth and extreme poverty.  The Philippines 1% export so many of their 99% to the global labor pool---they represent the largest human capital in the global labor distribution system.

Below we see where Philippines are AMENDING THEIR CONSTITUTION including language that their 99% may think protects vital infrastructure and natural resources.  Look, there is that broad language----UNLESS PROVIDED BY LAW.  A plebiscite is simply a vote of the people.

So, the Clinton/Obama teams have worked hard to get these developing  Asian nations to sign TPP-----Hillary pushed Myanmar several years ago---today the military junta are becoming enriched and the citizens of Myanmar are in global labor pool and global corporate factories as foreign economic zones.

Below we see the Philippines 1% and their 2% AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION for Trans Pacific Trade Pact.


TPP is good for the Philippines


BREAKTHROUGH By Elfren S. Cruz (The Philippine Star) | Updated October 18, 2015 - 12:00am


 The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become a major political issue in the American elections. When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she called TPP the “gold standard for trade agreements.” Now that she is running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, she has reversed her stand because of political pressure from American labor unions who believe that the agreement will result in the loss of manufacturing jobs in the USA.
In the Philippines, TPP is hardly discussed except in business circles. Even among business leaders, there is still very little appreciation of its beneficial effects on the Philippine economy. For instance, some claim that the contents of the TPP Agreement is a secret. The TPP document has 30 chapters which can be downloaded and read by any interested party. There is also a summary that lists the key features of the agreement.


In order for global US corporations to expand into these new Asian and Latin American nations-----the US 1% has to allow foreign corporations to expand in our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones. Each way sovereign citizens from these nations are simply pushed into that global labor pool leaving the extreme wealth 1% and their 2% to great wealth and power while the 99% are captured to a global ONE WORLD extreme poverty with no connections to any national sovereignty or citizenship. THAT'S THE GOAL OF AMEND THE CONSTITUTION HERE IN THE US!



The resolution will include the phrase "unless provided by law"

"We will fast track the deliberation so the plebiscite for it will be done alongside with the 2016 national and local elections, " he said.

Philippine Congress to fast track constitutional amendments to allow foreign ownership
English.news.cn   2015-02-09 20:14:44


MANILA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The leader of the Philippine Congress on Monday ordered to speed up the deliberations on the proposed economic amendments in the present constitution that will give more access to foreign investments.
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said that he has instructed his colleagues in the House of Representatives to fast track the floor deliberations of the measure amending the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
Belmonte said that the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 1 or the proposed amendments to the economic provisions of the Constitution should be passed this year so that it can be put to vote through a plebiscite that will be synchronize with next year' s National Elections.
"We will fast track the deliberation so the plebiscite for it will be done alongside with the 2016 national and local elections, " he said.
The Resolution, filed by Belmonte and Senator Ralph Recto, is eyeing to amend economic provisions on the 60-40 rule that limits foreign ownership of certain activities in the Philippines.
The resolution will include the phrase "unless provided by law" in the foreign-ownership provision of the Constitution, particularly land ownership, public utilities, natural resources, media and advertising industries.
Under Article 7 of the Philippine Constitution, foreign investors are prohibited to own more than 40 percent of real properties and businesses, while they are totally restricted to exploit natural resources and own any company in the media industry.
The amendments to the charter will be decided through separate votings by the both chambers, with a three-fourths vote required from them.
The Joint Foreign Chamber of Commerce and Philippine business groups already expressed support for the passage of the economic amendments.

__________________________________
As this article states---our US Constitution was written for instilling FREE TRADE-----global market economies.  We have never been anti-trade. So why are today's 1% and their 5% feeling the need to create a NEW CONSTITUTION? 

The global 1% and their 2% no longer see an America------they see themselves as global rich and the US as a territory to EXPLOIT.  This is why everyone says Trans Pacific Trade Pact is not about free trade----it is about breaking down our US sovereignty, our governance structures----our centuries of legal court precedence and US Rule of Law.  These 1% Wall Street players are now selling all of this under the guise of GETTING MONEY OUT OF CAMPAIGNS.


It is because WE THE PEOPLE allowed CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA to ignore all US Constitutional laws around anti-trust and monopoly that our national corporations grew to such size and wealth to being today no longer American ----they do not see an America---and they are bringing the US down to a colonial entity to be fleeced of natural resources and to make human capital of citizens.



'After the Constitutional Convention, many saw a problem with the draft document: It did not include a Bill of Rights. They insisted this be corrected.
Approved by the first Congress and sent to the states for ratification, the Bill of Rights expressly protected many aspects of individual liberty'.

No BILL OF RIGHTS under Trans Pacific Trade Pact in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones! DO YOU HEAR ANY OF 2016 CANDIDATES SHOUTING THIS? That is how we know they are 1% Wall Street players!



We Already Have a Free-Trade Deal: It's Called the Constitution
By Terence P. Jeffrey | October 7, 2015 | 4:28 AM EDT

Our Constitution gave Congress the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with Indian tribes."When the founders of this nation wrote the Constitution they created a charter for the greatest and truest free-trade zone in history — and they did not seek its approval on a fast track.


It is instructive to look at some of the basic differences between our Constitution and the free-trade zone it created and President Barack Obama's proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Our Constitution gave Congress the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with Indian tribes."
At the same time, it said: "No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws." And that: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."

These clauses effectively prevented states of the union from raising trade barriers against each other or foreign nations while empowering the federal government to raise trade barriers at the nation's external borders.


The Constitution also gave Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises."
This empowered the federal government to impose consumption taxes both internally and on foreign imports.
After the Constitutional Convention, many saw a problem with the draft document: It did not include a Bill of Rights. They insisted this be corrected.

Approved by the first Congress and sent to the states for ratification, the Bill of Rights expressly protected many aspects of individual liberty.

The First Amendment protected the right of individuals to exercise their religion freely, speak freely, publish freely and assemble freely. The Second protected their right to own guns. The Fourth protected their persons, houses, papers and other property from warrantless government searches.

The Fifth said they could not be deprived of their property without due process of law and that the government could take private property only "for public use" and only with "just compensation."


One great flaw in the Constitution is that it did not prohibit slavery. It thus allowed some people to be deprived of their God-given rights and treated like property. It took a long civil war, further amendments to the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Movement to correct that flaw.


Yet the ultimate product of the Constitution was a continental nation, under the rule of law, where individual rights — including property rights — were broadly protected and generally respected by the culture, and where government was restrained from infringing on the right of the people to engage in commerce with one another.


The United States became a remarkably prosperous nation as well as a remarkably free one. When the administration announced this week that it had completed negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, no one called on would-be member Vietnam to adopt the Bill of Rights.

"The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam," says the State Department's 2014 report on human rights in Vietnam.
"The most significant human rights problems in the country," said the State Department, "were severe government restrictions of citizens' political rights, particularly their right to change their government through free and fair elections; limits on citizens' civil liberties, including freedom of assembly and expression; and inadequate protection of citizens' due process rights, including protection against arbitrary detention."


And, eventually, Vietnam may not be the only Communist government to join Obama's trade zone with the United States.

The New York Times reported Monday: "To members of Congress, administration officials have repeatedly pressed their contention that the partnership will build a bulwark against China's economic influence, and allow the United States and its allies — not Beijing — to set the standards for Pacific commerce."

But the Times also reported on Tuesday: "United States officials, while making clear that they see the pact as part of an effort to counter China's influence in the region, say they are hopeful that the pact's 'open architecture' eventually prompts China to join, along with other important economic powers like South Korea."
"The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount authority," said the State Department 2014 report on human rights there.
Establishing the free-trade zone created by our Constitution required ratification by conventions in 9 of the 13 states. It also required ratification of a Bill of Rights.


Thanks to fast-track legislation that the Republican-majority Congress enacted this summer, President Obama's trade zone — which includes Communist Vietnam and may someday include Communist China — will need only a majority vote in both houses of Congress.

We have discussed quite often how all US polling is now corrupted------media skews the data with methodology ----politicians are now hiring marketing corporations to release polls so do not believe today's polling.  Do WE THE PEOPLE really want an overhaul of campaign financing or have Wall Street media and establish pols told us we want that?  Bernie Sanders was not the perfect candidate---he too fell into this AMEND THE CONSTITUTION----and he knows better.


'Poll Shows Americans Favor an Overhaul of Campaign Financing

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MEGAN THEE-BRENANJUNE 2, 2015'


Below is an article written in 2012 ----that was when CLINTON/OBAMA and their organizations started this battle cry for US Constitutional Amendment for what could easily be handled by law.  It is far harder to get a US Constitutional Amendment than just using CONGRESSIONAL CHECKS AND BALANCES----which is their duty -----to stop an illegal Supreme Court ruling like CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE.  1% Wall Street Clinton/Obama neo-liberals always baiting the Democratic base to push bad policy.


'Here is the provision the founding fathers included:
The Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2).

Hence, under the Constitution, Congress has the power to remove Court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns'.

So, first Congress could have reprimanded Chief Justice Roberts for ignoring over a century of court precedent in ruling curbing corporate person hood.
The last Supreme Court mention of corporate person hood was late 1800s----when the Robber Baron Presidents AS TODAY brought forward that issue.  It did not last.

If Roberts did not reverse that ruling Congress such have moved for impeachment.  In 2012 Democrats had strong control of Congress----it was 2014 they lost control BECAUSE they did not do their jobs for WE THE PEOPLE.

I thank James Leas for being a very few legal professionals to write the truth----he is National Lawyers Guild

Constitutional Amendment Not Needed: Congress Already Has a Remedy

Tuesday, 17 January 2012 08:07 By James Marc Leas, Truthout | News Analysis





Although the Constitution already includes a remedy, certain elected officials and public interest organizations are advocating for a constitutional amendment to overturn recent Supreme Court decisions that have corrupted elections, public officials and government. They are using Vermont town meetings as a springboard for the campaign. Critics of the constitutional amendment approach point out that an amendment would not solve the problem, legitimizes the Supreme Court seizure of power over elections, would keep the Supreme Court in charge and diverts from a solution already in the Constitution that more effectively solves the problem with far less effort. The simpler alternative that is already available in the Constitution deserves attention.


Supreme Court decisions legalizing private interest financing of election campaigns have enabled a vast increase in private interest control over our federal government. The 1 percent contribute hundreds of millions of dollars in election campaigns to empower themselves and disempower the 99 percent. To keep that money flowing to themselves, elected officials waste enormous sums of taxpayer's money on government contracts, subsidies, bailouts, wars and tax cuts for the rich. The 1 percent thus receive enormous returns on their political investments. By contrast, the government uses the resulting deficits to justify cuts in needed spending on education, health care, environment, safety and infrastructure that would benefit the 99 percent who do not buy elections and influence.


Here is why a constitutional amendment is not needed to end this disenfranchisement of the 99 percent. The revolutionary leaders who wrote the Constitution, fresh from overthrowing the tyranny of King George, included sufficient checks and balances on all three branches of government - including the courts - to prevent the kind of tyranny we now suffer.
Under our existing Constitution, Congress already has the power to stop the court from making any more of the decisions that have allowed the 1 percent to buy elections. Then Congress can pass legislation reversing the unconstitutional decisions the court has made to corrupt elections.


Here is the provision the founding fathers included:


The Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2).


Hence, under the Constitution, Congress has the power to remove Court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns. Removing Court jurisdiction means that the court would not even be able to take up cases involving financing of elections. Congress and state legislatures will then be free to pass laws removing private money from election campaigns. Thus, Congress already has power to curtail the court and the tyranny of private money in elections facilitated by the 5-4 majority of Supreme Court judges whose goal is to empower the 1 percent at the expense of the rest of us.


Separately, Congress also establishes and controls all "inferior courts" (Article III, Section 1).


It is not just the Constitution. As early as 1803, in a case called Marbury v. Madison, the case in which the Supreme Court established judicial review, the court also recognized that it must not decide questions that are "in their nature political." Regulating elections and their funding to prevent corruption is a quintessential political question. For 173 years, the courts followed this mandate and declined jurisdiction over such political questions.


Under Article I of the Constitution, it is Congress - not the court - that has the exclusive power to make or alter regulations regarding the "Manner" of holding elections. Under this Article I power, "in 1907 Congress passed the Tillman Act, prohibiting national banks and corporations from making contributions in federal elections. The Corrupt Practices Act, first enacted in 1910 and replaced by another law in 1925, extended federal regulation of campaign contributions and expenditures in federal elections and other acts have similarly provided other regulations." (Congressional Research Service Annotated Constitution.)


Under Article I, Congress also has the exclusive power to judge the elections of its members.
All this changed in 1976 when the court injected itself into election financing and overturned long-established law, deciding that corrupting money in politics is constitutionally protected speech. The court, not Congress, established as law that putting money in the pocket of a politician has the same protected status as speech by a citizen. Thus, the court allowed the 1 percent with money to drown out the speech of ordinary voters. In that decision and in 5-4 decisions since then, the Supreme Court also violated its own long-established precedent of keeping out of political questions so it could unleash special interest money in politics. By doing so, the court overstepped its judicial powers and intruded on Congress' legislative powers to regulate and judge elections. the court thus violated the separation of powers which is the most fundamental bulwark the Constitution provides raised against tyranny. The disenfranchisement of the 99 percent and auction of public policy to the 1 percent is the consequence of Congress' failure to maintain the separation of powers with respect to election integrity.
The decisions since 1976, including the 2010 Citizens United decision, addressed an increasing problem for the 1 percent. Faced with an aroused public, Congress had earlier passed vast amounts of progressive legislation, including the Clean Air Act, product safety and food safety laws, the EPA, the Clean Water act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, consumer protection laws and laws regulating campaign contributions and spending. One of the ways the 1 percent fought back to empower themselves and disempower the 99 percent was for pro-corporate presidents to nominate pro-corporate justices, who would make elections a commodity that corporations and wealthy individuals could finance and control.

By enabling the upper 1 percent to buy elections, the court put an end to rule of, by and for the people at the federal level and within most states. The court not only put a stop to progressive legislation, but they turned the government into an instrument to increase the wealth and power of the 1 percent. To its credit, Vermont has successfully resisted the power of money in several recent elections. But recent Supreme Court decisions allow an overwhelming flood of private interest money, even putting democracy in Vermont at risk.


Now is the time for we, the people; our towns; and our states to demand that Congress use its existing power to re-establish the bar on court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns, establishing public funding and removing private interest money from elections.


Tragically, the recently initiated drive for a constitutional amendment dangerously leads the public away from demanding that Congress act now using its existing power. It implements delay. It substitutes an incredibly difficult approach. It legitimizes the court's illegitimate seizure of jurisdiction over a fundamental political question. It also demeans the American revolutionaries, who purposely and intentionally wrote this important check and balance into our Constitution for just such a circumstance as the one we face now. And asserting that the only solution is a constitutional amendment diverts, weakens, confuses and demobilizes people.


Even if a heroic public managed to mobilize in great enough numbers to force passage of a constitutional amendment, the amendment would not actually solve the problem if jurisdiction over election financing is left in the hands of this court. The majority on the Supreme Court, having already violated their constitutional mandate, would find other ways to use that continuing jurisdiction to make bogus decisions that maintain and expand the power of the 1 percent.
What is needed is for Congress to remove jurisdiction over financing election campaigns from the jurisdiction of the court. So the court is entirely out of the picture on this subject as the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent required. The revolutionaries who wrote the Constitution provided Congress with the constitutional power to do just that. Misleading the public away from that heritage and that power will only legitimize and entrench the status quo.
If the text of the Constitution, as written by the revolutionary leaders and the position of the court for 173 years regarding political questions, as well as the specific Article I powers assigned exclusively to Congress, are insufficient to persuade the reader of this article, consider the practicalities:

• A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in each House plus ratification by three-quarters of the states within seven years, an incredibly high bar.
  
  
• A law requires only an ordinary majority in each House to deny court jurisdiction over funding elections and to pass legislation removing private interest money from election campaigns.

Certainly, achieving an ordinary majority will be a difficult task. A mass movement, such as initiated by Occupy Wall Street but far larger, is needed to demand power for the 99 percent, equality and an end to rule by the 1 percent. As difficult as demanding and achieving ordinary legislation is with a Congress already corrupted by money in elections, achieving a constitutional amendment will be inestimably harder.
The possibility of building the required movement is enhanced if the public understands that Congress already has the power to accomplish the goal with an ordinary majority vote. And that no almost insurmountable hurdle, like two-thirds of each House and three-quarters of the states within seven years, blocks the way.
Occupy Wall Street initiated the necessary mass campaign and it can continue to press for immediate action to overturn the gross inequality in political and economic power. By continuing to use the right to assemble, speak, petition and occupy, introduce resolutions at town meetings and unions, picket, march, rally, strike, sit-in and hold elected officials accountable handed down by our revolutionary forebears who inspired the Constitution, they can continue to build that mass campaign to force Congress to take action now. They can demand that Congress use the brilliant check and balance on court jurisdiction those revolutionaries included in Article III Section 2 of the Constitution. Occupy Wall Street need not be diverted, nor its goal delayed, with a useless quest for a constitutional amendment.
_____________________________________
Here we see that argument of lack of precedent in ruling CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE.  This article points to that early period-----around the beginning of 20th century where this stance was held----again Robber Baron Presidents bringing on the economic crash that brought the Great Depression.

Ginsburg rightly makes that evident in her dissent---this would have alerted all Congressional pols that CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE was a bad ruling.

'During this era, the Supreme Court repeatedly expanded the constitutional rights of corporations and other businesses while dismissively treating the government’s interest in economic regulation'

'As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg detailed in a powerful dissenting opinion, the majority abandoned constitutional principles and precedent '

If we did not have a Congress full of CLINTON/OBAMA WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS THIS RULING WOULD NOT HAVE STOOD.

The Roberts Court Thinks Corporations Have More Rights Than You

DoThe chief justice continues his First Amendment revolution

By David H. Gans
June 30, 2014

The Supreme Court of the mid-twentieth century led a First Amendment revolution, turning a rarely enforced constitutional provision into the crown jewel of our Bill of Rights. While these rulings protected the speech of all Americans, they most frequently came in cases involving disfavored or even despised litigants, from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Nazi sympathizers. The Roberts Court is leading a free speech revolution of its own, but this time for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy.

This revolution is unfolding across a wide range of First Amendment provisions and doctrines, from Citizens United v. FEC, which protects political speech by corporations to Sorrell v. IMS, which makes it easier for corporations to challenge laws that regulate commercial speech. Today’s bitterly divided rulings in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn continue this trend by turning the First Amendment’s protection for the free exercise of religion and freedom of association into a sword to free corporations and other powerful interests from government regulation. More than the Court’s earlier First Amendment revolution, this series of deeply divided rulings resembles the aggressive, divisive, and now overturned rulings of the Lochner era, named after the infamous 1905 case Lochner v. New York, one of a number of cases in which the Supreme Court of the early twentieth century that struck down laws designed to prevent the exploitation of workers. During this era, the Supreme Court repeatedly expanded the constitutional rights of corporations and other businesses while dismissively treating the government’s interest in economic regulation. Today, we are seeing a revival of Lochner in the name of protecting free speech and free exercise of religion.    
This story, of course, begins in earnest with the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, the case that, perhaps more than any other, defines the Roberts Court. There the Court’s five conservatives united to hold that the Constitution gives corporations the right to spend unlimited sums of money on elections. Corporations cannot vote in elections, run for office, or serve as elected officials, but the Court nevertheless ruled that they can overwhelm the political process by using money generated by special privileges that corporations alone possess. In 2011, the Court continued this corporate-friendly trend in Sorrell v. IMS, holding that forms of market research, such as data mining, are “speech” protected by the First Amendment. 
This term, Chief Justice Roberts has opened new fronts in his First Amendment revolution. Prior to 2014, the Supreme Court had never held that a secular, for-profit corporation is entitled to protections for the free exercise of religion and had never struck down a federal law limiting campaign contributions. This year, the conservative Justices did both. In both cases, the Court’s conservative majority built off of Citizens United. In Hobby Lobby, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that closely-held, secular, for-profit corporations were entitled to the guarantee of the free exercise of religion, treating corporations simply as the artificial embodiment of its owner or shareholders. Dismissing the fact that corporations cannot pray and have never, in more than two centuries, been conferred with rights of conscience and human dignity, the Court’s conservative bloc concluded that secular for-profit corporations are entitled to a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employer-sponsored health insurance plans cover the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives. The Court’s opinion—the first in history to require a religious exemption from generally-applicable regulation be given to a commercial enterprise--exalts the rights of corporations over those of individuals, giving corporations the right to impose their owners’ religious beliefs and extinguish the rights of their employees.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg detailed in a powerful dissenting opinion, the majority abandoned constitutional principles and precedent and empowered commercial enterprises to “deny legions of women who do not hold their employees’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage.”

____________________________
In most descriptions of stare decisis the long history of what creates stability in Rule of Law has been found held to firmly over centuries. 



'The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically. Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent. A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court. Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending'.



Precedent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Precedence.

In common law legal systems, a precedent, or authority, is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as stare decisis. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases."[1] Common law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies), and Delegated legislation (in U.K. parlance) or regulatory law (in U.S. parlance) (regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies).

No doubt our Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts would say CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE is a legal ruling because without it SIGNIFICANT SOCIETAL CHANGES cannot occur.  Know what?  Almost no one in the US want those societal structures of ONE WORLD GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE----so that argument would be specious. 

A 5% to the 1% DOES NOT decide our SIGNIFICANT SOCIETAL CHANGES.


'In addition, significant societal changes may also prompt the Court to overrule precedent'




Stare decisis

Stare decisis is the doctrine of precedent. Courts cite to stare decisis when an issue has been previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued. Generally, courts will adhere to the previous ruling, though this is not universally true. See, e.g. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 US 833. Stare decisis is Latin for “to stand by things decided.” The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically. Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent. A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court. Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending.
According to the Supreme Court, stare decisis “promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.”

In practice, the Supreme Court will usually defer to its previous decisions even if the soundness of the decision is in doubt. A benefit of this rigidity is that a court need not continuously reevaluate the legal underpinnings of past decisions and accepted doctrines. Moreover, proponents argue that the predictability afforded by the doctrine helps clarify constitutional rights for the public. Other commentators point out that courts and society only realize these benefits when decisions are published and made available. Thus, some scholars assert that stare decisis is harder to justify in cases involving secret opinions.

Despite the legal stability afforded by stare decisis, it is not without negative externalities. Critics argue that the doctrine occasionally permits erroneous decisions to continue influencing the law and encumbers the legal system’s ability to quickly adapt to change.
Although courts seldom overrule precedent, Justice Rehnquist explained that stare decisis is not an “inexorable command.” On occasion, the Court will decide not to apply the doctrine if a prior decision is deemed unworkable. In addition, significant societal changes may also prompt the Court to overrule precedent; however, any decision to overrule precedent is exercised cautiously.
____________________________________________
THIS IS WHY WE WANT TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT JOINING NATIONAL GROUPS THAT OFTEN HAVE OTHER GOALS. THE GRASSROOTS CITIZENS REALLY WANT CAMPAIGN REFORM----BUT THE GOALS OF THE NATIONAL LEADERS ARE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION INSTALLING TPP AND ONE WORLD STRUCTURES.
Below we see 3 quotes from this MOVE TO AMEND.ORG. It makes some of the good issues over Trans Pacific Trade Pact---but not any that I make every day. The first statement seeks to make the Supreme Court ruling a simple expansion of earlier rulings. Never mentions the centuries of precedence against corporate personhood or common law. This seems to say----they did it so move forward.
'They weren’t aware that the U.S. Supremes simply expanded upon earlier rulings equating corporate entities with legal “personhood” and money with “free speech.”'
Next we see something most anti-TPP activism will not say-----they are saying TPP is very much like NAFTA and other trade agreements WHEN EVERYONE ELSE is shouting NO---it has little actual trade policy in it. It is all about changing governance and societal structures around ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE.
'The TPP is very like previous so-called “trade” agreements between the U.S. and one or more nations, the difference being chiefly of scale'.
Finally we see them telling us TPP is like our US Constitution----its like a child to our own Constitution. Now, it is indeed replacing our US Constitution----we would call that patricide---killing the parent. The 1% and their 2% did indeed sell Obama's campaign----as a CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR----but our HARVARD, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITIES have these few decades declared American politics dead-----replacing our national political structures with global ones and Obama's expertise as Constitutional scholar was in breaking down our US Constitution and installing the ONE WORLD Constitution and indeed Trans Pacific Trade Pact and Foreign Economic Zone policies are that BACKBONE.

'Similar to the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court
It’s not only whether the TPP is akin to NAFTA and previous corporate governance agreements but also how much it can be likened to a “child,” even a “great, great grandchild” of our own U.S. Constitution'.


The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a Brand New, Same Old Story

January 16, 2016
Program On Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD)

Many citizens were stunned and outraged when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the now infamous 2010 Citizens United v Federal Communication(FEC) case that corporate entities could donate (more like invest) unlimited sums of cash to electoral causes. This was based on corporate entities possessing First Amendment free speech “rights” combined with money spent in elections being constitutionally protected “free speech.”


Many people learning of Citizens United assumed the five-member Court majority supporting the decision had engaged in never-before judicial activism with a “shock and awe” invasion of constitutional rights previously held exclusively by natural persons. They weren’t aware that the U.S. Supremes simply expanded upon earlier rulings equating corporate entities with legal “personhood” and money with “free speech.” Citizens United was simply the latest and most visible in a long series of egregious Court cases that carved up the Bill of Rights and other Amendments to the liking of plutocrats and corporate agents.


Citizens United was just a brand new, same old story.
There’s a similar tale in the 6000-page Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), to be signed by President Obama in February and then presented to Congress for ratification:

1. The TPP is very like previous so-called “trade” agreements between the U.S. and one or more nations, the difference being chiefly of scale.
2. The second way the TPP is more old than new is its anti-democratic similarity to our Constitution and Supreme Court – the wording of the former and many decisions of the latter that have squelched self-governance all along the way.

Yes, we must educate and organize against ratification of the TPP and other such deals waiting in the wings, but not to the exclusion of doing the same against the nation’s founding document and its highest court that deny self-governance to the people and needed protections for communities and earth.



1. Similar to previous trade agreements — with a few exceptions



The U.S. is party to more than a dozen Free Trade Agreements and is in various stages of negotiation on nearly 20 others, mostly bilateral. The most (in)famous is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, in effect since 1994.
The other relatively well-known “trade” entity is the World Trade Organization (WTO) composed of 100 member nations including the U.S. Remember the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” that disrupted the “Millennium Round” of WTO negotiations?
We’ve heard all the pro TPP arguments before. It will reduce cumbersome barriers, set common standards for selling American goods and services abroad, grow the economy, provide middle class jobs, reduce the nation’s trade deficit, and strengthen economic interdependence between the U.S. and other member nations, 11 Pacific Rim countries, comprising 40% of the global economy.


President Obama said the agreement “reflects American values,” and “levels the playing field for American workers and businesses.” He further asserted, “We can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment.”


Who in their right mind could oppose this? But with such compelling content, why were negotiations kept secret from our public officials for nearly four years while more than 600 transnational corporate advisors occupied all the seats at the table?


The regurgitated TPP rhetoric and promises begin with the framing of the agreement as predominately involving “trade.” As with NAFTA and other previous agreements, this is deceiving.
Of the 30 sections or “Chapters” of the proposed deal, only six address traditional trade issues – the buying and selling of stuff. The remaining 24 address such issues as market access, investment, telecommunications, intellectual property, competitiveness and business facilitation, state-owned enterprises, labor, the environment, and dispute settlement.NAFTA and other international agreements also determine much more than “trade.”


A fundamental goal of the TPP is to remove “trade barriers” to the free flow of goods and services among participant nations. These “barriers” involve other than mere tariffs, quotas and onerous custom procedures. We’re talking about laws and regulations passed by national and sub-national governments (states in the U.S.) that protect workers, consumers, communities and the environment. But “impediments” to multinational corporations entering foreign markets are “protections” to local people, enabling their quality of life and right to self-determination.



A few of the proposals contained in the TPP would:

• delay the introduction of low-cost generic medicines, imposing higher costs to people in all 12 nations;
• add to climate change by expanding trade in dirty energy products such as tar sands oil, fracked natural gas, and coal – justified as in the public interest;
• weaken existing food safety standards, food inspections and protections for small farms;
• force Internet Service Providers to be “copyright cops” by taking down websites in response to mere claims from corporations or governments that posted material is copyrighted;
• prohibit financial capital controls (which led to the 2008 financial implosion) and limits on bank size, prohibit “firewalls” between investment and consumer banks and national efforts to control or reject bizarre financial products like derivatives;
• deny protections from labor abuse, such as poverty wages and poor working conditions, facilitating a further “race to the bottom.”

The many specific problems of the TPP are connected by another fundamental assault against people’s sovereignty — the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision in Chapter 28. The TPP establishes three-person “Panels” to rule on “investor-state” suits against governments on any of the above issues.
While ISDSs exist in other trade deals, the TPP is unique in allowing challenges to be brought against a nation directly by one or more corporations. Multinationals no longer have to rely on surrogate governments to do their bidding.


The TPP ISDS Panels can meet in secret. Their decisions are final. There are no appeals. Panel members are unelected and unaccountable trade attorneys, most having relationships with major corporations. They may act as prosecutors or defenders for governments or corporations on different issues at different times. Of course, we are to assume this raises no conflicts of interest!


Panels have a sole responsibility: decide if an existing national law or regulation, even when enacted democratically, threatens expected future corporate profits. If so, the nation must rescind or change that legislation to comply with the TPP or provide taxpayer compensation for lost future profits.


This isn’t simply theory, it’s real. The WTO ruled in December against the United States’ wanting to know the source of meats in the butcher case. This “country of origin” labeling law put Canadian and Mexican meat producers at a disadvantage. The WTO dispute resolution panel ruled that $1 billion in fines from U.S. taxpayers would be levied unless the law was revoked, which Congress dutifully did as a rider to the year-end spending bill. Never mind that consumers overwhelmingly support wanting to know where their food comes from.


The mere threat of suits under TPP, if ratified, will deter legislators from enacting laws that don’t jibe with this pro-corporate agreement. So much for national sovereignty! So much for believing it will make any real difference who is elected to office. So much for organizing pro-worker, consumer or environmental citizen initiatives that might threaten expected corporate profits. The public interest will be subordinated to the corporate-serving TPP manifesto.

Elected officials will be reduced to deciding the date of the annual fruit festival, whether to change the official state bird and other trivial matters. The important issues will find federal and state officials deciding whether existing laws must be gutted to avoid millions or billions in compensatory payments to corporations.
The TPP is not about “trade,” be it free or fair. It’s about corporate governance – increasing the power and authority of corporations of all types, sizes and national-origins to override the laws, regulations and court rulings of nation states.


2. Similar to the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court

It’s not only whether the TPP is akin to NAFTA and previous corporate governance agreements but also how much it can be likened to a “child,” even a “great, great grandchild” of our own U.S. Constitution. This may rub people the wrong way, believing as many do that the Constitution is a most democratic document.


While there are elements of the Constitution worth keeping, it has disturbingly similar anti-democratic features as the TPP that favor giant business interests and serve those of extreme wealth and privilege.


Here are a few examples:

1. Like the TPP, those who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 did so under the major premise of liberalizing “trade” and commerce. The Constitution’s Framers had come together to amend the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s original founding document, which had rejected free trade by allowing states to ban imports and exports as they saw fit. This was unacceptable to the rising merchant class. The goal of the Convention was to create a more efficient and powerful central government that would call all the shots on matters of commerce. The new Constitution would declare it so.
2. The Constitutional Convention’s attendees met in secret, not unlike the authors of the TPP. Its Secretary, James Madison, made none of the proceedings public after the convention.
3. Delegates to the Convention were elite men of property – northern merchants and southern planters. Workers, women, people of color, and men without property had no seat at the table.
4. The proposed Constitution was a property-rights document granting powers to those who owned property, slaves included. Those assembled in Philadelphia added a Bill of Rights similar to that in many state constitutions because several state legislatures refused to ratify the federal Constitution without it. The Bill of Rights served the same purpose as a “side agreement” today. It ensured passage of the Constitution just as tagalong labor and environmental provisions assist the passage of “trade” treaties.
5. The power to regulate commerce and trade was shifted from the states under the Articles of Confederation to the federal government. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution was called the Commerce Clause: “The Congress shall have power…to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations…and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The Commerce Clause has been the Supreme Court’s anti-democratic weapon of choice to strike down hundreds of local and state laws protecting people, communities and the environment on grounds that they interfere with interstate commerce.
6. Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court, members of which are nominated by a President and confirmed by the Senate. There are no term or age limits, unlike other nations. Impeachment is a virtual impossibility. They serve with little accountability or responsibility to anyone or anything else.The High Court is the final arbiter of what is deemed “constitutional” among federal and state laws. Its powers are vast and were greatly strengthened by Supreme Court decisions. A prime example is Marbury v. Madison (1806), establishing the doctrine of Judicial Review. This gave the Supremes even more power to overturn federal, state and local laws, regulations and lower court decisions.Legal historian Lawrence Friedman said, “The [U.S. Supreme] Court, in short, guaranteed to business that there was and would be a giant free trade area within this country. It made the country safe for big business.”
7. Like the TPP’s ISDS Panels, Supreme Court decisions can’t be appealed. Supreme Court decisions can be overturned via Constitutional Amendment but the process is far more difficult in the U.S. than in other nations. Supreme Court decisions defending slavery and political disenfranchisement of women were upended by passage of Constitutional Amendments requiring the organization of mass social movements.

Two-track strategy required

“Commerce defies every wind, overrides every tempest, invades every zone.”


– Quote chiseled into granite above a US Department of Commerce building entrance, Washington, DC
A free trade zone is a forced trade zone – against the will of a people or a government. There is no room for democracy. This is an economic invasion with implications for self-governance. The invasion is both foreign and domestic. The invaders are corporations and oligarchs using “trade” deals like the TPP when they invade abroad and provisions of the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court rulings when they invade on the home front.


Because these two tracks are connected, our democratic strategy must be two-fold:

1. Defeating the TPP through education, advocacy and organizing in all conventional and creative forms. It means engaging our friends and family in face to face conversation, using mainstream, independent and social media. It means advocating for the defeat of this trade deal when it comes to a vote in Congress later this year.
2. Addressing the impediments to real democracy in our Constitution. Just as reversing Citizens United in itself will not abolish corporate “personhood” or money equated with free speech, stopping the TPP in itself cannot ensure self-governance. The Constitutional roadblocks must be removed – those that have allowed a propertied elite and the corporation to assert illegitimate authority over the democratic rights of the majority.In some respects, this is the more difficult assignment. The Constitution has been covered in a blanket of reverence and the myth of a democratic republic that offers freedom and justice for all. We have failed to examine our Constitution objectively, unemotionally and in comparison with the models of other nations.

This is our collective challenge. If we fail to meet it we’ll continue to face brand new, same old stories.

Let's first identify why our US elections became rigged and fraudulent and then look at campaign finance reform--AMEND THE CONSTITUTION 1% WALL STREET CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS SAY.  Right away everyone should be shouting RUN FROM THAT POLICY!  

FCC and IRS election laws in place since FDR New Deal were written to keep undue influence, money, power from corrupting our primary and general elections.  It states clearly that all candidates are to receive opportunity and access to media---to forum events.  Congress amended what was EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/TIME for media coverage to opportunity with the ability to get a CAMPAIGN PLATFORM out to the public.  Clinton came along and broke what was a fall-back for this law effecting only private media by using his post as Gov of Arkansas to weaken election coverage even on PUBLIC MEDIA.  Clinton did what was a great blow to election integrity----EXECUTIVE ORDER called FEDERALISM ACT ---we have discussed this in detail----it basically PRETENDS the Federal government does not have to enforce Federal laws----and of course FCC and IRS election laws are Federal laws.  So, starting with Clinton there was no oversight and accountability of state election boards and of course states started rigging elections freely.  Bush then hit hard for election fraud by bringing in that electronic ballot machine made by a BFF and since we have had ballot box election fraud through Bush/Obama.  So, Clinton/Obama killed free and fair -----balance in media---while Bush killed our balloting process.

THESE ARE WHAT CAUSED THE RIGGED AND FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS----NOT SO MUCH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS.

If all candidates have major forums to get their voice, name recognition, their platform out to the voters----then it does not matter how much money a campaign receives ---NOT REALLY.  Of course we want to limit----PUBLIC FINANCING IS GOOD-----but when pols are backing a Constitutional Amendment for CAMPAIGN REFORM while allowing all of the above to kill our primary and general elections ----WE KNOW THEY ARE POSING PROGRESSIVE.  So, we need to look for what they are up to.

Below we see the ACLU doing good policy----both Republicans and Democrats hate these elections---they want to maintain people's voices so the ACLU recognizes the threat to this with AMEND THE CONSTITUTION.
 
Campaign Finance Reform
The ACLU believes that the system of electing candidates to federal office is badly in need of repair. We will continue to advocate for reform of the current system, including in support of our longstanding commitment to public financing of campaigns. In doing so, we will stress fidelity to the principles protected by the First Amendment with the goal of expanding, not limiting, political speech.

In a 2010 case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that independent political expenditures by unions and corporations (including non-profit corporations such as Planned Parenthood, the National Rifle Association, and the ACLU) are protected under the First Amendment and are not subject to restriction by the government. That decision has sparked a great deal of controversy. Unfortunately, legitimate concern over the influence of “big money” in politics has led some to propose a constitutional amendment that would reverse the decision—by limiting the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

The ACLU firmly opposes this approach. In our view, the answer to concerns over the escalating cost of political campaigns is to expand, not limit, the resources available for political advocacy. Thus, the ACLU supports a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate. We support carefully drawn disclosure rules. We support reasonable limits on campaign contributions, and we support stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs.

Our system of free expression is built on the premise that the people get to decide what speech they want to hear; it is not the role of the government to make that decision for them.

______________________________________________
'Adoption of the National ACLU’s misreading of the First Amendment by the Supreme Court’s five justice majority has made things much worse in the last few years. Citizens United has enabled big corporate money to run amok in our political system. McCutcheon struck down the generous limit of $123,200 that an individual was permitted to contribute during a given election cycle. [fn]'

Above is a quote from an article found after this one---and it is written by OLD-SCHOOL LEFT-LEANING ACLU.  As they state the ACLU of 21ST century is ONE WORLD while that of the original ACLU was left-leaning in fighting for EQUAL PROTECTION.

Have you heard the ACLU shouting out against the inability of candidates to access all election venues----media and 501C3----because that is where the rigging is----and I have heard nothing from the ACLU on these major election issues.

The problem for WE THE PEOPLE about this campaign finance reform stance by the ACLU ----is that it fights to protect the voice of corporate non-profits---what many call special interest groups----but it does not mention the rights of actual candidates to have their voices heard during a campaign season.  They are allowing candidates to be marginalized and said to be IRRELEVANT---BECAUSE of those special interest donations.  A Heather Mizeur has almost no funding but a national women's organization headed by Clinton neo-liberals gives her a donation and this means she gets to participate in primary forums while others are not.  A Baltimore City Council candidate gets a campaign donation from TEACH FOR AMERICA and now that candidate is given major election exposure. 

So, the ACLU is fighting for the voices of what are CORPORATIONS----they simply are labelled as non-profits.  As I shout over and over and over-----many of these are global non-profits and NGOs---that is for whom today's ACLU is working.

'The constitutional amendment under consideration in the Senate is even broader in some ways. It would allow the federal and state governments to limit spending, including spending by private citizens, that lawmakers say could "influence elections." '

The ACLU Supports Campaign Finance Reform and Free Speech
By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
September 12, 2014 | 11:58 AMblog_constitution_4.jpgThis post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.


For an organization that works on issues as diverse as drones, women's rights, racial justice, war powers, immigration and flag burning, internal debates are inevitable and healthy. We welcome them. One of those long-standing debates has become more animated recently as the Senate considers a constitutional amendment that would empower Congress and the states to regulate even non-partisan political debate without regard for the First Amendment's freedoms of speech, assembly and petition.
In advance of a vote on the amendment, several former ACLU officials wrote a letter to the Senate criticizing the ACLU's current stance on campaign finance laws. Professor Geoffrey Stone penned a similarly critical blog here in support of the letter.
We have enormous respect for Professor Stone and our former colleagues, and we share many of their concerns about the integrity of our political system. We also agree that our campaign finance system needs to be reformed. For that reason, the ACLU supports public financing programs that provide candidates with resources to mount a meaningful challenge against wealthy opponents such as the matching dollar system in the Fair Elections Now Act. We support tailored disclosure requirements. We support stronger rules to ensure that outside political advocates are not illegally coordinating their activities with candidates. And we support reasonable limits on direct contributions to candidates.
But history has taught us to be wary of proposals that would empower the government to monitor, regulate, and ultimately criminalize political speech. For instance, with the McCain-Feingold bill in 2002, Congress made it a criminal offense for groups like the ACLU or Sierra Club to even mention a candidate in certain communications paid for by general treasury funds in the crucial run-up period to elections and primaries.
The constitutional amendment under consideration in the Senate is even broader in some ways. It would allow the federal and state governments to limit spending, including spending by private citizens, that lawmakers say could "influence elections." Even proponents of the amendment have acknowledged that this authority could extend to books, television shows or movies, such as Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices or a show like the West Wing, which depicted a heroic Democratic presidential administration during the crucial election years of 2000 and 2004. It could even reach the ACLU's letter to Congress on the amendment noting that all of its sponsors are Democrats (or independents who caucus with the Democrats).
Professor Stone suggests that restrictions on campaign-related speech are somehow less troublesome if they apply in a non-partisan fashion. Without doubt, it would be worse to pass a law that attempted to limit speech by Democrats and not Republicans, or vice-versa. It does not follow, however, that we can or should accept a regime in which the government gets to decide how much speech is enough in the political arena.
That problem is compounded, moreover, by the inherent difficulty in deciding what speech is campaign-related and thus subject to regulation. Take the common example of a newspaper ad that supports a legislative proposal that a candidate for office also supports. Does that ad support the pending bill or does it support the candidate? Is it intended to influence policy or an election? And do we really want government officials to decide when they may be prompted by ulterior political motives?
There really isn't that much blue water between Professor Stone, our former colleagues and the ACLU. They want more transparency around campaign funding. We want to be sure advocacy on important issues of the day remains unrestrained. These two goals are both worthy and not mutually exclusive, yet so much of the rhetoric suggests they are. It's time for advocates on all sides of the issue to talk with one another, not past one another.
In sum, this is a tough issue, but the desire to do something should not lead us to abandon core free speech values that have served us so well for more than two centuries.

________________________________________
Here we have 20th century ACLU talking about how we used to protect speech and election freedoms----OVERTURNING PRECEDENTS.  These few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA has completely IGNORED a century of LEGAL PRECEDENT----and this is ILLEGAL.  It would be an ACLU that would fight these current court precedence and fight for our century's old court precedence that was LEFT-LEANING FDR/EQUAL PROTECTION.  This is where we are missing our civil liberties protection and in ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE there is no civil liberties----only for global corporations and global NGOs.


'We believe that overturning many of the Court’s narrow 5-4 campaign finance precedents and implementing generous, content neutral political spending limits is the best way to fulfill the promise of James Madison’s First Amendment as democracy’s best friend'.

Again, we do not need a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT---we simply need ENFORCEMENT of laws on the book and adherence to LEGAL PRECEDENT.

FAN 30.1 (First Amendment News) Six former ACLU leaders contest group’s 1st Amendment position on campaign finance — ACLU’s Legislative Director responds

by Ronald K.L. Collins · September 6, 2014

→ The history of campaign finance regulation demonstrates the need to erect sturdy safeguards for free speech. — ACLU amicus brief, Citizens United v. FEC, July 29, 2009

→ Any rule that requires the government to determine what political speech is legitimate and how much political speech is appropriate is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment. Our system of free expression is built on the premise that the people get to decide what speech they want to hear; it is not the role of the government to make that decision for them. — ACLU 2012 Statement

Below is a September 4, 2014 letter signed by six former leaders of the ACLU and presented to the chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While the footnotes have been omitted, the full text with notes can be found here. Finally, note that a September 8, 2014 vote has been scheduled in the Senate concerning a proposal to amend the First Amendment.

→ Following the statement below is a response from Ms. Laura W. Murphy, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU.

ENTER THE DISSENTERS

Dear Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, Subcommittee Chairman Durbin, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Cruz:  Unknown

This summer, some have taken to citing a June 2014 letter from the ACLU to bolster opposition to a constitutional amendment that would change the way Congress can regulate election spending.[fn] While, as present and former leaders of the ACLU, we take no position in this letter on whether a constitutional amendment is the most appropriate way to pursue campaign finance reform, we believe that the current leadership of the National ACLU has endorsed a deeply contested and incorrect reading of the First Amendment as a rigid deregulatory straitjacket that threatens the integrity of American democracy.

[Here is the ACLU position as stated on its website: “Unfortunately, legitimate concern over the influence of ‘big money’ in politics has led some to propose a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision. The ACLU will firmly oppose any constitutional amendment that would limit the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”

→ And there is this statement by Laura W. Murphy, director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office (June 2012): “If there is one thing we absolutely should not be doing, it’s tinkering with our founding document to prevent groups like the ACLU (or even billionaires like Sheldon Adelson) from speaking freely about the central issues in our democracy. Doing so will fatally undermine the First Amendment, diminish the deterrent factor of a durable Constitution and give comfort to those who would use the amendment process to limit basic civil liberties and rights. It will literally ‘break’ the Constitution.”]

In 1998, some of us signed the enclosed letter circulated by every then-living retired leader of the ACLU, protesting the ACLU’s erroneous insistence that the First Amendment makes it impossible to regulate massive campaign spending by the richest 1/10 of 1% of the American electorate. [fn] Things have only gotten worse since 1998. The passage of 16 years means that fewer 20th century ACLU leaders are left to sign this letter. More importantly, over the past 16 years, using the ACLU’s erroneous reading of the First Amendment as a fig leaf, five justices have added huge multi-national corporations to the list of unlimited campaign spenders, [fn] and authorized wealthy individuals to contribute virtually unlimited sums to party leaders in a never-ending search for wealth-driven political influence. [fn] Under the ACLU’s erroneous reading of the First Amendment, it is no exaggeration to label today’s version of American democracy as “one dollar-one vote.” We reiterate the substance of the 1998 letter, and add the following additional comments in light of the unfortunate events of the last 16 years.
John Shattuck, one of the signers of letter

John Shattuck, one of the signers of letter

Our campaign finance system, already in dreadful shape in 1998, has only gotten worse. Today, American democracy is almost irretrievably broken because it is dominated by self-interested, wealthy interests. We believe that reform of our campaign finance system is the only way to fulfill Lincoln’s hope that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. The 2012 federal election cycle was the most expensive in our history, with a combined price tag of $6.3 billion. Most of the money came from the top 1% of the economic tree. Indeed, even within the 1%, the top 10% of the 1% exercised overwhelming independent groups, including super PACs, collectively spent $1 billion.[fn] It is the supremely wealthy that provide the bulk of that money. And because of loopholes in the reporting statutes, we don’t even know who many of them are.

Super PACs, in particular, have become a mechanism for the wealthy to exert even greater influence over our elections and our elected officials. Only 1,578 donors, each of whom gave at least $50,000, were responsible for more than $760 million — or 89.3% — of all donations to super PACs in 2012.[fn] Thus, a microscopic percentage of the population is funding a significant percentage of the political spending in this country.

Equally, many likely 2016 presidential candidates have made pilgrimages to wealthy independent spenders hoping to bolster their electoral chances.[fn] Such opportunities for candidates to, as many outlets put it, “kiss the ring” of a major political donor rightfully cause the public to question whether candidates are tailoring their views to the highest bidder.

We believe that the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decisions from Buckley [fn] to Citizens United to McCutcheon are based on three fallacies. → First, the Court wrongly equates spending unlimited sums of money with pure speech. We agree that campaign spending is a mix of speech and conduct. At reasonable spending levels, the speech element predominates, rendering unreasonably low campaign spending levels (like the absurdly low spending levels in Buckley) unconstitutional. But there comes a point where the conduct element of unlimited spending predominates, permitting content-neutral regulation of massive electoral spending to preserve the ideal of political equality at the heart of American democracy, and to protect the public from the corruption risks associated with vast political spending.

→ Second, the Court improperly distinguishes between political contributions and expenditures. Under the Court’s reasoning, contributions given directly to candidates may be limited, but independent spending may not be. Given the courting by candidates of big independent spenders since the Citizens United decision, it’s clear this distinction makes little sense. Massive contributions and massive independent expenditures each buy undue influence.

→ Third, the Court has failed to recognize that political equality is a compelling interest that justifies reasonable limits on massive political spending. Rather than interpreting the First Amendment as assuring everyone a reasonable opportunity to be heard, the Court (and the National ACLU) has turned the First Amendment on its head by guaranteeing the wealthy an expensive set of stereo speakers and leaving the average citizen with a bad case of laryngitis. Most Americans would find it preposterous to allot more time in a debate to the speaker with the most money. Yet, that is precisely how our campaign finance system functions today.

Adoption of the National ACLU’s misreading of the First Amendment by the Supreme Court’s five justice majority has made things much worse in the last few years. Citizens United has enabled big corporate money to run amok in our political system. McCutcheon struck down the generous limit of $123,200 that an individual was permitted to contribute during a given election cycle. [fn]

After Citizens United and McCutcheon, the sky’s the limit for supremely wealthy folks on the hunt for political influence. New joint fundraising committees have already emerged to channel money to candidates even more efficiently. [fn]

Most disturbing of all is that the current Supreme Court applauds the undue influence that big money can buy. As the Court majority said in McCutcheon, “Ingratiation and access . . . are not corruption. They embody a central feature of democracy—that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be responsive to those concerns.” [fn] That is, of course true. But it is supposed to apply to all of us, not merely the supremely wealthy. Taken to its logical extreme, as the Court seems poised to do, the voices of ordinary Americans will be drowned out entirely by their rich “neighbors” who live nearby in the gated community.

We share a profound respect for the ACLU’s magnificent efforts to defend constitutional rights in this country since its founding almost a century ago. We are proud to have devoted significant portions of our careers to the organization’s work, and look forward to continuing to support the ACLU in the future. On this important issue, however, we believe the ACLU is mistaken. The time has come for a change in the Supreme Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence. We believe that overturning many of the Court’s narrow 5-4 campaign finance precedents and implementing generous, content neutral political spending limits is the best way to fulfill the promise of James Madison’s First Amendment as democracy’s best friend.

___________________________________________

'In the land of global 1% and their 2%------peasants don't have voices in elections----this is LANDED GENTRY times and this is for what all these AMEND THE CONSTITUTION POLICIES are directed'.

Everyone and their mother knows Clinton is 1% Wall Street global corporate ----she is not interested in campaign reform to protect WE THE PEOPLE.  As always they choose policies everyone knows are bad-----PACs----Citizens' United ruling----but as with all progressive posing ---they have no intentions of reforming those things needed for citizens' rights during elections.  They are reforming for global entities----for ONE WORLD GLOBAL PARTICIPATION in our US elections.

When I say Maryland's group of raging 1% Wall Street Clinton neo-liberals----Van Hollen, Raskins, Sarbanes, and Mizeur -----ALL HILLARY FOLKS!-----want to use these AMEND THE CONSTITUTION issues like campaign reform for installing TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE policies----we look below and say-----what are they really trying to change?

HILLARY JUST HIJACKED OUR ELECTION WHILE WORKING FOR BILLIONAIRES AND SPECIAL INTERESTS FOR GOODNESS SAKE.

Hillary Clinton Announces Campaign Finance Overhaul Plan

By AMY CHOZICK and NICHOLAS CONFESSORESEPT. 8, 2015

Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H., on Saturday. This week she announced proposals for campaign finance reform. Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times
In a plan intended to upend a “political system hijacked by billionaires and special interests,” Hillary Rodham Clinton presented a set of proposals on Tuesday to curb anonymous political donations and bolster the influence of small donors through a federal matching program.
“Our democracy should be about expanding the franchise, not charging an entrance fee,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement, reiterating her call to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.
The issue of campaign finance reform has galvanized voters in both parties amid a roiling debate about what democracy means in an era when “super PACs” can raise and spend billions in support of candidates. Two candidates — Donald J. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — have struck a chord by railing against the influence of such groups in politics.
Mrs. Clinton’s multiprong plan includes a push for legislation that would require greater public disclosure of political spending, establish a matching system for congressional and presidential candidates, and support a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to shareholders.


Mr. Sanders has, in his calls for reform, rejected money from super PACs and relied on low-dollar online donations. Mr. Trump has accused his Republican rivals of being captive to billionaire donors.
Other candidates, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a Democrat, have also called for campaign finance reform.
Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard professor, said Sunday that he would enter the Democratic race for president on that single issue.

Mrs. Clinton’s plan, announced as polls show a rising threat from Mr. Sanders in New Hampshire, amounts to a wish list of ideas long advocated by critics of big money in politics, none of them elaborated in great detail.


For example, she proposed to match contributions by small donors with additional taxpayer funds, which would in theory diminish the influence of big donors by enhancing the collective financial clout of small ones. Her campaign did not offer many specifics for such a system, such as the amount of the match or — more crucially for critics — what such a program might cost.
Mrs. Clinton’s announcement was hailed by supporters of tighter financial rules for candidates, who have struggled to make political money a burning campaign issue despite surveys showing widespread disgust with existing rules.


“What she has proposed is both good policy and good politics,” said David Donnelly, the president of Every Voice, a Washington group that supports tougher campaign-finance and influence-peddling restrictions. “That’s why Clinton should actively campaign on this platform and push these solutions to the center of the debate in the days, weeks and months to come.”
Mrs. Clinton’s efforts to address the issue come even as she works to help Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting her candidacy, raise hundreds of millions of dollars to compete with Republican groups that have far outraised their Democratic counterparts. Last month, Priorities said it had secured $20.5 million in commitments since July.

Republican critics were quick to call Mrs. Clinton’s plan hypocritical. “Hillary Clinton stopped making calls to her own super PAC donors long enough to call for an end to super PACs,” said Jeff Bechdel, a spokesman for America Rising, a conservative super PAC.

But Democrats say forgoing super PAC money would be tantamount to handing the election to Republicans, erasing any chance for reform.
To that end, Mrs. Clinton frequently tells donors that the only way to enact her plan and reform the system is to elect a Democrat. President Obama used a similar argument in his 2012 re-election fight, which relied heavily on the support of Priorities USA Action.
The 2016 race could be the most expensive in history, in part because of spending by “super PACs.” Legally, the groups cannot coordinate with candidates, but there is plenty of wiggle room.

Mrs. Clinton said she would support new disclosure legislation, seeking to unearth the hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign money that flows through business trade groups and nonprofits, neither of which must disclose donors. She also backs a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose political activity.
She said she would also sign an executive order requiring federal contractors to fully disclose all political spending.
But each proposal has run into fierce resistance from Republicans and business groups. Shareholder activists and labor unions have been pushing for the S.E.C. rule for more than two years. Republicans have filibustered a legislative approach, known as the Disclose Act, offered by Democrats. Congressional Republicans also included a rider in a recent spending bill aimed at staving off a disclosure rule for federal contractors, something President Obama has signaled in the past that he might issue.


It was during Mrs. Clinton’s last run for president, in 2008, that the conservative group Citizens United tried to stop her with a critical documentary that led to the Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for super PACs.
Mrs. Clinton has recently started to remind voters of this personal connection to the case and the cause. “They took aim at me, but they ended up damaging our entire democracy,” she said at a Democratic dinner in Iowa last month, her voice breaking after delivering a fiery partisan speech. “We can’t let them pull that same trick again.”
Mrs. Clinton’s refrain that she would push for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling has been met with particular skepticism.


“A lot of folks read today’s announcement, and with all due respect to the secretary and her team, 90 percent of those things aren’t going to happen anytime soon,” said Robert J. Jackson Jr., a law professor at Columbia who has advised Mrs. Clinton in the past. He added that the rule requiring disclosure by publicly traded companies seemed particularly doable and potentially effective.
Mrs. Clinton’s embrace of campaign finance reform might not only help her shore up support among liberals who are increasingly captivated by Mr. Sanders, but also help her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, shed their image as overly cozy with the donor class. In recent years, the Clintons have come under criticism for their paid speeches to Wall Street banks and foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. Under Mr. Clinton’s administration, donors were wooed with rounds of golf and nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.

YEAH--THAT'S ALL A CANDIDATE HAS TO DO----PUT ANYTHING ON A PLATFORM ----AND WE FORGET THEY SIMPLY SAY WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR.

____________________________________________
Our US Constitution and by extension all our Federal election laws and court precedence fall under US jurisdiction.  So, we talk about corporations having to much campaign spending-----NGOs not having enough voice----and if we look at the goals of ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE-----our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones will be filled with foreign corporations-----global labor pool-----global NGOs ---and it will be them who participate in US elections.  If WE THE PEOPLE feel silenced and feel we are not having our votes count NOW------we understand that ONE WORLD does not look at citizens as real voters.  Third world elections are all rigged and fraudulent---just as our US 2016 election is-----it is rigged so that only those 1% and their 2%----SUPER DELEGATES ANYONE?


THIS IS FOR WHAT HILLARY AND THE CLINTON WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL CROWD WANTS TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION.  REFORMING WHO CAN HAVE A VOICE.

No doubt the ACLU is right-----global NGOs will be targeted just as our left-leaning social non-profits were.  The ACLU has simply gone to bat for those global NGOs and are leaving US civil rights, equal protection, and civil liberties behind.

World Bank tribunal dismisses mining firm's $250m claim against El Salvador

Need one more reason to #StopTPP? El Salvador #ISDS case shows how system, also in #TPP, could threaten our laws.
OceanaGold ordered to pay $8m legal costs after claim that El Salvador’s refusal to let it mine gold caused huge loss in potential profits is thrown out

IFC/World Bank - Global Corporate Governance Forum

www.ifc.org/gcgf Corporate governance also contributes to development. ... Consultative Meeting Highlights Changes in the Global Environment, Social and Governance Landscape.


This article shows what A CLINTON WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERAL CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM WANTS TO ADDRESS.

Right Turn

Foreign donations to foundation raise major ethical questions for Hillary Clinton
By Jennifer Rubin February 18, 2015

In an extraordinary report that has not yet been fully digested, the Wall Street Journal tells us that the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has received millions from foreign governments including Qatar, a prominent backer of Hamas:
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State Department in 2010. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.
Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline. . . .


United Arab Emirates, a first-time donor, gave between $1 million and $5 million in 2014, and the German government—which also hadn’t previously given—contributed between $100,000 and $250,000.


A previous donor, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has given between $10 million and $25 million since the foundation was created in 1999. Part of that came in 2014, although the database doesn’t specify how much.
The Australian government has given between $5 million and $10 million, at least part of which came in 2014. It also gave in 2013, when its donations fell in the same range.


Qatar’s government committee preparing for the 2022 soccer World Cup gave between $250,000 and $500,000 in 2014. Qatar’s government had previously donated between $1 million and $5 million.
Oman, which had made a donation previously, gave an undisclosed amount in 2014. Over time, Oman has given the foundation between $1 million and $5 million. Prior to last year, its donations fell in the same range.
The foundation of course provides luxury travel for Hillary Clinton and her spouse, a high-visibility platform and access to mega-donors. She is beholden in a meaningful sense to its donors. No presidential candidate can justify a conflict of interest of this magnitude; it is not merely the appearance of conflict but actual conflict of interest.


If former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R) might go to jail for receiving lavish gifts for a donor for whom he made a few phone calls, what would be the remedy if, once in office, Hillary Clinton extended her office not only to make calls but also to approve policy and financial arrangements worth billions back to these countries? How will the American people ever be satisfied we are getting her undivided loyalty? No matter how much she protests, her judgment would be questioned as influenced by gratitude toward the foundation’s wealthy patrons. And, of course, a president cannot recuse himself or herself from dealings, so there is no practical way to avoid the conflict.


It is bad enough when Clinton takes gobs of money in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, oil and chemical companies, and other titans of industry — although that, too, raises the potential for conflicts of interest. But a foreign government should never have any claim on the loyalty of a U.S. president, which is why foreign donations directly to a campaign are illegal. We cannot give her a pass simply because her entity is a “foundation,” not a PAC or campaign entity.


There is no conceivable way, I would suggest, that the foundation can keep the foreign monies if she wants to run for president. It is unseemly in the extreme and raises potential for liability down the road. But even if she were now to give all the money back, she has had use of the money in the meantime (the time value of money is something, after all). More important, her egregious judgment and untrammeled greed raise real questions about her priorities and ethics. Republicans should and will, I predict, pummel her with this. If the MSM is not entirely in her pocket, they will as well. Imagine if Jeb Bush’s education foundation took millions from Saudi Arabia. Surely there would be cries for him to withdraw from presidential pre-campaigning.

The irony here is that it is not the “Israel lobby” that buys influence. It is Arab states that lavishly fund universities and think tanks. And now they are buying a president. I await with baited breath the outrage from Tom Friedman and the other Israel-bashers who accuse lawmakers of being bought and paid for by Israel. Or do the rules just apply to Israel?
Hillary, give the money back. Or don’t run. You can’t keep the money and run.

______________________________________________

The Aspen Institute and the Roosvelt Institute---you know, those far-right ONE WORLD posing as FDR left-leaning groups----writing public policy for CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS have had WE THE PEOPLE out demanding GET THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS----this policy was written by corporations to open the door to ELECTION REFORM. The same was done for the Glass Steagall banking deregulation----they tied that to JOBS JOBS JOBS ACCESS TO LOANS ACCESS TO LOANS. Then they did that to health care reform. They allow these structures to get so absurd ---that people want change---and KNOW WHAT? CONGRESS IS FULL OF NOTHING BUT 1% WALL STREET GLOBAL CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA----working for global corporate reforms.
THIS HAS BEEN A PATTERN THROUGHOUT THESE FEW DECADES OF CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM -----THEY PREY ON OUR LEFT-LEANING ISSUES TO BRING OUT POLICY COMPLETELY FAR-RIGHT EXTREME WEALTH AND EXTREME POVERTY.
We do not want them AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION ---WE WANT THEM TO ENFORCE ELECTION LAWS ALREADY ON THE BOOKS.


Do you think the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens' United was done just to create these issues? All Congress had to do was changed the Supreme Courts' ruling as ignoring a century of court precedent ----then impeach if they did not change the ruling. THAT IS FOR WHAT OUR CHECKS AND BALANCES were written.


WAKE UP------KNOW FAR-RIGHT WALL STREET POLS ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THESE GOALS.

Poll Shows Americans Favor an Overhaul of Campaign Financing
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MEGAN THEE-BRENANJUNE 2, 2015

Danielle Greene, left, and Jennifer Vassil at a Washington rally in January calling for an end to corporate money in politics. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.
The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by “super PACs” and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.
And by a significant margin, they reject the argument that underpins close to four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance: that political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Even self-identified Republicans are evenly split on the question.

“I think it’s an obscene thing the Supreme Court did,” Terri Holland, 67, a former database manager who lives in Albuquerque, said in a follow-up interview. “The old-boy system is kind of dead, but now it’s the rich system. The rich decide what’s going to happen because the Supreme Court allows PACs to have civil rights.”
The poll provides one of the broadest and most detailed surveys of Americans’ attitudes toward the role of money in politics since the Citizens United decision five years ago. And the responses suggest a growing divide between the nation and its highest court on constitutional questions that have moved to the heart of the American system, as the advent of super PACs and the abandonment of public financing by both parties in presidential elections have enabled wealthy donors, corporations and unions to play a greater role in political fund-raising.
In recent years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has steadily chipped away at restrictions on political donations while narrowing the constitutional definition of corruption. In a series of decisions, the court has rejected the notion that the access and influence afforded big donors can justify further restrictions on campaign money, while dismissing concerns raised by the court’s liberal wing that unrestricted political money skews policy-making in favor of the wealthy.
The broader public appears to see things differently: More than four in five Americans say money plays too great a role in political campaigns, the poll found, while two-thirds say that the wealthy have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other Americans.


Document: A New York Times/CBS News Poll on Money and Politics Those concerns — and the divide between Washington elites and the rest of the country — extend to Republicans.
Three-quarters of self-identified Republicans support requiring more disclosure by outside spending organizations, for example, but Republican leaders in Congress have blocked legislation to require more disclosure by political nonprofit groups, which do not reveal the names of their donors.

Republicans in the poll were almost as likely as Democrats to favor further restrictions on campaign donations, even as some prominent Republicans call for legislation to eliminate existing caps on contributions.
“I think too much money is spent on campaigns, and it ends up being lopsided,” said Sonja Rhodes, 57, a retired secretary and a Republican from East Wenatchee, Wash. “They should pass a bill and instead of billions of dollars, spending should be limited to $10 million or so.”

PASS A BILL----IS THAT ALL WE NEED?  OF COURSE---NO NEED TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION

But Americans appear to be as inured to the role of money in campaigns as they are disillusioned by it, expressing a deep cynicism about the willingness of elected officials to fight the system they inhabit or to change the rules they have already mastered.
More than half of those surveyed said they were pessimistic that campaign finance rules would be improved. (Republicans and independents expressed more pessimism, while Democrats were evenly divided.) Over half of respondents said that the current rules equally benefit the Democratic and Republican Parties.
And virtually no one in the poll ranked campaign financing as the most important issue facing the country.
The nationwide telephone poll, conducted on landlines and cellphones May 28 to 31 with 1,022 adults, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.


Wearying of headlines about politicians who mix public life and personal enrichment — frequent flights on the private planes of billionaires, junkets paid for by corporate lobbyists and foreign governments, a high-end office redecoration billed to taxpayers — a number of respondents, in follow-up interviews, described political leaders as a kind of class apart.
“Candidates for political office are not in it just to serve the people; they also want the prestige and the perks,” said Elaine Mann, 69, a retiree from Alma, Ga. “They get so many little fringe benefits from being in office. Candidates should have to live for a period of time the way their average constituents live.”


Some, in the interviews, expressed a profound alienation from their own government. They said they did not expect elected officials to listen to them. They described politics as a province of the wealthy. And, despite being inundated with political advertising — and being repulsed by the billions of dollars required to pay for it — they said they sometimes did not feel informed enough to come to an opinion about the candidates.


Even if they do vote, the responses suggested, Americans do not believe they can overcome the political clout of people and organizations with money. Winning candidates, a majority in both parties said, usually promote the policies favored by their donors.
Who Is Running for President? “People with billions of dollars have a lot of influence with candidates that they help get elected,” Ms. Holland said. “You can see the dollar signs written on the wall.”
Yet few seem eager to participate in the country’s system for privately financed elections, even as fund-raising consumes more and more of elected officials’ time and energy. The vast majority of respondents said they had not given money to a candidate, party or other political organization during the past four years.
“It’s a very small percentage that has the most influence,” said John Carpenter, 60, a retired probation officer from Choctaw, Okla.
“Who do you think the candidate is going to listen to?” Mr. Carpenter added. “Your average taxpayer, or the head of a corporation who can write a check for a million dollars?”

When national media sell O'Malley as a left-leaning progressive Democrat and then O'Malley is selling national voters to model their city on Baltimore ---A FAR-RIGHT WALL STREET GLOBAL CORPORATE BUSH NEO-CONSERVATIVE CITY------that has been a global corporate plantation for several decades with that soaring during his tenure as Mayor of Baltimore----we see why Democratic voters have been totally confused by propaganda.  Baltimore IS that foreign economic zone that pays no attention to US Rule of Law, US Constitution, rights as citizens, has no public justice structure and politicians simply running to work for global Wall Street.  Absolutely no citizen structure in Baltimore.

All candidates in Baltimore running for city council or mayor are all shouting again----JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING. 

The referenda items I described yesterday are written to kill just that and they were passed by our current Baltimore City Council.  They are tying future affordable housing funding to Wall Street debt-----which will end in global investment firms controlling that money----and they are making charter changes that will create yet another authority' type committee to decide how affordable housing money is spent.  Same will come to our public transportation in Baltimore. 

DO YOU HEAR THOSE POLS ALL SAYING THEY ARE FOR STRONG PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING?  DO YOU HEAR THOSE CANDIDATES SHOUTING VOTE NO ON ALL ELECTION REFERENDA IN BALTIMORE?


'Baltimore Is Our Country'

Martin O'Malley's record as Baltimore mayor is key to his 2016 bid.



By Jamie Stiehm | Contributor June 2, 2015, at 10:35 a.m.

MORE
'Baltimore Is Our Country'

MORE In for 2016. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


BALTIMORE – Under full sun, Martin O'Malley launched his presidential campaign on Federal Hill, a tony waterfront neighborhood that calls up Baltimore's unlikely victory over a British bombardment in 1814. O'Malley just finished two terms as a liberal governor of Maryland and told upbeat stories about the state.
Yet all that seemed secondary standing on the ground of his own troubled city, recently racked by riots, curfews and the National Guard. The contradiction was on display Saturday when O'Malley lifted his voice over a chorus of protesters without skipping a beat. He did not speak the name of Freddie Gray, the young black man whose death in police custody provoked furious outcries here and across the nation. But it may follow wherever the trail takes him.


O'Malley made his name as an energetic young mayor who enlivened the city of rowhouses and drove down Baltimore's murder rate. That was the short story of his political life for seven years, before becoming governor in 2007. Then in April, riots in West Baltimore over Gray's death forced a racial reckoning. The national conversation in its wake tarnished O'Malley's luster as a leader of both Baltimores – black and white. The Democrat's rising arc met a storm about his record as mayor, his most prized political asset.


Few candidates have faced such rough sea changes upon entering the race to the White House. In an irony befitting his mercurial wit, O'Malley's vaunted mayorship may now be his biggest burden. On the stump, he'll be pressed to explain urban street scenes he found "heartbreaking" as he defines his place between mainstream Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist.

As a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun when O'Malley ran for and served as mayor, I felt the sense of siege within the city walls. The murder rate felt like a medieval plague. Not even his wife Katie (now a judge) thought he should seek the highest office in a predominantly African-American city. But he had political dreams inspired by Jack Kennedy, who died the year he was born, 1963. Covering black voting precincts on Election Day, I phoned in reports they were voting for O'Malley to succeed Kurt Schmoke in an open seat. And this is why: O'Malley grasped the Baltimore's murder rate was killing, literally, black communities far more than white communities. Young black men were victimized most of all. He vowed to fight the dizzying number of 300 murders a year with New York's "zero tolerance" police model. In a city of contrasts, he came across as pretty colorblind. He also took things personally. Early on, he held a citizen referendum on the colors of the dilapidated Howard Street Bridge.


O'Malley was a natural at city hall, his restless impatience awakening a city Southern in history and character. He imposed his system on agencies, CitiStat, that measured what they got done in open session. If city workers weren't thrilled, most people of Baltimore were grateful for a sense of urgency. Most accepted that cracking down on small crimes and stepping up arrests was the new way forward. Whether it was aggression or vigilance by city police officers, the crime-fighting strategy worked. As O'Malley relentlessly rode police leaders, the murder rate went south over time. The human cost came back to haunt years later.


Gray's sadsack neighborhood, Sandtown, was a lively place when Thurgood Marshall, the late Supreme Court Justice, grew up there during the old Jim Crow days. Gray seemed to represent inescapable woes of his social class, afflicted with lead poisoning and a drug-addicted mother as a child. With his death, by spinal injury, came news hard for the nation to believe: Toward the end of O'Malley's watch, in a single year, the Baltimore police department arrested 100,000 people in a city of about 640,000. By the mayor's lights, a ridiculous homicide rate led to a staggering number of arrests. 

In 2006, O'Malley's last year in office, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Baltimore for massive arrests, often with no probable cause. Brutality on the police force was a further instigating factor. The suit was settled in a court agreement with the city paying a sum close to $1 million. Thanks to the Dickensien vision of television writer David Simon, a former Sun crime reporter who dramatized the city in television dramas – notably, HBO's "The Wire" – Baltimore's grim homicide scene was already fast becoming lore.
So despite the shining scene, the telegenic family of four children, the outlook is cloudy for the 52-year-old candidate past his wunderkind days.


But he loves a good fight. More to his credit, O'Malley has kept a keen sense of fun. He'll tell the story of the Battle of Baltimore, which he has re-enacted in period soldier dress, if you ask. It was the city's first date with civic glory, and its last for quite a while. "The Star-Spangled Banner" lyrics were written there by a wealthy lawyer and slaveowner, Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the battle smoke clear in the crepuscular sky.
To build school spirit in a troubled city, O'Malley splashed "The Greatest City in America" on bus stop benches. He spent money to light up church spires at night and visited the famed block of Jewish delis in East Baltimore. CitiStat couldn't measure morale, but it was moving in the right direction. Sheer joy marched on the streets of West Baltimore when O'Malley founded a birthday parade for Martin Luther King Jr.

I witnessed O'Malley's ups and downs, from the command bunker bracing for a hurricane to his penchant for Irish history and song. Amid Baltimore's sea of marble steps, he shed tears of rage at a vigil for the Dawson family that lost their lives to arson. Once we spoke about Celtic emancipation and Frederick Douglass at City Hall. He loves Douglass, who worked on the Fells Point waterfront as a slave, as much as anybody I know.

The crowd-pleasing Irish rock band, O'Malley's March, showcases another O'Malley gift. The lead singer on guitar, he has performed all over Baltimore's taverns, art festivals and at the White House. He cuts a figure, not unlike the fiddle-playing politicians of old Appalachia. I remember city council members advising him not to give up singing and songwriting when he ascended to Annapolis. At his inaugural as governor, after defeating Republican incumbent Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the band played Bob Dylan's messaging classic, "The Times They Are a-Changin."


The folk anthem accents that O'Malley is not a child of the '60s, like Hillary Clinton's Baby Boomer set, but rather a child in the '60s, (like President Barack Obama). His presidential announcement stressed the generational theme and saving the American dream. The two Democrats in the 2016 cycle are from different generations. O'Malley can claim he endorsed Clinton in 2008, as other Democratic men deserted her in droves, to underline how long she's been around while he governed Maryland. She is 67.

In retrospect, O'Malley's police policies clearly ran amok by the time he left city government. Yet he surmounted bringing the homicide rate down, which is a way of saying that black lives matter. Police brutality and profound poverty remain on burning Baltimore's divided streets, which he must acknowledge. Whether he will take his share of the blame is doubtful. On his first official day as a presidential hopeful, he was elliptical. "Baltimore is our country," he declared on the hill. "From extreme poverty comes extreme violence."
As a reporter who witnessed O'Malley in that checkered country, it's fair to say he got stuff done.

______________________________________
Here is the Wall Street global investment firm attached to our Baltimore Housing Authority and being touted as building affordable housing in the Hollins UMMS district.  Here we see some seniors and disabled.  This global investment firm owns the real estate and manages it.  UMMS is slated to be that same East Baltimore Johns Hopkins campus that will displace all citizens and take communities to being that UMMS global corporate campus.  This private development is now taking place of our public senior retirement centers and public housing.  All public housing highrises were privatize to these same global investment firms---one could think that Community Preservation is one of those PROPRIETARY partners in our public housing privatization and then surfaces as a private owner of affordable housing.  Know how quickly that can and will be resourced as UMMS global corporate campus mirrors Hopkins? 

THIS IS NOT REAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING----CITIZENS ALLOWED TO LIVE THERE HAVE NO RIGHTS OR GUARANTEES TO HOUSING STABILITY.

This happens to be to where our Green Party candidate Joshua Harris is tied------I think he is employed by this global Wall Street firm trying to pretend to replace existing senior housing.  The East Baltimore Hopkins campus displaced thousands of citizens many seniors in exchange for senior facilities for a few hundred citizens.  This is how our citizens are held captive in voting---so few housing options make pay-to-play easy.





Community Preservation and Development Corporation Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization

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Phone:
(202) 895-8900
In Care of: The Corporation
Address:
5513 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20015-2647

Community Preservation and Development Corporation is a Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization in Washington, District of Columbia. In 1990, it received its exempt organization status from the IRS and now brings in $2.98M in annual income, primarily through program revenue.

Financial Summary

• With $2.98M in income, Community Preservation and Development Corporation is larger than the average Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization in the United States (where median income is $336,890).

• The average Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization brought in 1.54% more income in 2014 than they did in 2013. This organization, similarly, saw a 14.12% increase in income in 2014.

Creating affordable housing for seniors, the disabled can help transform Baltimore neighborhoods

May 2, 2016, 6:52am EDT Updated May 2, 2016, 11:07am EDT




J. Michael Pitchford Contributing ColumnistBizspace Spotlight
Two years ago, when Baltimore announced it was partnering with private developers like Community Preservation and Development Corp. to revitalize the city’s stock of public housing, many residents living in the poorest sections of Baltimore were rightfully skeptical that it would improve their lives.
Residents like Velveeta Jones and Timothy Prunty feared that the new Rental Assistance Demonstration program was a bad deal that would push them out of their homes and leave them behind.

Today, as we break ground to redevelop Hollins House in Baltimore, those residents have become highly engaged community members who are proud to live here. Amid a frenzy of revitalization in the city, Hollins House offers affordable rental units to seniors and people with disabilities in the historic neighborhood of Hollins Market. It is one of the first housing redevelopments to take place via the rental assistance program with the Housing Authority of Baltimore.


And because of the way we’re redeveloping this property, not only do longtime residents like Jones and Prunty no longer have to worry about being displaced, they now have a say in what “home” looks like.
In addition to Community Preservation and Development Corp.’s $10 million investment to renovate Hollins House, we are asking residents what services they need to be successful and lead healthier lives; and we’re helping connect them to resources and empower them with knowledge to make that happen. Given the positive reactions from residents, we believe our approach could serve as an example for Baltimore on how to revitalize housing in a way that builds community and supports residents’ needs.
We know we have to make it easier for those with limited incomes to find a home in a safe community. But we also know that community developers must focus on much more than just housing if we are to transform communities in meaningful and enduring ways.

Affordable housing developers like the Community Preservation and Development Corp., with our ability to partner with a range of stakeholders, are well-positioned to help residents thrive by connecting them with better ways to access medical care, earn living wages, and buy and/or grow healthy foods for their families.

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Baltimore has the most regressive and repressive economic structure in the nation.  Every aspect of our economy is tied to Wall Street Baltimore Development/Johns Hopkins and this is what killed each communities' local economy with no way to rebuild them.  Hopkins' makes sure if any economy is built it is tied to Hopkins' endowment and/or partnered with Hopkins. 

For a few decades Manor Care----a major senior living facility was handed to GLOBAL HEDGE FUND CARLYLE GROUP----that is Bush/Clinton et al.  This replaced a public health system of clinics, senior care, low-income clinics, and public hospitals.  All were allowed to decay and fall to poor service THEN NEEDING TO BE PRIVATIZED TO OPERATE EFFICIENTLY.

That is what Community Preservation and Development Corporation is----it is funded by these same global hedge funds-----all transactions will be kept proprietary and the real estate privatized while it offers what looks to be addressing needs of poor, seniors, and disabled.

Know who works as ground keepers at UMMS?  A disabled group of citizens no doubt living in these facilities---GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS LIVING, EATING, WORKING, BE SCHOOLED---UMMS will not be a state university system for long---it will become enfolded into a global Johns Hopkins and this is what will become that worker housing.


Community Preservation and Development Corp.


Overview

Income
$2.98
million
Assets
$12.1
million
Income YoY % Change
14.12%
Asset YoY % Change
-3.21%Percent changes shown are from 2013 to 2014.

Financial Summary

• With $2.98M in income, Community Preservation and Development Corporation is larger than the average Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization in the United States (where median income is $336,890).

• The average Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization brought in 1.54% more income in 2014 than they did in 2013. This organization, similarly, saw a 14.12% increase in income in 2014.

IRS Information

• Community Preservation and Development Corporation is a registered tax-exempt organization with the IRS.
• The organization was required to file a Form 990 or 990EZ with the IRS for the most recent tax year.

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Income & Expenses
Income

In 2013, this organization filed a Form 990 with the IRS, reporting $2,609,135 in income. See below for more information on the organization's funding sources.

Income Breakdown Over Time
Income Growth Driven by Increase in Program RevenueIn 2013, Community Preservation and Development Corporation reported $2.61M in income, up 32% from the previous year. This growth can primarily be attributed to an increase in program revenue, which jumped $497,815 from 2012 to 2013. Over the same time period, the organization also saw a notable 196% increase in investment income.

Funded Primarily by Program RevenueLike most Housing Development, Construction And Management Organizations in its peer group, Community Preservation and Development Corporation is funded primarily through program revenue. The organization is highly dependent on this type of funding, as it accounts for 74% of total income.

******************************************************

Expenses

In 2013, this organization filed a Form 990 with the IRS, reporting $3,071,200 in total expenses. See below for more information on expense breakdown.

Expenses Breakdown

• In 2013, Community Preservation and Development Corporation's expenses grew more slowly than income: expenses increased by only 17%, while income increased by 32%.

• The organization's primary cost driver is personnel, which accounted for 49% of total expenses in 2013. This is fairly atypical for a Housing Development, Construction And Management Organization of this size: other organizations in this peer group spent most of their budget on unclassified expenses.

• The organization did not report any grant expenses to the IRS in 2013. This indicates that the organization provides help through direct services rather than grants.

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Compensation

Compensation costs include salaries of officers, directors, and employees from this organization's Form 990 filed in 2013. Personnel costs include compensation costs plus pension plan contributions and other employee benefits.

Median Personnel Cost Ratio
Personnel Cost Ratio
Compensation Costs
$1.27
million
Total Personnel Costs
$1.51
million
Personnel Cost Ratio

49.1%Community Preservation and Development Corporation spent 49.10% of its expenses on personnel costs in 2013. This is:

• In line with other nonprofits in Silver Spring, Maryland (where the typical organization spends 38.60% of its total expenses on personnel)
• Significantly more than similarly sized Housing Development, Construction And Management Organizations nationwide (where the typical organization spends 25.70% of its total expenses on personnel)

***********************************************************
Financial Health


Financial health metrics are calculated using financial data from this organization's Form 990.

Asset BreakdownAnalysis of asset mix can help to identify the resources available to deliver future services.

2013 Asset Breakdown
LiquidityLiquidity refers to the ability of a nonprofit to pay its obligations on time.

OrganizationPeer Group Median% DifferenceCurrent Ratio58.297.88639.72%
Days Cash on Hand278101175.25%

• Current Ratio: Community Preservation and Development Corporation has a current ratio of 58.29. A ratio above 1 suggests that the organization would be able to pay off its obligations if they became due immediately.
• Days Cash on Hand: If they were to stop receiving revenue, the organization could continue to pay the bills for around 9 months. Generally at least three months of cash on hand is desirable.

Leverage

Leverage measures how much of a nonprofit's assets are funded by other people's money. It is calculated by dividing liabilities by assets.

Organization

Peer Group Median% DifferenceLeverage0.220.46-52.17%

• Leverage: Community Preservation and Development Corporation is not as highly levered as other similarly sized Housing Development, Construction And Management Organizations. This is a positive indicator of financial health.

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Profitability & Moneymaking Activities

Functional Revenues vs. Expenses
Profit Margin
Profitability

With a $462,065 loss and a -17.7% profit margin in 2013, Community Preservation and Development Corporation was not profitable.
While nonprofit performance is not measured by profitability as it is in the private sector, a low margin could indicate financial distress or vulnerability.

Total Functional Revenue
$2.61
million
Total Functional Expenses
$3.07
million
Profit
-$462,065
Profit Margin

-17.7%
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I like to include articles like this to remind citizens from where all that private equity corporation is getting the revenue it is now installing in our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.

Here we have the Carlyle Group owning our Manor Care senior care------these private equity firms now being called AFFORDABLE HOUSING NON-PROFITS-----are not building for WE THE PEOPLE-----we are more likely to be in that workers' dormitory or sharing space with 3-4 other families-----that's what ONE WORLD FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES DO.

This is long so please glance through to the next article:


Behind Private Equity’s Curtain

By GRETCHEN MORGENSONOCT. 18, 2014
Credit Minh Uong/The New York Times


From New York to California, Wisconsin to Texas, hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees are relying on their pensions for financial security.

Private equity firms are relying on their pensions, too. Over the last 10 years, pension funds have piled into private equity buyout funds. But in exchange for what they hope will be hefty returns, many pension funds have signed onto a kind of omerta, or code of silence, about the terms of the funds’ investments.
Consider a recent legal battle involving the Carlyle Group.
In August, Carlyle settled a lawsuit contending that it and other large buyout firms had colluded to suppress the share prices of companies they were acquiring. The lawsuit ensnared some big names in private equity — Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG, as well as Carlyle — but one by one the firms settled, without admitting wrongdoing. Carlyle agreed to pay $115 million in the settlement. But the firm didn’t shoulder those costs. Nor did Carlyle executives or shareholders.
Instead, investors in Carlyle Partners IV, a $7.8 billion buyout fund started in 2004, will bear the settlement costs that are not covered by insurance. Those investors include retired state and city employees in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Texas and 10 other states. Five New York City and state pensions are among them.


Continue reading the main story

The retirees — and people who are currently working but have accrued benefits in those pension funds -- probably don’t know that they are responsible for these costs. It would be very hard for them to find out: Their legal obligations are detailed in private equity documents that are confidential and off limits to pensioners and others interested in seeing them.

Maintaining confidentiality in private equity agreements is imperative, said Christopher W. Ullman, a Carlyle spokesman. In a statement, he said disclosure “would cause substantial competitive harm.” He added: “These are voluntarily negotiated agreements between sophisticated investors advised by skilled legal counsel. The agreements and other relevant information about the funds are available to federal regulators and auditors.”

Mr. Ullman declined to discuss why Carlyle’s fund investors were being charged for the settlement. But at least one pension fund supervisor is unhappy about the requirement that municipal employees and retirees pay part of that settlement cost.

“This is an overreach on Carlyle’s part, and frankly it violates the spirit of the indemnification clause of our contract,” said Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, who oversees the three city pension funds involved in the Carlyle deal. Mr. Stringer was not comptroller when the Carlyle investment was made.
Private equity firms now manage $3.5 trillion in assets. The firms overseeing these funds borrow money or raise it from investors to buy troubled or inefficient companies. Then they try to turn the companies around and sell at a profit.
For much of the last decade, private equity funds have been a great investment. For the 10 years ended in March 2014, private equity generated returns of 17.3 percent, annualized, according to Preqin, an alternative-investment research firm. That compares with 7.4 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.


More recently, however, a simple investment in the broad stock market trounced private equity. For the five years through March, for example, private equity funds returned 14.7 percent, annualized, compared with 21.2 percent for the S.&.P. 500. One-year and three-year returns in private equity have also lagged.
Nonetheless, pension funds have jumped into these investments. Last year, 10 percent of public pension fund assets, or $260 billion, was invested in private equity, according to Cliffwater, a research firm. That was up from $241 billion in 2012.

But the terms of these deals — including what investors pay to participate in them — are hidden from view despite open-records laws requiring transparency from state governments, including the agencies that supervise public pensions.


Private equity giants like the Blackstone Group, TPG and Carlyle say that divulging the details of their agreements with investors would reveal trade secrets. Pension funds also refuse to disclose these documents, saying that if they were to release them, private equity firms would bar them from future investment opportunities.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, is the nation’s largest pension fund, with $300 billion in assets. In a statement, Calpers said it “accepts the confidentiality requirements of limited partnership agreements to facilitate investments with private equity general partners, who otherwise may not be willing to do business with Calpers.”
But critics say that without full disclosure, it’s impossible to know the true costs and risks of the investments.
“Hundreds of billions of public pension dollars have essentially been moved into secrecy accounts,” said Edward A.H. Siedle, a former lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission who, through his Benchmark Financial Services firm in Ocean Ridge, Fla., investigates money managers. “These documents are basically legal boilerplate, but it’s very damning legal boilerplate that sums up the fact that they are the highest-risk, highest-fee products ever devised by Wall Street.”


Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, is unhappy that city pension funds are obligated to pay part of a recent legal settlement reached by Carlyle. Credit Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Retirees whose pension funds invest in private equity funds are being harmed by this secrecy, Mr. Siedle said. By keeping these agreements under wraps, pensioners cannot know some important facts — for example, that a private equity firm may not always operate as a fiduciary on their behalf. Also hidden is the full panoply of fees that investors are actually paying as well as the terms dictating how much they are to receive after a fund closes down.
A full airing of private equity agreements and their effects on pensioners is past due, some state officials contend. The urgency increased this year, these officials say, after the S.E.C. began speaking out about improper practices and fees it had uncovered at many private equity firms.
One state official who has called for more transparency in private equity arrangements is Nathan A. Baskerville, a Democratic state representative from Vance County, N.C., in the north-central part of the state. In the spring, he supported a bipartisan bill that would have required Janet Cowell, the North Carolina state treasurer, to disclose all fees and relevant documents involving the state’s private equity investments. The $90 billion Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System pension has almost 6 percent of its funds in private equity deals.

The transparency bill did not pass the General Assembly before it adjourned for the summer. Mr. Baskerville says he intends to revive the bill early next year.
“Fees are not trade secrets,” he said. “It’s entirely reasonable for us to know what we’re paying.”


Reams of Redactions


It might help investors to know the fees they are paying, but when it comes to private equity, it’s hard to find out.
Consider the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, which holds the retirement savings of 160,000 teachers and retirees. It invested in a buyout fund called Carlyle Partners V, which was Carlyle’s biggest domestic offering ever, raising $13.7 billion in 2007. Companies acquired by its managers included HCR ManorCare, a nursing home operator; Beats Electronics, the headphone maker that was recently sold to Apple for $3 billion; and Getty Images, a photo and video archive.


Earlier this year, The New York Times made an open-records request to that pension system for a copy of the limited partnership agreement with the Carlyle fund. In response, the pension sent a heavily redacted document — 108 of its 141 pages were either entirely or mostly blacked out. Carlyle ordered the redactions, according to Lisa Honore, the pension’s public information director.
The Times also obtained an unredacted version of the Carlyle V partnership agreement. Comparing the two documents brings into focus what private equity firms are keeping from public view.
Many of the blacked-out sections cover banalities that could hardly be considered trade secrets. The document redacted the dates of the fund’s fiscal year (the calendar year starting when the deal closed), when investors must pay the management fee to the fund’s operators (each Jan. 1 and July 1), and the name of the fund’s counsel (Simpson Thacher & Bartlett).


But other redactions go to the heart of the fund’s economics. They include all the fees investors pay to participate in the fund, as well as how much they will receive over all from the investment. The terms of that second provision, known as a clawback, determine how much money investors will get after the fund is wound down.
In the Louisiana pension fund’s version of the partnership agreement, that section was blacked out. But the clean copy discloses an important provision reducing the amount to be paid to investors.
In order to calculate their total investment returns generated by private equity deals, outside investors must wait until all the companies held in these portfolios have been sold. Any profits above and beyond the 20 percent taken by the general partners overseeing the private equity firms are considered excess gains and are supposed to be returned to investors.
But the Carlyle agreement includes language stating that general partners must return to investors only the after-tax amount of any excess gains. Assuming a 40 percent tax rate, this means that if general partners in the fund each received $2 million in excess distributions, they would have to repay the investors only $1.2 million each. That’s bad news for the funds’ investors: They would lose out on $800,000 in repayments for each partner.
Mr. Ullman of Carlyle declined to comment on this provision.
Also blacked out in the Carlyle V agreement is a section on who will pay legal costs associated with fund operations. First on the hook are companies bought by the fund and held in its portfolio, the unredacted agreement says. That essentially makes investors pay, because money taken from portfolio companies is ultimately extracted from the funds’ investors.
But if for some reason those portfolio companies cannot pay, the Carlyle V document says, investors will be asked to cover the remaining expenses. This may require an investor to return money already received — such as excess returns — after a fund has closed, the agreement explains. One way or another, the general partners are protected — and the fund investors, who included tens of thousands of retirees, are responsible for paying the bill. (By contrast, in mutual funds, which are required to make public disclosures and have independent directors, investors are far less likely to be stuck with such costs.)
The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System holds $150 million in investments in each of the Carlyle IV and V funds. Asked about the requirement to pay the legal settlement costs, a spokesman, Michael Pramik, said he understood why such a question would be raised, but declined to comment.


Document Redacted Carlyle Partners Limited Partnership Agreement

Private equity firms demand strict confidentiality from investors regarding fund documents, contending that they would reveal trade secrets if disclosed. Investors in private equity deals agree to these requests by heavily redacting broad sections of fund documents. An example of how extensive these redactions can be is apparent in this Carlyle Partners V limited partnership agreement.


OPEN Document Another blacked-out section in the Carlyle V agreement dictates how an investor, like a pension fund, also known as a limited partner, should respond to open-records requests about the fund. The clean version of the agreement strongly encourages fund investors to oppose such requests unless approved by the general partner.
Some pension funds have followed these instructions from private equity funds, even in states like Texas, which have sunshine laws that say “all government information is presumed to be available to the public.”
In mid-September, after receiving an information request about a private equity investment, the Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund denied the request. Doreen McGookey, its general counsel, also sent a letter to the buyout firm, Wynnchurch Capital, based near Chicago, notifying it of the request and instructing Wynnchurch how to deny it by writing to the Texas attorney general, according to a document obtained by The Times.
“If you wish to claim that the requested information is protected proprietary or trade secret information, then your private equity fund must send a brief to the A.G. explaining why the information constitutes proprietary information,” Ms. McGookey’s letter states, adding that the pension “cannot argue this exception on your behalf.” Then the letter warned the private equity firm that if it decided not to submit a brief to the attorney general, that office “will presume that you have no proprietary interest or trade secret information” at stake.
In an email, Ms. McGookey said Texas law required her to notify the private equity firm of the information request.
The Fort Worth pension is not alone in opposing open-records requests for private equity documents. Calpers has also done so. A big investor in private equity, with more than 10 percent of its assets held in such deals, it has put $300 million into the Carlyle IV fund — the fund that is levying investors for the $115 million legal settlement reached by Carlyle executives.
Earlier this year, Susan Webber, who publishes the Naked Capitalism financial website under the pseudonym Yves Smith, asked Calpers for data on the fund’s private equity returns. After a legal skirmish, Calpers said last week that it had fulfilled her request. But on Friday, Ms. Webber said Calpers had provided only a small fraction of the data.
Karl Olson is a partner at Ram Olson Cereghino & Kopczynski and the leading lawyer handling Freedom of Information Act litigation in California. He has sued Calpers several times, including a successful suit for the California First Amendment Coalition, in 2009, forcing Calpers to disclose fees paid to hedge fund, venture capital and private equity managers.


“I think it is unseemly and counterintuitive that these state officials who have billions of dollars to invest don’t drive a harder bargain with the private equity folks,” he said. “A lot of pension funds have the attitude that they are lucky to be able to give their money to these folks, which strikes me as bizarre and certainly not acting as prudent stewards of the public’s money.”
‘Not Open and Transparent’
Regulations require that registered investment advisers put their clients’ interests ahead of their own and that they operate under what is also known as a fiduciary duty. This protects investors from potential conflicts of interest and self-dealing by those managers. This is true of mutual funds, which are also required to make public disclosures detailing their practices.
But, as a lawsuit against Kohlberg Kravis Roberts shows, private equity managers can try to exempt themselves from operating as a fiduciary.
The case involves Christ Church Cathedral of Indianapolis, which contends that it lost $13 million, or 37 percent, of its endowment because of inappropriate and risky investments, including holdings in hedge funds and private equity deals. The church sued JPMorgan Chase, its former financial adviser, for recommending those investments.


JPMorgan Chase said in a statement that despite market turmoil, “Christ Church’s overall portfolio had a positive return for 2008-2013, the time period covered by the complaint.”
Christ Church’s private equity foray included a small interest in K.K.R. North America Fund XI, a 2012 offering that raised around $6 billion. K.K.R., the fund’s general partner, can “reduce or eliminate the duties, including fiduciary duties to the fund and the limited partners to which the general partner would otherwise be subject,” the fund’s limited partnership agreement says. Eliminating the general partner’s fiduciary duty to investors in the private equity fund limits remedies available to the church if a breach of fiduciary duty should occur, the church’s lawsuit said.
Kristi Huller, a spokeswoman for K.K.R., initially denied that it could reduce or eliminate its fiduciary duties. But after being presented with an excerpt from the agreement, she acknowledged that its language allowed “a modification of our fiduciary duties.”


Linda L. Pence, a partner at Pence Hensel, a law firm in Indianapolis, represents the church’s endowment in the suit. She said she had been shocked by the secrecy surrounding some of her clients’ investments. “On one hand they say they don’t owe you the duty,” she said, “but everything is so confidential with these investments that without a court order, you don’t have any idea what they’re doing. It’s not open and transparent, and that’s the kind of structure to me that’s ripe for abuse.”
Some investors who are privy to the confidential agreements have walked away from these deals. A recent survey of institutional investors by Preqin, the research firm, found that 61 percent indicated that they had turned down a private equity investment because of unfavorable terms.
“It is apparent that private equity fund managers are not doing enough to appease their institutional backers with regards to the fees they charge,” Preqin said.
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Maryland BioPark at UMMS is the same East Baltimore development for Hopkins and we are hearing the same activism around fair housing here as twenty years ago.  When we see a private equity firm handed public housing in that area and we see these protests----we already know the only affordable housing again will be student housing attached to that UMMS campus and those students will be part of a year's long apprenticeship program tied to free labor for these global corporations.  Remember, some K-12 will be apprenticed at 6th grade----some 8th grade----and then they will enter that vocational tracking certification process called COMMUNITY COLLEGE replacing high school.  Those students who are advanced placement and are admitted to these IVY LEAGUE university complexes competing against global student applicants will then fall into that dormatory,eat, live, work, get schooled platform that will continue through their adulthood. 

All of these communities surrounding UMMS will fall into this global corporate campus.  Not many residents stay----and since there is no longer any public housing structure----when this private equity group finishes using Federal, state, and local funding to rebuild these once public structures they will go luxury.

No Trivia: Residents, activists, and Joshua Harris bang the drum for Poe Homes

Credit: J.M. Giordano

Brandon SoderbergContact Reporter

No Trivia

In Baltimore, a curious kind of apartheid city, the haves and have-nots are often neighbors. And sometimes, those neighbors air their grievances on each other's doorsteps and bring a drumline along to ensure they're heard.
Consider the frequently ignored Poe Homes community, just a short walk from the University of Maryland BioPark, whose developer, Wexford Science and Technology, was recently given $17.5 million in tax increment financing (TIF) by the City Council.

The walk from the Poppleton housing project to the BioPark is so short that on Tuesday afternoon, a group of Poe Homes residents, along with local activists and, eventually, a robust drumline, gathered down the street and marched to the front door of one of the BioPark's buildings, in protest of developers getting more money while Poe Homes is continually divested.


Before the march, around 3 p.m., residents and activists convened at the Poe Homes Community Center where, among others, Joshua Harris, a community activist and Green Party candidate for mayor spoke.
"We sit here just one block away from massive amounts of wealth. Last spring, our city experienced unrest that was heard around the world," Harris said. "And I believe that unrest was caused by juxtapositions between massive amounts of wealth and massive amounts of poverty."
Around 3:30 p.m., the group of about 40 left the Poe Homes Community Center and marched to the BioPark building at 801 W. Baltimore Street with signs that read "We demand fair & inclusive development," "We don't have millions but our voices matter," and "Enough with corporate welfare, it ends now." Leo Burroughs, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Citizens, led the group up and down a small section of West Baltimore Street near the building's entrance. There were chants invoking Jim Crow and frustrated shouts about the millions of dollars out of the neighborhood's reach.
Activists say the BioPark, Wexford, and the City Council excluded representatives of Poe Homes, who had requested a "community benefits agreement" that would have solidified investment in Poe Homes. And according to a Change.org petition tied to the protest, the UMD BioPark has not followed through on "promises to create jobs and help to address issues of poverty."

Harris, who lives near Hollins Market, has been working on the TIF issue for the last year or so. He has had meeting with residents, the City Council, and those connected to the BioPark, arguing that the commmunity needed to be involved. He told City Paper: "Why after months of meeting with Poe community members and making verbal commitments were the requests not included?"

The approval of this TIF, and rejection of the involvement of Poe Homes community leaders in the decisions surrounding it, is further evidence of how one-sided the relationship between the BioPark and its nearest neighbors remains, he says.
"Wexford Science and Technology, the developer for the BioPark, is owned by Blackstone, who generated $7.5 billion in revenue in 2014 and has $31.5 billion in total assets. They did not need our tax dollars to complete the project," Harris says. "The project also did not meet the City's 'But For' policy, which says that if a project can be financed without the city then a TIF will not be granted. So again, our schools do not have heat and our roads need repair, so why is our council so swift to give our tax dollars to billionaires?"


This is the kind of toxic neoliberal logic that dominates Baltimore policy, by the way: Generous tax breaks to, say, Hollywood so it shoots its television shows here (often using Baltimore as a stand-in for D.C.) and most absurdly, far too kind tax breaks for downtown developers, which last year resulted in a loss of school aid for the city (the Sun's Luke Broadwater has been all over this topic for awhile now). On Monday, there was the City Council's brisk, preliminary approval of tax breaks for artists performing at Royal Farms Arena (one of the most profitable arena of its size in the United States)—though yesterday this vote was delayed after a flurry of outrage.


Around 4:10 p.m., Tuesday's protest got livelier. A few members of the Baltimore Christian Warriors Marching Band, led by a young girl holding a sign that read "The Bio Park was built on the backs of Poe Homes," marched toward the BioPark. This mini drumline's appearance perked up the protest—one activist excitedly danced and even put his hands up Ozzy-style and headbanged to the performance—and got the attention of passersby, police observing the protest, and even an HBO documentary crew who briefly swung through the protest and swiped some shots for their seemingly imminent Baltimore post-Uprising protest film.
A drum line performs at a protest outside the University of Maryland BioPark.
Diane Smith, who was part of the protest and was petitioning for more jobs in the area, admired the drumline and bemoaned the lack of options for children in the area.
"The young kids have nothing to do, they have no recs to go to, they have no jobs," she said. "They have all this free time, so they sell drugs or kill one another."

Paula Colgate, a Pikesville resident who brings her kids back into the city "twice a week to march," praised the Baltimore Christian Warriors Marching Band as an example of the kind of investment the city needs to make.


"They need some funds down here—new uniforms. Fix some of the playgrounds for the little kids." she said. "[A lack of investment is why] these kids get into that street life."

Harris could not attend the actual protest—he had to briefly bounce back to his day job and then head over to Mount Vernon to for a 6 p.m. mayoral forum at MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society.
Amid a dreadfully boring and boilerplate forum Tuesday, Harris mentioned the protest and highlighted his work along with the Poe Homes community in challenging this TIF—just one example of the uneven "distribution of capital" plaguing Baltimore, he explained.
"$17.5 million gifted to wealthy developers," Harris scoffed, though he kept a mayoral smile on his face the whole time.
_____________________________________
'Shantress Wise is pictured in her apartment in Belair-Edison. She made the living room into a bedroom for herself, so three people can live in the apartment and share the rent payment'.
Here we see yet more Wall Street Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations speaking for our citizens. These are the groups sending affordable housing out to other counties to move low-income citizens out of the city. Now, it is not a bad thing to want to reduce concentrations of poverty. Baltimore has these high numbers of poor because unlike the other cities listed in this article-----Baltimore chose to allow housing conditions, the local economy to deteriorate creating the large numbers of poor in the city----we never needed to have these high poverty figures---they are deliberately created.

We look at how this trust is justified by a Montgomery County policy for goodness sake. Montgomery County has had an affordable housing crisis for a decade or more because it is creating the same wealth dynamics as NYC and San Fran. So, where did that Montgomery County Trust send its revenue?
WE KNOW THESE REFERENDA CREATE IN BALTIMORE A CAPTURED PRIVATE, APPOINTED COMMITTEE STRUCTURE JUST LIKE BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT THAT WILL HAVE THE SAME GLOBAL INVESTMENT FIRMS DECIDE HOW, WHEN, WHERE, AND WHAT AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOOKS LIKE.
We want REAL affordable housing in REAL numbers in each community including city center. These groups know that is not the goal and are actively working for Wall Street Baltimore Development's goal


Montgomery County
Although Montgomery County served as a regional
model for affordable housing policy for many years, the
County has failed to keep pace with demand for affordable
units in recent years. Montgomery County’s primary
affordable housing challenges include: (1) missteps in the
management of the County’s inclusionary zoning program;
(2) lack of land available for new housing developments;
(3) an unwieldy network of affordable housing programs;
and (4) housing programs that exist in theory but that
provide no assistance to new applicants.


While the County’s inclusionary zoning program (the
“Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit” or “MPDU” program)
served as a nationwide model of its kind and enjoyed
considerable success, failure to retain the units it created
as affordable housing stock resulted in the program’s
near-demise.54 Today, with few large tracts of
undeveloped land available, the County can no longer
rely on the MPDU program to produce significant
numbers of new affordable units.55
Montgomery County operates public housing and rental
voucher programs, but these programs have lengthy
waiting lists, both of which are currently closed to new
applicants.56 Although these programs do provide some
affordable housing in the County, they currently provide
no assistance to new tenants and are unlikely to be
expanded in the future.


Despite the County’s history with the MPDU program,
local opposition to affordable housing continues to serve
as a barrier across the County. For example, the city of
Gaithersburg recently blocked the construction of
affordable housing in its downtown area by refusing
to support the developer’s request for Low Income
Housing Tax Credits.57 Although the City of Gaithersburg
provided various reasons for its decision to block the
developer’s tax credit request, its use of this tactic raises
concerns about possible civil rights implications. Other
towns in Maryland have similarly prevented affordable
housing developments from being built when faced
with opposition from neighbors of the proposed
development. In 2014, the Maryland legislature finally
passed a bill repealing the requirement that a developer
secure local approval to be eligible for Low Income
Housing Tax Credits.


Montgomery County’s inclusionary zoning
program served as a nationwide model,
but failure to retain the units it created as
affordable housing stock resulted in the
program’s near-demise.

I spoke of the new corporation that makes HOSTELS of once rental housing in our city center......there we have as many as 6 college students in a one bedroom doing the same this citizen is being made to do to afford living in what is third world community decay


'Shantress Wise is pictured in her apartment in Belair-Edison. She made the living room into a bedroom for herself, so three people can live in the apartment and share the rent payment'.


WALL STREET THINKS IT FUNNY HAVING THE MIDDLE-CLASS LIVING IN A CLOSET SPACE-----that is to where this is going.


Affordable housing advocates push for trust fund, money to fill it

Shantress Wise, a renter who shares an apartment with two other renters, talks about the proposed charter amendment to create an affordable housing trust fund to help supplement the creation of more affordable housing units in Baltimore. (Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun video)

Yvonne WengerContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun


Advocates ask voters to sign off on an account to create affordable housing. Funding it is another matter.Baltimore voters will be asked in November to approve the creation of a trust fund to develop and maintain housing that extremely low-income residents can afford. But that is only a first step. If the fund were approved, advocates still would have to persuade city officials to put money in it.
A coalition of affordable-housing activists is looking for potential sources of revenue. As they work to persuade voters to approve the trust fund, they are also floating ideas such as a new tax on vacation rentals and dedicating public bonds to fill it.
Odette Ramos, a chief backer of the proposed charter amendment, says the point of the fund would be to reduce the number of homeless people in Baltimore and to help more families become self-sufficient.


"There is a housing crisis in Baltimore," said Ramos, director of the Community Development Network of Maryland. "Doing nothing is not an option."


Shantress Wise, 42, lives on disability benefits. She stayed in shelters, family members' homes and halfway houses for years until she found two roommates to split the $750 rent for a two-bedroom apartment above a barbershop in the Belair-Edison neighborhood.

Baltimore will vote on affordable housing trust fund in November Wise said her bedroom — the apartment's living room — is cozy. But she dreams of a larger space where her four grandchildren could visit and have an area to play.
"I have struggled with housing," Wise said. She is a member of an advocacy group, United Workers, that helped gather the 10,000 signatures needed to get the ballot question before voters.
"An affordable housing trust fund would help everybody. It would help me a lot."
The charter amendment is written to be broad: Voters will be asked to sign off on an account that would pay for rental and owner-occupied housing created through new development, rehabilitation and land trusts.


Ramos said spending from the account would target some of Baltimore's poorest residents, such as renters who earn 30 percent or less of the median area income ($26,000 for a family of four) or homeowners who make 50 percent or less of the area median ($43,350 for a family of four).
Money could go to any of several endeavors, including offering credit counseling and homeownership workshops, and helping developers and nonprofits build houses, renovate homes or rehabilitate vacant ones. It also could support land trusts that can keep mortgages and rents low.
The city housing department would manage the fund in conjunction with a 12-member commission that would include a mayoral appointee, a lender, a social services provider, an advocate for the homeless, private and nonprofit developers, and low-income residents.
Shantress Wise is pictured in her apartment in Belair-Edison. She made the living room into a bedroom for herself, so three people can live in the apartment and share the rent payment.
(Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun)The timeline for distributing money would depend on when funding is identified, Ramos said. One proposal is to tax short-term home rentals used for vacations, similar to the tax on hotel rooms, she said.


Legislation now before the City Council would require developers who receive public financing to include in their projects a certain amount of affordable housing. The bill is intended to replace the existing law, which requires the city to compensate developers forced to build affordable housing, and is universally regarded as ineffective.
Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said she supports both the legislation and the charter amendment. She said Baltimore must take steps to address the need, including considering floating city bonds to pay for more affordable housing.
If voters approve the charter amendment, Clarke said, she expects the council will be open to finding ways to fund it.
"This is one of those big items that we need to address to move past the 'Two Baltimores' problem," she said. "We've been stuck for a while."
A new council and mayor will take control after the November election. About half the current council members are retiring, sought other office or lost in the April Democratic primary for mayor.
Clarke, who is up for re-election, said she expects the next council to be more resolved to address the city's lack of affordable housing. Several of the Democratic nominees have actively supported efforts to increase affordable housing in Baltimore.

Todd Cherkis, leadership organizer for the anti-poverty group United Workers, said advocates are meeting with council members and candidates to explain the proposed charter amendment and how the city could pay for more affordable housing.
The group sent dozens of volunteers across the city over six weeks to collect enough signatures to enable the question to appear on the ballot. Cherkis said the volunteers — including some of the Democratic nominees for council — gathered 18,100 signatures in support of the measure, well exceeding the 10,000 needed.
The coalition, known as Housing for All, includes the ACLU of Maryland, the Public Justice Center and the Community Law Center.
"A lot of renters are really struggling, and a lot of people are living in substandard conditions or living on the street," Cherkis said. "We have to make sure this is a priority."
Philip Garboden, an academic with the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at the Johns Hopkins University, said Baltimore has an "enormous affordability gap."
Unlike in cities such as Boston, San Francisco or Washington, he said, Baltimore's biggest affordable housing challenge is its extremely low-income population — not rapidly rising housing costs or a shortage of available units.


"Our rents aren't on the extreme end," Garboden said. "But that doesn't mean our affordability is any better because we have such poverty."


The trust fund idea is not novel. The state of Maryland and Montgomery County are among 750 jurisdictions nationwide that have established such accounts.
Shantress Wise is pictured in her apartment in Belair-Edison. She lives with two roommates in an apartment above a barber shop. She made the living room into a bedroom for herself, so three people can live in the apartment and share the rent.
(Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun)Maryland's Affordable Housing Trust, created in 1992, has received about $45 million through interest generated by title company escrows.


The account, which is managed by the state Department of Housing and Community Development, promotes housing for very low-income Marylanders by providing funding for construction, assistance for nonprofit developers, support services and operating costs for some developments.
Montgomery County's Housing Initiative Fund, created in 1988, is funded by a combination of sources, including property tax revenue and loan repayments. The account has a balance of about $44 million. The amount available for loans, grants and subsidies varies year by year.


Mary Brooks, who runs the housing trust fund project for the Washington-based Center for Community Change, said the trusts provide flexibility and local control, in contrast to funding provided by highly regulated federal programs.
"We know how to provide affordable housing," she said. "We are just not committing the resources to make it happen. The private market isn't addressing this at all. If it was, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. And federal funding, of course, is dwindling."
Antonia K. Fasanelli, director of the Homeless Persons Representation Project, said Baltimore is behind other cities in making sure people at all income levels have safe, quality and affordable places to live.
"This is critically needed," she said. "This is a way for Baltimore to step into the current urban thinking."

__________________________________________
I don't want our Baltimore City election referenda talk to be about the privatization of all that is public----but it is. From Charter Amendments to loans for affordable housing, from creating a Trust for affordable housing to creating a quasi-governmental corporation handling all activity on affordable housing----THAT IS WHAT BALTIMORE'S REFERENDA DO.

Obama started his term in 2009 by making clear---he was following the CLINTON/BUSH dismantling of our Federal Housing Agency and our HUD tied to funding these. Obama was the source of sending Federal funds to tie private equity firms to our public housing as the step to privatize them away. Obama then created these housing authority guidelines to promote partnerships like this in ENTERPRISE ZONES----calling them social benefit non-profits.
WE THE PEOPLE need to think about what these safety nets have done for citizens. I understand that Clinton/Bush/Obama deliberately created high unemployment leading to too many people being on public housing. That was never what this agency was for. The alternative is THE POOR FARM----which is right wing and it is to where 1% Wall Street is going. Once global corporate campuses and global factories are built ----then that POOR FARM will be on that corporate plantation. If we are going to rebuild a middle-class we need to protect those SAFETY NET PROGRAMS----what we see in Baltimore is the opposite and refuses to address the need for mixed-income housing in city center----we know REAL affordable housing when we see it!

HUD’s privatization scheme may herald end of public housing


New national experiment could eradicate affordable housing and displace millions of low-income tenants


November 13, 2014 2:00AM ET
by Rebecca Burns @rejburns

At a time when a shortage of affordable housing is devastating low-income families, U.S. policymakers appear to have all but given up on the idea of a state-managed public housing system. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says more than $26 billion (PDF) is needed to repair the nation’s aging public housing, a backlog that has left many residents in deteriorating living conditions.
Yet the notion that the solution lies in improved public funding and support — or that public housing should be publicly owned at all — has become a political nonstarter. Instead HUD is embarking on a sweeping privatization program in the name of renovation. After decades of demolitions and decay of public housing units, the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), a pilot program that purports to preserve existing housings units by providing access to more stable funding, could eradicate public housing as we know it within the next three decades.
Launched in 2013, the RAD will hand over 60,000 units of public housing to private management by 2015. While that’s only a fraction of the nearly 1.2 million public housing units nationwide, RAD’s reach could soon expand: HUD Secretary Julián Castro and participating developers are lobbying Congress to lift the cap set during the program’s initial phase and allow more conversions to private ownership, and HUD is requesting $10 million toward the expansion of the RAD.
In a recent editorial for USA Today, Castro called for a “new approach” to affordable housing. Among other things, he proposed overhauling our public-housing system in order to “tap into the power of the marketplace.” But the agency doesn’t seem able or willing to say what will happen in the long term to public housing units outsourced to private developers.


Broken promises

To be sure, the U.S. model of public housing is flawed. Since its inception in the 1930s, public housing has been constructed primarily in poor, minority neighborhoods, reinforcing racial segregation and the marginalization of low-income residents. But in a time of deep economic pain, public housing continues to provide a crucial safety net for more than 2 million people.
Market-based solutions are hardly a new approach to the United States’ affordable-housing woes. The RAD is but the latest in a series of initiatives to propose a rescue by private capital as the solution to a free fall in public housing funding. In 1992, for example, HUD launched HOPE VI, a federal program that issued grants to developers to tear down distressed public housing units and construct mixed-income communities in their place. Though the program was ostensibly intended to decrease concentrated poverty, for many public-housing residents, HOPE VI brought displacement and a string of broken promises. To date, as many as 250,000 units have been lost to demolition or sale as the result of HOPE VI and subsequent initiatives. Residents of distressed buildings targeted for demolition were often told that they would be relocated. However, there was no firm requirement that demolished housing had to be replaced at a 1:1 ratio, and only a third of the housing torn down through HOPE VI was ever rebuilt.
For many public-housing residents, RAD’s arrival evokes an eerie sense of déjà vu. Some who were forced out of their homes by HOPE VI demolitions now live in buildings designated for RAD conversions and fear that they could soon suffer a similar fate. While HUD touts long-term preservation of affordable rental housing as RAD’s primary goal, tenants remain wary, given housing authorities’ repeated failures to back up sanguine pronouncements with any real oversight.

In addition to its potentially harmful effect on tenants and workers, the RAD could serve as a vehicle to help investors acquire prime real estate and gentrify cities on the taxpayer’s dime. Most developers who rehab housing through RAD will receive low-income housing tax credits, which come with requirements regarding continued affordability. But at the end of a RAD contract — typically 15 to 20 years, with one renewal — developers are free to do as they wish with buildings, including turning them into market-rate apartments. As public-housing residents brace for another wave of displacement, many of the contracts between local housing authorities and developers are being negotiated in secret. Residents and housing advocates are pressing for more information about these contracts.
In Baltimore, where nearly 40 percent of the city’s public-housing units are slated to undergo RAD conversions during the program’s first round, Housing Authority Commissioner Paul Graziano says RAD will be “a shot in the arm” for public-housing communities. But residents here are far more concerned about being shot in the back.

On Oct. 22, Baltimore public-housing residents held a renters’ rights rally outside a Housing Board of Commissioners meeting to protest what they say has been a lack of transparency about the potential impact of the RAD. In addition to the apparent absence of protections to ensure buildings’ long-term affordability, residents emphasize the uncertainty over how their existing tenant rights will be preserved under the program. Those who are organizing against RAD in Baltimore say they have already begun receiving eviction notices, even after they paid their rent — a move they suspect may be an attempt to force the tenants out of their buildings or silence them from causing troubles for the new owners.



Impending layoffs

Tenants are not the only ones opposing the RAD. The program’s proponents boast that it will create at least 120,000 jobs nationwide. But in Baltimore and San Francisco, unions representing security and maintenance workers in public-housing buildings say as many as 200 of their members in each city could be laid off as a result of RAD implementation. There are questions over the quality of jobs that would be created. A host of developers and real estate associations undertaking RAD conversions recently wrote to HUD seeking to ensure that Davis Bacon — a law requiring that federal contractors performing work on public buildings pay their laborers no less than local prevailing wages — would not apply to their projects.


In addition to its potentially harmful effect on tenants and workers, RAD could serve as a vehicle to help investors acquire prime real estate and gentrify cities on the taxpayer’s dime. Critics note that some of the public-housing properties chosen for RAD conversions are those that would be most attractive to investors rather than those most in need of repairs. Several buildings in Baltimore included in the program, for example, are located across the street from John Hopkins hospital or in the gentrifying neighborhood of Mid-Town Belvedere.
Thus far, the HUD push to lift the cap on RAD conversions has been unsuccessful. Earlier this year, Congress maintained the cap in the 2015 spending bill after House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., wrote to HUD expressing concern about the program and insufficient evidence of positive outcomes. But a group of developers known as Lift the RAD Cap Coalition is lobbying Congress to expand the RAD to 185,000 units in the final 2015 budget.

If altered substantially to engage tenants in the process, the RAD could provide an opportunity to rethink the U.S. model of public housing. Some housing advocates are looking into acquiring public-housing buildings through community land trusts that could be managed by tenants and current building workers and into assisting tenant organizations in buying back buildings after RAD contracts expire. By forcing such organizations to compete with deep-pocketed investors and disregarding or punishing tenants who speak out, housing authorities are closing off alternatives that could truly begin to improve a troubled but vital institution.