Reinke Faces Life

http://bigjournalism.com/aworthing/2011/06/29/fourteen-clear-factual-errors-in-richard-stengels-essay-on-the-constitution-and-i-am-looking-for-your-help/

Fourteen Clear Factual Errors in Richard Stengel’s Essay on the Constitution (And I Am Looking for Your Help)

Posted by Aaron Worthing Jun 29th 2011 at 2:49 pm in Featured Story, Mainstream Media, Time Magazine, corrections/retractions, media bias

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On June 23, 2011, Time magazine published an essay entitled “One Document, Under Siege” (one page version, here) by Richard Stengel. I consider the publication of this article to be nothing less than a scandal. Besides the deep philosophical disagreements I have with Mr. Stengel, the piece simply fails as journalism. As I will demonstrate in this post, there were fourteen objectively verifiable errors in Mr. Stengel’s piece, half of which could have been discovered simply by reading the Constitution itself.

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Here are the fourteen errors, in short:

1. The Constitution does not limit the Federal Government.

2.The Constitution is not law.

3. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment emancipated the slaves.

4. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans.

5. The original Constitution declared that black people were to be counted as three-fifths of a person.

6. The original, unamended Constitution prohibited women from voting.

7. The Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to tax individuals based on whether they buy a product or service.

8. Inter arma enim silent leges translates as “in time of war, the Constitution is silent.”

9. The War Powers Act allows the president to unilaterally wage war for sixty days.

10. We have only declared war five times.

11. Alexander Hamilton wanted a king for America.

12. Social Security is a debt within the meaning of Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment.

13. Naturalization depends on your birth.

14. The Obamacare mandate is a tax.

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I’m not a scholar of anything. Well, maybe of the bits of flotsam passing me by that cause me to react. Here are two bits that attract my eye, and now my keyboard.

When I saw the Time magazine article on the web, I read it.

I saw #1 and #5 in the original Time article and wrote the intire article off to “liberal media bias”. That’s why I never buy magazines and rarely buy a paper.

#1 was outrageous. I knew that from Reading Tom Woods’ stuff.

I spotted #5 thanks to Walter Williams eloquent writing about the “three fifths” as how the Dead Old White Guys dealt with balance in representation.

Impressive collaboration by this author to pull together others to refute the Time article.

Shame on Time for producing such drivel. The sad part is that folks have read it and think it’s correct.

Argh!

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FROM FACEBOOK

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Seems to me that it’s a spectacular leap of illogic to assume that allowing employers to pay subsistence (or worse) wages to all would somehow help with the problem of youth unemployment.

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Well, I’m just a fat old white guy injineer, but Austrian economists don’t seem to see it as such a big leap. If all labor rates have a floor, then the inexperienced, who can’t present a value equation greater than the artificial floor, will go unemployed. If I’m a shop owner and have a dirty floor that is worth 4$ to clean, I can hire the local kid to sweep it without falling a foul of the Gooferment diktat. The work goes undone, or the shopkeeper does it himself. And, the local kid loses an opportunity to learn critical skills — show up on time, do a good job, and be polite to all. And, that’s how you get 40% minority unemployment. A diktat precludes a free marketplace for labor. If you’re still unconvinced I can tell you about my cousin the elevator operator.

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Anytime the Gooferment creates a “price support” (i.e., minimum wage, milk prices, sugar tariff, tobacco subsidy) or a “price ceiling” (i.e., rent control, financial interest rates, ATM fees) they are screwing the little people and enriching their political contributors. Support for milk farmers means that poor people pay more than they have to. Why is a gallon of milk cost as much as a gallon of gas? Just visualize the effort into gas versus the effort for milk. Rent control ensures that rental units are in short supply and “hogged” by politician like Rangal who had 4 rent controlled apartments. Why do people get to inherit a rent controlled apartment? Guess poor people don’t need good affordable housing. Argh! The politicians and bureaucrats have done a great job fooling “We, The Sheeple”.

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Price support translate to being forced to pay more than you should have to. It’s a transfer of wealth from the buyer to the seller. The seller can sell as many units as they would with out interference. The buyers have less to spend. And, at the margins, there are people who can’t afford the product at the higher price.

Price ceiling translate to being unable to buy what you want (i.e., shortages). Rent controlled apartments are NOT offered as they would in a free market because the owner can’t recover their true costs.

Seems obvious in both Keynesian or Austrian economics.

We have prosperity because of capitalism, the division of labor, and the free markets. The invisible hand of the market assures tht everyone gets an equal amount of “happiness” with the minimum of overhead (i.e., Buyers and sellers don’t trade unless both are better off. Non-buyers and non-sellers don’t trade because neither would feel better off. The free market is an immense calculator that uses price to balance supply and demand. It’s a beautiful “thing” that makes us cooperate to everyone’s betterment. Until the Gooferment gets in and messes things up.)

Argh! Sigh!

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/health/policy/27docs.html

U.S. Plans Stealth Survey on Access to Doctors
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 26, 2011

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In a recent study, the Massachusetts Medical Society found that 53 percent of family physicians and 51 percent of internal medicine physicians were not accepting new patients. When new patients could get appointments, they faced long waits, averaging 36 days to see family doctors and 48 days for internists.

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Argh! Just now that they figured out that they need doctors?

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/president-obamas-phony-accounting
-on-the-auto-industry-bailout/2011/06/06/AG3nefKH_blog.html

Posted at 12:00 PM ET, 06/07/2011
President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout
By Glenn Kessler

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It will be up to historians to decide what the best solution would have been for taxpayers and the auto industry. We can understand why the president wants to portray himself as making a lonely and tough decision. But the debate was not either/or, bur rather what was the best policy to bring the automakers back to financial health.

The Pinocchio Test

The president is straining too hard. If the auto industry bailout is really a success, there should be no need to resort to trumped-up rhetoric and phony accounting to make your case. Let the facts speak for themselves.

Three Pinocchios

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Robbing the bondholders to enrich the labor unions.

Hard to see how this was a “best solution”?

Every politician and bureaucrat, who had a hand in it, should be in jail!

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17carter.html

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Call Off the Global Drug War
By JIMMY CARTER
Published: June 16, 2011

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Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!

Some of this increase has been caused by mandatory minimum sentencing and “three strikes you’re out” laws. But about three-quarters of new admissions to state prisons are for nonviolent crimes. And the single greatest cause of prison population growth has been the war on drugs, with the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses increasing more than twelvefold since 1980.

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Let’s start ending all these dumb supposed “wars”!

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http://lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken135.html

Privatize Marriage Now
Reviewed by Ryan McMaken

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The state hates it when property changes hands without being taxed and regulated, so the state set its sights on marriage centuries ago. Over time civil governments inserted themselves more and more into the religious institutions of marriage. This was helped along by the Reformation and by defenders of government-controlled marriage like King Henry VIII of England. As nation-states consolidated their monopolies on all law and over all institutions in society, the state finally displaced religious institutions as the final arbiter on marriage.

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What they should be arguing for is the removal of civil governments from the marriage bond altogether. Couples who wish to marry should approach their religious authorities about it. Then, if they wish they can join into some kind of civil union, which is just a contract. People who wish to have a civil union but no marriage may enter into that arrangement, and those who wish for a marriage with no civil union should be able to do that as well. Marriage, properly understood, should be considered off limits from government meddling. People are welcome to contract, but if the “defenders” of marriage had done their jobs right, there would be no confusion today about what is marriage and what is a government-approved contractual union.

Unfortunately, though, when Conservatives and Christian Right types bemoan the loss of so-called “traditional” marriage yet agitate for more government control of the institution, they really have only themselves to blame since they’re therefore accepting the proposition that government has the legitimate authority to regulate and control marriage. The power to regulate marriage is the power to destroy it.

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How could we let Gooferment take over and run our lives?

And, by pushing the Church out of marriage, we weaken the one institution that can make marriages stronger. Just as true charity requires a personal involvement, so to any marriage would be bolstered by a Church community.

Argh!

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/89927.html

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At the heart of it all, predictably, is the urge to control the lives of others. White people might marry black people! Horror of horrors. Therefore, the state must get involved. No doubt these arguments in favor of more government meddling were made with an overlying patina of “freedom.” Just as the modern anti-immigration crowd today argues that we must destroy freedom in order to save it, the old racist proponents of government marriage likely argued that we must abolish freedom in marriage or the “Negro agitatuhs” and their dusky-skinned allies will destroy freedom. Conservative “logic” at its best.

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Wiener woes:

(1) Sexting to one or more willing and / or unwilling partners.

(2) Claimed to have been hacked.

(3) Lied.

(4) May have covered it up.

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There may be a felony or a few in all this.

It’s been alleged that (a) at least one of the sextings was unsolicited. (2) it’s reported that it was done from a Federal location. (3) Federally paid staffers or contractors were offered by the Congressman and used by at least one of the participants. (4) conspiracy? (The legal catch all that nails people!)

Aside from the morality, it’s always the lying and the cover up that “kills” these sleezeballs.

And, if they are all busy covering their butts, they’ll be too busy to “fix” the problems. Their “fixes” are usually always worse than the original problem.

Imagine how fast this would have died if he’d said: “Yes, I did it. I’m embarrassed. I was drinking with my staff celebrating <insert some excuse> and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Upon reflection it was dumb. Now I’m going to address our young people. Don’t create digital dirt. And just like no one should drink and drive. No one, even Congressmen and women, should drink and text. I’m sorry I was so dumb and blind to the impacts of this. It won’t happen again.”

Scandal would have had NO “legs”. And, Arnold and the maid would have been back on center stage.

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TMZ reported:

“TMZ obtained the pics Weiner took of himself using his Blackberry and a mirror. Congressional sources have confirmed with TMZ … the backdrop is indeed the House Members Gym in the basement of the Rayburn House Office Building.”

So does that add another count of misuse of federal facilities? And, why are we paying for gym for these sleezes? I don’t have paid for gym, do you?

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