James Buchanan's Activist Blunder

GOP state legislators aim to redefine citizenship
WASHINGTON — A group of Republican State Legislators came to Washington on Wednesday to unveil a blueprint for state Immigration laws that might force a Supreme Court review of the 14th Amendment, which grants Citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of the parents' legal status. The group is pushing Legislation that would take two approaches: It would create two tiers of birth certificates, one of which states would only produce for babies born to U.S. citizens and legal r...

Constitution Reading Provokes Political Tussling
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats took turns politely in a historic recitation of the Constitution from the House floor Thursday, but the decorum hardly meant they were in agreement. In a nod to the tea partiers who put the Republicans in power, GOP lawmakers took time out from their campaign to change the way government works to read the document upon which the government was founded. Democrats went along but pointedly questioned the Republicans' insistence on omitting sections tha...

Sudan still not agreed to bigger UN force: official
United Nations | Thu Jan 6, 2011 3:25pm EST United Nations (Reuters) - Sudan still has not agreed to a U.N. plan to increase its Peacekeeping force there by 20 percent, as the African nation heads into a Referendum that could split it in two, the U.N. Peacekeeping chief said on Thursday. Sudan's U.N. ambassador said there was no need for the proposed addition of 2,000 Troops to the 10,000-strong force, which monitors compliance with a 2005 deal that ended a Civil War between north and south S...

The Afghan Diaries: The Long Blooding of the 1-22 Infantry
The convoy finished snaking its way slowly though Kandahar city just after 10 p.m. From the only open seat in the middle of a supply truck cab, I could see little other than broken roads and tiny trees until finally the driver cut to the left, over what looked like a small concrete footbridge with culverts on either side. My heart stopped for a moment. This was just the type of spot where we used to find IEDs in Iraq. But the trucks passed over the narrow clip without incident and rolled into ...

Recognized Ivorian Leader Seeks Help Removing Rival
The man recognized as the winner of Ivory Coast's recent Presidential Election called Thursday for West African Special Forces to remove Ivory Coast's Incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo in a commando operation. Speaking at a hotel guarded by U.N. peacekeepers, Alassane Ouattara told The Associated Press that Gbagbo's location can be quickly identified by a team of elite Troops because he "is essentially at his residence or at the presidential palace.'' The regional bloc of West African states, E...

Call to send commandos to Ivory Coast
The man recognised as the winner of Ivory Coast's recent Presidential Election called on Thursday for West African Special Forces to remove Ivory Coast's Incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo in a commando operation. Hunkered inside a hotel guarded by UN peacekeepers, Alassane Ouattara told The Associated Press that Gbagbo's location can be quickly identified by a team of elite Troops because he "is essentially at his residence or at the presidential palace." The regional bloc of West African state...

Pentagon anticipates $78B in budget cut
(01-06) 12:51 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday he will cut $78 billion from the Pentagon's Budget in the next five years — money that will come from shrinking the Military's ground force, increasing Health Care premiums for Troops and other politically unpopular cost-saving measures. The plan also identifies a separate $100 billion in savings, including the cancellation of a $14 billion amphibious Marine vehicle. However, the services will be allo...

CIVIL WAR, THE BEGINNING
The North developed with yoemen farmers, small craft shops, shipping and processing mills, operated by families or small crews of trained employees. By the time of the Revolution and the Continental Congress Slavery and it's future were on the minds of all participants. The contentious nature of the subject and the overwhelming need to establish a unified nation, put decisions about the "peculiar" institution off, into the future. The Constitutional Convention would not have addressed slavery,...

A failed state before it's born? Inside the capital of the world's next nation
Juba's main landmark is making itself redundant. A digital clocktower that sprouts from the city's central roundabout counts down the remaining days, minutes and hours of the five years from the peace deal that ended the Civil War to the Referendum on Secession. On Sunday the display will reach zero and the south of Sudan will begin voting in a process expected to create a new country and put the defunct clock at the centre of the world's newest capital city. There is little doubt that the re...

Southern Sudan to vote for separation or unity
JUBA, Sudan (AP) — Separation or unity. A solitary hand or two clasped together. That's the choice — and the ballot image — for close to 4 million Registered Voters in Southern Sudan beginning Sunday, when a seven-day Referendum on separation from Africa's biggest country begins. The vote, which is likely to lead to the world's newest nation, is the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended a north-south Civil War that lasted two decades and killed 2 million people. Organizing...

U.N. decries Sudan press curbs, arrests ahead vote
Geneva | Thu Jan 6, 2011 7:54am EST Geneva (Reuters) - Sudanese authorities have restricted Press Freedom and made arbitrary arrests ahead of a Referendum on Sunday expected to endorse Secession by south Sudan, the United Nations Human Rights chief said on Thursday. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, a former U.N. War Crimes judge, also voiced concern that some Sudanese officials had made inflammatory remarks about the future of more than 1.5 million southerners living in the nor...

Sudan set for historic vote to split
Separation or unity. A solitary hand or two clasped together. That's the choice - and the ballot image - for nearly four million Registered Voters in Southern Sudan beginning this Sunday, when a seven-day Referendum on Secession from Africa's biggest country begins. • Campaigning in Juba, the main town in the south, which goes to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to secede. Picture: Getty The vote, which is likely to lead to the world's newest nation, is the culmination of a 2005 ADVERT...

Divorce settlement
Can Sudan's Oil feed north and south? Sudan: Set for Divorce? One country or two? Oil has fuelled conflict in Sudan, and rapid growth in the northern heartland of Africa's biggest country, as the 4x4s purring past shining Skyscrapers in the capital, Khartoum, suggest. But now southerners seem certain to choose independence in Sunday's Referendum - and when they go they will take most of Sudan's Oil with them. "The most important thing about southern Secession is what w...

South Sudan truce precedes historic vote
JUBA, Sudan, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Backers of a breakaway Sudanese general said they supported a South Sudan measure of Secession as a cease-fire was signed with the government in Juba. Military leaders with the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army signed the cease-fire with supporters of breakaway Gen. George Athor, who allegedly was backed by the government in Khartoum. Athor, a former top-ranking official in the SPLA, fought against government forces after losing an election in April 2010. Brig. Gen. Mic...

Risky Business: Sudans Referendum for Independence
In the months leading up to the Referendum in southern Sudan, scheduled for January 9, the United States and its international partners have been scrambling to prepare for the challenges a divided Sudan might bring. The referendum, born from the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), presents an opportunity for the south to achieve independence following years of brutal repression and violence perpetrated by the government in Khartoum headlined by a decades-long Civil War. The Obama Adminis...

No more Ni99as in "Huck Finn"
I'm sure you heard by now the Controversy surrounding the removal of the "n-word" from the book Huck Finn. For those of you that don't know, there are words and characters in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" that have always been Controversial, N*gger Jim and Injun. The publishers of "Huck Finn" have decided to replace the "n-word" in the book with the word "slave" and removed the word "Injun" in an effort to make the book more "appropriate" for school Children. According to Publishers Week...

Catch of the Day
Well, maybe this one is too easy, but still....Scott Lemiuex is good on Steve King's decision to introduce a plainly Unconstitutional "birthright Citizenship" bill because, as King said, it's "easier" than introducing a Constitutional Amendment. Lemieux points out that the 14th amendment isn't exactly ambiguous on this one, comparing it to "running a 21 year-old for president." Lemieux: Similarly, it would be “easier” for the president to abolish the Senate through Executive Order t...

No More Mister Nice Blog
Republicans READ THE NEWSOUTH EDITION OF THE CONSTITUTION You know about the forthcoming NewSouth Books edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- the one in which all the occurrences of the n-word are excised and replaced with "slave." Well,...

Historic Constitution reading comes with glitches
WASHINGTON -- In a symbolic move by a new Republican majority, the people who make our laws read the document that is the foundation for our laws in its entirety in Congress. Ga. Politics news, helpful links PolitiFact Georgia » David Wyss: State Governments have little ability to stimulate job growth in the short run. But like lawmaking itself, Thursday's unprecedented reading of the U.S. Constitution by members of the House didn't come without glitches -- including some involving Georg...

Robert Gates, Budget Hawk?
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to shave the Pentagon's Budget by $78 billion over the next five years, shrinking Active Duty Troops and ultimately freezing Military Spending for the first time since the 9/11 attacks, the Washington Post reports. Gates was eloquent on the issue of defense cuts, saying "we must come to realize that not every defense program is necessary, not every defense dollar is sacred or well-spent, and more of everything is simply not sustainable." Indeed, it'...

Big push fails to cut Taleban forces
TALEBAN numbers have not decreased in the past year, Nato officials have admitted, as the US announced yesterday it was sending in an extra 1,400 Marines despite a vow to begin "drawing down" Troops in 2011. • US Marines take part in a ground assault near Marjah in Helmand Province, one of two areas singled out for a concerted push against the Taleban. Picture: Getty A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation official in Brussels said the alliance estimates current number of insurgent fighters at...

The anchor babies debate, has restarted
This week, the SLLI leaders revealed their strategy at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.The group claims it represents 40 states and that their initiative does not attempt to reform the Constitution but instead, to reinterpret the 14th Amendment in a manner that denies birthright Citizenship for those born of Illegal Immigrants.    The initiative has angered some civil and immigrant rights advocates accusing it of discriminatory, Racist and costly, arguin...

Arizona immigration law goes viral
Twenty-five states are considering “copycat” Immigration laws similar to the one passed in Arizona last year. And with 680 new Republican legislators elected in the 2010 GOP landslide, including control of both houses and the governorship in 15 states (16 if you include Nebraska’s unicameral legislature), a good number of them are expected to pass and be signed into law. Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee all have “some co...

Pro se plaintiffs protest HCR effect on NJ, other States
One of the longest of the fifteen counts that two New Jersey Activists have raised in their Lawsuit against the healthcare-reform bill is its imposition of a tremendous mandate, with highly dubious funding, in violation of Amendment X of the Constitution. Nicholas E. Purpura and Donald R. Laster Jr allege in their Lawsuit (Purpura et al. v. Sebelius et al.) that the new law, with its requirement that New Jersey and other States expand their Medicaid programs and create their own Insurance exchan...

All 'on track' for south Sudan vote: UN
Preparations for south Sudan?s independence Referendum are "on track" with just three days to go before the historic vote, the head of United Nations peacekeepers in the south said on Thursday. "Everything appears to be on track for the region's 2,638 polling centres, which are scheduled to open at 8 am (0500 GMT) on January 9," said David Gressly, head of the United Nations Mission to Sudan in the south. "The many sceptics who never thought southern Sudan would be ready to hold its Referendum b...