Washington Post quote of the day:
kenger1, on ‘Tea party gatherings on the Fourth mix the educational and the patriotic’ article:
The great thing about living in America is that no matter how screwed up and irresponsible our government becomes, we can still live our lives in freedom. We can buy into whatever philosophy of government we chose to (big or small), but no one will arrest us if we fail to support to a particular form of government.
READ MORE:
http://washingtonpost.com
Possibly related articles:
By Paul Kane
Washington Post
Members of the congressional committees that oversee the oil and gas industry held more than $11 million in personal financial assets in that sector late last year, including at least $400,000 in the two companies at the heart of the Gulf of Mexico oil-drilling disaster.
From the nearly $100,000 in BP stock held by Rep. Frederick Upton (R-Mich.) to the nearly $650,000 in ConocoPhillips shares held by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), lawmakers on five key panels with oversight of the oil industry held more than 110 assets in firms from that sector.
All told, the members of the five House and Senate committees had a minimum of $11.4 million in stock holdings in the oil and gas industry, with a maximum value that could have exceed $16.8 million, according to an analysis of financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.
Before the Gulf disaster, some lawmakers sold off shares in the companies at the center of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill for personal financial reasons. Among them was Kerry, whose wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold off the last remaining shares she held in Transocean, the company that owned the drilling rig.
At the end of 2009, however, Heinz family trusts still held between $350,000 and $750,000 in BP stock, coming in purchases last year.
Read More
Possibly related articles:
Tea party gatherings on the Fourth mix the educational and the patriotic
Fernanda Correia, 13, of Fredericksburg shoots an antique firearm with the help of Karen Williams with the James River Black Powder Club at “An American Event,” a “tea party” gathering in Bealeton, Va. (Dayna Smith For The Washington Post)
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 5, 2010
BEALETON, VA. — “Tea party” activists across the nation tried to put the “independence” back in Independence Day this weekend with festivals and other gatherings focused on the Constitution — and how to use it for political gain.
Coupled with an upsurge in organized classes and book clubs, the trend reflects a growing effort among conservatives to teach supporters how to do political battle using an inviolable weapon: the nation’s founding documents. It’s a change in emphasis for a movement that rose to prominence with spirited and sometimes unruly protests across the nation.
But it’s one that organizers hope will yield real political results by arming supporters with the detailed knowledge to back only those candidates who are loyal to their ideals.
“The rallies were a start, but the goal now is to get people to stop and really think about things,” said Kerry Scott, an organizer of the Alexandria Tea Party, one of several hundred conservative activists who attended “An American Event,” a Fourth of July festival for “God and country” staged by a local farmer on rolling farmland in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains this weekend.
Amid Civil War reenactors, a reading of the Declaration of Independence and booths selling Native American artwork, Scott handed out strips of white paper, each printed with quotations from such American luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington.
“With knowledge, there is power,” she said. “And having an understanding of the Constitution can lead to electing people who will uphold it.”
The view that the Constitution does not permit such federal actions as the passage of health reform, the regulation of the environment or the imposition of educational mandates on the states is, of course, a controversial one. Where the tea party sees an encroachment of states’ rights, the left sees a valid interpretation of the mandate, described in Article 1, Section 8, to provide for the “general welfare.”
Nonetheless, there is ample evidence that this renewed emphasis is making its way into the broader political conversation…………………………..Read More..
http://washingtonpost.com
Possibly related articles:
Md. to vote in November on whether to hold constitutional convention
The 1867 Maryland Constitution is stored in a cabinet at the state archives. It has been amended more than 200 times.
By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 5, 2010
With July Fourth complete, it’s time to face a real test of independence: If you have the right to tear up and rewrite your constitution, should you?
It’s not an academic exercise this year in Maryland. It’s a question on the November ballot.
Maryland is one of 14 states with a constitutional requirement designed to make voters decide at least once a generation whether to start over. The protection goes back to the Founding Fathers and the thinking that, every now and then in a healthy democracy, the People probably have to shake things up.
The question that Free State voters will face — whether to seat a constitutional convention next year in the State House, where George Washington resigned as commander of the Continental Army — is a direct challenge from the grave of Thomas Jefferson. In an era of much shorter life expectancy, Jefferson pegged the shelf life of a democratic charter at no more than 20 years.
“The earth belongs always to the living generation,” Jefferson wrote to James Madison, pondering the forces behind the French Revolution. “Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.”
So follow Jefferson and throw off the shackles of past generations, you say? Toss out Maryland’s 143-year-old Constitution and write a better one?
But what’s wrong with current one?
Oh, where to begin . . .
First, a little history. Maryland’s Constitution of 1867 — the basis for today’s document — sits in a drawer, No. 11, to be exact, in a laundry room-size vault. The number is random, as is the company it keeps. Below it are some 1907 newspaper clippings of Mark Twain and a former Maryland first lady in a frilly gown and a mysterious English land deed from the 1600s written on parchment. Stacked in drawers above it are the previous versions of the state’s Constitution. ………………………READ MORE
http://washingtonpost.com
Possibly related articles:
Democrats hope Obama 2008 model will help stem midterm losses
By Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 5, 2010
To become the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama not only won heavy percentages of the black and Hispanic vote but also managed to trim the Democratic Party’s traditional deficit among white voters.
Four years after Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) lost the white vote by 17 percentage points, Obama lost it by 12, according to exit polls. While the 2008 gains were generally attributed to Obama’s strength with young voters — he won by 10 points among whites 18 to 29 years old — he managed to improve on Kerry’s showing with white voters across every age demographic.
Fast-forward to today. With the November midterm elections less than four months away, Obama’s standing among white voters has sunk — leading some party strategists to fret that the president’s erosion — and the party’s — could adversely affect Democrats’ chances of holding on to their House and Senate majorities.
“Since in the past House elections white voters tended to represent the independent vote, [the midterms] will surely be devastating for Democrats running in an election that will be a referendum on the Obama agenda,” predicted one senior Democratic operative who closely tracks House races.
In Washington Post-ABC polling, Obama’s approval rating among white voters has dropped from better than 60 percent to just above 40 percent. In a June poll, 46 percent of white voters under age 40 approved of how Obama was doing, compared with just 39 percent of whites 65 and older.
The latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reveals that Obama’s standing among white voters is remarkably similar to that of President George W. Bush at this same time two years ago.
In the June 2008 NBC-WSJ survey, 37 percent of white men and 26 percent of white women approved of the job Bush was doing. In the June 2010 poll, an identical 37 percent of white men approved of Obama’s handling of his job, as did 35 percent of white women.
Those numbers are all the more striking when viewed against overall perceptions of the two presidents. In June 2008, just 28 percent approved of the job Bush was doing while a whopping 66 percent disapproved. Obama, by contrast, is running far stronger with the nation as a whole, with ratings of 45 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval in last month’s NBC-WSJ survey.
READ MORE:
http://washingtonpost.com
Possibly related articles:
Loading ...
