Free Republic

'Oligarchy May Dominate Post-Kim Jong-il Era' By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter Amid mounting speculation over the health condition of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, an expert in inter-Korean relations said Thursday a small group of the elite or a military clique could take over the reclusive state. Cheong Seong-chang, director of the inter-Korean relations studies program at the Sejong Institute, said a power shift is a likely scenario in the post-Kim era. ``Kim is the only person who can tune differences among major state organizations,'' Cheong told The Korea Times. ``Thus, if he dies appointing no successor, the situation would...

Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki. Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960. “There’s no question that he’d like Vicki to continue in his seat,” said one Massachusetts Democrat with ties to the Camelot clan who spoke to Kennedy...

Bill Clinton: "If You Elect Me" (I'm Speaking as Her)Jake Tapper, ABC Blog.com For a natural-born politician such as former President Bill Clinton, it may be tough to spend so much time talking about someone else. In Portsmouth, Ohio, he said, " If you elect me, I'll repeal those subsidies. And put them into a strategic energy fund that will create American jobs for America's future with clean energy." Watch Video HERE. If you coughed and missed the "Hillary says" in that sentence you might be surprised when he reaches the "if you elect me" part of the pitch more than 60 words later....

“This is so nostalgic,” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 declared upon entering the Yale Child Study Center on Monday morning. Clinton’s reminiscence was not unexpected — Monday’s roundtable discussion with women at the Child Study Center did, after all, mark the first time she has come to Yale since announcing her campaign for president last January. But it also amounted to Yale’s first appearance on the 2008 presidential race stage — a stark contrast to past contests that have featured, as in 2004, three Eli frontrunners and dueling members of Skull and Bones. The senator, whose pit stop...

Was I witnessing the last throes of the 15-year-long Clinton political psychodrama in Ames, Iowa yesterday? Here’s my newspaper piece on Hillary’s final plea for support in tomorrow’s caucuses. The case she made was far from compelling – that she’s human (honest) and that she has unrivalled experience. Both propositions are debatable and she was much less compelling than Barack Obama and John Edwards have been in recent days. She seems to have had some kind of speech therapy to create a softy-soft voice that made me long for the grating shrillness of yore. Hillary Clinton tried to present herself...

"Democratic presidential hopeful and New York Senator Hillary Clinton (R) campaigns with daughter Chelsea Clinton (L) in advance of the Iowa Caucus at Vinton-Shellsburg High School Student Commons in Vinton, Iowa. New polls Sunday showed Democrats waging a desperate single-digit struggle four days before Iowa's leadoff US presidential nominating contest, and Republican Mitt Romney bouncing back ."

Dean: Americans Don't Want Another Bush Term December 12, 2007 Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement following the Republican Des Moines Register/Iowa Public Television debate today: "Every single one of the Republican candidates on the stage today had the same message: four more years of Bush/Cheney policies. What the Republicans fail to realize with their rhetoric is that the American people don't want a third Bush term, they want a new direction for our country. Tomorrow on the stage that's exactly what Iowans and the rest of America will see in the Democratic candidates, the kind...

Mrs Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York State, is one of the leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the USA in 2008. But a question arises, as she is the wife of a former two-term President, whether her candidacy is legally allowed under the US Constitution and American law. America’s first President, George Washington, held office for two consecutive four-year terms and declined to run for a third term in 1796. From that time onwards to Franklin D. Roosevelt, it became a constitutional custom in the USA that no President would serve for more than two...

“A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.” Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792 “I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see a policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.” George Washington (letter to Lawrence Lewis, 4 August 1797) “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” John Adams“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients,...

Manchester, N.H. (AP) -- Looking to shake up Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the Democratic presidential race, John Edwards is making an ardent push for voters to turn away from Washington insiders and what he condemns as a corrupt political system. Edwards railed against the "bankrupt ways of Washington" on Monday — but his aim seemed less to target Republican President Bush's leadership than to cast fellow Democrat Clinton as the insider whom voters should reject. "This corruption did not begin yesterday, and it did not even begin with George Bush," Edwards said in speech excerpts provided by his...

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

This weblog calls for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and addresses the abusive hegemony committed by the U. S. Senate. If Americans want to remove some corruption from government, the first significant step is to repeal the 17th Amendment. Americans should fear the steady growth by the oligarchy in the Senate. We should fear the oligarchs more because our Constitution cannot be spoiled by bombs, the courts, or the President; only through legislation.

Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong. I mean the look he gets in an interview or conversation when he's listening and not conscious of his expression. It's a very present look. He seems more in the moment than handling the moment. I've noticed this the past few months, since he entered the national...

The monks have vowed to continue their action Lorries with loudspeakers have been driving through Burma's main city of Rangoon warning residents to stop anti-government protests.The broadcasts threatened that "action will be taken against those who violate this order". But hundreds of monks and civilians defied the threats and began fresh protests at the Shwedagon pagoda. On Monday, there were protests in at least 25 towns, with tens of thousands of people marching in Rangoon. Several military trucks are now parked near Shwedagon pagoda, which has been the focus of the protests. Eyewitnesses said several hundred monks gathered at...

There's a strange debate dominating the Democratic campaign so far. Hillary Clinton's calling card seems to be the experience that she possesses and that Barack Obama lacks. " 'Change' is just a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen," she told an audience this past week, before promptly making the line the centerpiece of a new ad in New Hampshire and Iowa. "Hillary is the best-prepared to be president of any non-incumbent I have ever had a chance to vote for," the clearly biased Bill Clinton has said repeatedly on the trail this summer....

Under Mr. Putin, the handful of people who run Russia also own it. Government officials are on the board of Russia's largest state-run companies. First Deputy Premier Dmitri Medvedev is chairman of the board of Gazprom, Igor Sechin, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, is chairman of the Rosneft oil company, and Igor Shuvalov, an assistant to the president, is chairman of Russian Railroads. The capitalization of Gazprom is $236 billion, Rosneft $94 billion and Russian Railroads $50 billion. It is estimated that the people around Mr. Putin control companies that account for 80% of the capitalization of the Russian...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."...

It Is An Oligarchy - And Here Is How the Wealthiest Politicians are Designing to Enslave America's Working Class by: Bob Ireland Long-time FReepers may remember my constant warnings that America's government is becoming an oligarchy: both local and national. Now we are seeing the continuing emerging evidence supporting my claim. The reason Mexico depends on emigration of its poor class into the United States illegally is because the wealth of Mexico is funneled into the pockets of a wealthy priviledged class. This migration not only solves the problem of not sharing the country's wealth among all Mexico's classes, but...

One of three "American Idol" viewers believes a vote to FOX's wildly popular talent-search program counts at least as much as voting for president, according to a new survey. Pursuant, a Washington, D.C., research firm, said 35 percent of those polled felt they were making better use of their time voting for the next Grammy hopeful than in a political election. "There is something about people who felt maybe their vote in the last elections didn't count, but with 'American Idol' . . . [they're] hoping to propel someone to stardom," said Melissa Marcello, president of Pursuant.

It is Time to EDUCATE Ourselves About the Courts and Take Back ALL Three of Our VOTES! I know, some of us are saying to ourselves, "3 VOTES? Sounds like a Dem Party Scandal where Fairy Tale Characters and the Dead vote." NOPE! We have 3 VOTES, but the Power hungry Government Thugs and the Judiciary Oligarchy Drummers don't want you to know about it! This post is PACKED with INFO, so you may want to bookmark some of the links. The Citizens Rule Book: JURY HANDBOOKI came across this when I was all in a tither about the...

While the US Senate is currently discussing Samuel Alito, George Bush’s pick for the Supreme Court, conservative European politicians are concerned about attempts by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to usurp legislative powers. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel’s recent criticism of the ECJ, the European Union's top court, was backed on Wednesday by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark. Like Schüssel, Rasmussen wants the European Constitution to include an explicit restriction of the powers of the ECJ.

Are journalism-school faculties hotbeds of liberalism, and should colleges take steps to address this? John Tierney, the self-described libertarian/contrarian columnist for The New York Times, certainly thinks so--or so he said in a recent column, which drew a wide response from readers. Tierney is not entirely wrong, of course, but one should keep in mind that this is the man who, this past summer, dubbed the Valerie Plame/CIA leak scandal "Nadagate," saying it featured "a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not...

IT'S AN OLIGARCHY, FER SHURE How would one define an 'oligarchy'? It is rule by a priviledged class... one class that is above the law, one class that is persecuted by the law... one class that can not be touched by the law, one class that can not escape prosecution by the law. Why do I write: IT'S AN OLIGARCHY, STUPID!? Because, for example, the Clinton's were both proved to have broken the law, yet neither were prosecuted and tried. Darling Billy was fined by a federal judge for perjury and obstruction of justice... but the prosecutor chose not to...

ol-i-gar-chy n., pl. -chies. 1. a form of government in which power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique.

(United Socialist States of America) Well folks, we might just as well get used to it. As long as our country is being governed by a group of nine unelected and unaccountable federal judges where the majority consistently rules against the basic framework of our sacred US Constitution, we will continue to slide further and further into the crippling grip of socialist rule. Every time SCOTUS sneezes or takes a dump, they have the audacity of wiping themselves with the document they swore to protect and uphold. Considering the fact that seven out of nine of those over glorified Jurist...

U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.

Lawyers should speak up and explain the judicial process when judges come under attack, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy told members of the Florida Bar on Friday. "When judges are attacked unfairly, it's proper for the bar over the course of time, in a professional and elegant way, to explain to the public the meaning of the rule of the law," Kennedy told several hundred lawyers attending the Florida Bar's annual meeting. In the past year, the judiciary has come under attack from U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who openly criticized the federal courts when they refused to...

Some Homeowners Vow To Stay Despite Ruling Against Them But few options seem availableNew London — Drive by Michael Cristofaro's home at 50 Denison Ave. tomorrow; he promises you'll see this sign: FOR SALE. “I'm out of here. I'm selling my home,” Cristofaro, a New London resident for 43 years, said Thursday. “I'm a white-collar worker, a computer engineer. Who do they want living in this town?” The Cristofaro family owns a second home, at 53 Goshen St., in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the city's right to take that home, and the homes...

Property-rights advocates condemned the Supreme Court's split decision yesterday allowing a local government to seize a home or business against the owner's will for the purpose of private development. The 5-4 ruling went against the owners of New London, Conn., homes targeted for destruction to make room for an office complex. The American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest and largest conservative grass-roots organization, noted many of the affected citizens have deep roots in their community, including a married couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years. "It is outrageous to think that...

Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes HOPE YEN Associated Press WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights. Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas....

The Supreme Court today effectively expanded the right of local governments to seize private property under eminent domain, ruling that people's homes and businesses -- even those not considered blighted -- can be taken against their will for private development if the seizure serves a broadly defined "public use." In a 5-4 decision, the court upheld the ability of New London, Conn., to seize people's homes to make way for an office, residential and retail complex supporting a new $300 million research facility of the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. The city had argued that the project served a public use within...

Is Khodorkovsky really the victim? Anatol Lieven International Herald Tribune FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2005 WASHINGTON With the Khodorkovsky trial in Russia now concluded, Western journalists and commentators need to ask themselves some hard questions about the record of their profession. They might begin by making a comparison between the amount of space, and outrage, devoted by the Western media to this trial and the limited attention and anger directed by the same Western media to the process by which Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the other "oligarchs" acquired their immense wealth in the first place. It is not just that while Khodorkovsky's...

I've heard Limbaugh lamenting the fact of judges increasingly ruling our country and writing our laws but, so far, I haven't heard any indication that he or Hannity or any of our usual guiding lights understands WHY this is the case. For anybody who hasn't figured it out yet, I'll explain it. Our present political system is vastly different from what it started out as. In colonial times and in the early years of the republic, we did not have the technological basis for direct democracy, nor would the idea of the common man voting on issues have had any...

Long story, but given the apparent end of democracy in America, and the open hostility to persons of the Christian Faith, and given History over the past 200 years or so, How can one be sure, or even 50% sure that an org such as Free Republic is legitimate? It would seem plausible that this group is merely another plant. Someone help me out here. zapp

In a recent opinion against judicial activism, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker reproduces a stunningly precient 200-year-old quote from a former Congressman and judge about the dangers of permitting judges to claim the final authority to interpret the Constitution: "Just before Marbury v. Madison was decided (1803), Congressman Joseph Nicholson, a former judge, warned what might happen if a right of judicial review of constitutional questions was permitted to become a doctrine of judicial supremacy: By what authority are the judges to be raised above the law and above the constitution? Where is the charter which places the sovereignty...

Oligarchs are running Pakistan M.B. Naqvi writes from Karachi IN Pakistan’s 58 years, 31 were spent under open military dictatorship; even the current phase is basically a military regime, only slightly camouflaged by a civilian façade. Long before the coup of October, 1999, one had counted 22 significant political developments that had the characteristics of a coup: a change of government outside the Constitution of the day. No government completed a known tenure and peacefully transferred power to an elected lot; even the three dictators who are now history were overthrown by others — and one only by God Himself....

WASHINGTON (BP)--When a federal marriage amendment failed in Congress last year, a number of senators -- including Democrat Joseph Lieberman and Republican John McCain -- opposed it on the grounds that states should be able to decide the issue on their own. Now that a federal judge has struck down Nebraska's marriage amendment -– despite voter approval by a 70-30-percent margin in 2000 -- conservatives are hoping those same senators will give a federal marriage amendment another look.

"According to a story in Herodotus, the nature of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and the advantages and inconveniences of each, were as well understood at the time of the neighing of the horse of Darius, as they are at this hour." John Adams: A DEFENCE OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. [3.80] ... Otanes recommended that the management of public affairs should be entrusted to the whole nation. [democracy] "To me," he said, "it seems advisable, that we should no longer have a single man to rule over us - the rule of one is...

Is Chief Justice William Rehnquist beating thyroid cancer? The answer lies behind a wall of non-information at the Supreme Court. But it is becoming obvious that the chief justice has won the early battles, even if he has not yet won the war. Rehnquist apparently has responded well to chemotherapy and radiation treatment.But that conclusion is strictly the product of observation.Neither the chief justice nor court employees will comment on Rehnquist's condition or prognosis. As is usual with the justices, Rehnquist is treating his illness as if it were strictly a private matter and not a concern to the nation...

"The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them." – Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. Interview with North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby NCC: Justice Newby, thank you for taking the time to acquaint our readers with your judicial philosophy. I just have a few questions for you this evening. You ran on a platform emphasizing judicial restraint, could you elaborate...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Focus on the Family Action Chairman Dr. James C. Dobson is stepping up efforts to alert his constituents to the dangers of judicial tyranny, devoting his April newsletter to spotlighting how badly unbalanced the Founding Fathers' system of governmental checks and balances has become. Dobson documents in detail what he calls the "heady abuse of power that is all too common among independent fiefdoms known as judges," noting that Thomas Jefferson spoke prophetically when he repeatedly warned that an out-of-control judiciary would threaten not only the soundness of the Constitution but the...

WASHINGTON, April 1 - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court embraced the practice of consulting foreign legal decisions on Friday, rejecting the argument from conservatives that United States law should not take international thinking into account. After a strongly worded dissent in a juvenile death penalty case from Justice Antonin Scalia last month that accused the court of putting too much faith in international opinion, Justice Ginsberg said the United States system should, if anything, consider international law more often. "Judges in the United States are free to consult all manner of commentary," she said in a speech...

YOU ARE WRONG! I don't care if you do teach Con Law. Irwin [Chemerinsky] teaches Con Law. Nuff said. The threat of Executive Nullification of Judicial Edicts is an Essential part of the separation and balance of powers. If Executive enforcement is a mere arm of Judiciary legal fiat, you have the Executive, Legislative and Judicial power invested in one Judicial Oligarchy. That is anathema to anything American. The Court was envisioned to have the power of persuasion only. But if their pronouncements bind the Congress and President automatically, the need for persuasion is gone. PLEASE read Federalist #78. It...

The Supreme Court of the United States continues to undermine our Constitution causing the country to sink further into immorality and degradation. This is judicial tyranny, judicial activism, despotism of an oligarchy – pure and simple. The sooner the five Justices Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg are replaced, the better!

The framers of the U.S. Constitution feared a judiciary that might abuse its power. But even most of them did not envision the judicial oligarchy that confronts Americans in this 21st century. In case after case, judges and "last word" Supreme Court justices have substituted their personal opinions for the clear meaning of the Constitution or the law. The courts have overreached on abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, bilingual education, immigration, enemy combatants, law school admissions, flag-burning, ordering local governments to raise taxes, limits on political speech, prayer and the Ten Commandments in the public square, seizure...

From same-sex marriage, illegal immigration, and economic socialism to partial birth abortion, political speech, and terrorists' "rights," judges have abused their constitutional mandate by imposing their personal prejudices and beliefs on the rest of society. No radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And we, the people, need not stand for it. In "Men in Black," Mark Levin explodes myth after myth about the federal judiciary, including the biggest one of all: the idea that Supreme Court judges are somehow imbued with greater insight, wisdom, and vision than the rest of...

After six decades of expansion, the tendency of judges to impose their preferences on society, rather than simply interpret the law as written, may have reached its apogee. Judicial activism, as this writing of law from the bench is known, faces a confluence of forces which promise relief for the principles of Constitutionalism, and for the American people they protect. The trend of judicial activism morphing into judicial tyranny faces a perfect storm. Here are some of its key elements. High profile decisions in which judges nakedly impose their preferences have been accumulating at an accelerating pace. It is no...

Dear Justice Kennedy: I’m surprised that you joined with the Supreme Court’s Liberal Activist wing as you and four other justices conducted the usual Liberal séance to divine a meaning in the Constitution beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. But you not only joined the Liberals, you wrote the majority opinion; so who better than you to answer a few questions. First, let’s be clear about one thing. I write not to argue about whether states ought to prohibit the execution of persons under the age of eighteen. I write to ask how the majority discovered such a prohibition in...

  Supreme Court's illegal ruling (on cap punishment) should TRIGGER THE NUCLEAR OPTION -- The problem is, SCOTUS is basically immune to public opinion. Which can be a good thing or a bad thing. We can protest at SCOTUS until we are blue in the face - but I doubt Sandra Day O'Connor would care. Now, if governors told SCOTUS that their ruling was illegitimate and carried no influence on their state perogatives, now THAT would get the attention of SCOTUS.    A MOVE TOWARD DEMOCRACY ... AND THAT'S A DANGEROUS MOVE    The Supreme Court and Foreign Law...

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck again -- this time overturning by a 5-4 decision, all statutes that apply the death sentence to 16- and 17-year-old murderers. As a former prosecutor, I am convinced that from time to time juries find before them 16- or 17-year-old defendants who understand full well the vicious nature of their murders, and deserve -- after receiving the full panoply of due process -- to be fried, gassed, hanged, shot, injected or otherwise sent promptly to Hell.