The Senate, the Iraq War and the 80/20 Rule »
Posted by: populist 1 month, 3 weeks agoIn a country that struggles to remain free from the unduly influence of the powerful, the 80/20 Rule applies well; the defenders, as a rule, being the vital few. Truth and honesty are not things that can be changed by a simple vote, and neither should matters clearly written in our Constitution, such as the power to declare war.
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populist1 month, 2 weeks ago
The Constitution does not give the president the power to wage war without first getting a declaration of war from Congress. Although some try to claim that the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) fulfilled this requirement, it did not. All it did was transfer a Constitutional power - the power to declare war - from congress to the president. This transfer of power is a violation of the Constitution in and of itself.
Thus, the president violated the Constitution by waging war on Iraq without a declaration of war from congress. And, possibly even more important, everyone in congress who voted for the AUMF in 2002 violated the Constitution as well by illegally transferring their power to declare war to the president.
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Teech1 month, 2 weeks ago
Tax and spend? I think not. That smacks of "pay as you go" or "let's all chip in equally to buy a nice war"
Borrow and spend is the ugly truth. Huge tax cuts for the ultra-rich who are making billions on this war, resulting in deficits never before attained in American history, and passing the costs on to the children of working class Americans.
Borrow and spend profligately is a world apart from pay as you go.
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yokool1 month, 2 weeks ago
Great article re-ran, Populist!!! I remember reading this article 3 or 4 years ago; it made me mad about our lousy Congress and it makes me furious now. We never learn!
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yokool1 month, 2 weeks ago
Great article when I first read it, 3 or 4 years ago; just as great today. I was mad then about Congress, and FURIOUS now!
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KISA452a1 month, 2 weeks ago
They are the vital few if you agree with them. Or they are the tyrants like South Africa during aparthide.
SCOTUS can not just randomly look into things. It would be unconstitutional for them to "something that is quite unconstitutional. but which does not seem to invoke action from our Supreme Court." But you imply that this unconstitutionality is ok, again because you agree with it.
You can have debates with reasonable arguments on both sides that saying "We agree to declare war at the time you say it is necessary' vs "We agree to declare war today" is or is not fundamentally the same.
On the other hand, I do applaud all those who voted against the war from the outset. They deserve respect for taking the hard position that they felt was right. Those who voted for the war and now attack it should be, at the least, voted out for being cowards in the begining and continuing to be so now. All for politics.
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hefaa11 month, 2 weeks ago
80/20 Rule was named for George W. Numbnuts. According to the polls:
80% of U.S Citizens disapprove of his policies.
20% approve.
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obiefrommuskogee1 month, 2 weeks ago
Glad to have the list of the vital few. Too bad about the two "Johns". Byrd was remarkable during the debates. I felt sure they were monitoring chat rooms during the discussions, because I seemed to hear echoes of the bulletin boards in the floor debate.
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CHAM1 month, 2 weeks ago
Unfortunately for America, and for those who have died, been maimed, and the many who have had their futures destroyed, the War reasons were a crock, a lie. And many bought it.
To believe that Saddam had WMD would have been a stretch for the average American should they have given a thought, the place had been bombed daily for ten straight years, the Nuclear Reactor was bombed by Israel in th 80's, and Iraq had no naturally occurring Uranium ore.
We have satellites that can read a license plate from outer space, would a thinking person believe that they could have moved them out unobserved?
Iraq did have gas ( furnished by Rumsfeld and the Neo-Cons)
and whether they ever manufactured any Biological Weapons was a red herring since they had no way to deliver the stuff.
But remember how the 20% were treated by the 80? How we wanted to change the name of French Fries?
Wilfredo Pareto's Economic theory is applicable in just about everything. And accurate.
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CHAM1 month, 2 weeks ago
The only deviation from the 80/20 rule that has occurred since Pareto's time has been the transfer of wealth.
Pareto's most famous "rule" was that 20% of the people control 80% of the wealth.
Today that figure is more like 5% of the people control 95% of the wealth and the trend is toward 1%/99%.
We all need to wake up, because there is a threshold when all order breaks down. I don't know where that line is drawn in the dirt. but its there.
At some threshold, when enough of our Constitution is ignored, all the rest of the rule of law will cease and anarchy will rule.
When some threshold of wealth distribution is reached all Financial order will cease and the country will be ruled by those that have and those that don't will be forced into slavery to "the man".
We Americans need a change. We need a change for the better before we reach that threshold.
There is a tremendous difference between what we can do and what we should do.
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