Taking Poetic License: The King (Scott Walker) Is Dead But The Queen (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz) Is Alive

^^^ Two top Democrats: This morning Secretary Kerry is testifying before the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign operations to discuss the State Department's budget. 

According to Politico, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz invoked strong language Wednesday to attack Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on women’s issues, saying the Republican “has given women the back of his hand.”

“Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality,” Wasserman Schultz said at a round-table discussion in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Florida Democratic representative continued, extending her comments to the GOP.

“What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch,” Wasserman Schultz said.

According to the paper, Wasserman Schultz also criticized Walker for his stance on the minimum wage and abortion restrictions….

When I first heard that I laughed out loud and then the lyrics to one of my favorite Pink songs, The Kind Is Dead But The Queen Is Alive, ran through me head:

Rah rah rah,
Sis boom fuckin' blah
There's a party in your honour, but you won't be there whatever...

And then, of course, as the GOP swarmed and distorted the truth of what she said, actually trying to turn the tables on her and make her look anti-women, she walked it back ~ sort of and said, according to her statement as reported in the Miami Herald:

"I shouldn’t have used the words I used. But that shouldn't detract from the broader point that I was making that Scott Walker’s policies have been bad for Wisconsin women, whether it's mandating ultrasounds, repealing an equal pay law, or rejecting federal funding for preventative health care, Walker's record speaks for itself.  As for the issue of domestic violence, it's unacceptable that a majority of Congressional Republicans opposed this critical legislation, of which I was a proud cosponsor, after blocking its reauthorization for more than a year.”

I am not upset at the Congresswoman for her decision to re-assess the language she used, in fact, I suspect her strategy to take the ability of a GOP that can dish it out but can’t take it is exactly why she is a successful Congresswoman and the Chair of the DNC and I am not ~ she’s a smart woman.

I first saw the Congresswoman in a 2010 clip of a Fort Lauderdale, Florida Town Hall where she was talking to an audience filled with rabid GOP-ERS flipped out over the Affordable Health Care Act.

One rabid audience member, and I’m going on memory here, stood up and made some wild accusation about her being in favor of the Act because of her own cancer. She handled it calmly and professionally. She also peaked my curiosity so I Googled her.

I found out that the Congresswoman had BRCA1 and BRCA2 issues that put her at an increased risk for breast and ovarian cancers.  As a result, she had gone through a year of procedures, treatments and recovery AND she had hardly missed a day’s work for us while doing so.

I have been an admirer of her and her work ever since.

But, let’s not get caught up in the venomous party politics of the GOP ~ let’s be more constructive than and let’s take our lead from the Congresswoman and take a look at the broader point that she was making which really was, as I interpret it, a call out to women and those who love women to vote the entire GOP Neanderthal Party out of office in November based on their real #waronwomen policies.

Fortunately for you and me PoliticusUSA developed a  list of legislation to prove that the GOP war on women is real:

Conservatives like to pretend there is no war on women, so PoliticusUSA developed a running list of legislation to prove that there is indeed a war on women. The proof is in the policy, and policy trumps words.

Included in Hrafnkell Haraldsson’s monthly updates to the “Dirty Thirty”  (a list of egregious legislation proposed or passed) is a surreal list of legislation that proves the war on women is very real…

Let’s give a shout out to one of my personal favorites first ~ the GOP effort to nullify a woman’s constitutional right to privacy because party members cannot stand the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision that said at least in the first trimester a woman’s private life is none of their business. There’s a good summary of that here.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the other areas of policy where the GOP is slowly working to disconnect the middle-class on down from any government services ~ disconnects that will hit women the hardest. 

We can support the Congresswoman and give Walker and his ilk the back of our hand by hearing her message and by voting accordingly.

Don't forget:

G.

There is so much more information to be found on the GOP #waronwomen ~ Here are a couple more links to some of my reading material if you'd like to know more:

http://www.nwlc.org/tags/ryan-budget

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/cutting-programs-low-income-people-especially-hurts-women-and-their-families

(Gratitude to http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2011/01/fascinating-anti-womens-suffrage-ad.html for the 1915 ad!)

Hillary Dissing POTUS in the Atlantic: All Smoke & Mirrors

Because more often than not all you are getting is Smoke & Mirrors ...

This is NOT about Hillary Clinton. 

I am focused on Democrats winning in November and, personally, I find it a total waste of my time to even think about the 2016. Further, I especially find it a total waste of my time to think about alleged potential candidates who have not declared their intentions in the context of the 2016 Election.

Having said that, this is about how MSM plays many of us ~ getting us to focus on what they want to talk about and, while doing so, distracting us from what should be our main mission from now until November 4^th ~ informing Democrats and getting Democrats out to vote for Democrats.

And what MSM wants to do is talk about Hillary Clinton. To do that they have to keep finding new ways to do it and, oftentimes, that translates into pitting her against anyone they can, leading to a whole lot of misinforming of the electorate.

Sometimes MSM misinformation comes in the form of divining the news, sometimes it comes in the form of ignorance, sometimes it comes in the form of omission and sometimes it comes in the form of outright lying.

And it is up to us to figure out what is Truth and what is BS.

 In the case of Jeffrey Goldberg’s much discussed August 10, 2014 Hillary Clinton piece: “ 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS “ the misinformation is primarily in the form of omission of qualifiers of the complexities, many of which can be found in the transcript the writer did so kindly provide with the story.

As a bit of a brief exercise in how to read and or listen to a media piece very, very carefully let’s take a look at some of the highlights of that Atlantic story…

Start with the headline and the extended tag line:

“Hillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels L
ed to the Rise of ISIS

The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine. She says this about President Obama's: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."”

Now ask yourself, is it true? Did Hillary Clinton really say the Commander-in-Chief failed in Syria (causing the rise of ISIL, is the point of that charge, of course)? Did she really confirm that “Don’t do stupid stuff” is the Foreign Policy of a United States President?

I don’t think so.

First, my experience tells me if Hillary Clinton called out POTUS for failure in anything his name would have been in the headline so I'm not buying it from Jump Street; Second, I can’t tell if it is a news article or an opinion piece and that does nothing to boost the credibility of the piece and; Third, using his own opinion juxtaposed with a direct quote from POTUS, the writer contradicts himself in his opening paragraph. I would have stopped reading this piece after the lead if I hadn't decided to dissect it a bit.

He writes, President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion. In an interview in February, the president told me that “when you have a professional army ... fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict—the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”

NOTE: ACCORDING TO THE POTUS QUOTE THE WRITER CHOSE TO USE, POTUS DID NOT RIDICULE THE IDEA THAT PERHAPS, MAYBE, WE COULD HAVE SHAPED THE SITUATION IN SYRIA. HE SAID WE COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT IN A WAY THAT DID NOT COMMIT U.S. MILITARY FORCES. THAT IS QUITE DIFFERENT.

He writes, Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said. …”

NOTE: WHOSE FAILURE? THE UNORGANIZED PROTESTERS? THE UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS? POTUS? HE WAS INTERVIEWING HER, WHY DIDN’T HE ASK HER?

Again, a shout out to Goldberg for attaching the transcript to the piece so I can give you an excerpt or two from his work and you can read Hillary’s words for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Here’s an excerpt relevant to that “failure” thing ~

JG: You go out of your way in Hard Choices to praise Robert Ford, who recently quit as U.S. ambassador to Syria, as an excellent diplomat. Ford quit in protest and has recently written strongly about what he sees as the inadequacies of Obama administration policy. Do you agree with Ford that we are at fault for not doing enough to build up a credible Syrian opposition when we could have?

HRC: I have the highest regard for Robert. I’m the one who convinced the administration to send an ambassador to Syria. You know, this is why I called the chapter on Syria “A Wicked Problem.” I can’t sit here today and say that if we had done what I recommended, and what Robert Ford recommended, that we’d be in a demonstrably different place.

JG: That’s the president’s argument,  that we wouldn’t be in a different place.

HRC: Well, I did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground. Two, we would have been helped in standing up a credible political opposition, which would prove to be very difficult, because there was this constant struggle between what was largely an exile group outside of Syria trying to claim to be the political opposition, and the people on the ground, primarily those doing the fighting and dying, who rejected that, and we were never able to bridge that, despite a lot of efforts that Robert and others made. 

So I did think that eventually, and I said this at the time, in a conflict like this, the hard men with the guns are going to be the more likely actors in any political transition than those on the outside just talking. And therefore we needed to figure out how we could support them on the ground, better equip them, and we didn’t have to go all the way, and I totally understand the cautions that we had to contend with, but we’ll never know. And I don’t think we can claim to know.

JG: You do have a suspicion, though.

HRC: Obviously. I advocated for a position.

JG: Do you think we’d be where we are with ISIS right now if the U.S. had done more three years ago to build up a moderate Syrian opposition?

HRC: Well, I don’t know the answer to that. I know that the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.

They were often armed in an indiscriminate way by other forces and we had no skin in the game that really enabled us to prevent this indiscriminate arming.

JG: Is there a chance that President Obama overlearned the lessons of the previous administration? In other words, if the story of the Bush administration is one of overreach, is the story of the Obama administration one of underreach?

RC: You know, I don’t think you can draw that conclusion. It’s a very key question. How do you calibrate, that’s the key issue. I think we have learned a lot during this period, but then how to apply it going forward will still take a lot of calibration and balancing. But you know, we helped overthrow [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi.

Also, at some point in the transcript he asks:

JG: Is the lesson for you, like it is for President Obama, “Don’t do stupid shit”?

HRC: That’s a good lesson but it’s more complicated than that. Because your stupid may not be mine, and vice versa. I don’t think it was stupid for the United States to do everything we could to remove Qaddafi because that came from the bottom up. That was people asking us to help. It was stupid to do what we did in Iraq and to have no plan about what to do after we did it. That was really stupid. I don’t think you can quickly jump to conclusions about what falls into the stupid and non-stupid categories. That’s what I’m arguing.

If I wasn’t convinced of the writer wasn’t credible after the first paragraph, I certainly would after these two direct Hillary Clinton quotes from those two excerpts, I can conclude that the story is not true

“… You know, this is why I called the chapter on Syria “A Wicked Problem.” I can’t sit here today and say that if we had done what I recommended, and what Robert Ford recommended, that we’d be in a demonstrably different place.

“… That’s a good lesson but it’s more complicated than that. Because your stupid may not be mine, and vice versa. …”

Here’s another reference to that “failure” thing ~

He writes,  As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, "Hard Choices", she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events.

NOTE: SUPPORTERS? WHO? NAME NAMES.

He writes,  Professional Clinton-watchers (and there are battalions of them) have told me that it is only a matter of time before she makes a more forceful attempt to highlight her differences with the (unpopular) president she ran against, and then went on to serve. On a number of occasions during my interview with her, I got the sense that this effort is already underway. (And for what it's worth, I also think she may have told me that she’s running for president—see below for her not-entirely-ambiguous nod in that direction.)

NOTE: “PROFESSIONAL CLINTON-WATCHERS..,” WHO? NAME NAMES.  “…I got the sense that this effort is already underway …” THAT IS NOT REPORTING, THAT IS DIVINING BASED ON A FEELING. “…I also think she may have told me that she’s running for president …” THAT IS NOT REPORTING EITHER, THAT IS DIVINING, BASED ONE’S PERSONAL SENSES.

He wrote, Of course, Clinton had many kind words for the “incredibly intelligent” and “thoughtful” Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understanding for the devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that she finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the case that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its various missteps, is an indispensable force for good. At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shit” (an expression often rendered as “Don’t do stupid stuff” in less-than-private encounters).

NOTE:  “… But she also suggested that she finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious …” BUT SHE ALSO SUGGESTED IS NOT REPORTING, IT’S GUESSING. WHERE’S THE DIRECT QUOTE?

He wrote,  This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

She softened the blow by noting that Obama was “trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy,” but she repeatedly suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from the world stage.

Here’s a transcript excerpt relevant to: “Don’t do stupid stuff”:

JG: So why do you think the president went out of his way to suggest recently that that this is his foreign policy in a nutshell?

HRC: I think he was trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy. I’ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He’s thoughtful, he’s incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the economic front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to pull us out of the hole we’re in.

So I think that that’s a political message. It’s not his worldview, if that makes sense to you.

During a discussion about the dangers of jihadism (a topic that has her “hepped-up," she told me moments after she greeted me at her office in New York) and of the sort of resurgent nationalism seen in Russia today, I noted that Americans are quite wary right now of international commitment-making. She responded by arguing that there is a happy medium between bellicose posturing (of the sort she associated with the George W. Bush administration) and its opposite, a focus on withdrawal.

“You know, when you’re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you’re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward,” she said. “One issue is that we don’t even tell our own story very well these days.”

I responded by saying that I thought that “defeating fascism and communism is a pretty big deal.” In other words, that the U.S., on balance, has done a good job of advancing the cause of freedom.

Clinton responded to this idea with great enthusiasm: “That’s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned.” And then she seemed to signal that, yes, indeed, she’s planning to run for president. “Okay, I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea, but I’m about to find out, in more ways than one.”

She said that the resilience, and expansion, of Islamist terrorism means that the U.S. must develop an “overarching” strategy to confront it, and she equated this struggle to the one the U.S. waged against Soviet-led communism.

Clinton-watchers say it's a matter of time before she highlights her differences with Obama. I got the sense that this effort is well underway.

NOTE: “… And then she seemed to signal …” “SEEMED” IS NOT REPORTING, IT’S GUESSING.

He wrote, “One of the reasons why I worry about what’s happening in the Middle East right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affect the United States,” she said. “Jihadist groups are governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven to expand. Their raison d’etre is to be against the West, against the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank—and we all fit into one of these categories. How do we try to contain that? I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence, and defeat.”

She went on, “You know, we did a good job in containing the Soviet Union but we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some things that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework about what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.” (This was one of those moments, by the way, when I was absolutely sure I wasn’t listening to President Obama, who is loath to discuss the threat of Islamist terrorism in such a sweeping manner.) 

NOTE: AND, IN THE LAST SENTENCE, THE ONE IN PARENTHESIS, WE HAVE A PERSONAL COMMENT BY THE WRITER WITH NO NAMES PROVIDED ~ WHO IS IT THE PRESIDENT IS “LOATH TO DISCUSS THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM…” WITH?

A transcript excerpt relevant to Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy ~

JG: There doesn’t seem to be a domestic constituency for the type of engagement you might symbolize.

HRC: Well, that’s because most Americans think of engagement and go immediately to military engagement. That’s why I use the phrase “smart power.” I did it deliberately because I thought we had to have another way of talking about American engagement, other than unilateralism and the so-called boots on the ground.

You know, when you’re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you’re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward. One issue is that we don’t even tell our own story very well these days.

NOTE: HE NEVER ASKS HER TO DEFINE “SMART POWER.”  IF HE HAD MIGHT HAVE FOUND OUT THERE IS VERY LITTLE DAY LIGHT BETWEEN HILLARY AND PRESIDENT OBAMA ON FOREIGN POLICY ~ NOT DURING THE ELECTION, NOT DURING HER TIME AS HIS SOS AND NOT NOW.

Mmmm. So. The point of the story was, what? BS...


#StayingFocused:

G.

Don’t want to live under Articles of Confederation?: VOTE!

Warning ~ I’m feeling very snarky  …

 

If you want to continue to live under the UNITED STATES Constitution of America and if don’t want to live under a GOP version of the Articles of Confederation  V-O-T-E and make sure a Republican is never, ever  elected to a position of power in this nation again…

 

I cannot say with certainty what a final version of the new GOP framework for this land will look like if they win the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016 but I can make an educated guess as their favorite parts of the Articles of Confederation are that the States are Sovereign, that The People are Armed and that the Federal Government is, basically, a Solver of Disputes Between Said States.

 

Picture it:

Let’s take the Keystone XL Pipeline as a simple example ~ Canada wants the pipeline to run through the United States. Texas wants it to run through the United States, too. The problem is environmentalists believe the pipeline is hazardous to the health of the entire planet and a whole lot of citizens in Nebraska believe their water source is directly threatened so they are all fighting the building of the pipeline together.

 

In a Brand New GOP world this issue would still tick off Texas, Montana, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, of course, so they would likely form a pro-KXL Pipeline Alliance, they would likely tell the environmentalists and the citizens of Nebraska to STFU! and with great glee they would likely send their State Militias out to secure the building of the pipeline ~ perhaps even changing state boundaries to reach their objective... what's to stop them?

 

Then what ~ you are probably asking right about now? Well, war between some of our states, of course. It's a natural GOP progression. 

 

(That should give you a pretty clear image of how our Non-United States. Survival of the fittest, codified! Plug in your own example and see where it takes you via the new Government of your State, depending on what State you live in of course. Some states might keep the systems they have now or they might become Libertarian or Oligarchy or even Direct Democracy ~ who knows?)

Now. To be fair. The 1781 Articles of Confederation did give Congress the power to make treaties, maintain an army and coin money but I suspect those chores would all be gone  following a GOP Constitutional Convention immediately after the 2016 Election except for, maybe,  protection of borders and creation of worldwide empire, perhaps.

 

Here’s a look at the document the GOP reveres more than the U.S. Constitution. It has been edited by me to highlight the most ludicrous and chaotic and to strengthen my argument that Democrats must get out and vote and they must vote Democrat!:

Edited Version: The  ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

 

To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting.

Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

One

The Stile of this Confederacy shall be

"The United States of America".

Two

Each state retains its sovereignty (And there it is. Right up front. End of story, really, but I’ll continue to play.), freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Three

The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other (friendship, that’ll work with a lying cheating GOP, right?), for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. (It is interesting to note the general welfare is included here ~ that’ll change!)

Four

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted (and we can, surely, expect that exception list to grow ~ it’s been a long time since that list was made…), shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.

If any person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the Governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offense.

Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State.

Five

For the most convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislatures of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year. (I severely cut this one re more boring management stuff… see link above. Just note ~ power in the State, not The People.)

Six

(Also severely cut for purposes of relevancy to me…see link above.)

No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue. (Sorry, this is exactly the kind of stuff that totally defeats the purpose of the UNITED STATES and it is why I now call the GOP anti-U.S. Government because they are!)

No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties, entered into by the United States in Congress assembled, with any King, Prince or State, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress, to the courts of France and Spain.

No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. (And there it is, guns for all, although interestingly enough it does still say REGULATED.)

No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, UNLESS such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States in Congress assembled can be consulted (Awesome. There are some times States can declare war!); nor shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, and then only against the Kingdom or State and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the United States in Congress assembled, UNLESS such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States in Congress assembled shall determine otherwise. (Oh good, more war stuff the States can do!)

Seven

When land forces are raised by any State for the common defense, all officers of or under the rank of colonel, shall be appointed by the legislature of each State respectively, by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. (Ugh.)

 

Eight

All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. (I can see a war breaking out between some States over this…)

The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled.

Nine

(Also severely cut for purposes of relevancy to me… see link above.)

The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other causes whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. (Good Grief! I don’t think a real justice system has been mentioned yet!) >>> It’s a slog but we need to grasp the chaos that ensued and we need to imagine how much worse it can get… Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another shall present a petition to Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining the matter in question: but if they cannot agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names as Congress shall direct, shall in the presence of Congress be drawn out by lot, and the persons whose names shall be so drawn or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the determination: and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons, which Congress shall judge sufficient, or being present shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgement and sentence of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence, or judgement, which shall in like manner be final and decisive, the judgement or sentence and other proceedings being in either case transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the parties concerned: provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgement, shall take an oath to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the State, where the cause shall be tried, 'well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgement, without favor, affection or hope of reward': provided also, that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States.

All controversies concerning the private right of soil claimed under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions as they may respect such lands, and the States which passed such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall on the petition of either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally determined as near as may be in the same manner as is before presecribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different States.

The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States -- fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States -- regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated -- establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office -- appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers -- appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States -- making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations.

The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated 'A Committee of the States', and to consist of one delegate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction -- to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses -- to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted -- to build and equip a navy -- to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State; which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the legislature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men and cloath, arm and equip them in a solid-like manner, at the expense of the United States; and the officers and men so cloathed, armed and equipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. But if the United States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of circumstances judge proper that any State should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, cloathed, armed and equipped in the same manner as the quota of each State, unless the legislature of such State shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spread out in the same, in which case they shall raise, officer, cloath, arm and equip as many of such extra number as they judeg can be safely spared. And the officers and men so cloathed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled.

Ten

The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of the nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled be requisite. (Good Grief!)

Eleven

(How very, very interesting.) Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.

Twelve

All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed, and debts contracted by, or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pleged.

Thirteen

Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in Congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union.  (Whaaat???) Know Ye that we the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said Confederation are submitted to them. And that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and that the Union shall be perpetual.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America.

Agreed to by Congress 15 November 1777 In force after ratification by Maryland, 1 March 1781

As weaknesses showed themselves, our Founding Fathers decided on a re-do.

Some of ~

 

And the GOP has been fighting to undo it ever since...

V-O-T-E or F-O-R-E-V-E-R hold your P-E-A-C-E !!!