Free Republic

The language about mandatory volunteerism that was "missing" from the HR1388 bill voted on yesterday in the Senate, is now showing up on this bill HR1444 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1444

In his 1835 masterpiece, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, reported on his observations of the American scene after an extensive tour of the new Republic. One of his most profound insights had to do with the genius of Americans in the formation of institutions that mediate between large, distant government and the solitary, insular individual: Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans...

..(snip)…Does this not raise suspicion? While we hear of the “outrage” of the people who brought us the bonus scandal, the same people are rushing to pass the GIVE Act (you give, they take): national service. Senator Reid asked that the Senate proceed to act on this bill and then immediately asked for a cloture motion. Cloture The cloture rule–Rule 22–is the only formal procedure that Senate rules provide for breaking a filibuster. A filibuster is an attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter. Under cloture, the Senate may limit consideration of a pending...

Remember this? (see video at link) Obama's vision of a domestic security force "just as strong, just as well funded as our military" ( and presumbly loyal to him personally) just got a lot closer. The House of representatives has just passed HR 1388 otherwise known as the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act. This reauthorizes through 2014 the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, acts that originally, among other programs, funded the AmeriCorps and the National Senior Service Corps. However, it not only reauthorizes the programs, but also includes...

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL House adopts plan for 'volunteer' corps Also requires new evaluation of 'mandatory' service for all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 19, 2009 4:58 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new "volunteer corps" and consider whether "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" should be developed.

<p>MANAGING a crisis as complex as this one has so far called for nuance and pragmatism rather than stridency and principle. Should governments prop up credit markets by offering guarantees or creating bad banks? Probably both. What package of fiscal stimulus would be most effective? It varies from one country to the next. Should banks be nationalised? Yes, in some circumstances. Only the foolish and the partisan have rejected (or embraced) any solutions categorically.</p>

Wanted: leaders to face demons of Europe’s past By Philip Stephens Published: February 19 2009 19:46 | Last updated: February 19 2009 19:46 During George W. Bush’s time, US officials would sometimes mock Europe’s addiction to meetings. America, they would tell visitors to Washington, had the capacity and courage to act. The best its allies could do was to summon yet another interminable meeting. My reaction was that it was often better to get everyone around a table than, say, to start another war. Europe had learnt that the hard way during the first half of the 20th century. The...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- What does it mean to nationalize a bank, anyway? That question has weighed on the minds of investors in the two weeks since the Obama administration's comprehensive financial industry stability plan fell flat. And they came to a head Friday. Nationalization fears helped drag down shares of Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) as much as 36% at one point Friday. BofA recovered most of its losses to finish Friday down just 3.6%. But Cit's stock closed Friday with a 22% loss. The term nationalization has been used to cover a...

With all the recent moves by the feds regarding bail outs and the cash they are giving away. I find myself just overwhelmed by the moves they are making and the implications of these moves. Some of my questions are “Does the Federal government now “OWN” the US banking system”? If so, where does that leave the “FED”. Or does the FED now own the US banking system? More to the point, who owns the banking system? Do they also “OWN” the auto business? Same kind of questions. Are any freepers out there able to sum up these moves in...

Do you ever wonder how Chinese children are being educated in nationalism? The following video, which is spreading through Chinese cyberspace, will give you a clue. It shows a group of rural grade-school students performing a poetry reading. The lines are apparently written by adults, and refer to news events in 2008. No name of the school was mentioned in the original video post, translated by CDT.

Time and again we’ve heard about the lost jobs and economic impact of failing to bail out the beleaguered American auto manufacturers. But little mention has been made of the consequences of going through with the bailout, and how such an action would be viewed by other Americans. In an interview following a Dec. 10 press conference where he and four other senators aired their opposition to the proposed bailout deal struck by congressional leaders and the White House (and approved by the U.S. House of Representatives 237-170 that evening), Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., warned that the perception that some...

Now it's official -- sort of. The United States is in decline. The National Intelligence Council has warned in its latest report that the United States will decline as an economic and political world power over the next 20 years. The NIC (NASDAQ:EGOV) report is the first major U.S. government document on national strategy to appear since the Wall Street financial crisis began in September. But it does far more than simply note the crisis' existence. It warns that the ensuing economic crisis now sweeping the entire world is just the first part of a far vaster process -- a...

Devolution has been good for Spain, but it may have gone too far THE hardest problem for the authors of Spain’s democratic constitution was to strike a balance between the central government and the claims of Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia for home rule. The formula they came up with was known as café para todos, or coffee for all: Spain was divided into 17 “autonomous communities” (plus the enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast), each with its own elected parliament and government. This estado de las autonomías seemed a neat solution. Over the past...

WASHINGTON – The government prepared Monday to move the first batch of bailout money to banks as fretful world markets plunged again. Wall Street ended with a big drop at the closing bell, sending the Dow Jones industrials to their lowest close since the financial meltdown began. The Treasury Department said it would start moving $125 billion to nine major banks this week by buying ownership stakes, the first big transfer since the $700 billion bailout package was passed early this month. Assistant Treasury Secretary David Nason said the infusion would go to the largest banks in the nation, including...

A few days ago, when Hank Paulson called the heads of the nine families to Washington and shoved cash down their throats, he announced that the banks would use this new taxpayer cash to lend. They won't, of course. They'll hoard it like a starving family who has just been given a grocery cart full of food. And after a few days of silence, even the banks are finally admitting that. So it's back to the drawing board for Paulson & Co. Next steps? Find a way to force the banks to write their assets down to nuclear winter levels,...

Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration's strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don't need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it's unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes. But regulators said some banks will be pressed to take the taxpayer dollars anyway. Others banks judged too sick to save will be allowed to fail. The government also said yesterday that it will guarantee up to $1.4 trillion of private investment in banks. The combination of public and private investment is intended to refill coffers emptied by...

Editor's note: Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University. A libertarian, he was one of 166 academic economists who signed a letter to congressional leaders opposing the government bailout plan.CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Ten days after passage of its $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, the U.S. Treasury has announced that it will implement this program, in part, by giving banks $250 billion in return for shares of their stock. In other words, the U.S. government will acquire a significant ownership stake in the banking sector. The goal of this stock purchase is to "inject...

---snip "The government's role will be limited and temporary," Bush pledged. "These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it. ---snip

A complex sequence of meetings addressing the international financial crisis took place this weekend. The weekend began with meetings among the finance ministers of the G-7 leading industrialized nations. It was followed by a meeting of finance ministers from the G-20, the group of industrial and emerging powers that together constitute 90 percent of the world’s economy. There were also meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The meetings concluded on Sunday with a summit of the eurozone, those European Union countries that use the euro as their currency. Along with these meetings, there were endless bilateral...

To the surprise of nobody, many endorsements and opinions in Quebec have been voiced during this federal election campaign, with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's campaign being one of the central targets. In our effort to give readers a taste of what is being said in the province, we did stumble on one surprise: an influential newspaper that picked none of the parties nor leaders running for office, perhaps a telling sign of a campaign that's done little to impress. Quebec's esteemed newspaper of record La Presse did just that this week, in what editor-in-chief André Pratte called a "sad realization."...