Constitution

Kochs Bankroll Move To Rewrite The Constitution

March 27, 2017 Staff, www.exposedbycmd.org Educate! Banks, Constitution, Koch Brothers

By Staff of Exposed for CMD - A constitutional convention, something thought impossible not long ago, is looking increasingly likely. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, if 34 state legislatures “issue a call” for a constitutional convention, Congress must convene one. By some counts, the right-wing only needs six more states. Once called, delegates can propose and vote on changes and new amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which, if approved, are currently required to be ratified by 38 states. There are two major legislative pushes for a convention at the state level. One would attempt to engineer a convention for a balanced budget amendment only...

A Constitution Corrupted

March 17, 2017 Gavin O'Toole, www.nacla.org Educate! Constitution, History, Mexico

By Gavin O'Toole for NACLA - It is easy to understand scholarly and progressive interest in this year’s centennial of the Russian revolution, but harder to explain why there is little apparent enthusiasm for an anniversary that is arguably more important – that of Mexico’s 1917 constitution, signed on February 5, 1917. In fact, Mexico’s constitution provided the model for the first Soviet constitution. Its failure to inspire global interest may reside in an uncomfortable question facing the country: whether it should be celebrating or mourning. The Constitution has been revered by constitutional scholars for being the first to enshrine social rights.

Constitutional Climate Lawsuit Against U.S. To Proceed

November 14, 2016 Julia Olson and Philip Gregory, www.static1.squarespace.com Resist! Climate Change, Constitution, Lawsuit

By Julia Olson and Philip Gregory for Our Children's Trust and Earth Guardian - Eugene, OR – Today, the federal court in Eugene, Oregon decided in favor of 21 youth plaintiffs in their “groundbreaking” constitutional climate lawsuit against President Obama, numerous federal agencies, and the fossil fuel industry. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken completely rejected all arguments to dismiss raised by the federal government and fossil fuel industry, determining that the young plaintiffs’ constitutional and public trust claims could proceed.

Norwegian Youth Taking Gov To Court Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Arctic Drilling

October 21, 2016 Lauren McCauley, www.medium.com Strategize! Arctic drilling, Constitution, Courts, Norway

By Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams - Taking a page from young people in the United States and elsewhere who are standing up for their right to healthy environment, Norwegian youth on Monday filed suitagainst their country's government for expanding Arctic oil drilling despite increasingly dire warnings about the impact such activity is having on the planet's climate. The plaintiffs, which include Greenpeace Norway and the nation's largest youth-led organization, Nature and Youth,

This Is What Stop And Frisk Is, And Why It’s Unconstitutional

September 30, 2016 Natasha Noman, www.mic.com Educate! Constitution, Stop and Frisk

By Natasha Noman for Mic - The controversial stop-and-frisk policy instituted by the New York Police Department in 1999 allowed law enforcement to stop any civilian on the street and search their person and belongings. The practice is "allegedly based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity," the Center for Constitutional Rights explains. There are just a few problems with that premise: The practice has proven to be racially motivated, ineffective and unconstitutional.

Declaration on ‘Future Syrian Constitution’

May 8, 2016 Staff, www.peaceinsyria.org Create! Constitution, Peace, Syria, Wars and Militarism

From Peace in Syria. A second conference on the future constitution of Syria was held in Vienna, Austria from April 27 to 29, 2016. Since approx. three years the promoters of the international peace initiative www.peaceinsyria.org/ have mobilized a great number of peace activists and outstanding personalities of political and cultural life in Europe, Asia and Latin America – all of them deeply convinced that a military solution of the Syrian conflict is not possible and the bloodshed has to be stopped. Gathering around the need for a POLITICAL DIALOG the promoters of this initiative went on different occasions to Damascus, Beirut, Istanbul, Qamishli and Aleppo in order to contact the main political actors from each side

US Not In Top Ten Most Happiest, Is It Our Government?

March 19, 2016 Kelly Gerling, www.examiner.com Create! Constitution, Democracy, Proportional Representation

By Kelly Gerling for the Washington Mental Health Examiner. For Americans to take the lead in the world in happiness, it will take a real political revolution. Americans can thank Bernie Sanders for making that phrase respectable. There is a relationship between having a modern constitutional design with proportional representation and happiness, that to achieve such a modern governmental design we need an advanced political consciousness, and that doing both of these is necessary to create a much wider policy debate, a greater variety of candidates and parties, and more political innovations. Let's not be victims of our 229-year-old political system. Instead, let's just grow up and become citizen-leaders, and change it to our liking.

Japan: US Pressures Revision Of Constitution

September 12, 2015 Yoshio Shimoji, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Constitution, Democracy, Japan, Wars and Militarism

By Yoshio Shimoji of Voice of Okinawa. Tokyo, Japan - The Abe administration is so intent on passing security-related bills now under deliberation at the House of Councilors. Why? One reason is that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised the Joint Meeting of U.S. Congress in a speech given on April 29 that the bills would be made into law by the end of the summer. Probably, Washington might have thought at the time that the time was ripe for them to urge Tokyo to revise the constitution -- a long-pending U.S. policy toward Japan. Junichiro Koizumi, the most pro-American prime minister in recent memory, was in power with Shinzo Abe serving as Secretary-General of the LDP. Abe replaced Koizumi as the next prime minister in September 2006.

ALEC Watchdog: Jane Carter Trying To Rewrite The Constitution

August 12, 2015 Bill Raden, www.capitalandmain.com Educate! ALEC, Constitution, Corruption, Law, Lobby

By Bill Raden in Capital and Main - As lobbyists and state legislators gathered at San Diego’s Grand Hyatt resort last week for the three-day annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the delegates seemed to barely glance at the several dozen exhibitor tables that made up a sort of carnival sideshow of right-wing groups outside the hotel’s second-floor warren of meeting rooms. Convention attendees had more pressing concerns. Namely, turning this year’s corporate wish list into the infamous boilerplate bills known as “model laws” that would aspire to undermine things like health and environmental standards, worker rights, campaign-spending limits and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) across the 50 states. Many of the exhibitor booths were occupied by familiar ALEC friends, such as the collection of extreme-right think tanks known as the State Policy Network, which churns out studies designed to grease the model laws’ passage out of statehouse committees.

Court Ruling May Allow Litigation Over Mass Round-Ups After 9-11

June 20, 2015 Center For Constitutional Rights, www.ccrjustice.org Resist! Constitution, FBI, Law, Rights

By Center For Constitutional Rights - Today, in a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) thirteen years ago, in April 2002, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI director Robert Mueller, and former INS Commissioner James Ziglar for their roles in the post-9/11 immigration detentions, abuse, and religious profiling of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men. It is exceedingly rare for a court to allow claims against such high-level officials to proceed. “We are thrilled with the court’s ruling.The court took this opportunity to remind the nation that the rule of law and the rights of human beings, whether citizens or not, must not be sacrificed in the face of national security hysteria,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Rachel Meeropol.

We The People Amendment (HJR48) Introduced In 114th Congress

May 1, 2015 Move To Amend, www.movetoamend.org Create! Campaign Finance, Constitution, Corporate Personhood, Law

The movement for constitutional reforms that would end what organizers call “corporate rule” has arrived in the chambers of Congress. This morning, members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined Move to Amend by announcing their sponsorship of the “We the People Amendment” (House Joint Resolution 48), which clearly and unequivocally states that: Rights recognized under the Constitution belong to human beings only, and not to government-created artificial legal entities such as corporations and limited liability companies; and Political campaign spending is not a form of speech protected under the First Amendment. Leesa "George" Friday, a spokesperson for Move to Amend, agreed, saying: "Today, members of Congress join a movement that insists on the fundamental equality of all Americans, and that rejects the idea that the corporate class should have special protections against We the People.”

Lessons From Iceland’s Failed Open Source Constitution

October 5, 2014 Helene Landemore, www.slate.com Organize! Constitution, Democracy, Transparency

Who should write the constitution of a democratic country and, indeed, any country? The answer seems obvious: its people. Yet the constitutions of existing states, including democratic ones, have usually been written by small, rather unrepresentative subsets of individuals. Solon is supposed to have single-handedly laid out the foundations of democratic Athens. The U.S. Constitution was penned by a few dozen white men. More recent examples of constitutional processes involve the usual elites: professional politicians and state bureaucrats. But even elected or otherwise democratically authorized constitutional drafters are at best metaphorically, “We, the People.” Not only are typical constitutional processes rather exclusionary and elitist, but they also tend to be characterized by an utter lack of transparency.

Why Millennials Don’t Vote and What To Do About It {aTV 007)

June 9, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report 2014 mid-term election, 2016, 2016 Elections, Acronym TV, ATV, Christina Tobin, Congress, Constitution, Daniel Lee, Democracy movement, Dennis Trainor Jr, Elections, Free and Equal, mid-term election, Millennials, Millennials democracy, Millennials voting, Move To Amend, President, Senate, Vote, Voting

On Acronym TV this week, two individuals working to fix our Democracy in crisis. Christina Tobin is the founder and chair of Free & Equal. She has a long history of supporting ballot access, having gathered and defended over 1 million signatures for the Green Party, Constitution Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Libertarian Party, Socialist Equality Party and independents. Free & Equal Elections Foundation is a non-partisan grassroots organization, whose mission is to shift the power back to the individual voter through education. Their motto, “More Voices, More Choices.” Daniel Lee is a lifelong activist. He serves on the national leadership team for the group Move to Amend, which is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy; Move To Amend is calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

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