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Title: Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned'
Source:
huffingtonpost
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/ ... r-14th-amendment_n_887925.html
Published: Jul 10, 2011
Author: C-SPAN
Post Date: 2013-10-07 22:37:48 by Itistoolate
Keywords: None
Views: 165
Comments: 8
Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned' WASHINGTON -- At a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, President Obama was asked whether he believed that the debt ceiling was constitutional or whether the 14th Amendment required the government to meet all of its obligations regardless of the debt-limit statute. Obama dodged the question. "I'm not a Supreme Court Justice, so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here," he said about the debt ceiling and a question on the war in Libya. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, however, is less afraid of wearing that hat. At a Politico Playbook breakfast on May 25, Geithner was asked by host Mike Allen about the negotiations over default and the debt ceiling. "I think there are some people who are pretending not to understand it, who think there's leverage for them in threatening a default," Geithner said. "I don't understand it as a negotiating position. I mean really think about it, you're going to say that-- can I read you the 14th amendment?" Geithner whipped out his handy pocket-sized Constitution. Allen tried to brush it aside. "We'll stipulate the 14th Amendment," he said. "No, I want to read this one thing," Geithner insisted. "It's paper clipped!" Allen observed, noting that Geithner's copy of the Constitution was clipped so that it would open directly to the passage in question. "'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion' -- this is the important thing -- 'shall not be questioned," Geithner read. Watch Geithner: "So as a negotiating strategy you say: 'If you don't do things my way, I'm going to force the United States to default--not pay the legacy of bills accumulated by my predecessors in Congress.' It's not a credible negotiating strategy, and it's not going to happen," Geithner insisted. On Tuesday, HuffPost reported that rank-and-file Senate Democrats are increasingly looking at the 14th Amendment as a solution to the default impasse. The Treasury Department says that on Aug. 2, the government will no longer have the ability to meet its obligations without raising the debt ceiling and will default, sending capital and bond markets into chaos. The conservative blog RedState suggested Thursday that if Obama embarked on such a course, House Republicans would be wise to begin impeachment proceedings. The Democratic-controlled Senate would be unlikely to go along, however, embroiling Washington in a constitutional crisis. Republicans impeached a Democratic president in 1998 and suffered politically for the overreach. Impeaching the president for insisting on paying past bills on time could be equally devastating for the GOP. Nearly a month before Geithner read the Constitution to a gathering of reporters, Bruce Bartlett floated the option of 14th Amendment invocation in The Fiscal Times. The news that Senate Democrats were considering the option was reported on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV Tuesday. Watch: 
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#1. To: Itistoolate (#0)
Reconstruction never really ended.
"If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbados, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.'"
There is No "Fourteenth Amendment"! A MISTAKEN BELIEF — that there is a valid article in the Constitution known as the "Fourteenth Amendment" — is responsible for the Supreme Court decision of 1954 and the ensuing controversy over desegregation in the public schools of America. No such amendment was ever legally ratified by three fourths of the States of the Union as required by the Constitution itself. The so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" was dubiously proclaimed by the Secretary of State on July 20, 1868. The President shared that doubt. There were 37 States in the Union at the time, so ratification by at least 28 was necessary to make the amendment an integral part of the Constitution. Actually, only 21 States legally ratified it. So it failed of ratification. The undisputed record, attested by official journals and the unanimous writings of historians, establishes these events as occurring in 1867 and 1868: What do the historians say about all this? The Encyclopedia Americana states: "Reconstruction added humiliation to suffering.... Eight years of crime, fraud, and corruption followed and it was State legislatures composed of Negroes, carpetbaggers and scalawags who obeyed the orders of the generals and ratified the amendment." W. E. Woodward, in his famous work, "A New American History?" published in 1936, says: "To get a clear idea of the succession of events let us review [President Andrew] Johnson's actions in respect to the ex-Confederate States. "In May, 1865, he issued a Proclamation of Amnesty to former rebels. Then he established provisional governments in all the Southern States. They were instructed to call Constitutional Conventions. They did. New State governments were elected. White men only had the suffrage the Fifteenth Amendment establishing equal voting rights had not yet been passed]. Senators and Representatives were chosen, but when they appeared at the opening of Congress they were refused admission. The State governments, however, continued to function during 1866. "Now we are in 1867. In the early days of that year [Thaddeus] Stevens brought in, as chairman of the House Reconstruction Committee, a bill that proposed to sweep all the Southern State governments into the wastebasket. The South was to be put under military rule. "The bill passed. It was vetoed by Johnson and passed again over his veto. In the Senate it was amended in such fashion that any State could escape from military rule and be restored to its full rights by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment and admitting black as well as white men to the polls." In challenging its constitutionality, President Andrew Johnson said in his veto message: "I submit to Congress whether this measure is not in its whole character, scope and object without precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive of those great principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended so much treasure." Many historians have applauded Johnson's words. Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, known today as "liberals," wrote in their book, "The Growth of the American Republic": "Johnson returned the bill with a scorching message arguing the unconstitutionality of the whole thing, and most impartial students have agreed with his reasoning." James Truslow Adams, another noted historian, writes in his "History of the United States": "The Supreme Court had decided three months earlier, in the Milligan case, ... that military courts were unconstitutional except under such war conditions as might make the operation of civil courts impossible, but the President pointed out in vain that practically the whole of the new legislation was unconstitutional. ... There was even talk in Congress of impeaching the Supreme Court for its decisions! The legislature had run amok and was threatening both the Executive and the Judiciary." Actually, President Johnson was impeached, but the move failed by one vote in the Senate. The Supreme Court, in case after case, refused to pass on the illegal activities involved in "ratification." It said simply that they were acts of the "political departments of the Government." This, of course, was a convenient device of avoidance. The Court has adhered to that position ever since Reconstruction Days. Andrew C. McLaughlin, whose "Constitutional History of the United States" is a standard work, writes: "Can a State which is not a State and not recognized as such by Congress, perform the supreme duty of ratifying an amendment to the fundamental law? Or does a State — by congressional thinking — cease to be a State for some purposes but not for others?" This is the tragic history of the so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" — a record that is a disgrace to free government and a "government of law." Isn't the use of military force to override local government what we deplored in Hungary? It is never too late to correct injustice. The people of America should have an opportunity to pass on an amendment to the Constitution that sets forth the right of the Federal Government to control education and regulate attendance at public schools either with federal power alone or concurrently with the States. That's the honest way, the just way to deal with the problem of segregation or integration in the schools. Until such an amendment is adopted, the "Fourteenth Amendment" should be considered as null and void. There is only one supreme tribunal — it is the people themselves. Their sovereign will is expressed through the procedures set forth in the Constitution itself. [END] [OCR'd text from U.S. News & World Report, September 27, 1957, page 140 et seq.] >
Good stuff Maynard. Of no legal consequence, but of moral consequence.
"If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbados, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.'" A nation blind to their DISGRACE. The 14th Amendment, originally written after the uncivil war, was applicable to slaves (see Slaughterhouse Cases) ... and still is (Applies to all Social Security Members). Who but a slave would let a little puke like Tim Gethner say "you can't question our massive spending and bailing out of our banker buddies ... just shut the fuck up and pay your fuckin taxes, slave !" Only a simple minded mullett would tolerate such a remark from a scumbag like Geithner, Greenscum, Summers, Reuben, or the nigger in chief. How's about this: I'm not questioning the validity of the debt that the U.S. Inc. has accumulated - nor am I paying any of it. Fuck Timmy and his perverted jewish banking cabal. All that these kikes do with the money is butcher little innocent kids that happen to be less fortunate than those of us born under the protection of the zionazi cocksuckers running this once tolerable country into the hell hole it's become. If one were living in total and abject blind ignorance about the murderous empiracal machinations of the U.S. maybe funding these sons of bitches would be understandable ... noone here is that stupid. I also see taking government funds or benefits as something akin to treason against righteousness. Let's get honest here. Are we willing to go along to get along as long as we're considered "special" ? What about when the tables are turned (and they will be). I can't fucking believe that this is the best we can do ... is it, really ? Fuck these monsters ... I just cannot take it anymore because it seems so hypocritical for us to throw a few bucks at Uncle Sambo just to keep "it" from kicking in our front door. It's time to align, unite and stand for the truth and the goodness that once was us. Personally, I think Americans love hypocrites and hypocrisy ... Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize has to be the supreme example. Doug
Our inability to stop killing people around the world will come back to haunt us or our children. Don't let Uncle Sambo steal your soul - you only get one Doug
America, there really is a war going on both here and abroad. Here the war mongers keep us pacified / incapacitated with bullshit and abroad "WE" (yes, it's you and I killing these people) bomb the fuck outta any opposition ... and their kids ... especially if they have a little oil. Don't let Uncle Sambo steal your soul - you only get one Doug
AYFKM? [Are You Freaking Kidding Me (polite form)]: The 14th Amendment Debt Ceiling Phrase Is About The Confederacy During The Civil War! They fail to read the entire sentence [and Amendment] The next sentence starts out with “But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States”. This was passed right after the civil war and it is saying all debt occurred in the aid of the union forces shall be valid while all debts incurred for the confederate forces shall not be valid. In other words, the constitution was dissolving all debts that the southern states incurred during the civil war and this amendment essentially made them invalid. The poor suckers who loaned money to the confederacy will not be getting paid back. Same principle applies to the dupes who think they can validly accumulate debt for us through their insurrections/rebellions against the Constitution of the United States [i.e. violating the General Welfare by imposing debt slavery, etc., etc., etc.] Edited for highlighting and to expand the last sentence. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
14th Amendment [is not a] License to spend Pic: The 14th Amendment didn't stop FDR from defaulting on the debt that was accumulated from World War I, yet today the 14th is thought to give the President unilateral borrowing power under the pretense of an emergency. It seems that the Constitution means [to Progressives/Commies whatever they] want it to mean. This latest talk about the 14th Amendment is merely a trial balloon, a warm-up for the next "emergency" or undeclared, unfunded war. A Short History of US Credit Defaults: The [WWI/"Great War"] Liberty Bond Default of 1934 [for example] Antideficiency Act - Wikipedia [Applicable daily, not just during gov shutdowns.] Edited for capitalization and punctuation. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
#2. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#1)
by
David Lawrence
U.S. News & World Report
September 27, 1957
#3. To: Itistoolate (#2)
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
#4. To: Itistoolate (#0)
(Edited)
#5. To: All (#4)
#6. To: All (#5)
#7. To: Itistoolate, All (#0)
(Edited)
There is one trick that the progressive [Commie] left likes to use which is to fragmentize the constitution in order to get the meaning that they want.
#8. To: All (#7)
(Edited)
Why should [Obama or Geithner] suddenly care about the law anyway? Top lawyers in the Pentagon and the Department of Justice told Obama his actions in Libya violated the War Powers Act, ... Amazingly, the House flatly and unequivocally refused to authorize the President’s war with Libya, ...
...implements the provisions of Article One of the United States Constitution, Section 9, Clause 7 (the "power of the purse"), which provides that "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law." [i.e. Constitutional Law]
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