When the Supreme Court issues judgements that are favorable of and in line with the administration this website rejoices (remember the 2000 decision?), but any, and I mean any, deviation from that line causes this storm of disapproval. Isn't that why we have a third and COEQUAL branch of government? Let me stress the word, "COEQUAL" because for the last 6 years it has seemed that there was only one party and one branch of government. Two wars, 3 trillion dollars of trade debt, and most tragically, 2500 troop deaths later we still have people like you who run this blog (which I will watch with pleasure when you decommission it in 2008) who think that nodding heads in all 3 branches are a good thing. Competition breeds innovation and a superior product, in this case, our government.

Your interpretation is fairly accurate... however, if the Congress and the President listen to what the Court says, they've in effect given them authority. It's clear that the law passed by Congress stripped the Supreme Court of that power...and by the power of the Constitution, it's the Legislative and Executive Branch that gives the Supreme Court it's Jurisdictional authority.

Mark,

If you can read the statute, then why not just look at the Supreme Court's opinion and do the thinking for yourself, rather than let the National Review do your thinking for you?

The opinion says, in short, that the statute does not apply to pending cases, such as Hamdan's. But don't rely on me. Here's the text itself:

"The Government's argument that §§1005(e)(1) and (h) repeal this Court's jurisdiction to review the decision below is rebutted by ordinary principles of statutory construction. A negative inference may be drawn from Congress' failure to include §1005(e)(1) within the scope of §1005(h)(2). If ... Congress was reasonably concerned to ensure that [§§1005(e)(2) and (3)] be applied to pending cases, it should have been just as concerned about [§1005(e)(1)], unless it had the different intent that the latter [section] not be applied to the general run of pending cases." Id., at 329. If anything, the evidence of deliberate omission is stronger here than it was in Lindh. The legislative history shows that Congress not only considered the respective temporal reaches of §§1005(e)(1), (2), and (3) together at every stage, but omitted paragraph (1) from its directive only after having rejected earlier proposed versions of the statute that would have included what is now paragraph (1) within that directive's scope.

Bret,
The Constitution references three branches of Government but there is no mention of political parties. “Checks and balances” doesn’t mean democrats have equal status in the execution of government with Republicans, or that liberals must balance conservatives.
I should also point out that under Article II Section 2.2 Congress can decide on which areas the supreme Court may rule. Co-equal doesn’t mean the Court can prevent the Executive or Legislative from conducting their respective obligations.
On a final note, the blog is called “Blogs for Bush” not blogs for George Bush! You may have to wait until 2016 to see the site retired.

Bret,

RE: "...3 trillion dollars of trade debt..."

A little off topic, but how many trillion dollars of that debt have been caused by the Democrats and their refusal to allow America to drill for and use it's own oil?

How many more trillion dollars will be caused in the future because of the Democrats who refuse to allow America to drill for and use it's own oil?

Not only that, but the money is going to some countries who oppose the United States and is building up their economies and military!

AAR

Is not the whole Comander-in-cheif argument moot. Did we not see and hear our president declare mission acomplished? We live by the rule of law and a small miniorty of our fellow citizens can not change that. No presidient has the right to operate outside the laws of this great land no matter how afraid some of our citizens are. We will be ok. Giving this administration absolute power is just not going to happen so all of you citizens on the extreme right will have to find another god to worship beside George Bush.

Brat, the oh-so-predictable Liberal cant seems to have a new---or recycled---voice. But the message is just the same.

What you people simply cannot GET is that a Supreme Court ruling which goes counter to the Constitution will always cause some concern and distress. Remember, many who are in favor of abotion feel just as strongly that Roe V Wade is a gross abuse of the Court's power and does not reflect any true Constitutional right.

I thimk Matt is honest enough to say that he was unhappy with a ruling merely because it was counter to a personal goal of his, if that was all there was to it, He was very clear in pointing out his concerns that the ruling was beyond the scope of the Court's authority.

And since you seem to feel that only conservatives are inconsistent in their view of Court rulings, let me point out that Libersls argued the validity of the Court's ruling on the manner of handling votes in the 2000 election (repeatedly mistating the actual ruling by claiming it was a ruling that named Bush as president) yet they cling to Roe. They simply ignore the Court's rulings on the legality of the NSA type of interception of international phone calls, and of the money transfer tracking, yet I am sure they will passionately defend the Court's ruling on Guantanamo.

So if you are going to try to make an argument that only conservatives ever disagree with Supreme Court rulings, you should be ready to stop claiming that Bush is a criminal for using his Constitutionally-granted and Court-supported powers. That's the only way you can lay claim to the idea that Liberals don't argue with or object to Court rulings when they are in conflict with Liberal agendas.

One question on my mind is under what circumstances a branch is allowed to tell the other two branches to "stick it," as the Supreme Court is doing here.

I would imagine that the only circumstance would involve an "expressly delegated" power. Does the Court have an "expressly delegated" power to rule on this issue?

That's what I thought.

Mark,

Once again, quite wrong. That only applies to cases brought after the law was passed. The case in question as well as many others was filed before that law was passed and therefore prior law applies. I know you and the administration like to change the rules to suit your pleasure but that's not how our country, America, works. Perhaps you would prefer a country more akin to your ideology...maybe Russia. They've been very adept at changing rules mid stream.

longz and 3moreyears,

I think you're wrong:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as Congress shall make. - Article III, Section 2, paragragh 2, United States Constitution

I believe that "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as Congress shall make", is pretty straightforward - as regards the appellate jurisdiction of the SC, Congress makes the rules...and nothing in there can be construed to say that the appellate jurisdiction of the SC is protected by ex post facto provisions.

You see, they really are three co-equal branches. Congress can tell the SC to butt out; the President can tell the SC that he's going to ignore their ruling...alternately, the SC could find the President in violation, and the Congress could impeach; or the President can dislike the make-up of the SC and convince Congress to add as many Justices as prove necessary to change a Court majority.

Its good to keep in mind that the nine Justices are not superhuman creatures who are smarter than the rest of us - they are no better at reading the Constitution than you or I; they have the power to issue rulings, of course, but that doesn't mean they don't boneheaded in their rulings...as in Scott, Plessey and Roe.

In this case here, I do believe that the SC has violated the very Constitution they claim to be making their ruling on.

Mark,

Lets be real here, the Framers intended that what-ever majority was making the rules, was taking into the considerations of the minority; and quite frankliy, 51% ain't a damn 'mandate'.

So what you're askin for is more representation of your ideals; that YOUR interpretation of an admittedly formidable document--by a rubberstamp congress that took 6 years to find a single issue with which to slap a lame-duck president on the wrist with--to foist a side-step of national morals, and international conventions, which we have sworn to uphold.

We aren't talking about whaling restrictions, or trade barriers here; this is the ability for a single government, to re-write conventions for the whole world, because they don't like how it applies to them. This gives license to engage in any number of atrocious behavior, and no way for half this country to know what is being done in their name.

If you don't like the way the convention was written, then redress your congress-person and senetor, to remove us from our international obligation to the rest of the planet, and then i'll smile and hand you the keys to 'dissapear' people without trial, and move to Spain.

You expect a plurality of the country to endure that?

Mark:

You say you love America and Democracy but you are supporting a party that is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Bush is destroying our democracy in favor of fascism. Bush lied about WMD in Iraq to invade a country that posed no threat to us.
Under the tyrannical rule of Saddam, 30,000 Iraqis died every year; under Bush 60,000.
Bush advocates torture, mass murder of innocent civilians using and even used a WMD (white phosphorous) on civilians. I have seen the bodies of four caramelized Iraqi children. The youngest was under a year, the oldest was maybe six.

He has bankrupted this nation financially and morally.
He will go down in history as the closest thing to Stalin America has ever produced.

If you love America, how can you support Bush?

Jose,

Apparantly because I am far better informed on the true state of affairs than you are.

TEO,

Article 4 of the Geneva Convention is relevant to our discussion:

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

So, to be a prisoner of war - when one is not a regular member of a recognised armed force - one has to have a recognizable chain of command, be distinctive at a distance, carry arms openly and obey the laws of war - the terrorists we hold at Gitmo do none of these things and they are not members of a regular armed force (like, say, the United States Army) - so, they aren't covered by the Convention. In actuality, the President can authorise any officer in Iraq or Afghanistan to make his best judgement on captives and if that officer determines that a man is a terrorist, he can shoot him without further ado.

War is a hard, cruel business, TEO.

So, for the SC to say that the Convention applies to the Gitmo detains is to say that the Convention doesn't say what it says but, rather, that the American SC can arbitrarily change the terms of the Convention without reference to the other high contracting parties, or the US Senate which has the sole Constitutional responsibility for ratifying treaties.

So - the Convention is out the door; and under the US Constitution, the SC has been barred from even entertaining an appeal regarding the Gitmo detainees. That is, as far as I'm concerned, end of story - the three branches of government are all in place, but only one of them - the judicial - has stepped out of its Constitutional limits. If you want to impeach anyone for violating that august document, the five Justices who made the Hamdan ruling are the best place to start.

Right and justice enjoin us to come to a resolution for the Gitmo detainees - either release or try them. We've already tried releasing some, only to have to kill or capture them on a different battlefield. These are very bad men with a desire to kill and a personal death wish...so, we'd best try them...and the SC has put a spoke in the wheel, thus causing un-necessary problems for both the detainees, themselves, but also for the Americans who guard and care for them, as well for the President as he tries to win a war with the left doing all in its power to undermine the effort.

"It his high time to smack down these judges and let them know that in the United States, five black-robed political partisans aren't the be-all and end-all of our laws."-by: Mark Noonan

Thomas Jefferson agrees with you, MN:

"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."

—Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815.

"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804.

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

—Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

So, who does Thomas Jefferson consider the ultimate arbiters of Constitutionality? The People.

"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."

—Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823.

I'm not an attorney, but I know a bad ruling when I hear it. Not the first time the Supreme has ruled wrong, won't be the last. This seems to be more of a pissing contest from both the legislative and judicial branches over the power of the executive branch. And it has been going on for 6 years. Back to the ruling--seems to me it was a slap in the face to our veterans and our troops. Maybe we should issue t-shirts along with those M16s that say "NO PRISONERS".

Teo.

I defy you to find me the place int he constitution where it says the minority party has the express right to get its policies passed in proportion to it percentage of the vote. DId Jimmy Carter have an obligation to listen to Republicans? DOn't think so. If Gore had won, woudl you be saying that he had an obligation to moderate towards the republican position because it was a close election? I doubt you would. If your wet dreams had come true and Ohio had gone the 'other way' and Kerry had won, would you be saying he should moderate his positions because he had won 'despite losing the popular vote'? I severely douynt it. See, when the republicans are in power, they are required to take teh democrats into consideration, when democrats are in power, well, they just do whatever they want. Where were your platitudes when clinton was president with 43% of the vote?

Freedom1: I think my favorte Thomas Jefferson quote is the one below:
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." And he dismissed the The Revelation of St. John as the "Ravings of a maniac."

Jefferson also said, that the idea that this nation was founded in Christianity, or that the Ten Commandments were a pattern for the Constitution, was a "fraud of the clergy."

Jefferson was not just a Diest, he was anti-Christian. Most of the founding fathers were deists and atheists.

Mark,

Fist off, you're missing the point of the conversation. This administration cannot arbitrarily call someone an "unlawful combatant", and have that remove them from the sphere of control of everyone but the whims of the United States Executive.

The Geneva Convention is clear in its frankness, that anyone who isn't considered a POW by a "Competent Tribunal", is therefore under article 4, a criminal civilian; we do not have the power to impose a ficticious reading of a treaty, just because we don't agree with how it relates to our current situation.

The CSRTs (Combatant Status Review Tribunal), are not "competant tribunals", since they are not setup in any form or fashion to decide whether a detainee is a POW or not--even if Bush claims they can never reach that threshold--it is his administration's opinion of such, but never allows for a detainee to prove otherwise, and therefore is an anathema to the whole point of deciding detainee status, and therefore abrdiges GCs coming to their logical end, which is either POW status, or criminal civilian status.

"James Crisfield, the legal advisor to the Tribunals, offered his legal opinion, that CSRT "do not have the discretion to determine that a detainee should be classified as a prisoner of war -- only whether the detainee satisfies the definition of "enemy combatant""

The point here is that you cannot arbitrarily decide to detain foreign nationals, for indefinate period of time without charges or a proper, congressionally approved way, to rebut their status.

Take for example the Murat Kurnaz case. We have a Turkish citizen, captured not on the battlefield, but in Pakistan, while on a bus. There was no evidence linking him to AQ or otherwise, yet juxtaposing the mountain of evidence to his defense, a single, unsigned-memo, basically claiming otherwise was enough to hold him indefinately; that is a scary thought, which borders on tyranical, and endangers ANY citizen of the world who may be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and subjects them to a litany of almost impossible efforts to prove their innocence, yet allows for the government to introduce hear-say and confessions uttered under torture.

War indeed is a hard, cruel business, but that doesn't give us infinite latitude with which to ignore laws which we find to be a hinderance. You either follow the law of the land, or get congress to pull us out of the GCs.

Common Article 3 forbids "cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." The provision's language is sweeping enough to prohibit many of the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration. That's why the administration had argued that Common Article 3 did not apply to the war on terror, even though legal experts have long concluded that it was intended to provide minimum rights guarantees for all conflicts not otherwise covered by the Geneva Convention.

Under federal criminal law, anyone who "commits a war crime ... shall be fined ... or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death." And a war crime is defined as "any conduct ... which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva." In other words, with the Hamdan decision, U.S. officials found to be responsible for subjecting war on terror detainees to torture, cruel treatment or other "outrages upon personal dignity" could face prison or even the death penalty.

One more thing, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer who beat the president of the United States in Hamdan, was passed over for promotion. The way the military works, if you don't get promoted on schedule you are out.

Lt. Cmdr. Swift did an exellect job protecting our Constitution and for his great work, he will be forced to retire.

Maybe he can find a job at the ACLU.

Jose,

Let's say you mail a payment to your credit card company and the credit card company never receives it. The credit card company sends you a reminder that you have not paid. You call the credit card company and tell them you did mail the check. After anther month, the credit card company calls you back and calls you a liar! They did not get the check, so you lied about mailing it! I guess it would also be appropriate for them to post an article in your local paper calling you a liar. You tell the paper you did not lie; you did mail your check. But the credit card company did not receive it, so they and everyone continue to call you a liar.

Let's say your financial adviser knows of some stocks which are performing well. He (or she) has done all of their research. Everything about the stock looks good. The company is financially sound. The company is growing. The company is making money and all facts indicate the company will continue to grow and the stock will continue to do well and those who buy it will make a nice profit. Your financial advisor recommends that you buy 1000 shares. You eagerly do so expecting a nice profit. The next week, we have another 9/11. The stock market collapses, and your shares lose 50% of their value. You call your financial advisor and tell him he lied. He tries to tell you that all of the information he had indicated the stock would be a winner. He tries to tell you that no one knew the market was going to collapse and he made his suggestion on the best information he had available and that he did not lie. You continue to accuse him of lying and tell all of your friends that he lied. Day after day, you tell the press and everyone that he lied. Eventually, people do begin to believe that he lied; although, he did not.

Let's say your stock broker researches another stock, for example Enron. He checks all available information. Everything he reads or knows about says that company is a real winner and will make the investor a great deal of money. Every other stock broker and financial advisor says the same thing. They all read the information and study all of the facts they have available. They tell their clients to buy the stock. Everyone, including your stock broker ''knows" this is a sure winner, a slam dunk. You buy 1000 shares. The next week, the CEO and chief financial advisor are arrested for fraud and the information that EVERYONE BELIEVED to be TRUE turned out to be WRONG. You tell your broker that he lied to you. He says over and over that he did not lie. Every fact and every bit of information he had upon which he based his recommendation supported what he told you. He tries to tell you that he made his recommendation believing that everything he told you was true. He reminds you that EVERYONE though the information was true. But... that doesn't matter to you. It doesn't matter that he thought and believed that he was telling you the truth. You tell everyone you meet over and over that he lied. You tell every newspaper, television station, and radio station over and over that he lied. Eventually, every one believes that he lied... but he did not!

AAR

AAR,

It's not quite that simple.

Using your anology, what happens when we come to find out that your stock broker works for a smaller company that some of his friends and his father's friends work for, and they stand to gain IF that stock tanks.

Also, come to find out, your broker has not been giving you the prospectus as it was written, but instead has been removing words such as "may" "could" and "probably", which while not illegal, on an aggregate scale leads you to believe the stock was much more of a "slam dunk" than if they chose to publish that prospectus without the edits.

Finally, come to find out, your broker, who recently took over for your previous broker, had used sources for his information which your previous broker had researched, and found to be mentally deranged and prone to pathologically lying, with an alterior motive which benefitted by you buying this stock. Come to find out, the people working in the editing department have out-and-out refused to use any of this guy's information anymore because of its poor quality, yet your broker re-hashes him, even at the grumbling and groaning of his co-workers.

Unfortunately, your stock broker has many friends in high places, and will not get indicted; Not unless the new sherriff wins in the upcoming local elections.

TEO,

It's not a perfect analogy. I did it rather quickly.

Hopefully some people [a few, or at least one might] understand the gist and point of what I was saying. It may provide some people with a different perspective and an opportunity to think. I'll work on refinements or preferably a better one when I can.

It wasn't meant for you or our regular liberal [progressive] Democrats who insist in posting here.

I already know that you and they will never understand -- or at least will not admit to it public!

AAR

AAR,

It isn't that we don't understand, it is that we don't agree, there is a big difference there.

Your post was meant to blur the lines between, honestly, not understanding the information, while at the same time being told by everyone else it was solid; and the line that much of the information presented came from a small number of cources, who had been proven not trustworthy, and out-and-out redaction of portions of the assesments which would paint a pretty different picture if presented in their entirety.

I look foward to further probing of the Danish newspaper writers who published the classified document where the Dutch, prior to the invasion, knew the weapons we were looking for, weren't there, and the British journalists who published the 'Kelly memo'. It's gonna be a long-hot summer for American politics.

The eye and Jose and the other hard-core lefties who swarm this site are not open to logic, AAR. Much less to fact, much less to reason.

The FACT that the President repeatedly came to the American public, and the United Nations, and the world, with a long and detailed list of reasons to invade Iraq, of which the knowledge of WMD was only ONE, is just too inconvenient for their carefully nurtured paranoia. So one day they simply ignore it, another day they misstate it, but in any case they will steadfastly continue to parrot the talking points of the neorad lefty movement.

(The FACT that the American public, the United Nations, and much of the world examined the long and detailed list of reasons provided by the President and agreed with it is simply not accepted. The redefinition of the word "unilateral" was necessary to describe a coalition and a consensus and a majority vote in both the United States Congress and the United Nations.)

Note that Jose rattled off a list of tired old claims, which he probably does on a regular basis. Catholics say the rosary as part of the liturgy of their faith: Neorads say the litany of Bush as their religious ritual.

And as the dogma of a particular religion might, for example, have a virgin mother and an ascension into heaven, the dogma of the Left has a multitude of conspiracies, "friends in high places", and similar excuses for anything that happens. In the Left liturgy, no one on the right is ever just a decent honest man doing the best he can, whose mistakes are honest mistakes---no, this man MUST be demonized, as every religion must have an opponent to its gods.

I've been comparing the zealotry of the radical Left to religion long before Ann Coulter wrote her book. And the belief system of the Left is extrememly evangelical, as well, as are most deeply fundamental belief systems. If it were not, they would not be intruding on this site to spread their gospel and try to convert us---or to attack their devil of choice and invention, the President.

Mark,
The train of this post is long dead and if you don't want to post this, I would well understand. But I just wanted to let you know that your interpretation of the statute is totally correct. The Supreme Court would agree with you also. The point of my post, and the Supreme Court opinion, though, is not whether the statute COULD cover Hamdan, but whether it does. And there, the court found that the statute does not cover pending cases, as Hamdan's was.

Almiranta,

What majority consensus in the UN was there to Military action in Iraq, can you please quote me the resolution that authorized the US to pre-emptively invade Iraq; keeping in mind that ALL military action is to be done under the auspices of the UNs mandate and co-ordination, by charter laws.

If not WMDs, then what premise fills the gap of "imminent threat" that is required as the threshold for pre-emptive action?

Quite a litany of conjecture there, hun. Try and stick to some of those facts you are always saying aren't presented to you. LOL

TEO,

If the UNITED STATES believes or believed that Iraq was a threat, then we have the right to take action. WE DO NOT NEED YOUR U.N. to tell us what to do! (Although, I though there is something in your U.N. charter to that effect.) Another good reason to quit the U.N. -- besides the fact they are a worthless, do nothing, anti-American organization anyway!

As we have discussed before many times the entire world BELIEVED and KNEW that Saddam haw WMD. (I know, you don't.) Saddam could have told the world what he did with them and allowed the U.N. to talk to his scientists about that and any WMD plans or programs. He refused! It was not the U.N. who was and is under attack by the terrorists, it was and is the United States. Even your Democratic members of Congress were for the war... before they were against it.

Oh, that's right, the terrorists did attack the U.N. headquarters in Iraq. The U.N. folded up shop and hi-tailed it like a bunch of liberal [progressives] with their tail between their legs!

The entire liberal [progressive] left are nothing more than a bunch of liars. That's why they believe everyone else is a liar. They believe everyone behaves and thinks the same way they do!

Go hug a terrorist! Take a U.N. worker to dinner! Maybe you can exchange more of America's defense secrets.

AAR

AAR,

According to the UN charter we have signed, we DO need their approval for pre-emptive action, sorry to keep having to burst your bubble. If you don't like it, then redress your congressperson to remove us from the UN and GCs, i'm sure every Republican is chomping at the bit to do it, right?

The Dutch and British seem to have thought otherwise, as the recently released Danish memos and 'Downing Street Memo' have said, so I don't think that EVERYONE thought that, seems the dozens of former intelligence officers who came out after 2003 don't seem to agree with that assessment either.

You can call anyone you want a liar, I don't really care, but try not to bust too many blood vessels when the Dems end up taking the government back over in November. LOL

Thomas Jefferson quotes:

“ The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.” (excerpts are inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the nations capital) [Source: Merrill . D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson Writings, (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), Vol. IV, p. 289. From Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.]

Founding Fathers Quotes on Religion, Faith and Christianity

"...both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity." [-official Library of Congress statement]

Thomas Jefferson quotes:

“ The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.” (excerpts are inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the nations capital) [Source: Merrill . D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson Writings, (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), Vol. IV, p. 289. From Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.]

Founding Fathers Quotes on Religion, Faith and Christianity

"...both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity." [-official Library of Congress statement]

TEO,

You may need the U.N. approval. I don't!

The U.N. serves little purpose except to spend our money and provide a forum for nations to express their anti-American views and vote against the interests of America.

There is only ONE reason for the U.S. to remain one of the PERMANENT MEMBERS of the U.N. -- otherwise, we should leave it and allow it to collapse under the weight of it's own fraud, corruption, and impotence!

And that one reason is.....?

Until then, we should cut back our funding and support!

AAR