America has always been a nation of tinkerers. Our Founding Fathers, notes author Alec Foege, were innovators in areas ranging from agriculture (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson) and electricity (Benjamin Franklin) to the swivel chair (Jefferson). …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
“…we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”
– President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.
It may come as some unwelcome news to the families of the nearly 60,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.
That was the impression President Obama gave on Thursday when he spoke to the press after his meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. Sang brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Harry Truman from Ho Chi Minh in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with the United States.
Obama, striking a wistful tone, observed that it may have taken 67 years, but the United States and Vietnam were finally enjoying the relationship that Ho once wrote of. After all, Obama said, Ho had been “inspired by the words of Thomas Jefferson.”
Read More at Fox News . By Chris Stirewalt.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — One-time slave quarters will be recreated at Thomas Jefferson‘s home at Monticello, and more of the Declaration of Independence writer’s living quarters will be restored using a $10 million gift from a philanthropist who has a keen interest in the nation’s history.
Mulberry Row, the community where slaves lived on the Virginia plantation, will be reconstructed with the funds. Monticello officials plan to rebuild at least two log buildings where slaves worked and lived and will restore Jefferson’s original road scheme on the plantation. The gift will also fund the restoration of the second and third floors of Jefferson’s home that are now mostly empty and will replace aging infrastructure.
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/monticello-donation_n_3122671.html
By hnn
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The foundation that owns Thomas Jefferson’s estate hopes to take efforts to preserve Monticello’s spectacular mountain views a step further, an idea that worries some developers.
A request the group filed with the Albemarle County Planning Commission calls for nearly quadrupling the size of what’s known as the Monticello viewshed and expanding voluntary guidelines for developers in the region.
“There’s a reason we’re up there with the pyramids and the Great Wall,” said Leslie Greene Bowman , president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. “It has a lot do with Jefferson’s vision, not only figuratively but literally.”…
From: http://hnn.us/articles/va-group-looks-preserve-monticello%E2%80%99s-view
By capblack
Sigh, some Black folks (it’s ok- I’m Black too) really take this “It takes a village to raise a child” stuff too far.
Recently, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry famously said in this much quoted excerpt:
…we’ve always had a private notion of children, your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.
Hmm, so when Thomas Jefferson (yes, I know he owned slaves) promoted universal public education for American youth, was this the act of someone with a “private notion of children?”
When people’s houses are held hostage by county property taxes that often fund local public schools, is this another instance of private notions of children?
Are local option sales tax increases to upgrade public school infrastructure signs that the public plays no substantive role in young lives, especially when every state and the federal government have departments of education toward this end?
20th century visions of armed American troops and deputy US marshals fighting rabid mobs over public school desegregation dance through my mind’s eye as I type this.
A nation committed to a “private notion of children” would have spared itself such destabilizing drama and simply let educational Jim Crow stand until such time, if ever, that states wearied of it.
I find the good doctor’s perspective interesting since negation of parental control has dogged Black parents since our involuntary importation to these shores.
Slavery and Jim Crow aside, Dr. Harris-Perry’s side of the aisle seems hellbent on undermining Black parents by stripping them of school choice, an opportunity taken for granted by wealthier, often Whiter Americans; disarming them legislatively within Hoods overrun by chocolate Klansmen; demonizing our use of corporal punishment; and supporting a welfare system separating low-income parents to keep benefits flowing and a popular culture/public education complex at war with values traditional parents try to raise their children with.
If this is what the 21st century “village” offers, Black parents’ only hope rests in taking a “private notion” of their children to its exponential limit.
Otherwise, today’s vile “village” will own their children, body and soul.
I respectfully disagree with Dr. Harris-Perry and ask her to look no further than the ruins of New Orleans’ Black community as stark proof supporting my argument.
It doesn’t take a village to raise our kids- it takes united mothers and fathers raising them long before the rest of society enters the picture.
Donate/Stop Socialist Hate!
http://www.gofundme.com/197xk8
By Elizabeth Doerr, Contributor
Louis Moinet (1768-1853) was a watchmaker, sculptor and painter from Bourges, France. A contemporary of Abraham-Louis Breguet, Abraham-Louis Perrelet and Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec, he was an academic and dabbled in astronomy. Though the goals of most of his inventions were for his own use, he did sell his clocks to the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte and Thomas Jefferson. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Thomas Del Beccaro, Contributor
Government matters incomprehensively more today than our Founders could have ever imagined. Now central to our lives, federal, state and local governments account for 33% of our yearly spending – where once Thomas Jefferson complained of spending that accounted for less than 2% of our economy. In greatly expanding the size and scope of government, we divide ourselves in countless ways; fighting another for $5 trillion in spoils under the illusion that we’re dividing the money of others. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
EDUCATION AND SHARING DAY, U.S.A., 2013
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
In a letter to his nephew, Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “an honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.” It is a notion that rings as true today as it did in 1785: that just as we owe our children a strong start in the classroom, so must we pass on the common values that help define us as a people. On Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., we celebrate hard work, service, and commitment to learning as cornerstones of a bright future for our youth.
We know education is essential to putting our children on the path to good jobs and a decent living. It is a simple fact that to out-compete the rest of the world for tomorrow's jobs, we need to equip our sons and daughters with the education and skills a 21st-century economy demands. We need to give them every chance to work harder, learn more, and reach higher, from cradle to career.
We also know that learning does not stop when students leave the classroom. Whether at the dinner table or on the field, it is our task as parents, teachers, and mentors to make sure our children grow up practicing the values we preach. We have an obligation to instill in them the virtues that define our national character — honesty and independence, drive and discipline, courage and compassion. And as citizens of a country where so much progress came only after we fought for fairness and equality, we must remember the wisdom of the Golden Rule by treating others as we would want to be treated.
This day recalls the memory of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who taught generations of young men and women the importance of education and good character. His work strengthened ties between people around the world, and his legacy continues to inspire the service, charity, and goodwill he championed in life. As we reflect on the example he and so many others have set, let each of us strive to better realize the values we share.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 22, 2013, as Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
BARACK OBAMA
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office
“One man with courage makes a majority,” penned Thomas Jefferson. When that courage is armed with principle and backed by constitutional precepts, it’s formidable. Such was the case this week when Kentucky’s Junior Senator, Rand Paul, took to the floor of the senate in a one-man filibuster, reminiscent of the 1939 “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Unlike his counterpart in the classic Frank Capra film, however, Paul’s filibuster was over constitutional principles, and citizen rights. The issue for him was whether the President of the United States was presumed to have power to supercede the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the Constitution by killing American citizens, on American soil, with unmanned aerial devices (UAV), or drones.
The setting was the confirmation of John Brennan as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Brennan refused to answer Paul’s question during the Senate sub-committee confirmation hearing regarding the use of drones to attack American citizens domestically. Senator Paul was appalled at the idea that the administration would even consider using drones domestically without a citizen ever having been charged with a crime in a court of law.
An American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) lawyer, Nate Wessler, validated Paul’s premise in an interview this week, when he referred to the administration as, “Judge, jury, and executioner,” if they used drones domestically.
Drones have been used to kill Americans on foreign soil. In 2011 a drone strike targeted, and killed, Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic cleric born and educated in the United States.
Since Brennan refused to answer the question, Paul sought clarification from Attorney General Eric Holder. In a March 4 letter to Paul, Holder superciliously said the Obama administration believes it could “hypothetically” carry out drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil, but “has no intention of doing so.” Such a response was hardly comforting.
Holder declared, “The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
That Holder would declare the issue to be “entirely hypothetical,” leads one to believe he’s not at all familiar with how the technology has been, and is being used by the administration. And that he would merely “suppose” that “it is possible,” clearly indicates not much thought had been applied to the issue, a sobering admission from the government’s top attorney.
Senator Paul said, beginning his thirteen hour filibuster, “I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. That Americans could …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
On this day in economic and financial history …
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached the end of its financial crisis bear-market slide on March 9, 2009. This was only the second bear market to destroy more than half of the Dow’s value and thus was the second most devastating crash in Dow history, behind only that which began the Great Depression. It also became the second most volatile bear market in history, with the exception of the very brief crash of 1987 — an average trading day during the financial crisis slide saw the Dow’s change by an average of 1.51% in either direction.
The causes and consequences of this collapse continue to be debated and explored years later, and investors remain on edge, the memory of wealth destruction fresh in their minds. Nearly four years to the day after the crash ended, the Dow surpassed its previous heights, returning to levels first reached in 2007. Will this new level endure? Only time will tell.
Click here to see an in-depth timeline of the financial-crisis crash, from the early warning signs to the first days of recovery.
Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was first published on March 9, 1776. It is now widely regarded as one of the cornerstone texts of classical economics, and it has influenced economics writers for centuries in the same way that Isaac Newton advanced physics and Charles Darwin revolutionized biology. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton pushed back against it in 1791, but both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson found wisdom in its pages. Jean-Baptiste Say (of Say’s Law) and economic demographer Thomas Malthus both drew inspiration from it. So did Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, who embraced Smith’s support of generally unfettered capitalism.
Smith put forth the concept of gross domestic product as a measurement of national wealth, supported a division of labor into specialist fields for greater productivity, recognized the two-way benefits of trade, and identified the underlying efficiency in the apparent chaos of free markets. These are only some of the key elements of Smith’s 950-page magnum opus. Few (if any) economics texts come close to matching it in importance, with the possible exception of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
Barbie girl in a Barbie world
Barbie, the world’s best-selling toy, made her debut for Mattel on March 9, 1959. The doll’s launch was the result of a multiyear development process that began, simply enough, when Ruth Handler, the wife of Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler, noticed how much her daughter Barbara enjoyed playing with paper dolls. A 1956 trip to Europe exposed Ruth Handler to the German Bild Lilli doll, which bears a distinct resemblance to Barbie, with its blonde hair, movable head and limbs, and mature (for a plastic …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By The Huffington Post News Editors
“Fox and Friends” hosted a Thomas Jefferson impersonator on Friday — and it was amazing.
The morning show marked “Founding Fathers Friday” by talking to “Thomas Jefferson,” an impersonator who stayed in character throughout the segment and and criticized the nation’s spending. Doocy introduced him as “the third president of the United States” and a “budget cutter.”
“Jefferson” agreed that he was. “I believe that government needs to be simple and frugal,” he said. “We are not only being irresponsible but stealing from posterity.”
Hillsdale College’s Online Constitution Courses!
Contact Hillsdale College
Phone: (517) 437-7341
Location : Hillsdale, MI, US
Visit Website
Constitution 101 is Hillsdale’s first online course. It follows closely the one-semester course required of all Hillsdale College undergraduate students as part of the College’s rigorous Core Curriculum.
Overview
America’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said, was the product of “the American mind.” Our Constitution was made with the same purpose as the Declaration—to establish a regime where the people are sovereign, and the government protects the rights granted to them by their Creator.
The word “constitution” means “to ordain and establish something.” It also means “to set a firm thing strongly in place.” It is linked to two other words: statute and statue. All three words—constitution, statute, and statue—connote a similar idea of establishing something lasting and beautiful.
The Constitution, then, is a work of art. It gives America its form. To fully know the “cause,” or purpose, of America, one must know the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, its author, mentioned four thinkers for their contribution to molding “the American mind”: Aristotle, Cicero, Algernon Sidney, and John Locke.
Studying these philosophers is a wondrous task in itself, and it greatly helps our understanding of America, just as informed the statecraft of the Founders. Knowing the meaning of the Declaration and Constitution is vital to the choice before us today as to whether we will live under a Constitution different than the one bequeathed to us.
View more information about Constitution 101 at https://constitution.hillsdale.edu/page.aspx?pid=1243
There is no fee to register for these courses, but there is a suggested donation of $50 to help cover the expense of making this course available to all Americans.
Please email constitution@hillsdale.edu with any questions.
Hillsdale College
33 E. College St. Hillsdale, MI 49242 | Phone: (517) 437-7341 | Fax: (517) 437-3923
By hnn
…[T]he group Journey Through Hallowed Ground is keeping their memory alive by planting trees, or dedicating existing trees, to each of those soldiers.
Trees are being planted along a 290-kilometer road from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – where the most famous battle occurred – to the home in Virginia of Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president. Beth Erickson is with the organization.
“Each tree is a life,” said Erickson. “As you see these trees one after another, it will truly make an impact.”
The first trees were planted in November on a former plantation called Oatlands in Leesburg, Virginia. Today, the early 19th century home is owned by a historic trust….
The $65 million project is being financed through private contributions, in which individuals can also help by donating $100 for a tree. The trees will be geotagged to allow Smart Phone users to learn the story of a soldier.
“These trees will have a number associated with a person. They can use GPS technology to find out who these people were,” Erickson noted….
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
By Jonathan_So
The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. At Cape Cod National Seashore, large sections of the Great Beach would close to keep eggs from being destroyed if natural resource managers are cut.
Gettysburg would decrease by one-fifth the numbers of school children who learn about the historic Pennsylvania battle that was a turning point in the Civil War.
As America’s financial clock ticks toward forced spending cuts to countless government agencies, The Associated Press has obtained a National Park Service memo that compiles a list of potential effects at the nation’s most beautiful and historic places just as spring vacation season begins…
…Even Declaration House in Pennsylvania, the place where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, wouldn’t be spared. Nor would comfort stations on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi…
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
By hnn
(CNN) — The Founding Fathers are frequently quoted in the gun control debate, but many of those quotations turn out to be fake.
The most popular comment on a recent story about gun control featured a purported quotation from Thomas Jefferson. More than 2,000 votes pushed it to the top.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty,” reads the quotation. “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. John Adams
T-5. Theodore Roosevelt
T-5. Franklin D. Roosevelt
7. John F. Kennedy
…
By Doug Book
“All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.” This language from the Washington State Constitution failed to impress one city councilman from Oak Harbor as he demonstrated the petulance inherent in liberals by walking out of a January council meeting because one of the attending citizens was legally armed.
At issue was a 2009 lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) against the City Of Seattle for having broken state law by placing a ban on the carrying of firearms in city parks. A 3 decade old Washington State Preemption Law makes it illegal for jurisdictions within the state to pass any ordinance that conflicts with state law. As the State of Washington declares it legal to carry weapons in state parks, the Seattle ordinance against that law is illegal and therefore unenforceable. Such was the ruling both in state court and the District 1 Court of Appeals!
But when the SAF informed the City of Oak Harbor that its own ban on guns in area parks was also in violation of the Preemption Law, city councilman Rick Almberg decided that peevish behavior was somehow his right and should take precedence over the law and the rights of Oak Harbor residents.
Testifying before the Council against the Oak Harbor ban, private citizen Lucas Yonkman agreed to answer Almberg when the councilman asked if the disabled Afghanistan Veteran was armed. Upon responding that he had both a handgun and a license to carry a concealed weapon, Councilman Almberg immediately made a motion that weapons be banned at council meetings. When that failed, Almberg promptly picked up his belongings and left the room.
But when the next City Council meeting took place in early February, “…a group of 160 citizens, many if not most of whom were armed…” crowded the council chambers, voicing support for Lucas Yonkman and demanding “…that the council rescind [the] local ordinance prohibiting guns from being carried on public property.”
One armed citizen attending the meeting offered a pointed statement when he told the council, “…if the fact that citizens who are merely exercising their right to keep and bear arms intimidates city officials, then they need to look within to determine why the rights of the people are so intimidating to them.” Indeed, this question should be put not only to council members in Oak Harbor, Washington, but to politicians in D.C and throughout the nation.
Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson offered the famous statement, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.” Whether the City Council of Oak Harbor was or was not intimidated by the armed citizens they were elected to serve, “the council voted to remove the ban on guns in public parks and other public areas.”
Americans must make it known to liberal politicians …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
By Gary Triplett HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 590
FLOOR AMENDMENT IN THE NATURE OF A SUBSTITUTE
(Proposed by Delegate Marshall, R.G.
on February 4, 2013)
(Patron Prior to Substitute–Delegate Marshall, R.G.)
Establishing a joint subcommittee to study the feasibility of a metallic-based monetary unit. Report.
WHEREAS, the purpose of money is to provide a reliable measure of value to facilitate the voluntary exchange of goods and services to the economic benefit of society; and
WHEREAS, the need to establish a sound money unit was deemed so essential for assuring the success of the United States that Thomas Jefferson personally assumed the task of defining the dollar as a fixed standard of value in his Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit and of a Coinage for the United States; and
WHEREAS, our nation’s most fundamental principles – equal rights, rule of law, private property rights, individual liberty – still require a dependable dollar to be meaningfully preserved; and
WHEREAS, unprecedented monetary policy actions recently taken by the Federal Reserve through activist intervention in banking and credit markets, including massive purchases of federal debt, have raised concern over the risk of dollar debasement and prompted inquiries into whether a metallic basis for United States currency might engender a more stable money unit consistent with limited government; and
WHEREAS, foreign threats to the United States in the form of sophisticated cyberattacks have begun to target banks and financial institutions, including primary banking service providers based in or operating within the Commonwealth, with the aim of undermining consumer confidence and seriously disrupting the functioning of our nation’s economy; and
WHEREAS, the availability of a trustworthy money unit to facilitate productive economic and financial activity has historically been a major factor in restoring confidence and civil order under conditions of duress, and since the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 10) decrees that “no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts”; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That a joint subcommittee be established to study the feasibility of a metallic-based monetary unit. The joint subcommittee shall have a total membership of 10 members that shall consist of eight legislative members and two nonlegislative citizen members. Members shall be appointed as follows: five members of the House of Delegates to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates in accordance with the principles of proportional representation contained in the Rules of the House of Delegates; three members of the Senate to be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules; one nonlegislative citizen member with expertise in monetary and financial issues to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates; and one nonlegislative citizen member with expertise in monetary financial issues to be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules. Nonlegislative citizen members of the joint subcommittee shall be citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The joint subcommittee shall elect a chairman and vice-chairman from among its membership, who shall be members of the General Assembly.
In conducting its study, the joint subcommittee shall receive testimony from such witnesses and take such other evidence as it deems appropriate and shall consider recommendations for legislation, with respect to the need, means, and schedule for establishing a metallic-based monetary unit to serve as a contingency currency for the Commonwealth.
Administrative staff support shall be provided by the Office of the Clerk of the House of Delegates. Legal, research, policy analysis, and other services as requested by the joint subcommittee shall be provided by the Division of Legislative Services. Technical assistance shall be provided by the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Bureau of Financial Institutions of the State Corporation Commission. All other agencies of the Commonwealth shall provide assistance to the joint subcommittee for this study, upon request.
The joint subcommittee shall be limited to four meetings for the 2013 interim, and the direct costs of this study shall not exceed $17,440 without approval as set out in this resolution. Approval for unbudgeted nonmember-related expenses shall require the written authorization of the chairman of the joint subcommittee and the respective Clerk. If a companion joint resolution of the other chamber is agreed to, written authorization of both Clerks shall be required.
No recommendation of the joint subcommittee shall be adopted if a majority of the House members or a majority of the Senate members appointed to the joint subcommittee (i) vote against the recommendation and (ii) vote for the recommendation to fail notwithstanding the majority vote of the joint subcommittee.
The joint subcommittee shall complete its meetings by November 30, 2013, and the chairman shall submit to the Division of Legislative Automated Systems an executive summary of its findings and recommendations no later than the first day of the 2014 Regular Session of the General Assembly. The executive summary shall state whether the joint subcommittee intends to submit to the General Assembly and the Governor a report of its findings and recommendations for publication as a House or Senate document and shall specify the date by which the report shall be submitted. The executive summary and the report shall be submitted as provided in the procedures of the Division of Legislative Automated Systems for the processing of legislative documents and reports, and shall be posted on the General Assembly’s website.
Implementation of this resolution is subject to subsequent approval and certification by the Joint Rules Committee. The Committee may approve or disapprove expenditures for this study, extend or delay the period for the conduct of the study, or authorize additional meetings during the 2013 interim.virginia.png
Statistics: Posted by Gary Triplett — Tue Feb 05, 2013 8:24 pm
By David John Marotta, Contributor In his inaugural address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson cited all the blessings enjoyed by his people including having “room enough for our descendants” and “our equal right to the acquisitions of our own industry.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Evann Gastaldo 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
