Do Walmart, Amazon, eBay, and Google exist in your world, or does everybody shop at niche boutiques, who "sell little at a high price, rather than sell a lot at a low price"?

In my world, Costco sold $100 billion last year, and Walmart $473 billion. Google brought in $60 billion by giving stuff away free, to anyone who wants it - the most extreme form of "a lot at a low price" one can imagine.

In my world, the "sell little at a high price" places normally provide a job for the owner and nothing more, no profit.

I'm glad you like California. Really. There are some grest things about California, like Ghiradeli, and the weather.

Since you like it so much, please stay there. You wouldn't like it here. It's boring here, no gangs roaming up and down the streets, no blackouts. Nothing at all going on after midnight; and very few boob jobs. Plenty of Miss America winners, but no butt implants to be found, so you probably wouldn't like it.

I am really glad you enjoy the California way, though.

The Supreme Court says they are null and void, iow not law.
Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other founders also expressed this principle.

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.â (Marbury vs.Madison, 1803.)

âoeEvery law consistent with the Constitution will have been made in pursuance of the powers granted by it. Every usurpation or law repugnant to it cannot have been made in pursuance of its powers. The latter will be nugatory and void.â (Thomas Jefferson, Elliot, p. 4:187-88.)

âoeâ¦the laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding. In the same manner the states have certain independent power, in which their laws are supreme.â (Alexander Hamilton, Elliot, 2:362.)

âoeThis Constitution, as to the powers therein granted, is constantly to be the supreme law of the land.⦠It is not the supreme law in the exercise of a power not granted.â (William Davie, Pennsylvania, p. 277.)

âoeIt will not, I presume, have escaped observation that it expressly confines the supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitutionâ (Alexander Hamilton, concerning the supremacy clause The Federalist Papers, #33.)

âoeThere is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.â (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, #78.)

That's empathize, not emphasize, of course.

> Or can they just execute the criminals responsible for it?
> Yeah, that will include Gray Davis

Ken Lay is now dead. Gray Davis yours, and from what I understand you like to emphasize with your criminals, and understand why they became victims/ criminals. We jail em or kill em back , as appropriate.

There may be too many Californians, but please don't solve your California problems of unemployment, crime, high taxes, ridiculous cost of living, etc. by moving to Texas. If you do, as so many have, please leave your failed political ideology in California. You're coming to Texas because here you can get a good paying job that you can't get in California, you can buy a nice house for $100,000, etc. In other words, because the Texas way is working better.

Since you've decided life will be better in Texas, we don't want to hear "we should tax it more like we did in California ", or "in California we set minimum wage high enough that a high school student working at McDonald's can support a family". Here in Texas, where our approach is working, you show up on time and at least become the manager of the McDonald's if you want to make that a career. If you want to do things the California way, pleae stay in California. You might also like Canada. You won't like the Texas way.

> Of the people. The others are the same.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms". Do you think that visitors from Syria have the right to keep and bear arms? Do you think SCOTUS ruled that way?

> So unless you are claiming better qualifications than the SCOTUS, you are definitely wrong.

Let's have a look at what the court has ruled:

Demore v. Kim - the 8th amendment (bail) doesn't apply to foreign nationals
Yamataya v. Fisher - Racial discrimination okay in respect to foreign nationals
Porterfield v. Webb, - States may bar foreign nationals from owning land
Foley v. Connelie - States may require citizenship for hiring

Would you like a dozen more? They've been pretty consistent in following the plain language of the 14th amendment - everyone gets due process - a hearing with a lawyer, etc. Citizens have the various rights listed in the bill of rights and elsewhere.

Did you notice the one part of the 5th you quoted regarding "no person" is - surprise - the due process part, that "no person shall .. unless under indictment of a grand jury ... without due process of law"? Like I said, several times now, the 14th applies due process (right to a fair trial) to all persons. It does not give the right to vote, bear arms, etc. to visitors.

I don't necessarily disagree with you as to what I'd LIKE it to say. I'm talking about what it DOES say.

The first 10 amendments say "CONGRESS shall make no law ..." etc. By themselves, prior to the 14th amendment, they (like the rest of federal Constitution) talk about what the FEDERAL government may and may not do. You seem to acknowledge this when you write "Federal law and what the federal government may do is unchanged by [the 14th]".

For 76 years, the Constitution limited only the feds, and everybody was pretty clear about that fact. 76 years later, the 14th put two limitations on the states. The 14th says, in plain English, that states may not abridge the rights of "citizens of the United States" (the Bill of Rights). It's right there, it says "citizens of the United States" get protection from state government abuses. What part of "citizens of the United States" do you not understand? It then goes on to say the one thing states must do regarding "all persons" (non-citizens) - they must have due process (a hearing, with a lawyer, etc.).

> And Federal law trumps any State ones, so the first ten stand as the ultimate law of the land.

Since you were just talking about "the first ten", read the tenth amendment. It's a sentence or two, easy to read. That's one of several places in the Constitution where it makes clear that the states delegate specific powers to the feds - it's the states who have the power, and they allow the feds to act under a grant of power from the states, not the other way around.

> the 14th somehow takes away rights enumerated in the first ten ...
> You also seem to entirely miss the framing of the document, what "natural", "inalienable", and "all men" fundamentally mean, and the part where the people grant the power to the government, which presupposes that the natural rights are inherent before any governmental construct is created

See the problem there? You're supposing that the Bill of Rights grants rights, in order to argue that the 14th can't take them away. As you correctly state, the rights existed before the Constitution. The first 10 amendments bar the feds from VIOLATING those (pre-existing) rights. Seventy-six years later, the 14th amendment barred the STATES from violating the rights "of citizens of the United States". Neither CREATES rights. The first ten say the feds can't legally violate rights, the 14th says the sates can't legally violate the rights _of_citizens_. Lest anyone think that the authors merely forgot to mention non-citizens, the second sentence of the 14th then says that all people get DUE PROCESS (only).

If you think about it in certain practical terms, this makes perfect sense. Citizens have the right to bear arms (5th amendment). Guests who are Syrian nationals don't necessarily need the right to bear arms while they are visiting here. The revolution was fought, in part, about "taxation without representation". Does that mean foreign visitors don't have to pay any taxes, no sales taxes, no income taxes for H1-B visitors? Nope, visitors to a place don't have exactly the same rights.

I cut out pretty much the entire list of powers, because the exact list isn't the point.

If you want to make the argument that the "general welfare" clause essentially strikes the rest of the article, you then have to answer the question "why would the authors write out a list of allowed powers, then nullify that list by saying 'or anything else they want to do'?" There an old, old principle of law, going back thousands of years, that essentially says when interpreting law, any sentence in the law means SOMETHING. When the framers said "the federal government can only do the things in this list", that has to mean SOMETHING. What do you think it means, if not exactly what it says?

If we stop with just that article, we do have a bit of a conundrum - the list must be there for a reason, but then again the phrase "general welfare" must mean something too. That would leave room for debate.

Fortunately, the framers later came back and AMENDED the Constitution with the 10th amendment. The later amendment changes, or overrides, the earlier wording. This amendment, or change, is one simple sentence:

      The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Pretty clear, that. The states and the people reserve all powers not delegated to the feds. The feds have only those powers delegated to them.

Since you utterly failed to read the first time, I'll try very short, Dr. Sues sentences for you this time.

Citizens have rights and privileges.
Citizens have 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th amendments ...
Non-citizens get a hearing before they go to jail.

It's two sentences. Really not that complicated.

Since you utterly failed to read the first time, I'll try very short, Dr. Sues sentences for you this time.

Citizens have rights and privileges.
Citizens have 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th amendments ...
Non-citizens get a hearing before they go to jail.

It's two sentences. Really not that complicated.

Here's a bunch of Android apps that do. Some are text and voice, some are text-only.

https://www.google.com/search?...

My original subject line and message mentioned Big Blue Button, an open source web-based video chat application. It did translation for free, using Google's API. Google now charges $10 per half-million words (or is it half-million characters? ). Technically not free, but awfully close - half a million words is a LOT of chat messages.

The powers of the federal government are lusted in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution says:

      The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts ...

      The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

You might want to read that last part twice. Anything not explicitly allowed to the feds is reserved to the states and the people.

By 1819, Chief Justice Marshall said the meaning of that is so clear that McCulloch didn't need to spend time belaboring the point, everyone knows the feds can only do what they are specifically authorized to do. Marshall wrote:

      "This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted."

The word should be "jailed", of course, not nailed.
Jesus did have a hearing before Pilate before he was nailed, but in the US people get a hearing when they are jailed.

The Bill of Rights is extended to state governments by the 14th amendment, which says:

      No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

So yeah, you're simply wrong. The Consitution applies only due process applies to non-citizens. The first, second, fourth, and fifth amendments, at least are protected for "citizens of the United States". People here illegally are entitled to due process, a hearing, before they are nailed or their property is taken. Other than that, they are intruders and have about the same rights as someone who broke into your home. Legal immigrants are guests in the country and you can think about the difference in rights between a guest you invite into your home versus you in your own home. Only one of two is allowed to touch the thermostat, or go upstairs.