Ghost Dog
Ghost Dog's JournalI see, thanks.
(I'd like to see the UK's (and the Spanish) Monarchy replaced by a Chief elected and empowered but constrained in this way!)
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Article VII. Executive, SECTION 1. The executive power shall be vested in a Principal Chief, who shall be styled “The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation”. The Principal Chief shall hold office for a term of four (4) years. No person having been elected to the office of Principal Chief in two (2) consecutive elections shall be eligible to file for the office of Principal Chief in the election next following his or her second term of office. The Principal Chief shall be elected by the registered voters on the same day and in the same manner, except as otherwise provided by this Constitution, as they shall respectively vote for members of the Council in the year 2003 and every four years thereafter...
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Article VI. Legislative, Section 10. Every enactment which shall have been approved by a majority of the members in attendance at the Council shall, before it becomes effective be presented to the Principal Chief, who may approve the enactment by signing it; if not, the Principal Chief shall return it with objections to the Council, which shall enter the objections in the Journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds (2/3) of the entire council shall agree to pass the enactment, it shall become fully effective and operational notwithstanding the objections of veto of the Principal Chief. In all such cases, the vote of the Council shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting shall be entered on the Council's Journal. If any enactment shall not be returned by the Principal Chief within five (5) days (Sundays and holidays excepted) after it shall have been presented, the same shall be law in like manner as if approved by the Principal Chief.
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SECTION 12. In accordance with Article 12 of the Treaty with the Cherokees, dated November 28, 1785 (Treaty of Hopewell), and Article 7 of the Treaty with the Cherokees dated December 29, 1835 (Treaty of New Echota), there shall be created the office of Delegate to the United States House of Representatives, appointed by the Principal Chief and confirmed by the Council. The Delegate shall be a citizen of the Nation and upon recognition by the United States shall be seated in accordance with federal law. The Delegate shall endeavor to participate in congressional activities and shall at all times advocate the best interests of the Cherokee People...
I want a pro-Remain socialist and liberal and green coalition government
of national unity (with perhaps Caroline Lucas as PM and hopefully including the SNP) that will unilaterally Revoke Art. 50, as the European Court has said it can, thus remaining in the EU. The UK can then participate in the EU's political processes pushing policiy alternatives such as to Macron's neoliberalism (having duly aplogised for the UK's prior role in also promoting the same, and other 'sins'). I would also want this government to conduct root and branch constitutional and electoral reform in the UK.
Macron tempted to veto Brexit delay
Emmanuel Macron will be strongly tempted to veto another delay to Brexit because of the “deteriorating situation” in the UK, a former top French diplomat is warning...
... “The situation of the UK as a member state becomes every day more awkward and strained,” the former French ambassador to the EU warned. Mr Sellal did not rule out a French veto – if, as expected, the prime minister is legally forced to request one – saying the UK was failing to present “a credible acceptable alternative” to the deal it had rejected.
Arguing Mr Macron would require “a sufficient level of trust”, he told BBC Radio 4: “Maybe what is missing today is this trust about the way your country sees its future with the European Union... In this regard, I believe that the situation has been deteriorating. It is very difficult to have the necessary trust that could justify a new examination of a new date.”
If France did veto an extension, the UK would crash out of the EU on 31 October, unless parliament suddenly approved the divorce deal – or revoked Article 50 altogether...
Here's context the BBC fails to report:
(But see BBC report at DU thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142363830 )
The US state department has shrugged off a French initiative aimed at defusing tensions with Iran, and stepped up economic pressure once more, offering a reward for information that helps disrupt Iranian oil smuggling. A few hours later, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said that the country would expand its development work on new centrifuges for enriching uranium, in a third phased step away from compliance with a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, likely to escalate the standoff with the US even further.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, had sought to mediate in the standoff, and tried at last month’s G7 in Biarritz to persuade Donald Trump to accept a confidence-building proposal, by which Iran would return to compliance with the 2015 deal in return for partial relief from US oil sanctions, and a $15bn credit line to finance oil sales. Trump responded positively in Biarritz, suggesting he would accept the scheme if the US did not have to contribute to the credit line.
However, on Wednesday, the state department’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, called into question the very existence of the French proposal. Asked about the initiative on Wednesday, Hook said: “There is no concrete proposal. We have no idea if there will be one. So we’re not going to comment on something that doesn’t exist.” Hook announced a ratcheting up of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, offering a $15m reward for anyone offering information that led to the disruption of oil smuggling the US says is being carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The state department also imposed sanctions on 16 entities and 10 individuals it accused of being part of an IRGC network smuggling oil to the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbullah in Lebanon, “and other terrorist actors”.
As he was making the announcement, the Financial Times reported that Hook had personally emailed the captain of a tanker carrying Iranian oil, and offered him millions of dollars if he would steer the ship, the Grace 1, to a country where it could be impounded. According to the account, which was confirmed by the state department, the first email was sent 11 days after the ship (now renamed the Adrian Darya 1) was released by Gibraltar, where it was temporarily held on suspicion of shipping oil to Syria. “With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age,” Hook, the head of the state department’s Iran Action Group, emailed the ship’s captain, . It warned him: “If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you.” After the captain did not respond, he was placed under US treasury sanctions. Hook emailed or texted “roughly a dozen” captains in recent months to cajole or scare them out of helping Iran evade oil sanctions...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/us-iran-french-initiative-economic-pressure-brian-hook
September 4, by Matthew Petti
NEW: Brian Hook is taking a swipe at the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Does he want to bring Iran to the table or overthrow its government?
As President Donald Trump inches towards a meeting with Iran’s leaders, his own secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is sprinting towards de-recognizing the country’s government. Brian Hook, the State Department’s Special Representative on Iran, announced unprecedented diplomatic moves against the Iranian government today, putting the Iranian military on par with renegade militias in the Middle East. Meanwhile, he attempted to walk back Trump’s earlier statements, discounting the possibility of a high-level meeting in the near future...
... The move may suggest that the State Department no longer considers the Islamic Republic the legitimate government of Iran. “Today’s announcement is historic. It’s the first time that the United States has offered a reward for information that disrupts a government entity's financial operations,” Hook explained. “We’ve taken this step because the IRGC operates more like a terrorist organization than it does a government.” ...
... “You want to see continued depreciation of the rial relative to the dollar on the unofficial market. You want to see sustained stagflation of the Iranian economy. You want to make sure GDP continues to go down,” Taleblu said, explaining the goals of maximum pressure, which he believes will force Iran to negotiate. “You want to see sustained macroeconomic contraction.” ...
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/hook-line-and-sinker-state-departments-iran-hand-steps-pressure-tehran-78031
France pushes $15 billion credit line plan for Iran, if U.S. allows it
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said talks on the credit arrangement, which would be guaranteed by Iranian oil revenues, were continuing, but U.S. approval would be crucial. The idea is “to exchange a credit line guaranteed by oil in return for, one, a return to the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal)...and two, security in the Gulf and the opening of negotiations on regional security and a post-2025 (nuclear programme),” le Drian told reporters. “All this (pre)supposes that President Trump issues waivers.”
European leaders have struggled to dampen brewing confrontation between Tehran and Washington since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal, which assures Iran access to world trade in return for curbs on its nuclear programme...
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-usa-france/france-pushes-15-billion-credit-line-plan-for-iran-if-u-s-allows-it-idUKKCN1VO1AD
Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1 goes dark off Syria
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1 at the centre of a dispute between Tehran and Western powers appears to have turned off its transponder in the Mediterranean west of Syria, Refinitiv ship-tracking data showed on Tuesday.
The tanker which is loaded with Iranian crude oil, sent its last signal giving its position between Cyprus and Syria sailing north at 15:53 GMT on Monday, the data showed...
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-iran-tanker/iranian-tanker-adrian-darya-1-goes-dark-off-syria-idUKKCN1VO0XL
Unfortunately, Mr. Jones is being disengenuous.
The position is this: Members of Parliament will seek to agree, by majority vote in the House of Commons, to present an Act of Parliament requiring the Prime Minister to seek a further Brexit extension time period beyond Oct 31st from the country's EU partners, who have said they would be willing to do so, as long as it would not just be a waste of time. But an Act of Parliament doesn't become Law until signed by Mrs. Saxe Coburg Gotha, alias Windsor, aka Queen, currently occupying the Throne and wearing the Crown of the utterly politically powerless Monarchy of the UK. Mrs. Saxe Coburg Gotha is permitted only to sign such Acts or agree to any other political business as are presented to her for signing by the Prime Minister, and is indeed required to sign anything so presented. So, as long as the PM does not present this Act in this case for signing, it will not be signed and will not become Law. A UK PM, Mssrs. Cummings & Johnson are asserting, has until now perhaps been expected as a matter of custom to present any Act approved by Parliament to Queen for signing, but is required to do so by no Law. This is because what is known as the "Royal Prerogative", which is described as "vestigial Powers" remaining from what certainly in Henry VIII's time in the early 16th Century were those of an Absolute Monarchy, were transferred to the Prime Minister in the late 17th Century, following a civil war. A UK PM can today, therefore, should she or he so choose, behave like an Absolute Tyrant (until loss of Head and/or a new civil war, of course) in a manner utterly unconstrained (except, potentially, by Revolt and/or Uprising).
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Canary Islands Archipelago
Home country: Spain
Member since: Wed Apr 19, 2006, 01:59 PM
Number of posts: 16,881
