Two
or three mornings a week, the nine ambassadors met with Arthur
Goldberg.
As 2018 draws to a close, speculation about what lies ahead on the
American constitutional landscape in 2019 begins in earnest. Most
of the discussion focuses on the possibility of investigations,
impeachments, indictments, prosecutions, and pardons for those in
or near the highest levels of the executive branch. But another,
more wide-ranging, possibility that has garnered attention
recently is the prospect of a federal constitutional convention to
propose fundamental revisions to the document. Article V of the
Constitution, which lays out at least some of the ways the
Constitution can be formally changed, mentions two pathways to
proposing constitutional amendments. The first method requires
two-thirds of the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the
Senate to concur in offering particular amendments for
ratification in the states. The other method—the one being
discussed now—is a convention for proposing amendments that must
be held when two-thirds of the state legislatures call for such a
proposing convention. (Under either path, any proposed amendments
require three-quarters of the states to approve, either via their
legislatures or via state ratifying conventions—at Congress’
election—in order to be enacted.)
Thus far, only the first route—running through the House and the Senate—has been used to propose amendments for potential ratification; although many states have at various times called for a proposing convention to be held, there has never yet been agreement that the two-thirds threshold has been met. Today, persons and groups fundamentally dissatisfied with the way American government works are redoubling their efforts to get state legislatures to call for a convention. Some of these proponents (probably a majority of folks who seek a proposing convention) occupy a space on the right side of the political spectrum, and their reform agenda includes things like term limits for federal legislators, repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment’s provision for direct election of senators, a substantive requirement of a balanced federal budget, and the like. Others, on the left, see a proposing convention as a way to repeal the Citizens United case (and the large flows of money in politics for which it stands) or to cut back on the Second Amendment’s protection for firearms possession and use.
The chances that two-thirds of the state legislatures come together to call for a proposing convention are slim, but many constitutional events that seemed very unlikely a few decades ago have come to pass, so we ought not to ignore the energy in support of a convention that has emerged in recent months.
And as we think more critically about the constitutional convention possibility, we should bear in mind how many fundamental legal questions about the convention route remain largely unanswered. The uncertainty about how a convention could come into being and would operate is due in part to the fact that we’ve never seemed to be on the verge of a convention and in part to the fact that federal courts (including the Supreme Court) are likely to consider some of these basic queries to be non-justiciable “political questions.” Also contributing to the absence of consensus is the fact that relatively few legal scholars write about these topics.
To help begin remedying this, I offer below a partial list of (two dozen) important and relatively open questions concerning a new federal constitutional convention to propose amendments. Almost all of these are drawn from an excellent essay by my friend and esteemed constitutional law colleague Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School that was penned over three decades ago and remains instructional today:
- Must both houses of each state legislature take part in making an application to Congress to hold a convention for the application to count?
- More basically still, can the people of a state, acting directly via a plebiscite in states that permit direct democracy, constitute the “legislature” of the state for these purposes?
- By what vote in each house of a state legislature must application to Congress be made? Simple majority or something else?
- What is the effect of a state gubernatorial veto on a state’s application?
- When, if ever, does a state’s application lapse?
- May a state insist in its application that Congress limit the convention to considering specific amendments? (The concern that there are no limits is sometimes described in terms of a “runaway” convention.)
- Relatedly, must a state’s application relate to one or more specific amendments or can it seek a convention to revise the Constitution more generally?
- How close in subject matter and time must state applications be to each other in order to be aggregated for reaching the two-thirds requirement?
- May a state rescind its application? How and with what time period?
- What are the eligibility requirements for delegates?
- Must delegates be elected or may they be appointed, and if they can be appointed, by whom?
- Can Congress members themselves be delegates?
- Are states in any convention to be represented equally, as they were in 1787, or pursuant to the one-person, one-vote principle that governs all legislative bodies besides the Senate?
- Can delegates be instructed and bound by states to vote a particular way?
- Can a state recall delegates?
- Can the convention expel delegates, and if so for what reasons and by what vote?
- Does a convention operate by simple majority or some other voting rule?
- How much power does Congress have to prescribe procedures for how the convention would operate?
- How is any convention to be funded?
- How long can the convention operate?
- May the convention choose not to propose any amendments?
- May Congress choose not to submit for ratification amendments agreed upon by a convention?
- Can Congress place time limits on any amendments a convention proposes?
- Which, if any, of these questions are ones on which federal courts can hear and decide disputes?
It is impossible to know which of these questions may prove to be the most vexing and contentious, but better that we begin to think about them now, before the substantive agenda of any particular proposed constitutional convention reaches the cusp of creation.
Commissioner
Kevin K. McAleenan answers questions from Eric Farnsworth, vice
president of Americas Society/Council of the Americas, during a forum
Friday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington,
D.C. Photo by Glenn Fawcett
The
next April, at Shiloh, Clem’s drum was smashed by an artillery round
and he became a minor news item as “Johnny Shiloh, The Smallest
Drummer”. A year later, at the Battle Of Chickamauga, he rode an
artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed to his 
In
one of the Union retreats a Confederate officer ran after the cannon
Clem rode with, and yelled, “Surrender you damned little Yankee!”
Johnny shot him dead. This pluck won for Clem national attention and the
name “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.”
Clem
stayed with the Army through the war, served as a courier, and was
wounded twice. Between Shiloh and Chickamauga he was regularly enrolled
in the service, began receiving his own pay, and was soon-after promoted
to the rank of Sergeant. He was only 12 years old. After the Civil War
he tried to enter West Point but was turned down because of his slim
education.
En
esta isla se encontraron tribus más
organizadas que las que había podido
ver previamente, en ella conocieron al
cacique 
publicado
en Nuestra Raíces Vol. 9, No. 4, Winter 1997: 
Search our billions of records to discover more about your genealogy
Hoy,
por diferentes motivos, apenas se recuerda este episodio clave en la
Historia de España, de América y del Mundo. Y cuando se menciona,
suele hacerse para denigrarlo, dominado como sigue por una poderosa
leyenda negra que todo lo envuelve por razones ideológicas ajenas al
más mínimo rigor con el que deberíamos todos aproximarnos a lo que
comenzó hace ya más de 500 años, tratando de comprender y sin juzgar
con nuestra mentalidad del siglo XXI…
An
American author and millionaire investor named Doug Casey might have
written the media's least favorite book... It's called Totally Incorrect
Volume 2 and it was just released by an independent publisher.
I
attended the tryouts, but there were hundreds of female soloists
trying out.
This
is an original US Government corpse tag. It is solid brass and in
excellent condition. The corpse number is blank and according to my
research this means the tag was NOT used. Commonly called a "Toe
Tag". Made of solid brass in a tapered tombstone form. Unused, not
stamped or numbered, and shows print very well. Displays nicely. 
First
called the Office of Indian Affairs, the agency was created as a
division in 1824 within the War Department . Similar agencies had
existed in the U.S. government since 1775, when the Second Continental
Congress created a trio of Indian-related agencies. Benjamin Franklin
and Patrick Henry were appointed among the early commissioners to
negotiate treaties with Native Americans to obtain their neutrality
during the American Revolutionary War .
Participating in the grave-marking ceremony were President General
Warren Alter, AZSSAR State President James Skaggs, CASSAR State
President Derek Brown, Tucson Chapter President William Aurand,
Kachina Chapter of the C.A.R. President Max Pierce, the AZSSAR Color
Guard and the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail Color
Guard and its commanders.
The
TV Schedule for the evening of January 1st was: (NBC)
College Football, News (Swayze), Dave Garoway, Winchell and Mahoney,
The Big Story, Soundstage and Boxing. (CBS) Ozzie and Harriet, Dahl
Playhouse, Pride of the Family, Comeback, Studio 5 and Red Barn
Frolic. (ABC): News (Douglas Edwards, Perry Como, Who do You Know?/
Film Variety, Topper, Playhouse of Stars, Our Miss Brooks and My
Friend Irma. The newspaper included “Marriage Licenses” followed
by the names – and below “Divorce Suits.” Automobile advertising
were a big part of the newspaper; which included the new 1954 models;
Ford, Chevrolet and Plymouth.
The
building's original flooring was found intact underneath more recent
tiling put down in the entrance space. El Teatro Argel, an abandoned
Art Deco theater building, has been rehabilitated and turned into a
bakery. The 1940s flooring was recreated throughout the rest of the
building, with some materials being shipped in from North Carolina and
Texas to match the original. El Teatro Argel,
an abandoned Art Deco theater building, has been rehabilitated and turned
into a bakery.
Debido
al gran coste que suponían los libros en aquella época, las
bibliotecas eran usadas como reflejo de la riqueza y poderío de su
fundador, en la medida del número de ejemplares (y cuantos más raros y
difíciles de conseguir mejor) conseguidos. Dotar una biblioteca de
fondos permitía al príncipe practicar el mecenazgo humanista sobre
todo tipo de intelectuales y hombres letrados. Asimismo, el volumen de
libros que se reunirían en esa biblioteca permitirían al rey
incrementar su conocimiento sobre todo tipo de temáticas, haciendo que
su capacidad de decisión en los asuntos de gobierno mejorase.
Una
posible razón para este “ocultamiento” de los libros se puede deber
al uso propagandístico que las distintas Iglesias de la Reforma
Protestante hicieron de ellos. Éstos interpretaban de forma distinta la
“Verdad revelada” y las obras de las grandes autoridades del
cristianismo. Por ello había que vedar como fuera posible el acceso de
estos rupturistas a todos los libros que pudieran ser susceptibles de
reedición canónica.
Alfonso
VI (pintura del Ayuntamiento de León)
Urraca
I (pintura del Ayuntamiento de León)
A
pesar de que Smith informó debidamente de que no había sido el primero
en arribar a la Antártida, recibió órdenes de sus superiores de
guardar silencio; cosa que aceptó. Mientras en los confines del mundo
ocurría esto, en la Península Ibérica la desaparición del navío y
de sus 644 navegantes importaba poco o nada. De este modo, en mayo de
1822 la Armada señala lo siguiente en el Boletín Oficial del Reino:
Se
ha escrito mucho sobre los tipos de gladiadores, pero esta entrada es
muy especial, está dedicada a una niña de 10 años. Laura Palomino
Hueso, que me sorprendió con su regalo, Un pequeño trabajo sobre
Gladiadores, su libro como dice ella. Para mí un gran resumen sobre los
juegos y los gladiadores.
En
la Antigua Roma los Gladiadores se distinguían no solo por su
procedència sino por diferentes aspectos. Eran conocidos por el nombre
de su origen, su indumentaria, armamento o manera de combatir.
Esto
nos conduce a una nueva problemática, ya que el essedarius es
precisamente uno de los tipos de gladiador más disputado. Según la
terminología se trataría de un auriga (el essedus es un carro celta
con dos ruedas), pero no hay ni una sola iconografía de un gladiador
sobre un carro, a pesar de ser profusamente mencionado en la literatura
y en las narraciones desde el s. I a.C. Kontantin Nossov sugiere que tan
solo la entrada a la arena la harían en carro, por darle más
espectacularidad, y que después su equipo sería similar al de un
secutor, pero con escudo curvo ovalado y sin grebas.
