Spintested: 06/19/11

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

Sunday, June 19, 2011

No one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be suicide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities).

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents).
About Barack Obama
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Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

The policies of our government are made by people who never are on the front line of the blowback -- They don't fly commercial. We do.

In a democracy, we are responsible for what our elected representatives do to other people in other countries because we give them the power to unleash the dogs of war. We allow the CIA to operate secretly and illegally, to rendition citizens of other nations, abduct and torture and murder them. And they do it in our names.

Never does that fact hit harder than on days like 9/11, when people you know and love, members of your family, your friends, are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Victims of US policies (like the civilians killed in Libya today and their families and friends) can't get at those who make policy in our government so they go after us, We the People, who gave Bush-Cheney-Obama the authority. The lesson learned is that in a democracy, you, me (We the People) are responsible for what elected officials do to other people in other countries in our name. We give them the awesome power that is the US military and arsenal. We are the front line because the plssed off survivors of what our country does to others in our name can't get to those elected officials; they can only get to us.

Perhaps if those policy-makers had more skin in the game, they wouldn't be so casual about their use of the awesome power of the US military.

The government does not see its job as to protect American citizens. As someone who has lost someone in an act of terrorism, I can tell you firsthand that the government does not react or respond to terror attacks unless they interfere with commerce. Until terror attacks cut into the rich's ability to make obscene profits. When terror attacks cause people to stop flying, stop shopping, then the government will act. But in a way where more money can be made for phat cats, and not in a way that guarantees our Constitutional rights.

The government and the military exist to protect transnational corporations. And Obama has signed on to that. It's a win-win with everybody making loads of money, except us. Except We the People. It's not making us safe or even safer (it's actually putting us in greater danger), and we're going broke in the process.
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Mitch McConnell: Debt Ceiling Deal May Be Short-Term Without Entitlement Cuts

How did Mitch McConnell become the 12th richest senator in the US Senate?:

Mitch McConnell's top asset is his holdings in the VanguardTaxExemptMoneyMarket, estimated at between $5,001,002 and $25,015,000. His next most valuable asset is his D.C. home (and carriage house rental) which is reported as worth between $1M and $5M.

The rest are investments in a wide variety of stock and bond mutual funds.

Let's look at his Vanguard investments.

Back in 2006, his major Vanguard investment was in its 500 IndexFund, estimated at between $650,003 and $1,350,000.

The next year, McConnell's wealth in that fund jumped to an estimated $1,100,002 to $5,250,000. Then in 2008 (not a good year in the market), McConnell's wealth in that fund dropped a bit (estimated from $500K to $1M), but all of a sudden he had $5,001,002 to $25,015,000 in the VanguardTaxExemptMoneyMarket.

The year before, he had a pittance ($1K to $15K) in that fund.

Somehow, some way, McConnell got much richer in 2008, getting at least $5M from somebody.

That somebody was his second wife's father, who made his fortune in shipping Chinese-made goods to the USA.

ElaineChao married McConnell in 1993, and was GeorgeWBush's anti- Labor Secretary for the full eight years.

KEEP READING
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Mitch McConnell: Debt Ceiling Deal May Be Short-Term Without Entitlement Cuts

Mitch McConnell's wealth has jumped substantially in the last few years.

Back in 2005, McConnell's net worth was somewhere between $1,645,032 and $4,278,999, ranking him the 38th richest Senator.

After four years when the stock market has flatlined, McConnell now has a net worth between $7,102,036 and $32,756,000, and he's now the 12th wealthiest senator.

Pretty good, for a guy who has evidently NEVER had a private sector job.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Debt Ceiling Deal May Be Short-Term Without Entitlement Cuts

What did Boehner tell him about what Obama said yesterday while they golfed?
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Mitch McConnell: Debt Ceiling Deal May Be Short-Term Without Entitlement Cuts

He doesn't even need it.

In 2010, Mitch McConnell was the 12th richest senator in the US Senate.
About Deficit
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Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

Those of us with common sense know that this Government has worked for over 200 years and no one or 2 Presidents can damage us beyond repair 4 wars and a depression last Century. We will survive.

=========================================================

Who is the "we" who you say will survive? The poor? The middle class?

When environmentalists talk about global warming/climate change and say that we're killing the planet, they don't necessarily mean that our actions are causing the planet to die. They mean what humans are doing (over-population, over-development, using up the resources that sustain life) is causing a change in conditions on the planet that are causing a great mass extinction of life on the planet. The result is the end of civilization, of human beings dominating life on the planet, and very likely the end of human beings in any significant numbers being able to actually live on the planet. And that we did it in a very short period of time -- Since the Industrial Revolution. We're in the 6th Great Extinction. The planet will "survive", but which life forms will habitate on it is up for grabs.

That's pretty much the same thing for the US government.

I think you're living in a state of denial about the US government's survival and what the future is going to be like for 'Americans'. Already, the Constitution has been rendered "merely a piece of paper". It's a living document, yet when you have the people who wield the power as outlined in the Constitution of the US (within the 3 branches of government) refusing to abide by and enforce the rule of law, it's becomes a relic.

But there's something even more significant that is spelling our end. What has happened in the past 30 years of our history is different than what happened in the previous 200. The actual dismantling of the Constitution. Last week's Daniel Ellsberg story exemplifies that.
About Barack Obama
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David Axelrod Blasts GOP Candidates For 'Partisan Platitudes,' Flip-Flopping

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama & the DLC-controlled (corporate, neoliberal) DemocraticParty -- The TeaParty is a paper tiger, this is all kabuki theater, and that's why Axelrod is going after the two candidates farthest to the left (Romney and Huntsman).

If Obama and the DLC-DemocraticParty had believed the TeaParty to be a threat, had they wanted to put the TeaParty down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the TeaParty was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling TownHalls because of the escalating threats of violence by gvn-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square.

Instead of taking to the bully pulpit and announcing increased security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeared from the healthcare debate (to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then l!e about it) as the TeaParty grew & bullied at TownHalls.

What Obama did instead during the same TownHall time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh (using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear) to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting and stem the only unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to.

Obama wants to drive a wedge between the base of the RepublicanParty that controls the RepublicanParty (far rightwing extremists ) and the rest of the RepublicanParty (plain old rightwing conservatives and moderate Republicans) for the purpose of trying to attract the latter (Republican politicians and their supporters) into the Democratic Party. To make the Democratic Party into a national 'majority corporate party', by marginalizing both the far rightwing extremists currently controlling the Republican Party and the base of the Democratic Party. In order "to govern, from the center, for 100 years".

The Tea Party serves this end in several ways. Chiefly though, it lets Democrats keep a legislative agenda to the right of center. If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim. And that's a lot of corporate-money ground.

Obama didn't invent this plan -- It's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
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Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

Excuse me, but what was all that CHANGE campaign of Obama's all about?

Obama's "largely able to do this" not because of partisan hacks on the right, but because people like you aren't holding his feet to the fire.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

"Suffering" isn't the trigger; the "introduction of US Armed Forces" is.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

Ok, Greece (Athens) had the longest lasting democracy at 280 years.

The US is the longest standing democracy.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

The War Powers Act is not triggered by a "war" or "troops on the ground", or "sustained fighting with enemy combants" or "put troops in direct harm", but rather "any case in which US Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities".
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Marcospinelli/obama-libya-lawyers-war-powers_n_879951_93241592.html
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

It should have been a sign in July 2008 when, after having secured enough primaries/caucuses to secure the nomination, Obama blew off the left and flip-flopped with his FISA vote.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

Bush happened because of the pardoning of Nixon. The Nixon pardon happened because of Cheney & Rumsfeld. These are not just disconnected events. These people have been up to mischief for a long while. They never got over Watergate & their fall from grace. They never believed they did anything wrong.

Running from these facts isn't going to make the Nixon-Reagan-Bush-Cheney-GOP-Conservatives behave, or go away. Waiting them out, until they d!e, isn't going to end it -- They've raised & trained an army of 'true believers' to carry on after they're gone.

Investigations and trials go a long way in dealing with that. It's not their minds you want to change, but the millions of Americans who never knew the facts. They broke the law, and we enforce the law so that people KNOW the laws and live by them. If People don't agree with the laws, if they don't like the laws, they can change the laws. But the People have to have a direct experience and understanding of the laws before they can change them. And that's how you get an informed, healthy and active democracy. With a knowledgeable electorate.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya War Powers Debate: Obama's Lawyers Are Worse Than Bush's, Glenn Greenwald Says

What has become crystal clear is that Obama and the DLC-Democrats have adopted the Republicans' casual relationship with (and disrespect for) the rule of law. Preserving the rule of law underpins how the US has been the most successful, longest running democracy in world history.

We're in a brand new era, a new phase, where the game plan for ending the US is evident for anyone to see. And it begins and ends with the rule of law. By refusing to investigate and prosecute Bush, by "looking forward, not back", Obama has broken the covenant that the American people have with their government.

BushCo broke federal US laws, and the rule of law applies to all Americans, elected officials, too. Elected officials especially.

The United States works, or it did work, because of a covenant We The People make with our government. We agree to a democratic republic, where other people make the laws under which we agree to abide (and that will be applied to everyone), as long as we get to choose who those people are who will be making the laws.

It is under those conditions that we consent to be governed.

When we no longer trust in the process, when we no longer trust that the selection process by which our elected representatives is fair and accurate, or that the laws don't apply equally to all, then all bets are off.

And no government can stand once that happens.

For a president of the United States not to equally apply the law to all people, presidents, too, means that the grand experiment is over.

Not prosecuting BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush.

From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'Unitary Executive', asserting that a president has the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislative or judicial review of that position. Obama has already imposed a policy of 'preventive detention', again, imprisoning anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight.

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understanding.

KEEP READING
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