Where do you get that idea?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Friday, March 2, 2012
Barack Obama Waives Rule Allowing Indefinite Military Detention Of Americans
No, it hasn't, but it's interesting that an anonymous campaign to debunk it was attempted.
Not only did I see and hear Carl Levin say it on the Senate floor, but here is the transcript and video of it at CSpan (Levin speaks at 4:43:38).
And then there's the transcript in the Congressional Record.
SEN. CARL LEVIN: I'm wondering whether the Senator is familiar with the fact that the language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved in the Armed Services Committee and the Administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.
Is the Senator familiar with the fact that it was the Administration that asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill which passed the committee - and that we removed it at the request of the Administration - that would have said that this determination would not apply to US citizens and lawful residents?
Wouldn't it be spiffy if people actually researched the facts before they spread falsehoods? If you'd followed the actual proceedings, you'd know that Obama had threatened to veto this bill, but it was never about substantive objections to the detention powers vested by this bill -- Obama's objections had nothing to do with civil liberties, or due process or the Constitution. It had everything to do with Executive power. Obama's not an opponent of indefinite detention; he’s a vigorous proponent of it, as evidenced by his continuous, multi-faceted embrace of that policy.
His complaint was that Congress had no business tying the hands of the President when deciding who should go into military detention, who should be denied a trial, which agencies should interrogate suspects (the FBI or the CIA). Such decisions, Obama insists, are for the President, not Congress, to make. In other words, his veto threat was not grounded in the premise that indefinite military detention is wrong; it was grounded in the premise that it should be the President who decides who goes into military detention and why, not Congress.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Tell President Obama: Don't Capitulate to the War-Makers
Retired General Wesley Clark on Democracy Now, March 2, 2007, about the US plans to invade 7 countries over 5 years -
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GEN. WESLEY CLARK: About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you’re too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don’t know." He said, "I guess they don’t know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it’s worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Poverty Moves To The Suburbs (MAPS)
And your answer is what? Republicans?==============================
How do you get there from all that i've written? Is this your first or second or even third election? I'm trying to understand the 'sport fan'-mentality that has invaded our political process, of voters who can't see past the spin of the day or the next election.
Read this thread, and then we'll talk some more.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Tom Hanks, Bob Dole Endorse Marcy Kaptur Over Dennis Kucinich In Ohio Primary
So you're against reproductive choice and gays marrying and adopting?
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Tom Hanks, Bob Dole Endorse Marcy Kaptur Over Dennis Kucinich In Ohio Primary
For those who missed it three days ago: House sets up 6:30 pm vote on White House 'trespasser' bill in an obvious effort to prevent public dissent, end OWS and all political protest.
Goodbye First Amendment - 'Trespass Bill', Passed 388-3, Makes Protest Illegal
H.R. 347 outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it, anywhere in the country.
How did Marcy Kapture AND Dennis Kucinich vote? How did your representative vote?
Democrats are no better than Republicans.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
NASA Space Station Codes Were On Stolen Laptop, Inspector General Paul K. Martin Says
I guess we've been talking past each other on different articles. Good to see you, too. It's getting hinky out there (and in here, too).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
NASA Space Station Codes Were On Stolen Laptop, Inspector General Paul K. Martin Says
The actual number of stolen and compromised devices could be much higher because NASA relies on employees to self-report incidents.
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We've weaponized space with this casual attitude towards security, and our government expects its worry about Iran's developing nuclear weapons to be taken seriously?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Poverty Moves To The Suburbs (MAPS)
I think it's Obama's supporters' slavish devotion to Democratic politicians (despite their bad representation of our issues) that has gotten us into this mess.
Democrats have been more than willing to sell out their base groups's interests, but particularly women's and the pro-choice movement's. And Obama's been particularly 'oily' (slippery) on these issues.
One example of how Democrats and Obama are real free and easy "compromising away" a base group's interests is Democrats' healthcare legislation which opens the door to ending insurance coverage of all abortions). We wouldn't be down to this horrifying situation where we're trying to salvage birth control, and where you can't get an abortion in 92 percent of the counties in the US (and 3 states in the country that have only one abortion clinic, and other states that heavily restrict a woman's access to abortion, and banning abortions in clinics or any facility that receives public funds, and banning abortion counseling and clinic recommendations) if Democrats and Obama weren't so breezy with women's hard-fought for rights.
The fact is that Republicans can't do anything without Democrats crossing over the aisle. Faux Democrats are the problem. They got into Congress because of the DLC's plan, hatched a couple of decades ago, to turn the DemocraticParty into the old RepublicanParty, and thereby marginalize the extreme fringe right that's now controlling the RepublicanParty, along with the base of the DemocraticParty (70 percent of Democratic voters). Then they'd "govern the country for 100 years".
We've been doing it your way, the DLC's way, for 20 years now, and the government and the DemocraticParty keeps moving farther to the right. That's because your way is to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office. At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting Roe overturned -- Why bother outlawing abortion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?
If you and I are on the same side (as you insist), and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies, NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about?
When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?
Do you ever realize it?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Poverty Moves To The Suburbs (MAPS)
For the past 20 years I've been writing about the DLC and its offshoots and where their Republican-like policies were taking us, and how the solution was that Democratic voters had to get involved in their local Democratic parties, get active politically and take back control of the party from the DLC.
I think that it's too late for that now.
We on the left have been doing it the DLC's way for over 20 years and the government and the Democratic Party keeps moving farther to the right. That's because the DLC's way is to cave, to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office.
At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting elected, or certainly not in any great numbers because Democrats are doing their work for them. Republicans won't bother having to overturn Roe, for example, for why bother outlawing abortion when Democrats have helped Republicans make it virtually impossible to obtain one?
For the past 35 years I've been writing about how after the Vietnam War ended and Richard Nixon resigned from office, the left packed up their protest signs and went back to pursue happiness in the suburbs while conservatives went into government positions and rightwing think tanks and founded the Federalist Society and organized bible-thumping Christians into a reliably Republican voting bloc. It's no wonder that in a void, with no pushback, conservatives gained so much ground. It's how Ronald Reagan went from California to the White House.
Like marriage, a healthy people-centered, 'for the Common Good' democratic republic takes commitment and constant work. Unfortunately, now as the American people are waking up they're realizing that in the intervening years since Nixon and Reagan, posse comitatus has been gutted and the US government has developed sinister weapons to use on its own citizens.
Neither party is the answer, and we'd better start looking at the bigger picture and working toward the longer term.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost